Boston College grad Margaret Cardillo’s new children’s book takes a look at the life of the late Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. In Just Being Jackie (Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins, 2018), Cardillo highlights not only the style and grace of the former first lady, but also her work as a journalist, a preservationist, and an editor of award-winning books. This is the second picture book by Cardillo and illustrator Julia Denos, whose first book was the award-winning Just Being Audrey, about Audrey Hepburn. A former children’s book editor, Cardillo now teaches screenwriting at the University of Miami.
The woman behind the famous name
Bayles on The Big Picture
BC faculty member Martha Bayles offers her take on the new book The Big Picture: The Fight for the Future of Movies by entertainment journalist Ben Fritz in a piece for The American Interest. She writes that The Big Picture “offers a lively, readable account of a profound transformation taking place in the U.S. entertainment industry: namely, the collapse of the self-contained narrative film that for the last 100 years has defined the art and business of the cinema, and the massive shift of cultural weight and influence from movies to television—or more accurately, to the multi-part dramatic series that was originally developed for broadcast television but has now migrated to digital streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu.” According to Bayles, Fritz’s narrative on movies and entertainment as products of commerce is compelling, but he is less cogent when addressing the cultural and artistic significance of the changes in the classic American moviegoing experience. Bayles is the author of the book Through a Screen Darkly: Popular Culture, Public Diplomacy, and America’s Image Abroad.
The GOAT
Publishers Weekly calls the new book from the writing team of Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge an “astute history of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady’s 2016 Super Bowl–winning season.” Sherman and Wedge, a Boston College alumnus, are the authors of 12: The Inside Story of Tom Brady’s Fight for Redemption (Little, Brown and Company, 2018), which chronicles Brady’s story from the fallout of the so-called “Deflategate” controversy to the greatest Super Bowl comeback of all time. With unprecedented access to Brady, his teammates, and his lawyers, the authors recount how the future Hall-of-Famer went up against one of the largest corporations in the world in a real-life drama that unfolded in the locker room, the court room, and in the Super Bowl. Sherman and Wedge are also the authors of The Ice Bucket Challenge: Pete Frates and the Fight against ALS, about BC grad Pete Frates, and Boston Strong: A City’s Triumph over Tragedy, which was adapted into the feature film “Patriots Day.” Boston 25 News | Parade magazine
Privacy is endangered
An executive’s corpse is discovered in a Minneapolis wetland, and with it the photo of a girl. Is she unconscious or dead? Detectives Erik Jansson and Deb Metzger take on the investigation in a new book by Boston College alumna Priscilla Paton. In Where Privacy Dies (Coffeetown Press, 2018), Paton spins a mystery where intensely private and deadly secrets come to light. A retired college professor, Paton earned a Ph.D in English from BC in 1979. She is the author of a children’s book, Howard and the Sitter Surprise, and a book on Robert Frost and Andrew Wyeth, Abandoned New England. She says she picked up the mystery habit through her husband David Anderson, a graduate assistant for BC Professor John McAleer while McAleer was writing a biography of Rex Stout.
Mothering from afar
What happens to families when Mexican mothers migrate to the U.S. in search of jobs and opportunities and leave their children behind? In her new book, Boston College Lynch School of Education Assistant Professor Gabrielle Oliveira offers a perspective on the consequences of maternal migration, based on more than three years of ethnographic research. Motherhood across Borders: Immigrants and Their Children in Mexico and New York (NYU Press, 2018) provides insights on the far-reaching effects on both the children who accompanied their mothers to the U.S., and those who remain in Mexico.
Posted in Boston College Authors
Tagged children, Lynch School of Education, Mexico, migration, parenting
Leave a comment
A killing in Washington
BC alumna Colleen J. Shogan has published K Street Killing (Camel Press, 2018), book four in her Washington Whodunit mystery series. The series follows the adventures of Kit Marshall, a congressional staffer whose life often intersects with mystery and murder. In K Street Killing, a powerful lobbyist mysteriously dies at a fundraising event for Kit’s boss, who is in the throes of a tough campaign for relection to Congress. Shogan’s previous books include Stabbing in the Senate, a 2016 Next Generation Indie Book Award for “Best Mystery,” Homicide in the House and Calamity at the Continental Club. Shogan works at the Library of Congress. The Hill | Roll Call
After 50
Approaching age 50, Boston College graduate Maria Leonard Olsen found herself at a crossroads. She had taken a break from her career as a lawyer, but now her children were older and didn’t need her so much. Her marriage was dissolving and her drinking was out of control. At 50, and in recovery, she set out to do 50 new things—physical challenges, adventure travel, and lifestyle changes—that were significant to her. In her new book, 50 After 50: Reframing the Next Chapter of Your Life (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), Olsen shares her adventures and how accomplishing new things, learning new skills, deepening personal and spiritual relationships, and seeking out challenges can add spice to a life that may feel insignificant, inauthentic, or boring. A civil litigation attorney, Olsen is also a cohost of the “Inside Out ” radio show on WPFW-FM in Washington, D.C. She has written for the Washington Post, Washingtonian, Bethesda Magazine, Parenting, among other outlets. Her previous publications include Not the Cleaver Family: The New Normal in Modern American Families and the children’s books, Mommy, Why’s Your Skin So Brown? and Healing for Hallie.
CPA Book Awards
Faculty members from Boston College were honored for their publications by the Catholic Press Association of the U.S. and Canada at the organization’s annual conference in June. Canisius Professor of Theology James Keenan, S.J., won third place in the category of Scripture: Academic Studies for The Bible and Catholic Theological Ethics, which he co-edited with Boston College alumni Yiu Sing Lucas Chan, S.J., and Ronaldo Zacharias, S.D.B. Three faculty members won honorable mention: School of Theology and Ministry Dean Thomas D. Stegman, S.J., (Written for Our Instruction: Theological and Spiritual Riches in Romans), Joseph Professor of Catholic Systematic Theology Richard Gaillardetz (By What Authority? : Foundations for Understanding Authority in the Church), and STM Associate Professor of the Practice Rafael Luciani (Pope Francis and the Theology of the People). Alumnus Timothy Muldoon, a part-time faculty member in the Philosophy Department, earned second place honors for his book, Living Against the Grain: How to Make Decisions That Lead to an Authentic Life, in the Books for Teens & Young Adults category. More from BC News.
Cut Time, one of the best
Cut Time, the 2003 book by Professor of English Carlo Rotella that chronicles his immersion in the boxing world, has been cited as one of the five best sports books of all time by Gordon Marino, author of The Existentialist’s Survival Guide, for a piece in the Wall Street Journal. Rotella is the director of BC’s American Studies program and the author of Good With Their Hands: Boxers, Bluesmen, and Other Characters from the Rust Belt and Playing in Time: Essays, Profiles, and Other True Stories, among other works.
Irish Studies book awards
At the annual meeting of the American Conference for Irish Studies held this month at University College Cork, the following authors were among those honored. BC Professor of English Philip O’Leary was awarded the 2018 Michael J. Durkan Prize for Books on Language and Culture for An Underground Theatre: Major Playwrights in the Irish Language 1930–80 (University College Dublin Press). The book was cited as “an incredible contribution to scholarship on Irish theatre and the Irish language…and engagingly well written.” The award citation goes on to state: “In covering the works of five twentieth century playwrights writing in the Irish language, O’Leary offers detailed creation and production histories, right down to the specific theatres across the country that presented the plays under consideration. It is not an overstatement to say that this book will likely remain a resource for scholars and students of Irish language plays for decades if not centuries to come.” More about O’Leary’s book can be found in this BC Bookmarks post from 6-27-17. BC alumnus Hidetaka Hirota won the 2018 Donald Murphy Prize for Distinguished First Book for Expelling the Poor: Atlantic Seaboard States and the Nineteenth-Century Origins of American Immigration Policy (Oxford University Press). The award committee called Hirota’s book “deeply researched and carefully crafted.” The award citation goes on to state: “Hirota’s book is a model transatlantic study, skillfully tracking the experience of Irish migrants from their initial departure from Ireland to their expulsion from the United States to their post-deportation lives in Ireland and Britain. Expelling the Poor is destined to become required reading for historians of both Ireland and America, while also informing public discussions of immigration.” More about Expelling the Poor can be found in this BC Bookmarks post from 2-1-17.
Posted in Awards/Honors, Boston College Authors
Tagged English Department, History Department, immigration, Ireland, Irish, theater
Leave a comment
BC Bookmarks 