BC alumna Colleen J. Shogan, who serves as Deputy Director of National and International Outreach for the Library of Congress, also is the author of the Washington Whodunit mystery book series. The first book, Stabbing in the Senate (Camel Press, 2015) won a 2016 Next Generation Indie Book Award for “Best Mystery.” She has recently released the second book in the series, Homicide in the House, which was named to Roll Call’s Capitol Hill Summer Reading List. The series follows the adventures of Kit Marshall, a congressional staffer whose life often intersects with mystery and murder.Whodunit in DC?
BC alumna Colleen J. Shogan, who serves as Deputy Director of National and International Outreach for the Library of Congress, also is the author of the Washington Whodunit mystery book series. The first book, Stabbing in the Senate (Camel Press, 2015) won a 2016 Next Generation Indie Book Award for “Best Mystery.” She has recently released the second book in the series, Homicide in the House, which was named to Roll Call’s Capitol Hill Summer Reading List. The series follows the adventures of Kit Marshall, a congressional staffer whose life often intersects with mystery and murder.Life of Virginia
BC alumna Beverly Mayne Kienzle has penned a biography of her grandmother, Virginia Cary Hudson (1894-1954), whose collection of essays, published after her death, sold more than a million copies and was on the New York Times Best Seller list for more than 60 weeks. Virginia Cary Hudson, the Jigs & Juleps! Girl: Her Life & Writings (iUniverse, 2016) contains never before published photos, poems, drawings, and excerpts from letters, all by Hudson, as well as Hudson’s own accounts of experiences when she accompanied her horseman husband to race tracks from Kentucky to Cuba to Las Vegas. Kienzle is a retired Harvard Divinity School professor who has published a dozen books and some 70 articles in her field. More from Broadway World.
Forming student leaders
The book 5 Steps to Effective Student Leadership: Insights & Examples (New City Press, 2014) combines student affairs best practices with Ignatian spirituality in a resource for the formation of student leaders. Inspired by the lives and experiences of actual student leaders, 5 Steps offers real-world examples of how to engage students in effective practices that both teach the individual and build the community. The authors are BC alumni Dennis Carr and Hannah Trost and Lynch School of Education lecturer Michael James, director of LSOE’s Institute for Administrators in Catholic Higher Education.
The Hopefuls
Best-selling author and Boston College alumna Jennifer Close tells a story about ambition and marriage in her new novel, The Hopefuls (Knopf, 2016). Husband and wife Matt and Beth, newcomers to Washington, D.C., befriend a charismatic White House staffer named Jimmy, and his wife, Ashleigh. Soon the couples’ friendship—and Beth’s relationship with Matt—is threatened by jealousy, competition, and rumors. Close also is the author of Girls in White Dresses and The Smart One. Read an interview with Close in Entertainment Weekly. | Washington Post book review
Tavarelli’s Star Fragments
BC Fine Arts Professor of the Practice Andrew Tavarelli has traveled extensively in Bali and Southeast Asia—always with a journal, a set of watercolors, and a camera. Material from Tavarelli’s travel journal provided the basis for his unpublished novel, False Stars. Now, Tavarelli has taken passages from that book and combined them with watercolors to create a new novel, Star Fragments. The author/artist, who believes in the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words,” writes in the book’s preface that “Just as each [narrator’s] voice adds to the richness of the story, the imagery expands the narrative and makes it tangible.” View or download here.
Catholic Press book awards
Boston College professors Richard Gaillardetz, Kristin Heyer, and Stephen Pope recently won book awards from the Catholic Press Association. More from BC News.
Posted in Awards/Honors, Boston College Authors
Tagged Catholic, Theology Department
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Hogs Wild
There’s a wealth of information about everything from meteorites to shrapnel in Ian Frazier’s new book, but you read his work primarily for the encounter between his sensibility and the world, according to a New York Times review of Frazier’s new collection Hogs Wild by Professor of English and fellow essayist Carlo Rotella. Rotella is the author of several books, including Playing in Time: Essays, Profiles, and Other True Stories, Cut Time: An Education at the Fights and Good With Their Hands: Boxers, Bluesmen, and Other Characters from the Rust Belt.
Tyvian returns
Science fiction/fantasy author Auston Habershaw, a Boston College alumnus, has published No Good Deed (HarperCollins, 2016), the second book in his “The Saga of the Redeemed” series. No Good Deed continues the story of “criminal mastermind, rogue mage, and smuggler of sorcerous goods” Tyvian Reldamar, who was introduced to readers in The Oldest Trick. From the publisher: Tyvian “hears that his old nemesis, Myreon Alafarr, has been framed for a crime she didn’t commit and turned to stone in a penitentiary garden. Somebody is trying to get his attention, and that somebody is playing a very high-stakes game that will draw Tyvian and his friends back to the city of his birth and right under the noses of the Defenders he’s been dodging for so long. The worst part is that the person pulling all the strings is none other than the most powerful sorceress in the West: Lyrelle Reldamar. Tyvian’s own mother.” Learn more about Habershaw’s journey as a writer and his upcoming book readings at his blog.
Jumbled Joy
Professional organizer Susan Bohenko, a Boston College alumna, has published her first book, Jumbled Joy. The children’s book is based on Bohenko’s daughter, Joy, and her messy room. The mess does not bother Joy until her favorite treasures becomes lost in the clutter and chaos of her bedroom. The book teaches kids to take care of their things and to stay organized. Bohenko was recently interviewed by her hometown paper.
Nouveau literacy
Associate Professor of History Dana Sajdi was recently interviewed about her book The Barber of Damascus: Nouveau Literacy in the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Levant (Stanford University Press). Her book looks at the life and work of Shihab al-Din Ahmad Ibn Budayr, a barber in Damascus in the 18th century. The barber wrote a book recording events that took place in the city during his lifetime—part of a new phenomenon, nouveau literacy, or history writing by people outside the learned establishment. Listen to the New Books Network podcast of the interview.
BC Bookmarks 