Bookshelf

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A Second Chance for Yesterday

by R.A. Sinn (Rachel Hope Cleves ’97 and Aram Sinnreich) 

Historian Rachel Hope Cleves and futurist Aram Sinnreich are a sibling writer duo collaborating under the pseudonym R.A. Sinn. In their dystopian science fiction novel, overworked programmer Nev Bourne gets caught up in her own time-travel tech and is sent back through time, one day at a time, in a story of second chances and queer love. (Simon & Schuster)

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The Times That Try Men’s Souls

by Joyce Lee (Sitrin) Malcolm ’63

Malcolm tracks the toll of the American Revolutionary War on some of the era’s prominent families and shows how an “ideological” war leaves a unique kind of damage on relationships beyond the battlefield. Malcolm offers a new way to look at this moment in American history by tracing how the revolution tore at the burgeoning nation’s social fabric, leading to unrest and eventual violence in civil society. (Simon & Schuster) 

Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen

by Suzanne Scanlon ’96

As a Barnard student in the ’90s, Scanlon underwent a difficult transition to adulthood while grieving the loss of her mother. With authenticity and care, Scanlon uses a blend of memoir and literary criticism to unpack her attempt to take her own life while a student and her subsequent years in the New York State Psychiatric Institute. She mines the “madwoman” trope — in the writings of Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, and others — and describes how it can help us with understanding both personal discovery and institutional failures. (Penguin Random House)

Scattered and Fugitive Things

by Laura E. Helton ’00

The early 20th-century work of archiving Black American history was nothing short of revolutionary, conducted in a time when the nation didn’t conceive of it as a worthy discipline. Helton follows its major contributors — the librarians, curators, and historians — who took great risks to preserve “archival material” and in doing so stimulated new conversations about Black culture. Helton explains how archival work, rather than being fixed in the past, can be a source of resistance and possibility and an important avenue for change. (Columbia University Press) 

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Toni Morrison and the Geopoetics of Place, Race, and Be/longing

by Marilyn Sanders Mobley ’74

Mobley provides new lenses for readers to view the famed works of Toni Morrison, approaches that engage with the interdisciplinary expanse of Morrison’s rich prose. Her novels dialogue with history, politics, and culture to create “spaces” for readers to better interact with her layered narratives. (Temple University Press) 

István Szabó: Filmmaker of Existential Choices

by Susan Rubin Suleiman ’60

István Szabó, an internationally renowned Hungarian filmmaker, made his mark on the world through a provocative cinematic style, receiving an Academy Award for his 1981 film Mephisto. Suleiman’s book examines his style through the fraught political context of the mid-20th century and shows how Szabó navigated ideas like authoritarianism and antisemitism, nationhood and personhood, and seeking or giving up on community, through his art. (Bloomsbury Academic) 

Art of Japan: Highlights from the Philadelphia Museum of Art

by Felice Fischer ’64 and Kyoko Kinoshita

Fischer and fellow curator Kinoshita present a selection of pieces from the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Japanese art collection, from the Neolithic through the present day. From ceramics to calligraphy, the collection has a legacy that hearkens back to the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition in 1876. The new book acts as a historical guide to Japanese art and its broader cultural significance. (Philadelphia Museum of Art)