Rogue River Journal: A Winter Alone
John Daniel, MA ’86
Shoemaker & Hoard, 2005
$26

Daniel spent five months of self-imposed and self-sufficient exile in his beloved Oregon wilderness communing with nature and taking stock of his life. The former Stegner fellow reflects on his younger self coming of age (“or not”) in the late ’60s and early ’70s—from draft dodging and drug abuse to finding his way as an outdoorsman and writer—and on the complexities of his father, a well-known labor activist. Despite the isolation, Daniel writes, “I’m hardly alone here. I invited two ghosts and came here to meet them.”

Neverending Wars: The International Community, Weak States, and the Perpetuation of Civil War
Ann Hironaka, ’89, PhD ’98
Harvard U. Press, 2005
$39.95

When experts ascribe civil wars solely to local issues and people, Hironaka observes, they look to such factors as ethnic hatred to explain why conflicts seem intractable. She argues that international actions—favoring independence for weak states, providing aid misused by tyrants—have played a big role in prolonging civil strife but could hold the key to peace.

The Game Changer: How Hank Luisetti Revolutionized America’s Great Indoor Game
Philip Pallette
Author House, 2005
$17.50

Hank Luisetti, a skinny San Francisco native, played basketball at Stanford from 1935 to 1938, and the nation’s fans and sportswriters were awestruck. Luisetti was fast, tricky, and although he didn’t introduce the one-handed shot as many thought, he did it better than anyone. In one memorable game against Duquesne in Cleveland, he scored 50 points. He was Stanford’s greatest player, and the nation’s best in his time.

The Tricky Part: One Boy’s Fall from Trespass into Grace
Martin Moran, ’82
Beacon Press, 2005
$23.95

This memoir relates years of anguish, and ultimately hard-won healing, following Moran’s molestation at age 12 by a camp counselor, with whom he had a three-year sexual relationship. The storytelling is straightforward and never bitter, even when victim confronts abuser nearly 30 years later. Moran, an actor in New York, wrote an Obie award-winning one-man play on the same subject.

Out of Eden: An Odyssey of Ecological Invasion
Alan Burdick, ’88
Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2005
$25.0

Burdick, a senior editor at Discover magazine, spent time with scientists studying nonnative flora and fauna across the country. He tells astonishing tales of snakes emigrating to Hawaii in airplane wheel wells, and zebra mussels, unknown in North America until the late 1980s, overtaking the Great Lakes, sinking buoys and clogging water systems. But much more research is needed before condemning all newcomers, he cautions.

Responsible Men
Edward Schwarzschild
Algonquin, 2005
$23.95

Charming but shady salesman and divorcé Max Wolinsky is trying to clean up his act. He’s returned to Philadelphia from Florida in hopes of patching relations with his son and father. And a new love interest offers possibilities. But first there’s just one last scam involving a Boy Scout troop with a strangely menacing scoutmaster, and a surprising outcome. The author is a former Stegner fellow.

Hoover the Fishing President: Portrait of the Private Man and His Life Outdoors
Hal Elliott Wert
Stackpole Books, 2005
$29.95

The author, a professor at the Kansas City Art Institute, says history has slighted the nature-loving side of Herbert Hoover, Class of 1895, whose pre-eminence as a fisherman was “just a few notches below Zane Grey and Ernest Hemingway.” Wert thoroughly fills the gap with this biography, complete with photos of the sportsman on rivers from Florida to Oregon.

Envy: A Novel
Kathryn Harrison, ’82
Random House, 2005
$24.95

Psychoanalyst Will Moreland’s marriage is in trouble. His wife has closed herself off to him since the death of their son, and he finds himself obsessed with sexual fantasies about his clients. Tension builds when he meets an old flame at a college reunion, is seduced by a mysterious young woman, and begins to piece together potentially devastating family secrets.

Bananas and Business: The United Fruit Company in Colombia, 1899-2000
Marcelo Bucheli, MA ’98, PhD ’02
NYU Press, 2005
$45

United Fruit has long been vilified as one of the most egregious examples of the all-powerful multinational corporation exploiting a developing country. Using the internal archives of UFCO’s Colombia operations for the first time, the author discovers a more complex story of company decisions being influenced by planters, workers, and local and national governments.