Category: Books

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labor uprising involving 10,000 union workers and 1,300 Ohio National Guard troops—Gray stumbles across a mystery left unpublished a half-century earlier by another young reporter that connects the 1934 massacre to present-day political machinations.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.

Tulio Capriles (MSJ99)

Pen name: Mel Páez

Güelcom to Ocumo, a city like any other on this side of the New World, somewhere, anywhere (everywhere!?) between Rio Grande and Tierra del Fuego.

This town has more liquor stores than pharmacies. Corruption, power outages and hyperinflation don’t surprise anyone anymore. But Mayor Sonia Elena Ortega says things will change if she wins the coming presidential election. People have heard the same promises before. Still, they’ll dare hope for a savior once more. She can’t be much worse than the incumbent presidente, a snob nicknamed EMLU who runs the country as his own private hacienda.

Sonia Elena’s campaign is a longshot and for a chance to win she needs all the support she can get, from the media, the C.I.A. and, of course, a miracle.

“Ocumo: A Latin American Novel” gives a take on the region’s complexities through the perspectives of a diverse group of characters, including a Black live-in maid, an anti-establishment entrepreneur and an ex-prostitute turned news reporter.

Alexandra Sifferlin (BSJ12)

Millions of Americans live with conditions that elude diagnosis, often navigating a healthcare system that fails to recognize or effectively address their suffering. The New York Times journalist and Medill alum Alexandra Sifferlin has spent years investigating the diagnosis crisis in America—what it means to live without an accurate diagnosis and how both medical and patient communities are working to improve the diagnostic process. Weaving the profound, maddening, and uplifting stories of patients seeking answers to unexplainable symptoms, the doctors trying to help them, and the latest research on diagnosis, The Elusive Body illuminates the diagnostic journey, revealing why diagnoses matter and how they have the power to transform lives, the medical system, and even society, one case at a time.

Jerry Kirshenbaum (BSJ60)

When Jerry Kirshenbaum’s family moved into a grand house on fashionable Miami Road in Benton Harbor, Michigan, life was comfortable but not always peaceful. Beneath a serene surface lay the screaming fits of an unhappy mother, the sufferings of a beloved handicapped sister and a long-buried crime committed by the author’s immigrant father, a truck-driving, cigar-chomping burlap bag merchant and poker player known as Mook.

Mook was a man of charisma and contradiction — equal parts hard-bitten and folksy, profane and profound. The story of his ascent from poverty to the splendor of Miami Road is shadowed on every page by a question: Where did he find the strength to get through love, loss and his own failings?

Miami Road is a vivid, often funny portrait of resilience set against the backdrop of Chicago’s once heavily Jewish West Side and Benton Harbor, a raucous Midwestern town whose rise and fall parallels Mook’s ups and downs. Filled with rogues, sad sacks, live wires and deadbeats plus outsized figures like Muhammad Ali and Al Capone, this is an unforgettable story shaped by hardship, humor and heart.

Shannon Edwards (MSJ95)

AI is already shaping how children learn, play, and see the world, leaving many families feeling overwhelmed and uncertain about navigating this new digital reality. AI for Families provides the guidance families need to approach AI innovation with confidence and on their own terms.

The book isn’t about fearing AI or fighting against AI, but a guide providing practical support for the questions families are already wrestling with at home. From strengthening app privacy settings to helping kids think critically about AI-generated responses, AI for Families offers clear explanations, historical context, and actionable solutions that put families in control of decisions based on their individual values, beliefs, and needs.

Most importantly, AI for Families is about embracing the deeply human traits of curiosity, creativity, empathy, and connection that will serve children well into the future. The goal isn’t competing with AI, but raising kids who can work alongside new technology while owning and celebrating what makes us uniquely human.