PhDiva: The Smart Girl’s Guide to Graduate School Success, Goal Auzeen Saedi ’10M.A., ’12Ph.D. (Corby Books). With strategic advice, humor and empathy, the author extends a helping hand to women seeking a graduate degree. From the basics of choosing a school and obtaining funding to the importance of seeking balance and emotional support, the clinical psychologist reveals the secrets of survival in academia. Saedi also writes The Millennial Media blog for Psychology Today.
Think Like a Baby: 33 Simple Research Experiments You Can Do at Home to Better Understand Your Child’s Developing Mind, Amber Ankowski ’00 and Andy Ankowski ’00 (Chicago Review Press). “A little bit of doctorly advice mixed with some lighthearted fun,” commented one reader of this parenting book. The authors, parents of three and founders of the Doctor and Dad website, focus here on activities that offer parents creative ways to play and bond with their children.
Charlie, Presumed Dead, Anne Heltzel ’06 (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). Lena and Aubrey are in for a surprise when they show up at a memorial service in Paris for Charlie Price, who supposedly died during the explosion of a small plane. It seems Charlie was dating both of them. His duplicity and the secrets both women are hiding send them on a journey to discover what else Charlie might have withheld — and if he really is dead. This young adult novel, the first in a series, was named one of the “10 Great Summer Thrillers” by Entertainment Weekly.
Blues Unlimited: Essential Interviews from the Original Blues Magazine, edited by Bill Greensmith, Mike Rowe, Mark Camarigg ’93J.D. (University of Illinois Press). When Blues Unlimited magazine was launched in 1963, it focused on the latest news in blues music and long, revealing interviews with a who’s who of blues masters. This collection of many of those accounts offers “the history of the blues from the musicians who lived it,” from Son House and Fontella Bass to Johnny Otis and Jimmy Walker. The book also includes 80 illustrations.
Ara’s Knights: Ara Parseghian and the Golden Era of Notre Dame Football, Frank Pomarico’74, Ray Serafin ’70 (Triumph Books). Former Notre Dame football captain Pomarico presents his insider’s account of what it was like to play for the legendary coach. The book includes interviews with former players and coaches, numerous classic photos and an analysis of the University’s 1973 national championship team. Regis Philbin ’53 wrote the foreword; the introduction is by Gerry DiNardo ’75.
Creative works extra
Wicked Atlanta: The Sordid Side of Peach City History, Laurel-Ann Dooley ’85 (The History Press). The stories here from Atlanta’s underworld past are filled with audacious criminal behavior — kidnappings, wives hiring hit men, bribery, bootlegging, elaborate prison parties thrown by wealthy felons, and even the rise of auto racing. Dooley is also the author of Best Friend Thief, a middle-grade novel that was a 2012 National Indie Excellence Book Award finalist and 2012 Next Generation Indie Book Award finalist.
Father Sorin Says . . . The Founder Comments on Today’s Notre Dame, edited by Peter Roehmholdt ’14 and Maria Skorcz ’14 (Corby Books). “Basil Moreau stayed in France. I went to middle-of-nowhere Indiana. I did the heavy lifting. He got Beatified. All I got was a dorm.” In this selection of thoughts, quips and sermons, the crafty Father Sorin takes to Twitter and an online magazine to comment on the University he founded in1842.
How the Light Gets In: And Other Headlong Epiphanies, Brian Doyle ’78 (Orbis Books). Frequent Notre Dame Magazine contributor Doyle, who is also the editor of Portland Magazine at the University of Portland, covers “matters theological, spiritual, mystical and more quotidian” in his latest selection of prose poems. From such topics as “Poems for Your Wife after Years of Marriage” and “An Ode to Night-Tables,” he shines a light on the ways grace plays out in everyday lives.
In Our Hearts Forever …, Michael D. Ciletti ’64, ’65M.A., ’68Ph.D. (Corby Books). Dedicated to the Congregation of Holy Cross, this book of large-format photographs showcases more than 400 images of campus, often accompanied by quotes from faculty, staff and alumni. “Many other places may attract our interest and awaken memories,” the author writes, “but Notre Dame captures our hearts and remains there forever.” Ciletti previously published the three-part Remembering Notre Dame photography series.
The Life Story and Memories of Louis Charles D’Addio, Paul Coppola ’78 (Serif Press). During his 98 years of life, D’Addio frequently acted against injustice. A notable civil rights and prolife activist in the Washington, D.C., area, he often would say the rosary in front of abortion clinics and was once arrested during an act of nonviolent civil disobedience as part of Operation Rescue. As a member of the Holy Land Ecumenical Foundation, which works to improve the lives of Palestinian Christians, he made three trips to the Holy Land.
Youth Sport and Spirituality: Catholic Perspectives, edited by Patrick Kelly, S.J. (University of Notre Dame Press). What is the relationship between youth sports and moral development? Can coaching be a ministry? What is the spiritual significance of play? These are among the topics discussed in the essays by philosophers, psychologists, theologians, coaches and athletic directors. Contributors include Kristin Komyatte Sheehan ’90, ’03M.A., program director for the Play Like a Champion Today initiative, and that program’s founder, Clark Power, professor of psychology and education at Notre Dame.
Psychoetry: Lessons in Poetic Parenting, Brian P. Wohlmuth ’79M.A. (ComteQ Publishing). The author, a licensed family therapist, uses entertaining poetic verse to address youthful stumbling blocks. The use of rhyme, he says, “enables parents to successfully relate to many childhood issues” that crop up “from drool to school” and helps them smooth their children’s path through a variety of potholes.
Butter Off Dead, Leslie Budewitz ’84 (Berkley Prime Crime). Erin Murphy, owner of a gourmet food market in Jewel Bay, Montana, again must seek out a murderer in this third installment of the Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries. Unfortunately, the main suspect in the death is the victim’s boyfriend, who also happens to be Erin’s brother. “Small-time charm and big-time chills,” says Laura Childs of the series, which includes a variety of recipes.
Ten Philosophical Essays in the Christian Tradition: Frederick J. Crosson, edited by Michael J. Crowe ’58 and Nicholas Ayo ,CSC, ’56, ’62M.A. (University of Notre Dame Press). These essays by Frederick Crosson, the Notre Dame emeritus professor of philosophy who died in 2009, “express a historical approach to the philosophy of religion,” says Mark Moes ’73, ’91Ph.D. in his introduction. The writings here include “Cicero and the Philosophy of Religion” and “Religion and Natural Law.”
Letters to Santa Claus, The Elves, foreword by Pat Koch, afterword by Emily Weisner Thompson ’05 (Indiana University Press). For 100-plus years, letters from all corners of the globe have arrived annually at Santa Claus, Indiana. This collection of more than 250 actual letters and envelopes, reaching back to the 1930s, showcases the candid, heartfelt and often blunt missives from the naughty and nice to the white-bearded man they hope will make their dreams come true.
The Times of My Life, Jim Langford ’59 (Corby Books). The director emeritus of Notre Dame Press and emeritus member of the Core Course faculty at the University shares his “search for purpose and happiness” in this memoir. After detailing his journey from the priesthood to laicization, from being an editor at Doubleday to running an academic press and from teaching at Notre Dame to overseeing a camp for disadvantaged children, he reminds the reader, “[W]e have not gone through life as an island; we are part of something bigger, something more than chance and circumstance.”
Christmas Bells, Jennifer Chiaverini ’91 (Dutton). The novel celebrates the season as it weaves tales of Christmas past and present. In 1860, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and his family celebrate Christmas in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is after the nation enters a bloody Civil War and Longfellow’s wife, Fanny, dies, that he writes the holiday classic “Christmas Bells” in an attempt to bring joy to a wounded country. Flash forward to modern-day Boston, as a holiday concert performance of the poem now performed as a hymn inspires hope among a struggling group of people.
Carol Schaal is managing editor of this magazine.