Bookshelf

Michelle Facos K’76

An American in Pandemic Paris: A Coming-of-Retirement-Age Memoir (Pouthier

Press, 2022).

Imagine you’re in Paris for a brief respite when the pandemic strikes. Do you leave for home — “a polarized and chaotic U.S. or a let’s-pretend-everything’s-normal-even-though-it-isn’t Sweden” — or stay in the City of Lights tourist-free? The book’s title may give away the answer but not the adventures that ensue for Facos, who finds herself on a 16-month journey of self-discovery, pathrealignment, romantic adventure, and more.

Join the author, an art historian, as she “explores the jasminescented streets of Paris, navigates the fascinating world of senior dating, returns to her original career path, spends weekends with aristocrats, winters on the Côte d’Azur, and holds long conversations with her favorite works of art. And meet the new people in her world — Puzzle Man of Montparnasse, Amazing Accordionist, Jim the Expat, and Caroline the Professor — who made her (first) pandemic year one of metamorphosis and joy.” n

Kamila Shamsie ’94 Best of Friends

(New York: Riverhead Books, 2022).

The problem with childhood friendship was that you could sometimes fail to see the adult in front of you because you had such a fixed idea of the teenager she once was, and other times you were unable to see the teenager still alive and kicking within the adult.”

WALLY BRESSLER ’90. Tragic Hero (Lake Mary, Fla.: Impact Publishing, 2022).

CHIP BRISTOL ’82. Burning Faith (self-published, 2022).

LYNN H. BUTLER K’75. Flames Against the Dark: Saving America’s Sacred Sites (Colfax, Wis.: Hayriver Press, 2022).

JUSTIN CLARK, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY. Plato’s Dialogues of Definition: Causal and Conceptual Investigations (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022).

ROBERT COLLEY ’66 and MAURA COLLEY ’19. Truro and the Outer Cape (Fabius, N.Y.: Standing Stone Books, 2022).

MACKENZIE COOLEY, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF HISTORY. The Perfection of Nature: Animals, Breeding, and Race in the Renaissance (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2022).

NANCY AVERY DAFOE K’74. Socrates is Dead Again (Washington, D.C.: Pen Women Press, 2022).

NANCY DAFOE K’74. The House Was Quiet, But the Mind Was Anxious (Georgetown, Ky.: Finishing Line Press, 2022).

DAVE DUNN ’90. Love, Crowd Out, Forgive, Accept: A Guide to Supporting a Loved One with Anorexia (self-published, 2022).

CHARLES DUNST ’18. Defeating the Dictators: How Democracy Can Prevail in the Age of the Strongman (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2023).

Shamsie challenges readers with this question: Does principle or loyalty make for the better friend? Her novel tells the story of two women and the forces that bring their lifelong friendship to the breaking point. The publisher notes, “Zahra and Maryam have been best friends since childhood in Karachi, even though — or maybe because — they are unlike in nearly every way. Yet they never speak of the differences in their backgrounds or their values, not even after the fateful night when a moment of adolescent impulse upends their plans for the future. Three decades later, Zahra and Maryam have grown into powerful women who have each cut a distinctive path through London. But when two troubling figures from their past resurface, they must finally confront their bedrock differences — and find out whether their friendship can survive.”

The author has written several previous novels including Home Fire, which was longlisted for the Booker Prize and won the 2018 Women’s Prize for Fiction. n

Stephen G. Rabe ’70

The Lost Paratroopers of Normandy: Resistance, Courage, and Solidarity in a French Village

(Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2022).

Rabe recounts the untold and unexpected stories of collaboration between American paratroopers and residents of Graignes, Normandy, during World War II’s D-Day invasion. The author is not only a noted historian who has written or edited 12 previous books, but also the son of one of the paratroopers who landed in the small French village that day.

When planes dropped more than 150 paratroopers from the 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions off-target on the outskirts of Graignes, the villagers — many of them women — sacrificed their own safety to offer help. They cooked for the soldiers, gathered intelligence, and salvaged their equipment from marshy waters.

Five days after the landings, German forces of the Waffen-SS Panzergrenadier division advanced into the village, forcing most of the paratroopers to withdraw. The remaining U.S. soldiers, including a doctor and a dozen wounded men, were massacred, along with more than 30 townspeople.

According to Publishers Weekly, “Rabe contends that the German Waffen-SS, who wore ‘death skull’ insignia and reported to Heinrich Himmler, ‘made a habit of violating customary laws of war.’ He also sketches the history of American airborne warfare and its development as a highly motivated, elite unit operating under charismatic generals. Based on extensive conversations with village families and surviving paratroopers, including Rabe’s own father, this history combines heroism and tragedy in equal measure. WWII buffs will be engrossed.” n

LAUREN MAGAZINER ’12. The Mythics #1: Marina and the Kraken (New York: Katherine Tegen Books/HarperCollins, 2022).

JAMES G. MEADE ’66. End Anxiety!: Proven Benefits of the Transcendental Meditation® Program (New York: SelectBooks, 2022).

JOSEPH E. MWANTUALI, PROFESSOR OF FRENCH. L’impair de la nation (Paris: Présence Africaine, 2022).

JOHN NICHOLS ’62. I Got Mine: Confessions of a Midlist Writer (Albuquerque, N.M.: High Road Books/University of New Mexico Press, 2022).

TIM NORBECK ’60. No Time for Mercy (Chicago: Why Not Books, 2022).

PREETA SAMARASAN ’98. Tale of the Dreamer’s Son (New York: World Editions, 2022).

LOWEY BUNDY SICHOL ’96. Idea Makers: 15 Fearless Female Entrepreneurs (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2022).

CONSTANCE STELLAS K’72. Aquarius: A Guided Journal* (Avon, Mass.: Adams Media/Simon & Schuster, 2022).

*There are 12 books in this series, one for each sign of the zodiac.

JAMES GIBSON ’74. Just A Long Walk: Healing & Discovery on the John Muir Trail (San Diego: Halcyon Press, 2022).

KENNETH GROSS ’76. Dangerous Children: On Seven Novels and a Story (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022).

BARBARA ISMAIL K’74. Western Chant (Melton Mowbray, United Kingdom: Monsoon Books, 2022).

CAROLINDA GOODMAN (KAUFMAN) K’74. Pirate Ships and Shooting Stars (Little Cottage Press, 2022).

PRIYANKA R. KHANNA ’04. All the Right People: A Novel (Haryana, India: Ebury Press/Penguin Random House, 2022).

ALEXANDRA ALEVIZATOS KIRTLEY ’93. American Furniture, 1650-1840: Highlights from the Philadelphia Museum of Art (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2021).

LAUREN MAGAZINER ’12. Case Closed #4: Danger on the Dig (New York: Katherine Tegen Books/ HarperCollins, 2022).

CHARLIE WARZEL ’10 and Anne Helen Petersen. Out of Office: The Big Problem and Bigger Promise of Working from Home (New York: Knopf/ Penguin Random House, 2021).

GORDON WILKINS ’13 (co-author). Rosamond Purcell: Nature Stands Aside (New York: Rizzoli Electa, 2022).

For descriptions of the books listed, and links to where you might purchase them, visit hamilton.edu/alumni/books.