War Hospital: A True Story of Surgery and Survival
Sheri Fink, PhD ’98, MD ’99
PublicAffairs, 2003
$27.50

They’re in their 30s, they are not trained as surgeons, they have insufficient medi-cal supplies, and they’re in a war zone. Nevertheless, for three years, a handful of doctors band together to save lives in Srebrenica, the largest enclave of non-Serbs in eastern Bosnia. Fink uses the story of their work—which comes to an end with the July 1995 massacre of 8,000 mostly Muslim Srebrenicans—to examine medical ethics in wartime. Doctors, she says, should call for military action against genocide.

Transports of Delight: The Ricksha Arts of Bangladesh
Joanna Kirkpatrick, ’51
Indiana U. Press, 2003
$29.95 (CD-ROM)

Some 600,000 rickshaws (rickshas in Bengali) ply the streets of Dhaka, and their flamboyant decorations are works of art. Anthropologist Kirkpatrick has spent years documenting and analyzing this distinctive urban folk genre that ranges from depictions of the Taj Mahal to religious imagery to poster-style renditions of movie stars. The craft is waning, as color photographs displace original paintings, but Kirkpatrick’s 1987 collection of panels and hoods is in The International Folk Art Museum in Santa Fe, N.M.

Inside Intuit: How the Makers of Quicken Beat Microsoft and Revolutionized an Entire Industry
Suzanne Taylor, ’85, MBA ’90, and Kathy Schroeder, MBA ’90
Harvard Business School Press, 2003
$29.95

Intuit was a start-up without venture capital, and for five shaky months in 1985, its four employees worked to exhaustion without pay. Using interviews with the principal players, the authors relate how the financial software company survived, thrived and avoided merger with—and elimination by—Microsoft.

Five Mil
Mike Yachnik, ’79
Xlibris, 2003
$21.99

Who better to devise a crazy story than a psychologist? Drawing on his profession and his house pet, a potbellied pig, the author sends his hero on a quest worthy of Jason and the Argonauts. To claim a $5 million inheritance, he must prove himself in a series of challenges that take him to San Francisco, Iceland, Portugal and New Orleans, pitting his wits and fortitude against a zany cast of characters.

True Blue
Jeffrey Lee, ’81
Delacorte Press, 2003
$14.95

This novel for adolescents explores the pain of not fitting in and the transforming power of friendship. Molly, thrust into a new school at midyear after her father is severely disabled in an accident, gravitates toward Chrys, a mysterious and much-taunted loner. When the two team up for a science project, both come out of their shells and win their peers' respect. In the process, Chrys’s astonishing secret is revealed.

Linda Brown, You Are Not Alone: The Brown v. Board of Education Decision
ed. Joyce Carol Thomas, MA ’67
Hyperion, 2003
$15.99

To mark the 50th anniversary of the ruling against racial segregation in public schools, 10 well-known children's authors, blacks and whites, share pre- and post-integration experiences. Their essays and poems, intended for ages 10 and up, afford a window onto improvements and persistent problems in America’s race relations.

Western Places, American Myths: How We Think About the West
ed. Gary J. Hausladen, ’68
U. of Nevada Press, 2003
$49.95

In this collection of 12 essays, geographers, a historian and a photographer try to figure out why the American West inspires such fascination and so many dreams. From an examination of Western cinema to an account of Mormon settlement to a list of suggested additions to the national park system, the topics are as eclectic as the region itself.

Chalk Dust: A Teacher’s Marks
David Ellison, MA ’88
Heinemann, 2003
$14.95

Veteran middle school teacher and vice-principal Ellison doesn’t minimize the frustrations and heartbreaks of his profession: kids defeated or made defiant by harmful family situations; good programs suspended by budget cuts. But there have been enough successes to keep him going. This book is a collection of his columns from a Bay Area newspaper.

A History of Modern Germany Since 1815
Frank B. Tipton, ’65
UC Press, 2003
$24.95

The author is an associate professor of economic history at the University of Sydney, but he gives the arts and literature equal weight with political, economic and social developments in his comprehensive study of Germany’s evolution. Among his themes: the efforts of successive generations to come to terms with national identity and Germany's place in Europe; the legacy of the Holocaust; and the upheaval of reunification.