The story of Samuel Battle
Pulitzer Prize winner Arthur Browne has published One Righteous Man: Samuel Battle and the Shattering of the Color Line in New York (Beacon Press, 2015), the story of New York City’s first African American police officer. With an unpublished manuscript by Langston Hughes as his starting point, Browne conducted archival research and interviews to create an important social history of New York and riveting life and times of an American civil rights pioneer. Browne, a Boston College alumnus, is the editorial page editor of the New York Daily News. For more than 40 years he has been a part of the coverage of New York’s biggest stories. In 2007, he led a team that won the Pulitzer Prize for editorials that documented the epidemic illnesses afflicting thousands of 9/11 rescue and recovery workers. Read an excerpt of One Righteous Man in the latest issue of Boston College Magazine.
Posted in Alumni Authors
Tagged African American history, biography, New York City, police
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Poet Brendan Galvin and the natural world
Award-winning poet Brendan Galvin, a Boston College alumnus, has published a book of poetry titled The Air’s Accomplices (LSU Press, 2015). The collection vividly evokes Galvin’s love for the rugged landscapes of Cape Cod and Ireland and their inhabitants. Weaving themes of death, migration and aging into an exploration of the natural world, Galvin’s work reflects a deep engagement with the places he and his family have called home, as well as with the triumphs and tragedies of human life. The latest issue of Boston College Magazine features one of the poems from The Air’s Accomplices, “This Morning’s Pep Talk at Egg Island.”
The Outcasts
Boston College alumnus Chuck Abdella, who teaches history at St. John’s High School in Shrewsbury, Mass., has published his debut novel, The Outcasts: Book I: The Lies of Autumn. The novel is described as “fantasy with a twist, with equal helpings of romance and action.” Abdella tells the story of several outcasts brought together for what they believe to be an epic struggle against a shadowy threat has emerged in a realm populated by serious wizards, pious elves, passionate humans, and hedonistic morphs. Yet the story is not all it seems to be. Abdella thanks BC History Associate Professor Emeritus John Rosser in the book’s acknowledgements. While at BC, Abdella wrote for the undergraduate arts and literary magazine, The Stylus.
The other side
Boston College alumnus Robert Colacurcio has published The Other Side of Suicide (Xlibris, 2015) to offer a full discussion and consideration of a host of questions not being asked today in the discussion of suicide. Colacurcio has a number of book titles to his name, including The Little Book of Better Questions, The Translucent Imagination and The Virtual Self: Beyond the Gap in Buddhist Philosophy, among others.
Writing & sports
Boston College alumnus Bob Ryan has been called the “quintessential American sportswriter.” After decades as a writer/columnist for the Boston Globe, Ryan has published the bestseller Scribe: My Life in Sports (Bloomsbury, 2014). Part memoir and part Boston sports history, Scribe recounts Ryan’s childhood, memorable people and moments in sports–especially the Celtics, as well as the changing way sports is covered by the media. In addition to the Globe, Ryan is known for his work on ESPN. Ryan is the author/co-author of more than 10 other books, including Celtics Pride and When Boston Won the World Series. Boston College student Mike Kotsopoulos recently interviewed Ryan for the Vineyard Gazette.
Mystery on the Outer Banks
Award-winning author Kathryn O’Sullivan has published the third novel in her Colleen McCabe mystery series, Neighing with Fire ( St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur, 2015). The series is set in the Outer Banks village of Corolla, North Carolina and features Fire Chief Colleen McCabe. O’Sullivan, who earned a bachelor’s degree from Boston College, is also a playwright and a theater professor at Northern Virginia Community College. Excerpt | Book trailer
The Road to Character
Members of the Class of 2019 have been given copies of The Road to Character (Random House, 2015) by David Brooks to read over the summer. In The Road to Character, Brooks challenges readers to rebalance the scales between “résumé virtues”—achieving wealth, fame, and status—and “eulogy virtues”: kindness, bravery, honesty, and faithfulness. Brooks cites some of the world’s greatest thinkers and leaders–including Dwight Eisenhower and Dorothy Day–to demonstrate how, through internal struggle and a sense of their own limitations, they have built a strong inner character. Brooks, an op-ed columnist for the New York Times, is the author of Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There and the bestseller, The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement, among other titles. He will address the Class of 2019 at Boston College on Sept. 10, part of an annual tradition called First Year Academic Convocation. Brooks discusses his book in this interview on CBS This Morning. Washington Post book review.
Mercy
In the latest issue of Commonweal, Darald and Juliet Libby Professor of Law and Theology Cathleen Kaveny writes about what the Catholic Church can learn from civil law in her essay, “Mercy for the Remarried.”
Opening the Door of Faith
Pope Francis’ encyclical on faith, Lumen Fidei, speaks of the relational aspect of faith—that is, faith as a response to God’s love revealed through Jesus. In his new book, Opening the Door of Faith: Encountering Jesus and His Call to Discipleship (Paulist Press, 2015), Jesuit priest Thomas Stegman, an associate professor of the New Testament in the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry, brings forth for study and reflection on the issue of faith the five major voices of the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul. More from BC News.
Posted in Boston College Authors
Tagged Catholicism, faith, Jesuit author, School of Theology and Ministry
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