Category: Books

Rin-rin Yu (MSJ01)

Rin-rin Yu just published her debut fiction novel for middle grade readers, called Goodbye, French Fry. When 10-year-old American-born Chinese Ping-Ping is exhausted from all the trials of her life: a schoolyard bully, potential overseas move, a troubling taekwondo move, piano recital mistakes, and a need for glasses – she learns to give her frustrations a big kick and people a second chance. The book is based loosely on her own childhood growing up in suburban New York. More info at rinrinyu.com and on instagram @rinrinyutheauthor

Nina Mandell (BSJ07)

When the Brecksville-Broadview Heights High School gymnastics team competes in the Ohio High School Athletic Association state gymnastics meet, they’re expected to win. That’s because they’ve won each year—since 2004. And as the streak builds, there’s more pressure each year on the public school’s team to continue that tradition. No year was more tense than the year that they were hoping to take home their 20th straight title.

A Fraction of a Point follows the Bees throughout the intense 2022–2023 season as the team works toward the state meet. During one of their most competitive seasons in recent years, sports journalist Nina Mandell explores the gymnasts’ backstories and traces the legacy of the Ganim family, the team’s longtime coaches. Initially led by husband and wife Joan and Ron Ganim, their daughter, Maria Schneider, then became coach. In a sport that has been plagued by scandal—especially for the mistreatment of athletes—the Ganims represent a changing face of gymnastics by emphasizing their players’ well-being and mental health.

Throughout A Fraction of a Point, the players and coaches frequently question if they’re good enough to keep the winning streak alive and if the gymnasts will be able to rise to the challenge. But this isn’t just a story about one historic season. At its heart, it’s also about the teenagers balancing athletics with high school life, the larger community that supported the team, what it means to compete for the joy of the sport, and the athletes’ and coaches’ dedication even while facing immense pressure.

David Bernknoph (BSJ80)

A novel about a down-on-his-luck journalist who accepts the challenge of packing up his entire life and moving to Alaska, where he’s isolated from the people and patterns he’s familiar with . Not everyone he works with shares his somewhat snobby sense of how things should work. And they often don’t get the jokes he thinks are comic gold. It’s a workplace comedy….’Northern Exposure’ in a TV newsroom, if you will.

Elizabeth Dougherty (MSJ98)

Many experts dream of writing a nonfiction book. Few do it. The Complete Expert-to-Author Guide: How to Plan, Write, and Publish Your Nonfiction provides a clear road map for turning expertise into a well-crafted book that can transform readers’ lives. Based on decades of publishing experience, book editors Elizabeth Dougherty (MSJ, 1988) and Marisa Solis provide a step-by-step methodology for writing advice-based nonfiction (the reader has a problem, and the author has a solution).

The Complete Expert-to-Author Guide covers what most writing guides don’t and what most aspiring authors skip: key foundational work that saves time, effort, and sanity. From refining the concept and organizing the content, to identifying the target audience and building an authentic author platform, this guide details what needs to happen to publish a book. Twenty-five hands-on assignments help authors stay focused and move forward with confidence, empowering them to complete their manuscript and get their message out into the world.
Solis and Dougherty are the cofounders of Book Structures Pro, a boutique editorial services firm that specializes in working with subject matter experts writing consumer and professional advice-based nonfiction.

Ian Douglass (MSJ06)

The pioneer era of North American professional wrestling reached its peak just as tens of thousands of Scottish families were forcefully evicted from their residences in the Scottish Highlands, bringing their culture, their customs, and the legacy of the Scottish clan system across the world with them. As a result, dozens of Caledonian organizations sprouted up, creating a formal network of Highland Games events, at which substantial money was awarded to the winners of athletic contests. Between 1870 and 1905, a select few Scottish athletes leveraged this network into fame on the growing North American professional wrestling circuit, and made contributions to the business that are still visible today.

In “Highland Games and Hippodromes: Scottish Identity and Influence at the Dawn of the American Pro Wrestling Industry,” Ian Douglass explores the role that the culture of Scots and Scottish immigrants played in shaping the bedrock of the wrestling business that still exists today, and also sheds unprecedented light on the fact that the matches contested on the wrestling mats of the late 19th and early 20th centuries weren’t nearly as authentic and innocent as has often been reported.

Ray Welling (BSJ81)

Byline for the Dead is a historical mystery-thriller that interweaves stories from different eras as two journalists, five decades apart, work to unravel the truths about one of the most violent labor strikes in American history.

In 1984, Gray Wheeler is a disillusioned young reporter working for The Toledo Sword. Assigned to cover the 50th anniversary of the Auto-Lite strike—known as the “Battle of Toledo,” a bloody, five-day labor uprising involving 10,000 union workers and 1,300 Ohio National Guard troops—Gray stumbles across a mystery left unpublished a half-century earlier by another young reporter that connects the 1934 massacre to present-day political machinations.
Byline for the Dead explores themes of journalistic integrity, institutional memory, and the power of the past to shape the present.

As Gray confronts Toledo’s forgotten history and the ghost of his own unfulfilled ambitions, he must decide whether exposing the truth is worth the cost—especially when the truth fights back.

Joseph Snell (MSJ20)

Our Assyrian Story tells the real-life saga of an ancient community fighting to preserve its language and culture in the face of land encroachment, religious persecution, and assimilation.

Assyrians, including Chaldeans and Syriacs, are an ethnic group that is primarily Christian and indigenous to parts of modern-day Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria – an area referred to as Mesopotamia or the cradle of civilization. In recent decades, Assyrians have faced increased pressure to leave their ancestral homeland. In Iraq alone, prior to the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, the number of Assyrians was estimated at 1.5 million. Today, it’s fewer than 130,000.

This book is an archive of Assyrian stories and photos by Joe Snell and published between 2017 and 2025. This is not the Assyrian story, but simply a collection of a few stories.

Jayshree Mainthia Vakil (MSJ91)

The authors’ collective expertise provides a rich tapestry of insights, offering a comprehensive guide for leaders navigating the complex landscape of entrepreneurship.

Paul Tenorio (BSJ07)

In The Messi Effect, Paul Tenorio, national soccer writer for The Athletic, who has spent more than a decade providing insight into the power and politics of the sport, draws on numerous high-ranking sources inside Inter Miami, American soccer, and overseas to bring readers behind the scenes and chronicle the last act of Lionel Messi.

The Messi Effect takes you inside the locker room as Messi’s arrival turned Miami into a global phenomenon, and into the Major League Soccer boardroom as league owners debated how to leverage Messi’s arrival to shape the future of the league and sport in America. From his cinematic debut goal to his first trophy with Miami and across two more transformative seasons, Messi’s impact was immediate and enormous. His pink No. 10 shirt became the world’s best-selling jersey, MLS stadiums sold out in city after city, and Inter Miami’s valuation soared past $1 billion.

This is a book about the business of sport and how a player can be both athlete and economic engine. It’s an inside look at how the business of MLS evolved historically and in real time after the legend’s arrival. And it’s the story of the aftereffects of Messi’s greatness for future generations.

Tanya Athar-Jogee (IMC03)

2014: When a knock comes in the half-light before dawn in a slum in Karachi, Pakistan, the lives of 19-year-old Goha and his family are about to change forever.

Lured by a tantalizing opportunity to work for a secret organization that will release his family from poverty, Goha leaves his parents behind for the tribal areas up North. But as he learns about the organization’s core beliefs and activities, his excitement starts to fade. His courage is tested when he is coerced into a physical relationship with his superior and faces other agonizing moral dilemmas and violence—all while falling in love with the local imam’s stunning ex-wife.

Rife with suspense and rich characters, Tiny Glimmers of Light explores themes of identity, sexuality, religious nuances, class hierarchies, extremism, and institutional corruption. It will keep readers on edge as Goha faces threats to his survival and his family’s fortune.

Hundreds of Urdu words bring a tumultuous Pakistan alive on the pages while immersing readers fully into the country’s diverse geography, languages, and gender roles. The story will appeal to anyone craving a deeper understanding of the temptations faced by a hard-working, lower-class family to improve the circumstances of their lives.