Category: Books

Brad Wetzler (MSJ91)

This powerful memoir shares an adventure journalist’s story of a decade-long, round-the-world quest to overcome his drug addiction and to understand and heal from past traumas.

Suffering from PTSD and severe depression from past trauma, battling an addiction to overprescribed psychiatric medication, and at the rock bottom of his career, journalist Brad Wetzler had nowhere to go. So he set out on a journey to wander and hopefully find himself—and the world—again.

“Into the Soul of the World” is Wetzler’s thrilling, impactful, and heartrending memoir of healing—physically, emotionally, and spiritually. An adventure journalist at heart, Wetzler mixes travelogue with empowering insights about his inner journey to better care for his own mental health. Journey with him as he travels across Israel and the West Bank, before moving on to India, a candle-lit cave on a mountaintop in the Himalayan foothills, and a life-changing encounter with a 100-year-old yogi.

Wetzler’s writing is full of the poignant, amusing, and occasionally heart‑breaking situations that unfold when we finally decide to confront depression (or any mental health struggle) and declare ourselves ready to heal: How do we heal our past and thrive again? What does it mean to live a good life? How can we transform our suffering and serve others? His answer: live to tell the story and find the humility and courage to be the best human you can be.

Jennifer Chesak (BSJ03)

The Psilocybin Handbook for Women: How Magic Mushrooms, Psychedelic Therapy, and Microdosing Can Benefit Your Mental, Physical, and Spiritual Health by Jennifer Chesak [978-1-64604-4986; $16.95; Ulysses Press; June 2023] is a resource for everyone, although it features information specific to those assigned female at birth—because psychedelics may have different effects and applications across the sexes.

This informative guidebook is packed full with everything you need to know about psilocybin (A.K.A. magic mushrooms), including its history, potential medicinal and recreational benefits, the latest evidence-based research, how to microdose and trip sit, and more. With The Psilocybin Handbook for Women, you’ll also get the answers to some of your most pressing questions, like:
-Does psilocybin affect women differently?
-Does it matter where I am in my cycle when I use psilocybin?
-Can psilocybin help with menstrual migraines, endometriosis, or premenstrual dysphoric disorder?
-Will psilocybin boost my sex life?
-Do hormones have an impact on the entourage effect?
-What the heck is the entourage effect?
-And more!

Author Jennifer Chesak is a medical journalist and fact-checker who knows what it’s like to live with chronic illness and get medically gaslighted. “I am the type of girl who does her research—like a lot of it,” she says. “I’ve researched psilocybin at length, specifically how psilocybin affects and may help women or people assigned female at birth, whether therapeutically, spiritually, or recreationally. You’ll find a synthesis of that research—along with personal stories, including my own—in this book.”

No other book on psilocybin investigates the intersection of magic mushrooms with women’s health, and Chesak’s intent is to guide you through the growing body of research regarding psilocybin’s potential and provide you the safety details and considerations should you choose to use magic mushrooms.

Lauryn Chamberlain (BSJ14)

Four friends. Fifteen years. Who We Are Now is a story of Sliding Doors moments, those seemingly small choices of early adulthood that determine the course of our lives.

It is 2006 and Rachel, Clarissa, Dev, and Nate are best friends, seniors on the eve of their graduation from Northwestern. Their whole lives are before them, at once full of promise and anxiety. Bound to one another as they are, they imagine their closeness will last forever—but things change as they take their first steps away from one another and into adulthood.

Each year is told from one character’s point of view, and in that way, we stride swiftly through their lives. These four friends feel their twenties and thirties flying by, and suddenly small moments fast become regrets or unexpected boons, decisions they’ll spend years wishing they could undo and choices that come to define them. As the foursome endure professional setbacks, deep loss, and creative success, fortunes shift and friendships strain—and it will take a tragic turn of events to bring them together again.

Who We Are Now is a poignant story of epic friendship that jumps boldly through the years, moving at the same unforgiving pace as does that precious, confusing time between college and real life.

Jordan Minor (BSJ14)

Pong. The Legend of Zelda. Final Fantasy VII. Rock Band. Fortnite. Animal Crossing: New Horizons. For each of the 40 years of video game history, there is a defining game, a game that captured the zeitgeist and left a legacy for all games that followed. Through a series of entertaining, informative, and opinionated critical essays, author and tech journalist Jordan Minor investigates, in chronological order, the innovative, genre-bending, and earth-shattering games from 1977 through 2022. Minor explores development stories, critical reception, and legacy, and also looks at how gaming intersects with and eventually influences society at large while reveling in how uniquely and delightfully bizarre even the most famous games tend to be.

Illustrated throughout with retro-inspired imagery and featuring contributions from dozens of leading industry voices, including New York Times bestselling author Jason Schreier (Blood, Sweat, and Pixels; Kotaku), Max Scoville (IGN), Rebekah Valentine (IGN), Blessing Adeoye Jr. (Kinda Funny), and Devindra Hardawar (Engadget), this year-by-year anthology is a loving reflection on the world’s most popular art form.

Frank Sennett (BSJ90)

One of the first novels to explore the implications of the January 6 insurrection, and the infiltration of Oath Keepers and Proud Boys into law enforcement, SHADOW STATE finds the nation’s first Black woman president, Wyetta Johnson, a wounded veteran of the war in Afghanistan, targeted for assassination by racist terror groups.

President Johnson works with Rafe Hendrix, former head of her Secret Service detail and a Special Forces veteran she served with on active duty, to thwart the conspiracy, which features grisly re-creations of terrible events in U.S. history.

The thriller, first in a series featuring Hendrix and Johnson, will be published Feb. 21 by Crooked Lane Books and distributed by Penguin Random House. It will be available in hardcover, ebook and audio formats.

Advance praise: “Fans of stoic and resilient action heroes will be entertained,” Publishers Weekly says. Adrian McKinty, award-winning author of The Chain, calls SHADOW STATE
“An exciting contemporary thriller that is both psychologically astute and action packed.”

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/717325/shadow-state-by-frank-sennett/

David Lumley (MSJ77)

It’s Impossible to Commit to Maybe: a bold guide for business managers provides the how to lessons and proven recommendations for managers of all levels. Told in a first hand to the point manner and in real life examples former CEO Dave Lumley presents key business issues his and others learnings and successful techniques to provide a winning approach to reaching your goals based on almost 4 decades of success at several public fortune 500 private private equity owned and family businesses and a record of seventh straight company turnaround Dave Lumley lays out your choices and the how to steps to help you move forward with confidence.

Laurie Lawlor (BSJ74)

Restoring Prairie, Pond, and Woods: How a Small Trail Can Make a Big Difference is full color nonfiction for readers age 10 and up to be released in April by Holiday House, NY. This is the remarkable story about the cooperative effort in a small southeastern Wisconsin community to clean up an eight-acre abandoned lot. With only a bare-bones budget, a group of volunteers–everyone from local firemen and high school students, to local business owners and Boy Scouts–came together to pitch in to clear invasives, grade the trail, and plant native prairie, woodland, and wetland species. The trail leads through what’s become an outdoor classroom and valued community resource for all ages. In a starred review, Kirkus calls the book: “More than a simple account of a wilderness restoration project. This is activism at its most accessible: the beautiful struggles of a region and community to make a large difference in a small world. A magical and timely story of ecosystems restored to their former glory.” (January 2023)

Robert Drews (BSJ71, MSJ72)

J.J. Werth has lived for his work, allowing career to replace the need for a family or outside interests. So when his company decides to lay him off in favor of someone younger and cheaper, 61-year-old J.J. is at a crossroad. After indulging in a healthy dose of self-pity, he decides to look for answers. Through bonding with Father Thomas, a former Marine and very unlikely priest, J.J. embarks on a journey to find his place in the world and winds up finding so much more.