EDITOR’S PICKS

EDITOR’S PICKS

alumni books

NORMAN FINE ’55, TH’56

Blind Bombing

Potomac Books

The resonant cavity magnetron—an early radar technology—guided bombers to targets over cloudy Europe during WW II. Fine, a retired electronics engineer, calls it the war’s single most influential invention. He tells the little-known story of its creation at MIT’s Rad Lab and how B-17 navigators, including his uncle, used the super-secret device.

MICHAEL SHNAYERSON ’76

Boom

PublicAffairs Books

A work of art may soon sell for $1 billion, suggests Vanity Fair contributing editor Shnayerson. Flis gossipy history of the contemporary art market takes readers from its threadbare 1940s origins, when a gallery owner was lucky to get $150 for a Pollock action painting, to 2017, when a Saudi emir dropped $450 million on a da Vinci of dubious provenance.

PHYLLIS L. FAGELL ’95

Middle School Matters

De Capo Lifelong Books

“Make mistakes, model self-compassion, and grow alongside your child” is some of the advice offered by Fagell, a psychotherapist and school counselor. F-ler book offers the parents of tweenagers 10 key skills for navigating this awkward time of transition. “Your child wants and needs you now more than ever—even when they say they don’t,” she writes.

ANTHONY RYAN HATCH ’98

Silent Cells

University of Minnesota Press

Prisons and other institutions have increasingly turned to psychotropic drugs—antidepressants, tranquilizers, and antipsychotics—to cut costs and control undesirable behaviors. Hatch, a Wesleyan professor, fears the vast and growing use of such “chemical straightjackets” infringes on the civil rights of prison inmates, soldiers, nursing home residents, and immigrants in detention.

Additional titles and excerpts can be found on the DAM website.