Bookshelf

Fiction

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The Balikbayan Artist

by Eileen R. Tabios ’82

Inspired by and dedicated to artist Venancio C. Igarta, Tabios’s novel depicts an influential Filipino painter whose work speaks truth to power throughout the country’s dictatorship. Tabios’s reimagined protagonist, Vance Igorta, is a balikbayan — someone coming home to the Philippines after years of working abroad. Upon his return, the political turmoil of his country spurs him to make pointedly critical art that goes beyond matters of aesthetics, and the novel espouses art as a form of love and protest in the face of corruption. (Penguin Random House)

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Homeseeking

by Karissa Chen ’04

Chen delivers a love story between two childhood friends in a debut novel that spans decades and continents. The story follows Haiwen from 2008 Los Angeles back to his early years in Shanghai, pining for a second chance with his first love, Suchi. Conversely, we follow Suchi from childhood, plowing forward across the next 60 years, through war, hardship, and a diaspora that drives the two apart. Chen’s lovers illustrate how a deep connection and sense of home can exist outside boundaries of time and territory. (Penguin Random House)

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The Man in the Banana Trees

by Marguerite Sheffer ’09

Sheffer’s anticipated short-story collection stretches across matters of the universe, from ghosts to aliens, an artist colony to a ballet stage, not to mention a virtual-reality tiger. Her inventive prose brings miraculous dimensions to everyday premises, striking an all-too-human balance of comedy tinged with tragedy. Human and nonhuman characters alike face the threat of the unknown, which glowers at the edges of their understanding. (University of Iowa)

Poetry

Find Me Here: Thirty-Five Poems and Six Paintings

by Miriam Zadek ’50

Just a few years after Miriam Zadek ’50 published her powerful book Miriam Hearing Sister: A Memoir, she has released a moving collection of poems, Find Me Here: Thirty-Five Poems and Six Paintings. Now in her mid-90s, Zadek takes readers through life’s journey, exploring themes of resilience, family, friendship, and spirituality. (Independently published) 

Nonfiction

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My Roman History

by Alizah Holstein ’98

Holstein’s rich memoir depicts an academic fascination with Rome that became a personal odyssey. She recounts how her fascination with the ancient city and its culture informed her growth as a researcher and as a person of the world. Threading contemporary and ancient Roman people and places with her own travels, she brings history alive and in conversation with her present. Like the history that she treasures, Holstein’s path matures with the passage of time. (Penguin Random House) 

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Lustful Appetites: An Intimate History of Good Food and Wicked Sex

by Rachel Hope Cleves ’97

According to historian Cleves, we don’t have to look far to link sexual desire to a desire for indulgent food. Cleves explores historic precedents that demonstrate how people have naturally intertwined food with sex at the margins of society. This “gastronomic journey” from Paris to London and across the U.S. unpacks how these two appetites have influenced and stigmatized each other in ways that still have an impact. (Wiley)

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Legal Briefs: The Ups and Downs of Life in the Law

edited by Roger M. Witten

In this collection featuring landmark cases and negotiations in the careers of leading lawyers, Harriet Newman Cohen ’52 — founding partner of Cohen Stine Kapoor LLC, one of the top matrimonial law firms in New York — shares how an artichoke jar, a turkey baster, and a broken agreement factor into “The Case of a Lifetime.” (Prospecta Press)

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Kitchen Conversations: Sharing Secrets to Kitchen Design Success

by Barbara Ballinger ’71 and Margaret Crane

Co-authors for more than 30 years, Ballinger and Crane now offer their second book on transforming kitchens. (The Kitchen Bible was published in 2014.) Their latest encompasses kitchen-adjacent spaces: pantry, laundry, mudroom, wine room. From building on a tight budget to lavishing on luxe details, the duo provides readers with just the right questions to ask contractors, helpful checklists, and plenty of interior photos to drool over. (Images Publishing)