Unbought Spirit: A John Jay Chapman Reader, edited by Richard Stone, with a foreword by Jacques Barzun '27. An anthology of the undeservedly neglected turn-of-the-century essayist and man of letters, whom William James called "a profound moralist" and the former University Provost praises in his foreword as a "stunningly lucid writer" (University of Illinois Press, $44.95 cloth, $17.95 paper).

Thomas Merton's American Prophecy by Robert Inchausti. A new interpretation of Thomas Merton '38 argues that the beloved Trappist's embrace of the cloister did not mark a withdrawal from the world but rather allowed him to inaugurate an ongoing intellectual dialogue with the secular American culture of the 1950s and 1960s (SUNY Press, $19.95 paper).

A Thing That Is: New Poems by Robert Lax '39, edited by Paul J. Spaeth. The first new collection of Lax's spare, abstract poems to be published in America for over 20 years, written from the author's secluded refuge in the Greek isles (Overlook Press, $19.95).

Koppett's Concise History of Major League Baseball by Leonard Koppett '44. Far from a mere summary of statistics, this indispensable digest of lore about the national pastime features lively narratives of each season's events, personalities and triumphs (Temple University Press, $34.95).

New and Selected Poems: 1942–1997 by John Tagliabue '44. A retrospective of Tagliabue's more than five decades as a poet that includes not only selections from his five previous books of verse but also from the more than 1,500

poems he has published in magazines and journals, along with a prefatory poem by Mark Van Doren (National Poetry Foundation, $19.95 paper).

The Uncertain Sciences by Bruce Mazlish '44. An interdisciplinary synthesis of history and modern thought on the human sciences--which incorporate not only the natural sciences, but also literature, psychology and the social sciences--calls for an expanded "scientific community" that will encompass a greater range of human endeavor (Yale University Press, $35).

Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe by Daniel Hoffman '47. A new edition of the classic 1972 study, which re-affirms Edgar Allen Poe's contributions as poet, author and critic, by the former Penn professor, now poet-in-residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine (Louisiana State University Press, $16.95 paper).

Literature, Criticism, and the Theory of Signs by Victorino Tejera '48. Charles Peirce's aesthetic under standing of the theory of signs serves as a starting point for a semiotic analysis of writers from Plato to Dostoyevsky, and for a precise understanding of the differences between literary theory and literary criticism (John Benjamins, $49).

Modern American Usage: A Guide by Wilson Follett, revised by Erik Wensberg '53. A careful revision of Follett's 1966 masterpiece (itself completed by Jacques Barzun '27) that acknowledges a generation of change (not all of it positive) in American English, by the former editor of Columbia Forum (Hill and Wang, $25).

Jackie Robinson: Race, Sports, and the American Dream, edited by Joseph Dorinson '58 and Joram Warmund. Proceedings from a 1997 symposium at the Brooklyn Campus of Long Island University allow fellow athletes, fans, scholars, journalists, and the editors to

assess the contribution of the famed Brooklyn Dodger to baseball and to American culture (M. E. Sharpe, $34.95).

1968: The World Transformed, edited by Carole Fink, Philipp Gasseert, and Detlef Junker. The contributors to this anthology examining the most scorching year of the Cold War include Professor of History Alan Brinkley on the "unraveling" of a once-confident American liberalism, and Lawrence S. Wittner '62 on the decline of the 1960s nuclear disarmament movement (Cambridge University Press, $54.95).

American Drama of the Twentieth Century by Gerald M. Berkowitz '63. This concise introduction to American theater includes not only a chronology of modern plays but also short biographies of the century's most consequential playwrights (Longman, $39.75 paper).

Offsets by John Elsberg '67, illustrations by Wayne Hogan. A revised edition of Elsberg's slim volume of poems, ranging from the lyric to the experimental (Kings Estate Press, $12.95 paper).

The Chicago Bulls Encyclopedia by Alex Sachare '71. Everything you could possibly want to know about the most valuable sports franchise of the 1990s--and arguably the greatest basketball team in NBA history--from the editor of Columbia College Today (Contemporary Books, $39.95).

Daniel Patrick Moynihan: The Intellectual in Public Life, edited by Robert A. Katzman '73. This marks the 70th birthday of one of America's premier public intellectuals, whose scholarly and political contributions during four decades in public life--including service as presidential advisor, ambassador and United States Senator--prove that ideas do matter (Johns Hopkins University Press, $24.95).

Approaching the Millennium: Essays on Angels in America, edited by Deborah R. Geis and Steven F. Kruger. Religious, ethnic, political, apocalyptic as well as dramatic perspectives illuminate the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning drama by Tony Kushner '78 on the AIDS crisis (University of Michigan Press, $17.95 paper).

Picaresque Continuities: Transformations of Genre from the Golden Age to the Goethezeit
by Robert S. Stone '82. A broader historical framework moves the picaresque novel from
seventeenth-century Spain to a central place in European literature between Cervantes and Goethe, with an influence on literature in places as distant as Germany and Brazil (University Press of the South, $49.95 paper).