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In Print

The Surrendered
Chang-rae Lee ’87

Riverhead Books/Penguin, $26.95

“The journey was nearly over.” So begins Lee’s fourth novel, a powerful story that opens in Korea at the start of the war in 1950. Of course, the journey is just beginning, and what a harrowing one it is. Lee follows the interlocking lives of an orphan named June Han and a ne’er-do-well American G.I. named Hector Brennan as they survive atrocities, failed relationships, a lengthy separation, and an eventual reunion 30 years later when June, terminally ill with cancer, enlists Brennan to help her find her estranged son—and a kind of redemption.

The Double Helix and the Law of Evidence
David H. Kaye ’72JD

Harvard University Press, $45

“The power of DNA technology to identify murderers, rapists, and robbers and to confirm or refute claims of parentage or other kinship is beyond dispute,” notes Kaye, a law professor at Penn State. But, as the infamous People v. Simpson case showed, the question of how to interpret such genetic evidence has been contentious. Kaye offers a weighty but readable assessment of the science and the courtroom battles.

Thieves in the Temple: The Christian Church and the Selling of the American Soul
G. Jeffrey MacDonald ’00MDiv

Basic Books, $25.95

Membership may be on the rise at many of the megachurches, but MacDonald, himself an ordained minister, is not convinced they’re moving their flocks in the right direction: toward the “envelope-pushing spirituality that Jesus models.” In this measured critique, MacDonald urges churches of all stripes to stop existing merely to “satisfy the wants of customers” and instead “serve the higher purpose of transforming what its customers want.” He profiles a number of churches that are achieving that goal.

Hitting the Brakes: Engineering Design and the Production of Knowledge
Ann Johnson ’90MFA

Duke University Press, $22.95

The first patents for the antilock braking systems found in most modern cars were issued in the 1930s, but the widespread adoption of ABS, which prevents skidding, is very recent. In this case study of ABS development, Johnson explores the way engineers work to translate ideas into products and why ABS was “easy to imagine, but … difficult to make.”

To Serve the Living: Funeral Directors and the African American Way of Death
Suzanne E. Smith ’96PhD

Harvard University Press, $29.95

As awful as Jim Crow segregation was for blacks throughout the South, it actually helped many African American entrepreneurs. “The Negro people have always tried to surround the great mystery of death with appropriate and impressive ceremonies,” wrote Booker T. Washington, and in this fine history, Smith shows how African American funeral directors managed to prosper by serving their own communities. In time, these influential businessmen would help advance the cause of civil rights.

The Finger: A Handbook
Angus Trumble, Curator of Paintings and Sculpture, Yale Center for British Art
Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, $25

The next time a road-raged motorist extends a middle finger in your direction, consider that this hostile gesture has a history going back at least to Greco-Roman antiquity. In this elegant and often amusing essay, art historian Trumble (a frequent writer for this magazine) relates the history of the bird—aka the digitus impudicus—and tales of other digits’ roles in paintings, sculptures, literature, and science.

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More Books by Yale Authors

Josef Albers and Nicholas Fox Weber 1972
Interaction of Color: New Complete Edition
Yale Press, $200

James M. Banner, Jr. 1957 and John R. Gillis
Becoming Historians
University of Chicago Press, $25.00

Sarah Blake 1983
The Postmistress
Peguin Group, $25.95

J. Kenneth Brody 1949LLB
The Trial of Pierre Laval
Transaction Publishers, $39.95

Stephen Burt 2000PhD
The Art of the Sonnet
Harvard U. Press, $35.00

Leo Damrosch 1963
Tocqueville’s Discovery of America
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $27.00

Laura Engelstein - Prof. of History Yale
Slavophile Empire: Imperial Russia’s Illiberal Path
Cornell University Press, $24.95

John Gillespie and David Zweig 1977
Money for Nothing: How the Failure of Corporate Boards is Ruining American Business and Costing Us
Trillions Free Press, $27.00

Benjamin Givan 2003PHD
The Music of Django Reinhardt
University of Michigan Press, $29.95

Peter Gordon 1977
Man Receives a Letter
Red Hen Press, $17.95

Anders Halverson 2005PhD
An Entirely Synthetic Fish: How Rainbow Trout Beguiled America and Overran the World
Yale Press, $26.00

Rawn James Jr. 1998
Root and Branch: Charles Hamilton Houston, Thurgood Marshall, and the Struggle to end Segregation
Bloomsbury Press, $28.00

Ann Johnson 1990MFAD
Hitting the Brakes
Duke University, $22.95

David H. Kaye 1972JD
The Double Helix and the Law of Evidence
Harvard U. Press, $45.00

Patrick M. Keating 1992
Hollywood Lighting: From the Silent Era to Film Noir
Columbia University Press, $27.50

Alison L. LaCroix 1996, 1999JD
The Ideological Origins of American Federalism
Harvard U. Press, $35.00

George Jeffrey MacDonald 2000MDIV
Thieves in the Temple
Basic Books, $25.95

Jedediah Mannis 1966, 1969LLB
Joseph Tuckerman and the Outdoor Church
Pickwick Publications, $27.00

Karl Marlantes 1967
Matterhorn
Grove/Atlantic, Inc, $24.95

David L. Mikics 1986MPhil, 1988 PhD
The Art of the Sonnet
Harvard U. Press, $35.00

Robert J. Mrazek
A Dawn Like Thunder-The True Story of
Torpedo Squadron Eight

Back Bay Books, $15.99

Siobhan Phillips 1999, 2007PhD
The Poetics of the Everyday: Creative Repetition in
Modern American Verse

Columbia University Press, $45.00

Nina Pierpont 1977
Wind Turbine Syndrome: A Report on a Natural Experiment
Quality Books, $18.00

Nikhil Pal Singh 1990, 1995PhD
Climbin' Jacob’s Ladder: The Black Freedom Movement Writings of Jack O'Dell
California Princeton, $34.95

Dorceta E. Taylor 1985MFS, 1991PhD
The Environment and the People, In American Cities, 1600s-1900s: disorder, inequality, and social change
Duke University, $27.95

Alicia Volk 1999, 2005PhD
In Pursuit of Universalism: Yorozu Tetsugoro and Japanese Modern Art
University of California, $49.95

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