Waterfront: A Journey Around Manhattan

by Phillip Lopate
New York: Crown Publishers, 2004
F 128.55 L67 2004

"Fusing history, lore, politics, culture, and on-site adventures, esteemed essayist and author Phillip Lopate takes us on an exuberant, affectionate, and eye-opening excursion around Manhattan's shoreline. Waterfront captures the ever-changing character of New York in the best way possible: on a series of exploratory walks conducted by one of the city's most engaging and knowledgeable guides."

The Pecking Order: Which Siblings Succeed and Why

by Dalton Conley
New York: Pantheon Books, 2004
HQ 536 C7455 2004

"In this groundbreaking book, Dalton Conley shows us that inequality in families is not the exception but the norm. More than half of all income inequality in this country occurs not between families but within families. Children who grow up in the same house can—and frequently do—wind up on opposite sides of the class divide. In fact, the family itself is where much inequality is fostered and developed. In each family, there exists a pecking order among siblings, a status hierarchy. This pecking order is not necessarily determined by the natural abilities of each individual, and not even by the intentions or will of the parents. It is determined by the larger social forces that envelop the family: gender expectations, the economic cost of education, divorce, early loss of a parent, geographic mobility, religious and sexual orientation, trauma, and even arbitrary factors such as luck and accidents."

An Enduring Love: My Life With the Shah, a Memoir

by Farah Pahlavi
New York: Miramax Books, 2004
DS 316.9 F37 2004

"Her story began like a fairy tale. At the age of twenty-one, Farah Diba married the shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi. In a matter of days, her quiet life was turned upside down: her coronation as the empress of Iran was covered in the world's press, and overnight she became an international celebrity... Twenty years later the dream had turned into a nightmare: demonstrations and riots shook the country, and Farah and the shah decided to leave in order to avoid bloodshed."

Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century

by Lauren Slater
New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2004
BF 198.7 S57 2004

"Lauren Slater delivers a witty and stunningly perceptive view of the progress of the science of the human mind in the last century. Beginning with B. F. Skinner and the legend of a child raised in a box, she takes us from a deep empathy with Stanley Milgram's obedience subjects to a funny and disturbing re-creation of an experiment questioning the validity of psychiatric diagnosis. We observe cognitive dissonance among cult members whose apocalypse fails to arrive, and we see the groundwork being laid for a pill that promises to rescue the memories of aging baby boomers."

Thin-Ice Skater

"Richard, the narrator of David Storey's disturbing new novel, is seventeen, withdrawn, dreamy and relentlessly self-absorbed. The year is 1971 and Richard lives with his half-brother and guardian Gerry, a wealthy film producer who is thirty-five years his senior and the thin-ice skater of the title—driven, reckless, unstoppable. After years of living in hotels and serviced apartments Gerry and Richard have set up home in Leighcroft Gardens, Hampstead. But Richard's hope for stability and a place where he can 'belong' is far from being realised. "

The Jenny Craig Story: How One Woman Changes Millions of Lives

Still Life With Bombers: Israel In the Age of Terrorism

"Horovitz describes the 'grim lottery' of life in Israel since 2000. He makes clear that far from becoming blasé or desensitized, its citizens respond with deepening horror every time the front pages are disfigured by the rows of passport portraits presenting the faces of the newly dead. He takes us to the funeral of a murdered Israeli, where the presence of security personnel underlines that nowhere is safe. He describes how his wife must tell their children to close their eyes when they pass a just-exploded bus on the way to school, so that the images of carnage won't haunt them.He talks with government officials on both sides of the conflict, with relatives of murdered victims, with Palestinian refugees, and with his own friends and family, letting us sense what it feels like to live with the constant threat and the horrific frequency of shootings and suicide bombings."

Aloft

"Aloft offers a reexamination of the American dream from inside out, through the voice of Jerry Battle, a suburban middle-aged man who has lived his entire life on Long Island, New York. Battle's favorite diversion is to fly his small plane solo; slipping away for quick flights over the Island or the coastal towns of New England, Jerry has been disappearing for years. Then a family crisis occurs, and Jerry finds he must face his disengagement in his relationships... "

Defending Diversity: Affirmative Action at the University of Michigan

"Even as lawsuits challenging its admissions policies made their way through the courts, the University of Michigan carried the torch for affirmative action in higher education. The University's position on affirmative action was vindicated in June 2003, when the Supreme Court ruled that race may be used as a factor in university admissions programs. The Court thus upheld what the University had argued all along: diversity in the classroom translates to a beneficial and wide-ranging social value."