This Is Why I Came
Alumna Mary Rakow blends fable and theology in her new novel, This Is Why I Came (Counterpoint, 2015). The novel offers readers biblical stories reimagined by Bernadette, a lapsed Catholic who comes back to church on Good Friday after a 30-year absence. Oprah Magazine dubbed This Is Why I Came one of “16 Books To Start 2016 Right.” Rakow’s previous novel, The Memory Room, was shortlisted for the Stanford University Libraries International Saroyan Prize in Literature, a PEN USA/West Finalist in Fiction and was listed among the Best Books of the West by The Los Angeles Times. Reviews for This Is Why I Came: The Atlantic | Boston Globe | Washington Post.
Dead Letters Sent
Literary texts that address tradition and the transmission of knowledge often seem concerned less with preservation than with loss, recurrently describing scenarios of what Professor of English Kevin Ohi terms “thwarted transmission.” By exploring how transmission of a minority sexual culture is intertwined with the queer potential of literary and cultural transmission, Ohi builds a persuasive argument in his new book Dead Letters Sent: Queer Literary Transmission (University of Minnesota Press, 2105) for the relevance of queer criticism to literary study. Ohi’s book explores works by Plato, Shakespeare, Swinburne, Pater, Wilde, James and Faulkner. Ohi was a recipient of a 2013 Guggenheim Fellowship.
Bits & Specks
Communication Associate Professor of the Practice Michael C. Keith has published a new short story collection, Bits, Specks, Crumbs, Flecks (Vraeyda Literary, 2015). Some of Keith’s other titles include, Radio Cultures: The Sound Medium in American Life; Voices in the Purple Haze: Underground Radio in the Sixties; Waves of Rancor: Tuning in the Radical Right (with Robert Hilliard), The Broadcast Century and Beyond (With Robert Hilliard), The Radio Station (now Keith’s Radio Station) and Talking Radio: An Oral History of American Radio in the Television Age, among many others.
Madison’s Hand named a “book of the year”
The Legal Theory Blog, by Georgetown Law Professor Lawrence Solum, has named Madison’s Hand: Revising the Constitutional Convention
by BC Law Professor Mary Sarah Bilder one of its “books of the year,” calling it one of the ten most interesting books of 2015. Read more about Bilder’s book in this 9/17/15 BC Bookmarks post. Bilder discussed her book and its important findings with the Washington Post.
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Becoming Washington
In his new book Becoming George Washington (Wise Ink Creative Publishing, 2015), BC alumnus Steve Yoch tells the story of how an insecure, fatherless boy rises to become one of the country’s founding fathers. Becoming George Washington follows Washington through the French & Indian War, and explores his complex relationships with his mother and brothers. Yoch, an attorney, is working on his next book, which will be about Benedict Arnold. Read an interview with Yoch.
The Abbey from Fr. Martin
James Martin, SJ, a Jesuit priest and best-selling author of Jesus: A Pilgrimage and The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything, has published his first novel, The Abbey (HarperOne, 2015). The story is about three people (a divorced woman dealing with the death of her son, a former architect and an abbot) seeking direction, and the power of God to bring healing and wholeness to those who are lost. Fr. Martin is a graduate of the former Weston Jesuit School of Theology, which re-affiliated with Boston College to become BC’s School of Theology and Ministry. Listen to an interview with Fr. Martin from America Media.
Way Down in Louisiana
Way Down in Louisiana: Clifton Chenier, Cajun, Zydeco, and Swamp Pop Music (University of Louisiana at Lafayette Press, 2015) is a collection of profiles of musicians from Cajun and Creole country, a place where tradition and innovation rub against one another from the kitchen to the festival stage. The new book is written by Boston College alumnus Todd Mouton who has more than 20 years experience as a writer, non-profit arts executive and producer of concerts, events, records and radio programs. An advocate for the artists and culture of his home state of Louisiana, Mouton has been honored with the Louisiana Governor’s Arts Award and the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. With Clifton Chenier’s life and career as the centerpiece, Way Down in Louisiana tells the story of some of the most innovative forces in music. More
“The medium is the message”
James C. Morrison, a faculty member in the Communication Department, has contributed a chapter to the book, Baby Boomers and Popular Culture: An Inquiry into America’s Most Powerful Generation (Praeger). His chapter is titled “Marshall McLuhan and the Making of a Countercultural Generation.” Learn more via this interview with Morrison by Leslie Homzie of Boston College Libraries.
Shakespeare
The Australian, Australia’s largest-selling national paper, has named Shakespeare, Not Stirred as one of the best books of 2015. The book is co-authored by BC Associate Professor of English Caroline Bicks and Michelle Ephraim. The book has generated buzz as the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death approaches in 2016. Read more in the Wall Street Journal.[See the 9/2/15 BC Bookmarks for more on Shakespeare, Not Stirred.]
BC Bookmarks 