Category: Books

By Joan Lipinsky Cochran (BSJ75)

Boca Raton reporter Becks Ruchinsky is surprised when her son, Gabe, brings a frightened young man home from college and asks her to hide him. Menachem left his Hasidic community under mysterious circumstances and fears being kidnapped. Grateful to the young man for befriending her son, whose Asperger’s makes friendships difficult, Becks takes in the boy. Six days later, he’s found floating in a canal.

Police insist Menachem’s drowning was an accident but Becks isn’t buying. Her investigation takes her from the gritty underworld of the South Beach night club scene to secretive Hasidic communities in Miami and New York. With the help of her ex-gangster father and a nosy Hasidic shopkeeper, Becks discovers the leader of a cult-like religious community is subverting rabbinic law to conceal ugly truths. As she uncovers layer upon layer of lies and deceptions, Becks discovers her son’s life may depend on her ability to unearth these secrets.

By Collin Hansen BSJ03

As the pressures of health warnings, economic turmoil, and partisan politics continue to rise, Christians aren’t widely known as living for the common good. But there’s another story unfolding too—if you know where to look. In Gospelbound: Living with Resolute Hope in an Anxious Age (Multnomah), veteran journalists Collin Hansen (BSJ ’03) and Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra (MSJ ’05) counter these growing fears with a robust message of resolute hope for anyone hungry for good news. Join these leaders from The Gospel Coalition—one of the largest religion websites in the world—in exploring profound stories of Christians who are quietly changing the world in the name of Jesus, from the wild world of digital media to the stories of ancient saints and unsung contemporary activists on the frontiers of justice and mercy. You haven’t heard the whole story. And that’s good news.

Jo Napolitano (BSJ98) “The School I Deserve,” (Beacon Press, April 20, 2021), follows six young refugees as they fight for the right to attend public school in the swing state of Pennsylvania just weeks before Trump’s election. The ACLU and Education Law Center brought the case before a conservative Republican judge whose ruling would leave them breathless. The students are unforgettable, including 18-year-old Khadidja Issa, who lived in a refugee camp for 12 years before coming to America in 2015. Khadidja arrived to the States penniless with just a sixth grade education. The school district bet against her — having no idea what this child would do for a chance at a better life. No longer on the run, she was finally prepared to fight.

Paul Gilje (BSJ59, MSJ60)

The book highlights the half-century history of the drama in Minnesota’s property tax-base sharing law–more popularly known as the metropolitan fiscal disparities law– that began in 1968 with extensive controversy, and extends to the present day. The drama began in a Citizens League committee where the possibility of tax-base sharing first surfaced. It continued in a three-year battle in the Minnesota Legislature, followed by three lengthy, but ultimately unsuccessful, challenges in the Minnesota state courts.

The drama then shifted to efforts to weaken the law’s provisions, which with one notable exception involving the Mall of America, were unsuccessful. In the 1990s drama extended to Minnesota’s Iron Range, where similar tax-base sharing was enacted. Discussion, with more drama possible, has continued in Minnesota and in other states to the present day. The book contains meticulous documentation, with more than 300 footnotes.

The Center for Policy Design(CPD) is publishing the book to help illustrate the importance of highlighting system change in public policy, as advocated by Walter McClure, founder and president of the CPD. McClure’s objective, as quoted in a foreword to the book: “Systems and organizations tend to behave the way they’re structured and rewarded to behave. If you don’t like the way they’re behaving, you probably ought to change the way they’re structured and rewarded.”

Tax-base sharing adjusts the system within which municipalities compete with one another for tax base. Traditionally “winner-take-all,” the system enacted in 1971 still favors the winners, but not by quite as much. Without the law a 13-to-1 ratio in per capita commercial-industrial value would prevail today between the wealthiest and poorest municipalities over 9,000 population in the Twin Cities metro area. With the law the difference is reduced to 6-to-1.

Nancy Johnson (BSJ93 – CAS93)

It’s 2008, and the rise of Barack Obama ushers in a new kind of hope. In Chicago, Ruth Tuttle, an Ivy-League educated Black engineer, is married to a kind and successful man. He’s eager to start a family, but Ruth is uncertain. She has never gotten over the baby she gave birth to—and was forced to give up—when she was a teenager.

She had promised her family she’d never look back, but Ruth knows that to move forward, she must make peace with the past. Returning home, Ruth discovers the Indiana factory town of her youth is plagued by unemployment, racism, and despair. While her family is happy to see her, they remind her of the painful sacrifices they made to give her a shot at a better future—like the comfortable middle-class life she now enjoys.

Determined, Ruth begins digging into the past. As she uncovers burning secrets her family desperately wants to hide, she unexpectedly befriends Midnight, a young white boy who is also adrift and looking for connection. When a traumatic incident strains the town’s already scorching racial tensions, Ruth and Midnight find themselves on a collision course that could upend both their lives.

The Kindest Lie examines the heartbreaking divide between Black and white communities and plumbs the emotional depths of the struggles faced by ordinary Americans in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Capturing the profound racial injustices and class inequalities roiling society, Nancy Johnson’s debut novel offers an unflinching view of motherhood in contemporary America and the never-ending quest to achieve the American Dream.

Purchase on Amazon.

Mark Sullivan (MSJ84)

The bestselling author of BENEATH A SCARLET SKY (and many other bestselling and award-winning novels) returns with THE LAST GREEN VALLEY (May 4, 2021; Lake Union), a compelling and immersive historical novel inspired by one family’s incredible true story of daring, survival and triumph during the dark days of World War II.

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Danielle Svetkov (BSJ95)

Jeanne Ann is smart, stubborn, living in an orange van, and determined to find a permanent address before the start of seventh grade. Cal is tall, sensitive, living in a humongous house across the street, and determined to save her. Jeanne Ann is roughly as enthusiastic about his help as she is about living in a van. As the two form an unlikely friendship in this Middle-Grade debut, they’re buoyed by a cast of complex, oddball characters, who let them down, lift them up, and leave you cheering.

Margaret Littman (MSJ94)

For more than 200 years Memphis has captured America’s imagination. It is the home to the Blues and the center of the civil rights movement. It is called the Bluff City thanks to its location along the mighty Mississippi River, and today the river banks provide recreation, opportunity, and a connection to history, not to mention great views. This guidebook, authored by Tennessean Margaret Littman, delves into all Memphis has to offer, including, the best barbeque and hot wings, immersive museums, late-night dance spots, and, of course, all things Elvis. This inclusive, yet selective, guide features itineraries with side trips to Little Rock and Hot Springs, Ark., plus the Mississippi Blues Trail.