Filling the Glass: The Skeptic’s Guide to Positive Thinking in Business, Barry Maher ’70, Dearborn Trade. From a hugely successful career in sales to his current niche as a motivational speaking, Mahler has always kept his eyes on the link between a job and personal life. His focus, he writes, “is a sense of wholeness, oneness, relief from the dichotomy between what we believe we should be doing in our careers and our lives, and what we actually find ourselves doing.” Maher was featured in the winter 1999-2000 issue of this magazine.
Movie Awards: The Ultimate, Unofficial Guide to the Oscars Awards, Golden Globe Awards, Critics & Guild Honors, Tom O’Neil ’77, Berkley Publishing Group. A comprehensive awards guide that includes an array of groups (Los Angeles Film Critics, The Screen Actors Guild, The Sundance Film Festival and more). Along with lists, O’Neil also looks at why certain great stars were ignored by Oscar. A former editor of The Observer, O’Neil also has written, with Peter Bart, two unofficial guides to The Grammys and to The Emmys. He appears regularly on the E! Entertainment network.
The Dons and Mr. Dickens: The Strange Case of the Oxford Christmas Plot, William J. Palmer ‘65, ’69Ph.D., St. Martin’s Minotaur. The fourth in Palmer’s Victorian-era mysteries, this mystery includes the threesome detective-group of Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins and Charles Dodgson (better known today as Lewis Carroll). When an Oxford don is found murdered in a London opium den, the three soon-to-be-famous authors seek answers in the hallowed halls of academe.
The Friendship of Women: A Spiritual Tradition, Joan Chittister ’68M.A., Benetvision. In a handsomely illustrated book featuring icons by Marcie Bircher, Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister examines ideals of friendship as illustrated in the lives of eight New Testament women. A former prioress of the Benedictine sisters of Erie, Pennsylvania, Chittister is the author of 21 books and a columnist for the National Catholic Reporter.
Humanity at the Limit; The Impact of the Holocaust Experience on Jews and Christians, edited by Michael A. Signer, Indiana University Press. In a series of essays, Jewish and Christian thinkers confront the continuing impact of the Holocaust. Signer, co-director of the Notre Dame Holocaust Project, and an international collection of professors, including several from Notre Dame, discuss everything from the use of the Holocaust in movies to eugenics and the social uses of science.
The Myth of More: and Other Lifetraps That Sabotage the Happiness You Deserve, Joseph R. Novello, M.D., ’62, Paulist Press. Novello, a practicing psychiatrist, believes that people too often confuse happiness with pleasure. Step-by-step, with examples taken from his own case studies, the author discusses how true happiness comes from “accepting what we have and who we are. It rests ultimately in harmonizing our desires to God’s will.” CNN’s Larry King called this book “essential reading for anyone who desires to truly improve themselves.”