Category: Books

Dr. Elia Powers (BSJ03)

“Performing the News: Identity, Authority, and the Myth of Neutrality” explores how journalists from historically marginalized groups have long felt pressure to conform when performing for audiences. Many speak with a flat, “neutral” accent, modify their delivery to hide distinctive vocal attributes, dress conventionally to appeal to the “average” viewer, and maintain a consistent appearance to avoid unwanted attention. Their aim is what author Elia Powers refers to as performance neutrality—presentation that is deemed unobjectionable, reveals little about journalists’ social identity, and supposedly does not detract from their message. Increasingly, journalists are challenging restrictive, purportedly neutral forms of self-presentation.

This book argues that performance neutrality is a myth that reinforces the status quo, limits on-air diversity, and hinders efforts to make newsrooms more inclusive. Through in-depth interviews with journalists in broadcasting and podcasting, and those who shape their performance, the author suggests ways to make journalism more inclusive and representative of diverse audiences.

Shadan Kapri (MSJ16)

“Discovering Your Passion: The Path to Your Authentic Life,” is written for all of those who don’t fit the mold, to the dreamers and the nonconformists, the ones who never truly fit in but were born to stand out. This is for you. The truth is that we live in a world that is constantly telling us who to be, how to dress, and how to act from the moment we are born. We are sent messages of what is acceptable and appropriate, but as we get older, we realize that the old rules of how to act or what to do with our lives may not align with who we really are inside.

Each of us is unique and original in so many ways. It’s our greatest asset. Yet, we often lose sight of this. This book is for the person who wants to find their purpose and passion in life. It doesn’t exist by living inside a cubicle or checking off an arbitrary list of society’s expectations. It is found by going within yourself and searching for your answers, searching for your truth.

What seems different is actually the world’s way of giving us unique, independent voices. Each voice can and does move us forward. Each of us has the ability to change lives, but first we have to stop believing the simple lie that to be accepted we have to be like everyone else.

“Discovering Your Passion: The Path to Your Authentic Life,” helps people find their unique voice, their passions, and dreams in life. It provides guidance with journaling and questions that help people find their truth. Not the truth the media tells us. The truth that is in your heart. For real failure is failing to sing that song or tell that story that you were sent here to tell. May this book help you on the path to finding your place in the world. The world needs you now more than ever.

Ari Berman (BSJ04)

A riveting account of the decades-long effort by reactionary white conservatives to undermine democracy and entrench their power—and the movement to stop them.

The mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, represented an extreme form of the central danger facing American democracy today: a blatant disregard for the will of the majority. But this crisis didn’t begin or end with Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election. Through voter suppression, election subversion, gerrymandering, dark money, the takeover of the courts, and the whitewashing of history, reactionary white conservatives have strategically entrenched power in the face of a massive demographic and political shift. Ari Berman charts these efforts with sweeping historical research and incisive on-the-ground reporting, chronicling how a wide range of antidemocratic tactics interact with profound structural inequalities in institutions like the Electoral College, the Senate, and the Supreme Court to threaten the survival of representative government in America.

Ian Douglass (MSJ06)

In this 440-page sequel, Ian Douglass (MSJ06) works with Steve Keirn to tell the story about his mainstream return to wrestling, the creation of the Professional Wrestling Federation, and his stint in the World Wrestling Federation as the alligator hunter Skinner and the evil wrestling clown Doink. From there, Steve’s life progresses through a series of ups and downs that eventually sees him founding a wrestling school, starting an iill-fated independent wrestling company, and eventually becoming the head trainer who oversaw the most successful era of homegrown talent creation under the World Wrestling Entertainment banner.

Steve Reddicliffe (BSJ75)

Steve Reddicliffe of Glen Arbor, Mich., is the editor of the new edition of The New York Times Essential Book of Cocktails, with recipes and stories from more than 100 years of the paper’s drinks coverage. The more than 400 recipes include Martinis and Manhattans; Bloody Marys and Bellinis; and nightcaps, Negronis and non-alcoholic cocktails, from such writers as Robert Simonson, Rosie Schaap, Jennifer Finney Boylan, Pete Wells, Melissa Clark, Rebekah Peppler and Mark Bittman. Reddicliffe, who wrote The Quiet Drink column for The Times, served as the deputy editor for the paper’s international edition, deputy travel editor, and television editor.

Jeff Fleischer (MSJ03)

Every four years, coverage of the presidential election turns into a horse-race story about who’s leading the polls and who said what when. Social media and online news have made it easier to spread false information (even by accident) and harder to know what’s accurate. It can be difficult to get good information about how the election process actually works, why it matters, or how you can get involved. Civics education and information about how our government functions is necessary whether you’re a longtime voter or a soon-to-be voter. This newly revised edition includes statistics and anecdotes from recent elections alongside straightforward, nonpartisan analysis and explanation. Author Jeff Fleischer uses a fun, casual voice and real-world examples to provide an essential resource that will remain relevant long after the next president is elected.

Judy Rosenfeld Gruen (MSJ86)

What happens when career ambition begins to clash with a commitment to religious and personal values? In “Bylines and Blessings,” award-winning author Judy Gruen shares how she resolved these two seemingly conflicting drives.

As a young, secular woman determined to succeed as a writer, she learns to turn rejection and obstacles into steps toward professional excellence. Along the way, she also becomes a powerful voice for traditional Jewish values, understanding that words create worlds. Discovering the surprising impact of her writing on readers of all ages and across many faiths, she ultimately finds the blessings in the bylines.

This heartfelt, compelling memoir traces Gruen’s path in building not only a career but a purposeful life. Filled with humor and depth, this book will feel like having a heart-to-heart talk with an old friend.

“A perceptive memoir, written with both boldness and restraint.” –Kirkus

Glenn Miller (MSJ90)

Henry Franken has a problem with money – he has too much of it. When his unprincipled father dies, thirty-three-year-old Henry inherits a massive estate, including an Upper East Side residential building. He must confront the reality of his new financial status, directly conflicting with his well-honed identity as a “progressive liberal.” When he shows up to collect the keys to his father’s building, he notices a sign: “Doorman Wanted.” Seeing a chance to stave off the complexities of his inheritance, Henry applies for the position under a pseudonym… and gets it.

Now, no one in the building knows that Doorman “Franklin Hanratty” is the building’s new mysterious owner. Through interactions with residents and the homeless outside his door, Henry develops from an idealistic young person avoiding the demands of his fortune, into a man who accepts the opportunity to direct that wealth toward a broader good.
“…a delightful, meaningful, and important book that belongs on the top shelf of any library.” — Greg Fields, author of Through the Waters and the Wild.

Morgan Campbell (BSJ99)

Morgan Campbell comes from “a fighting family,” a connection and clash that reaches back to Chicago in the 1930s. His parents’ families were both part of the Great Migration from the U.S. rural south to the industrial north, but a history of perceived slights and social schisms solidified a feud that only intensified over the century.

Morgan’s maternal grandfather, Claude Jones—a legendary grudge-holder and fixture of the Chicago jazz scene—was recruited to play in Toronto and eventually settled in Canada in the mid-1960s. Morgan’s paternal grandmother, Granny Mary, however, remained stateside, a distance her resentments would only grow to fill.

Bearing witness to these tensions was young Morgan, an aspiring writer, budding athlete, and slow-jam scholar whose American roots landed him an outsider status that exposed the profound gap between Canada’s multicultural reputation and its very different reality.

Having grown up bouncing between these disparate identities—Black and Canadian, Canadian and American, Campbell and Jones—Morgan has crafted a witty, wise, rich, and soulful illumination of the journey to find clarity in all that conflict.
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