21 new books from UVA faculty and alumni for end of ’21

From Civil War history to young adult novels, this selection of new books from University of Virginia faculty and alumni covers a wide range of topics and should appeal to a variety of readers.

See below for 21 titles that have been released since the end of the summer, including poetry and fiction, business advice and technology. They add to UVA Today’s previous list in June which is inspired by books published mostly during the first semester.

• Christophe Ali, Associate Professor of Media Studies, “Farm Fresh Broadband: The Politics of Rural Connectivity”

Ali is currently a frequent spokesperson in major media, responding to the need to expand internet access, especially in rural areas. The book analyzes rural broadband policy in the United States, asking why millions of rural Americans don’t have broadband access and why the federal government and major providers aren’t doing more to connect the unconnected.

• Derrick P. Alridge, professor of education in the School of Education and Human Development, and co-authors Cornelius L. Bynum and James B. Stewart, editors, “The Black Intellectual Tradition: African American Thought in the 20th Century”

This volume presents essays on the diverse thought behind the struggle for racial justice, as developed by African-American artists and intellectuals; performers or protest activists; institutions and organizations; and educators and religious leaders. By including the perspectives of women and men in the United States and the African diaspora, the essays seek to explore the full landscape of the black intellectual tradition.

• David baldacci, 1986 law school alumnus, “Mercy”, the last novel in this series.

FBI Agent Atlee Pine’s heartbreaking search for his long-lost sister Mercy reaches a boiling point in this dazzling thriller.

• Michelle coles, 2002 alumna, “Black Is the Ink”

This young adult novel tells the story of a 16-year-old teenager who leaves Washington, DC, to spend the summer on his family’s farm in Mississippi and meets a ghostly ancestor from the Reconstruction Age.

• Katie Couric, student of 1979, “Going There”

For over 40 years, Katie Couric has been an iconic presence in the media world. In this memoir, she reveals what went on behind the scenes in her sometimes tumultuous personal and professional life – a story she has never shared, until now. About the medium she loves, she said, “TV can put you in a box; the flat screen may flatten out. On television, you are larger than life, but also smaller. That’s not the whole story, and it’s not all me. The book is. “

• Stephen cushman, Robert C. Taylor Professor of English, “The Generals’ Civil War: What Their Memoirs Can Tell Us Today”

Cushman views the memoirs of Civil War generals as both historical and literary works, revealing how vital they remain to understanding the interplay of memory, imagination and the writing of history. American, especially the current conflicts over the history and meanings of the Civil War.

• Daniel Graham, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, “Ethical Hacking: Hands-On Intro to Breaking In”

A crash course in modern hacking techniques, “Ethical Hacking” is already being used to prepare the next generation of offensive security experts. In its many hands-on labs, readers can explore the crucial skills of any aspiring penetration tester, security researcher, or malware analyst.

• Caroline E. Janney, John L. Nau III Professor of American Civil War History and Director of the John L. Nau III Center for Civil War History, “Ends of War: The Unfinished Fight of Lee’s Army After Appomattox”

In this new story of the aftermath of Appomattox, Janney reveals that Lee’s surrender was less an end than the beginning of a period marked by military and political uncertainty, legal and logistical confusion, and continued outbursts of violence. Ultimately, what unfolds is the messy origin story of the lost cause, laying the groundwork for the rebellion’s provocative resilience in the years since.

• Andrew D. Kaufman, associate professor and lecturer in the department of Slavic languages ​​and literatures, “The player’s wife: a true story of love, risk and the woman who saved Dostoyevsky”

“The Gambler’s Wife” offers a fresh and captivating portrait of Anna Snitkina, who became Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s first reader and trusted confidante, then his wife and finally his business leader. She reversed her husband’s free fall and paved the way for two of the most remarkable careers in Russian literature – not just her husband’s, but her own as well. Kaufman’s book offers a welcome new assessment of an indomitable woman whose legacy has been almost lost to literary history.

• Jennifer Lawless, Lenore Reeves and George Spicer, Professor of Politics and Chairman of the Policy Department, and Danny Hayes, “News Hole: The Demise of Local Journalism and Political Engagement”

Drawing on a detailed analysis of 15 years of reporting in more than 200 local newspapers, as well as election reports, polls and interviews with journalists, this study shows that the disappearance of local journalism played a role. key in the decline of civic engagement.

• Michel lenox, professor of business administration at the Darden School of Business at AVU, and Rebecca Duff, senior research associate at Darden’s Batten Institute, “The Decarbonization Imperative: Transforming the Global Economy by 2050”

Lenox and Duff suggest that only with significant innovation and disruption in all major industrial sectors – transport, energy, industry, buildings and architecture – will we be able to achieve the goal of ‘decarbonising’ the global economy by 2050. The book is a follow-up to Lenox Can Business Save the Earth? Innovate our path to sustainability.

• Amber McBride, speaker in English, “Me (Moth)”

McBride describes his book as “a novel in verse about self-discovery. “Me (Moth)” has a touch of Hoodoo, a little magic and a lot of heart. Nominated for a National Book Award, “Me (Moth)” has received accolades and other accolades, including being named one of the top 10 books for young adults by @bookpage.

• Thorpe Moeckel, alumnus of 2002, MFA in poetic writing, “True as True Can Be”

This novel for young adults explores the lifestyles of rural mountain families that remain linked to traditional ways of life, such as raising pigs, poultry, squirrel hunting and the use of local plants for medicine, between others. The winter holiday season, global warming, and the ways in which misunderstandings and prejudices can damage relationships between friends and between generations are also themes of the novel.

• Peter Norton, Associate Professor of History in the Engineering and Society Department of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, “Autonorama: The Illusory Promise of High-Tech Driving”

Norton argues that driverless cars cannot be the safe, sustainable and inclusive “mobility solutions” that tech companies and automakers promise us. The sense of sales behind the driverless future prevents us from investing in better ways to get around than we can implement now. Unlike autonomous vehicles, these alternatives are inexpensive, safe, sustainable and inclusive.

• Lauren Oakey, alumnus of 1999, “Waiting for Adeline”

In this book, a young girl struggles with the language and her family’s journey to connect with her. It’s based on her family’s experience, but the author wrote it to connect with the speech-language pathology community and to spark discussions about children who struggle this way or process language differently.

• Abigail Palko, director of the Maxine Platzer Lynn Women’s Center, and Andrea O’Reilly, editors, “Mostrous Mothers: Troubling Tropes”

“When we force motherhood to endure the terrors of what it means to be human, we inflict trauma on those who motherhood,” the editors write. The contributors to this collection explore and question a multitude of interdisciplinary ideas and representations of bad mothering, revealing why we turn to them and arguing that maybe we shouldn’t.

• Marlon B. Ross, English teacher, “Sissy Insurgency: A Racial Anatomy of Unfit Manliness”

Ross focuses on the idea of ​​the “sissy,” or man considered effeminate, to rethink the way Americans have thought about and treated manhood and childhood from the 1880s to the present day. He reconsiders several black leaders, intellectuals, musicians and athletes in the context of the opposite of manhood, including Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, James Baldwin, Little Richard and Wilt Chamberlain.

• Henri skerritt, curator of the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal art collection, and Fred Myers, editors, “Irrititja Kuwarri Tjungu (Past & Present Together): Fifty years of artists Papunya Tula »

More than a catalog, this book contains original essays and contributions from a range of artists, collectors and academics.

• Lisa Russ Spaar, English teacher, “Madrigalia: New and Selected Poems”

This career-spanning volume depicts Spaar’s exquisite obsessions: spiritual hunger, pleasures of sound, bodily decomposition. Whether it is about writing about the erotic or the divine, about anorexia or insomnia, about fairy tales or about literary history, Spaar’s writing is undoubtedly his, a treasure. music and magic like nothing else in contemporary poetry.

• Fernando Valverde, assistant professor of Spanish, “America”, poems, with translations by Carolyn Forché

A sadly lyrical, politically sharp book with a holistic view of American roots, dysfunctions and ideals – as from above, but also from within – it is a book that deconstructs the legacy of empire. From the Mississippi River to Fulton Avenue, from slavery to ‘lone wolf’ shooters, Valverde cries, but does not back down from all that is lost in greed and a culture of violence, painting an urgent picture of ‘thirst. of America / a smirk to death.

• Liz Keller Whitehurst, alumnus, master in English, “Messenger”

Whitehurst launched “Messenger” as a serial podcast in 2020. Now in press, the first novel tells the story of a journalist in her twenties, Alana Peterson, who believes she has found her great luck when ‘she meets Messenger, a mysterious old woman who gives life – exchanging messages to seemingly random people all over New York City.