Faculty Brat


Book Description

At the most prestigious preparatory schools in the United States, the children of educators are referred to as “faculty brats.” Though generally lacking the privilege of the institution’s wealthy students, faculty brats enjoy access to the school’s extensive grounds and facilities and are part of everyday campus life. Dominic Bucca’s art teacher mother married his music teacher stepfather twice, and the young boy wondered if the union might be twice as strong as a result. Instead, this faculty brat quickly discovered that the marriage was twice as flawed. When Dominic was nine years old, his stepfather began sexually abusing him in the faculty housing attached to the boys’ dorm his parents oversaw. Years later, he found escape by reaching out to his biological father, and learned to split his life between two realities. For nearly twenty-five years, Bucca hid the secret of his stepfather’s abuse from his mother and sisters. When he decided to tell, hoping to prevent his stepfather from continuing to teach young boys, Bucca discovered the limits of both his family and the legal system.




Slingshot


Book Description

"This is a book that needed to be written. Eric Cantor’s defeat was not only shocking but it runs against everything we teach in our election courses. By extracting the lessons from Cantor’s defeat, Slingshot helps to inform our more general understanding of campaigns & elections." -Professor Kirby Goidel, Texas A&M University Incumbents don′t lose. So how did nationally prominent House Majority Leader Eric Cantor lose a primary battle to college professor David Brat, an unknown political rookie? In Slingshot: The Defeat of Eric Cantor, authors Lauren Cohen Bell, David Elliot Meyer and Ronald Keith Gaddie take advantage of exceptional behind-the-scenes access to the Brat campaign to explain the challenger’s victory. They examine the essential need for elected officials to maintain strong support in their home districts and just how Cantor’s focus on climbing the party ranks in Washington contributed to his loss. They also show how local "rules of the game" —particularly voter mobilization in this case—affect elections, and they explore the continuing impact of the Tea Party and its role in the factionalism of current Southern politics.




American Higher Education


Book Description

The latest book in the Core Concepts in Higher Education series brings to life issues of governance, organization, teaching and learning, student life, faculty, finances, college sports, public policy, fundraising and innovations in higher education today. Written by renowned author John R. Thelin, each chapter bridges research, theory and practice and discusses a range of institutions – including the often overlooked for-profits, community colleges and minority serving institutions. In the book’s second edition, Thelin analyzes growing trends in American higher education over the last five years, shedding light on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. He covers reconsideration of the rights of student-athletes, provides fresh analysis of the brick-and-mortar campus, and includes a new chapter exploring school admissions, recruitment and retention. Rich end-of-chapter "Additional Readings" and "Questions for Discussion" help engage students in critical thinking. A blend of stories and analysis, this book challenges present and future higher education practitioners to be informed and active participants, capable of improving their institutions.




The Last Chairlift


Book Description

John Irving’s fifteenth novel is “powerfully cinematic” (The Washington Post) and “eminently readable” (The Boston Globe). The Last Chairlift is part ghost story, part love story, spanning eight decades of sexual politics. In Aspen, Colorado, in 1941, Rachel Brewster is a slalom skier at the National Downhill and Slalom Championships. Little Ray, as she is called, finishes nowhere near the podium, but she manages to get pregnant. Back home, in New England, Little Ray becomes a ski instructor. Her son, Adam, grows up in a family that defies conventions and evades questions concerning the eventful past. Years later, looking for answers, he will go to Aspen. In the Hotel Jerome, where he was conceived, Adam will meet some ghosts; in The Last Chairlift, they aren’t the first or last ghosts he sees. John Irving has written some of the most acclaimed books of our time—among them, The World According to Garp and The Cider House Rules. A visionary voice on the subject of sexual tolerance, Irving is a bard of alternative families. In the “generously intertextual” (The New York Times) The Last Chairlift, readers will once more be in his thrall.




Dictionary of American Slang


Book Description

The fourth edition of this authoritative reference offers clear definitions for the slang words and idioms used in everyday American conversation. First published in 1960, this newly updated edition of Dictionary of American Slang traces the language of today back to its American roots. With thousands of entries ranging from the widely accepted to the taboo and obscure, slang words are explained in terms of definition, usage, and historical etymology. As language continues to evolve at an ever-increasing rate, Dictionary of American Slang offers an essential guide to the terms that are here to stay—as well as those that might otherwise be forgotten.




Steering by Starlight


Book Description

Outlines a step-by-step process for reconnecting with one's life purpose, drawing on research in psychiatry and neurology while sharing inspirational tips for changing one's perspective, overcoming roadblocks, and experiencing greater fulfillment.




Prelude to Hemlock


Book Description

Prelude to Hemlock is a black comedy that follows the fortunes of the young narrator, Jeffrey Edwards. A contrarian by nature and libertine by choice, Jeff is charming, caustic, fiercely intelligent...and fiercely self-destructive. Jeff writes lyrics for his sister Kim, a gifted rock musician, and as Kim's musical star rises, the siblings become entangled in events both comic and appalling. Along the way, Jeff contends with his pill-popping mother; his breezy and scheming father; and his dope-smoking friend, Tall Patty. As these characters intertwine and collide, Kim's career approaches the bright brink of success--even as she and Jeff approach the darkest brink of disaster. Jeff understands that what the righteous really dread is a world with no sinners, but he and Kim cannot quite grasp the cost of truly living as they please. This book is also in print. For an author bio, photo, and a sample read visit bosonbooks.com.




Something To Kill For


Book Description

Ann Arbor, Michigan-home of a famous football team, a university full of experts and egomaniacs, and a lot of aging hippies, mellowing radicals, and art-school eccentrics. It is also the home of Anneke Haagen, a computer consultant who spends one spring morning on the garage-sale circuit. For Anneke, it's a day of scrounging through other people's musty junk for the Big Score-until she stumbles on an antiques dealer who has been brutally attacked, and whose last words are as baffling as they are politically incorrect. When the suspicion of murder falls on her friend, Ellen Nakamura, Anneke must prove her innocence. That means not only working alongside a hunky, ex-professional football player turned detective who she's starting to fall for, but searching for the one garage-sale find that wasn't just a Big Score, it was to die for...




The World According to Garp


Book Description

Winner of the National Book Award “Nothing in contemporary fiction matches it.” —The New Republic “Wonderful . . . full of energy and art, at once funny and horrifying and heartbreaking.” —Washington Post Powerful and political, with unforgettable characters and timeless themes, The World According to Garp is John Irving’s breakout novel. The precursor of Irving’s later protest novels, it is the story of Jenny, an unmarried nurse who becomes a single mom and a feminist leader, beloved but polarizing—and of her son, Garp, less beloved, but no less polarizing. From the tragicomic tone of its first sentence to its mordantly funny last line—“we are all terminal cases”—The World According to Garp maintains a breakneck pace. The subject of sexual hatred and violence—of intolerance of sexual minorities, and sexual differences—runs through the book, as relevant now as ever. Available in more than forty countries—with more than ten million copies in print—Garp is a comedy with forebodings of doom.




Race at Predominantly White Independent Schools


Book Description

In Race at Predominantly White Independent Schools, Bonnie E. French investigates the management of “diversity” at predominantly White, independent schools in the northeastern United States. By conducting in-depth interviews with diversity policy developers and implementers within the independent school community, French explores current efforts toward racial equity and the relationship between racial equity and diversity. Data collected from interviews are supplemented with numerical data from the National Association of Independent Schools that chronicles enrollment and employment of people of color, as well as with content analysis of published materials from the independent school community. Using Critical Race Theory to frame this critique, French argues that the diversity movement, by not seeking to challenge the current state of inequality in a meaningful way, only serves to strengthen the segregated and unequal status quo.