spr ing 2013 | st. Lawrence Universit y Magazine 5
On Ca mpus
Laurentian
Bookshelf
To check on the availability of any of these books,
inquire at St. Lawrence’s Brewer Bookstore, www.
brewerbookstoretext.com or 315-229-5460, or web-
search the publisher, or go to amazon.com.
By Our Alumni
(
Presented alphabetically by author)
Two alumni are prominent
in
Counterfeit Kids
(
Elder
Road Books, 2012): its
author is
Rod Baird ’73,
and the preface is by St.
Lawrence President William
L. Fox ’75. The book’s
subtitle, “Why (kids) can’t think, and
how to save them,” hints at its content.
Baird, who was a high school English
teacher following a successful business
career, addresses the rampant problems
that leave many students unprepared for
the kind of higher education offered at
St. Lawrence, of which he speaks well.
Lucidly and anecdotally, he pulls no
punches in passing the blame around
to parents and schools, but his last sec-
tion, “(Students’) Salvation,” reveals his
underlying optimism.
“
Counterfeit Kids
is a memoir that dis-
turbs and entertains,” writes Fox. “Rod
Baird puts a silver coin in the pocket
of his readers and suggests we spend it
wisely.”
Rod Baird died in February: A memorial notice
will appear in the next St. Lawrence.
Mark Brand ’01
has self-published
his third book,
Life After Sleep
(
cclap-
center.com/lifeaftersleep, 2012), a sci-
ence fiction novella about an invention
that allows human beings to thrive on
two hours of sleep a night. How does
our behavior, our treatment of each
other, change in such a scenario, where
technology is king? Brand, who lives in
Chicago, hosts and produces a podcast,
“
Breakfast with the Author,” which is
available on iTunes.
Historian
Teri Podnorzki Gay ’81
has written
Strength Without Compro-
mise: Womanly Influence and Political
Identity in Turn-of-the-Twentieth Cen-
tury Rural Upstate New York
(
New York
Press & Graphics, 2009). The title tells
all; coming out on the eve of the 90
th
anniversary of the passage of the 19
th
Amendment, giving women the right to
vote, the book explains how the outlook
and work of women in three counties
in east central New York contributed to
that achievement.
On the border of Utah and Nevada
stands the neglected ruin of Wendover
Army Air Base, which housed the plane
that carried the atomic bomb that de-
stroyed Hiroshima in 1945. In
Wendover:
The Half-Life of History
(
Radius Books,
2011),
photographer
Mark Klett ’74
has
teamed with a writer to explore the experi-
ence of memory in relation to the great
tragedy of America's atomic age.
According to Amazon,
Intelligent Inves-
tors' Contrarian Walk
by
Dean McLel-
lan ’79
(
x libris, 2011) is a “unique
collection of investing wit and wisdom
(
that) provides just the cure for what
ails contemporary investors. At a time
when the global financial picture is any-
thing but funny, blending humor with
time-tested experience may be the single
best way to gain much-needed perspec-
tive on how to approach (the) market."
The Wrath of Shiva
(
Five Star Pub-
lishing, 2012) is the latest Anita Ray
mystery by
Susan Ryan Oleksiw ’67
.
The intrigue is set in South India, where
a missing family member leads relatives
into astrology, religious ritual, disap-
pearing artifacts, divine possession and
exorcism and, according to the book’s
back cover, “the treasures that lie scat-
tered across the Indian landscape and
those who would claim them.”
In Shake the World: It's Not About
Finding a Job, It's About Creating a Life
(
Portfolio Hardcover, 2011),
James
Marshall Reilly ’05
interviews young
outside-the-box entrepreneurs, most of
whom have found a way to combine
philanthropy with for-profit capitalism.
Embracing a shift in generational val-
ues, these young people share a passion
for driving powerful global change while
creating sustainable organizations that
often blur the old boundaries.
The Core of Johnny Appleseed
(
Sweden-
borg Foundation Press, 2012), by
Ray
Silverman ’66
,
is a spiritual biography
that explores not the myth but the per-
son: savvy businessman, compassionate
friend and neighbor, nature-lover, joyful
Christian who was deeply moved by
the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.
Silverman shows us the unity between
John Chapman’s life’s work and outlook
and his religious beliefs.
Ann Harvey Somerhausen ’49
writes of her experiences as the wife
of the Belgian ambassador to Cuba in
1972-73
in
Hostage in Havana
(
privately
published, 2011). One of a handful of
Americans in Cuba then, she observed
Castro in action and had a front-row
seat on the country’s Communist soci-
ety. “Our stay came to an end after my
husband was kidnapped by a dissident
Cuban who wanted to leave Cuba
aboard our sailboat,” she says, suggest-
ing the tone of her memoir.
By Our Faculty
The nature and extent of the rights
owed to Palestinians are explored in
Global Palestine
,
by Professor of Global
Studies
John Collins
(
Columbia
University Press/Hurst, 2012). Collins
argues that the supposedly local struggle
over Palestinian rights reflects four
global processes shaping the conditions
in which we live: colonization, securiti-
zation, acceleration and occupation.
Canadians and the Natural Environ-
ment to the Twenty-First Century
,
by Se-
nior Lecturer in Canadian Studies
Neil
Forkey
(
University of Toronto Press,
2012), “
integrates the ongoing interplay
of humans and the natural world into
national, continental and global con-
texts," according to the publisher.