America, America
Ethan Canin, '82
Random House
$27.00
With echoes of An American Tragedy and All the King's Men, Canin writes a campaign novel about the demise of liberalism in Nixon-era America. A newspaper editor looks back on his years working as the yard boy of a political kingmaker—and the Chappaquiddick-like events the youth unwittingly helped cover up. His memories seem to verify the opinion that progress is “always half-criminal.”
Humans, Nature, and Birds: Science Art from Cave Walls to Computer Screens
Darryl Wheye and Donald Kennedy
Yale U. Press
$37.50
Artist Wheye and Stanford president emeritus Kennedy create a virtual museum of more than 60 bird artworks—each annotated with art history and science notes. A painting with a raven, for example, illustrates both the superstition that its caw is an omen and the way in which a flock shares foraging information.
Compulsive Acts: A Psychiatrist's Tales of Ritual and Obsession
Elias Aboujaoude, MA '98, MD '98
U. of California Press
$24.95
Aboujaoude introduces us to some patients “loosely based on” those he's treated as director of Stanford's Impulse Control Disorders Clinic. George, who no longer eats with utensils because he fears getting anything near his nose, is brought in by his wife, a hoarder. Alex slips into a virtual life on the Internet. Kleptomaniacs Hannah and Tenisha are dealt different legal consequences.
Tim & Tom: An American Comedy in Black and White
Tim Reid and Tom Dressen with Ron Rapoport, '62
U. of Chicago Press
$24.00
Reid, best known as Venus Flytrap on WKRP in Cincinnati, and Dreesen, who long toured as the opening act for Frank Sinatra, worked as a comedy team in the '70s. The interracial pair (people always knew which guy was which, they joked, because no one would dare call the black man Tom) performed for audiences nervous about race relations and generally won them over with stereotype-deflating humor.
The Gridlock Economy: How Too Much Ownership Wrecks Markets, Stops Innovation, and Costs Lives
Michael Heller, JD '89
Basic Books
$26.00
Wish you could watch WKRP in Cincinnati in all its old glory? Alas, acquiring rights for all its classic rock have pretty much kept the series in the vault. Heller, a professor of real estate law at Columbia, examines the “tragedy of the anticommons,” gridlock that occurs when so many individuals own property or rights that important collective measures—new airports, patent-dependent drugs, improved wireless communication—get thwarted.
