ALUMNI BOOKSHELF
Department alums are published authors. We're happy to show off your work. Send us the title and publication date of your recent book, along with a 40-50 word description or blurb, and we'll let other English alums know about it in future issues of eAnnotations. Email us at annotations@english.wisc.edu.
John Louis DiGaetani, PhD ‘73, editor
McFarland, 2009
This new volume features original essays on Wagner’s non–Ring operas, including a focused study of each individual opera – as text and in performance - as well as an examination of the connections between Wagnerian opera and other arts (dance, filmmaking, fiction). The book includes many photographs from current Metropolitan Opera productions, along with bibliographies and a discography of recommended performances.
Harold Fromm, PhD ‘62
The Nature of Being Human: From Environmentalism to Consciousness
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009
Ecocritic Harold Fromm's challenging exploration of our views of nature – and how we write about it – ties together ecology, evolutionary psychology, and consciousness studies. Fromm shows that our perceived separation from our surroundings is an illusory construct, and argues for a naturalistic vision of creativity, free will, and the literary arts. These essays will change the way we think about our place in the environment.
Ivy Manning, BA ‘94
The Adaptable Feast: Satisfying Meals for the Vegetarians, Vegans and Omnivores at Your Table
Sasquatch Books, November 2009
After marrying a vegetarian, meat-lover Ivy Manning sought the path of harmony in the kitchen. She has developed a diverse and delicious array of recipes from cuisines worldwide that are flexible enough to accommodate everyone at the table. Typical entries in this beautifully illustrated cookbook include elegant Japanese Eggplant and Halibut with Miso Glaze, and a sumptuous Spaghetti Carbonara, for gourmands of all persuasions.
T. A. Sedlak, BA ‘05
This Press Kills Fascists, 2009
Is Ben Starosta an English teacher, a petty criminal, or a revolutionary? Sedlak’s first novel is a fast-paced, politically provocative adventure story. Readers are catapulted into Costa Rica – to the white sand beaches of the western coast, the steamy rainforest lowlands, and the crisp mountain forests. They’ll learn what goes on in the infamous Hotel Del Rey - and the meaning of Pura Vida.
Cody Walker, BA ‘90
Waywiser Press, 2008
Cody Walker's first poetry collection is a work of comic brilliance and devastating irony. From "Abbott and Costello: The Alzheimer's Years" to a series of letters to Whitman from his imagined grandson, this is a wondrous strange book that operates with the precise timing of a great joke, while bracing itself for dissolution and worse.
Michelle Wildgen, BA ‘97
Thomas Dunne Books, 2009
Hard-shelled, career-minded Greta is the newest and least likely member of a sustainable-foods cooperative house in Madison, Wisconsin. A series of summer blackouts and gas shortages soon forces the co-op members out of their insular house and into the larger community. With swift, sly, rich prose, But Not for Long reveals how a few tense days inside a small community show us who we are.
