Oldman's Guide to Outsmarting Wine: 108 Ingenious Shortcuts to Navigate the World of Wine with Confidence and Style
Mark Oldman, '91, JD '98
Penguin, 2004
$18

Billed as the guide for “anyone who wants their wine without the attitude,” Oldman’s handbook offers more than 500 picks in every price range; identifies 15 top producers whose wines are reliable, available and often under $15 a bottle; provides a pronunciation guide and food recommendations; and reveals the personal favorites of some celebrities. The author founded the Stanford Wine Circle in 1990 and has been teaching wine classes ever since.

The Painting
Nina Schuyler, '86
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2004
$23.95

In this debut novel, a painting links vastly different characters living in separate worlds in 1869: Japan during the Meiji Restoration, and France, at war with Prussia. The work of a young Japanese woman ends up in the hands of a wounded soldier in Paris; as their stories unfold, parallel struggles with life and love emerge. For each of them, her art becomes the liberation they have long sought.

The Red Millionaire: A Political Biography of Wally Münzenberg, Moscow's Secret Propoganda Tsar in the West, 1917-1940
Sean McMeekin, '96
Yale U. Press, 2004
$32.50

Using recently opened Russian archives, the author illuminates a Communist tycoon whose financial manipulations and international media empire promoted Moscow’s interests, weakened the non-Communist left, and lent rhetorical ammunition to the Nazis. McMeekin teaches international relations at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey, and is a founding faculty member of its center for Russian studies.

Monsoon Summer
Mitali Perkins, '84
Delacorte, 2004
$15.95

The author is devoted to promoting fiction for young people caught between two cultures. In this first-person story, Jasmine “Jazz” Gardner, very much a California teenager, grudgingly shelves her own summer plans to accompany her mother home to India, where they do volunteer work at an orphanage. In coming to grips with her mother’s roots in a seemingly alien culture, she discovers new strengths in herself.

The Heretic in Darwin's Court: The Life of Alfred Russel Wallace
Ross A. Slotten, '77
Columbia U. Press, 2004
$39.50

Today, Charles Darwin's name is synonymous with evolutionary theory, yet Wallace simultaneously and independently discovered natural selection—and shared credit for it in his lifetime. This biography revives the remarkable work of this world explorer and naturalist, including his unconventional forays into spiritualism, phrenology, environmentalism and extraterrestrial life.

A Sinner of Memory: Essays
Melita Schaum, MA '80
Michigan State U. Press, 2004
$24.95

This memoir contemplates life and death, love and loss against a shifting landscape of sojourns in Europe, Australia, California and upstate New York. Childhood scenes insinuate themselves into the experiences of a woman in her 40s, as she tries to answer the questions, “What is worth holding onto? What, in the end, are we forced to let go?”

Visible Bones: Journeys Across Time in the Columbia River Country
Jack Nisbet, '71
Sasquatch, 2004
$23.95

These essays are anecdotal reflections on the natural history of the Northwest, an interest Nisbet says germinated at Stanford. One of the book’s highlights is his recounting of the sensation caused on campus one Sunday morning in March 1971, when an astonished group of bird-watchers spotted a California condor—only the third sighting of the endangered bird in 30 years.

Sweet Pea at War: A History of USS Portland,
William T. Generous Jr., MA '68, PhD ’71
U. Press of Kentucky, 2003
$29.95

A chance meeting in a coffee shop alerted the author to the untold story of the World War II cruiser whose exploits made it the Navy’s choice for the site of Japan’s surrender. The Portland survived three crucial Pacific battles, weathered more than 80 kamikaze attacks, and rescued some 3,000 sailors from sunken ships.

Mrs. Hoover's Pueblo Walls: The Primitive and the Modern in the Lou Henry Hoover House
Paul V. Turner
Stanford U. Press, 2004
$39.95

Frequently asked about the unusual architecture of the Stanford president's residence, Turner, professor of art and art history, set out to settle its provenance. Presenting a wealth of archival material and illustrations, he concludes that Mrs. Hoover, inspired by indigenous forms, particularly Pueblo structures of New Mexico and Arizona, can justifiably be credited as the architect.