The Everyday Rosary, produced by Leanne Burnett ’85 and Karen Pentek (The Everyday Rosary). The two-CD set and booklet offer an aid to developing a deeper understanding of the prayer. The mystery meditations are accompanied by piano music, and the bonus CD contains a history of the rosary. Along with the producers, Michael Burnett ’85, ’89J.D. is one of the voices.
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The Hollywood Sisters: Truth or Dare, Mary Wilcox ’92 (Delacorte Press). The fifth novel of the mystery series for young readers. Narrated by Jessica Ortiz, whose sister, Eva, “just hit the big time as a TV teen,” the novels follow the joys and pitfalls of the Ortiz family’s life in Beverly Hills. The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books calls the series “enjoyably fluffy subject matter done smartly and well.”
Captive Audience, David Reidy ’99 (Ig Publishing). A collection of stories centering on the theme of being a performer. Abe Vigoda, Bob Newhart and R.E.M. band members are among the real and imagined characters sprinkled through tales both bittersweet and humorous. The opening story, “The Regular,” won the 2007 Emerging Writers Network Short Competition.
Blue Collar, Blue Scrubs: The Making of a Surgeon, Michael J. Collins, M.D., ’71 (St. Martin’s Press). This memoir from the author of Hot Lights, Cold Steel, which covered his residency at Mayo Clinic, takes a step back and follows Collins’ days as a construction worker and his entry into medical school. Medicine, he writes, made him confront the nature of God and suffering and the delicacy of life.
Creon’s Ghost: Law, Justice and the Humanities, Joseph P. Tomain ’70 (Oxford University Press). Teaching intelligent design in schools, legalizing same-sex marriage, keeping a vegetative woman alive — these issues demonstrate the tension between human law and a higher law based on moral principles. Using stories from the humanities, including Antigone, Plato’s Republic and Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the author explores the dissonance of law and justice.
Notre Dame Review: The First Ten Years, edited with an introduction by John Matthias and William O’Rourke (University of Notre Dame Press). The literary journal has published more than 1,000 writers, and this anthology offers a representative sample of work from the celebrated to the emerging. Included are poetry from Seamus Heaney, Beth Ann Fennelly ’93, John Engels ’52 and Anthony Walton ’82, and fiction from Michael Collins ’87, ’91M.A. and Tony d’Souza ’00MFA.
The Crimes of Paris: A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection, Dorothy Hoobler and Thomas Hoobler ’64 (Little, Brown & Company). In 1911 the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre, and police suspected a young man named Pablo Picasso. The authors use the case to focus on the history of detection and forensic techniques, and how the science was used to solve various sinister crimes of the era.
The Anointing of the Sick, Paul Meyendorff ’87Ph.D. (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press). Along with presenting the history and theology of the sacrament, the author offers pastoral suggestions on restoring the ministry of healing in the parish. An appendix includes a new translation of the rite and an abbreviated version for use in a hospital or home setting.
The Day We Lost the H-Bomb: Cold War, Hot Nukes and the Worst Nuclear Weapons Disaster in History, Barbara Moran ’92 (Random House). Using recently declassified material, this military history explores the Cold War’s biggest nuclear weapons disaster, which occurred in January 1966 when a U.S. Air Force bomber exploded, killing seven airmen and scattering four unarmed hydrogen bombs across miles of Spanish coastline.
The Calumet Region: An American Place, photographs by Gary Cialdella ’89MFA (University of Illinois Press and Brauer Museum of Art). These black-and-white images were shot over 20 years and document the changes in the industrialized northwestern Indiana area, offering a portrait of a residential/industrial landscape in the midst of economic decay.