In Review

Books

Forever: Poems

In his sixth collection of poetry, James Longenbach, the Joseph Henry Gilmore Professor of English at Rochester, reflects on living with cancer—“a life lived with the knowledge of its end.” (W.W. Norton)

Excuse Me While I Disappear: Stories

Joanna Scott, the Roswell Smith Burrows Professor of English at Rochester, presents her third collection of stories. (Little, Brown and Company)

Playing in the Shadows: Fictions of Race and Blackness in Postwar Japanese Literature

William Bridges, an associate professor of Japanese at Rochester, examines the influence of African American literature and jazz on Japanese writers following the Allied Occupation of Japan. (University of Michigan)

From Hierarchy to Ethnicity: The Politics of Caste in Twentieth-Century India

Alexander Lee, an associate professor of political science at Rochester, examines the political roots and consequences of shifting notions of caste in 20th-century India. (Cambridge University Press)

A Grammar of Gyeli

Drawing on 19 months of fieldwork, Nadine Grimm—an assistant professor of linguistics and the director of the Language Documentation and Description Program at Rochester—offers a grammatical description of the Ngòló variety of Gyeli, an endangered Bantu language spoken among hunter-gatherers in southern Cameroon. (Language Science Press)

The Routledge Handbook of Japanese Cinema

Joanne Bernardi, a professor of Japanese and of film and media studies at Rochester, coedits an anthology of Japanese cinema scholarship. The book is arranged thematically and addresses the entire span of Japanese cinema, from its origins to the emergence of gaming, surveillance video, and other new media platforms of the 21st century. (Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group)

Hyam Plutzik: 32 Poems/32 Poemas

Poetry by Hyam Plutzik—a three-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize who taught in Rochester’s English department from 1945 until his death in 1962—is presented in its original English along with translations into the Spanish by 14 poets and translators under the aegis of editor George Henson, an assistant professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. (Suburbano Ediciones)

Gaddiments

Drummer Steve Gadd ’68E presents his first instructional book, a series of “rudimental passages” inspired by Gadd’s time in several Rochester-area drum and bugle corps.

Enriched Meanings: Natural Language Semantics with Category Theory

Ash Asudeh, a professor of linguistics and director of the Center for Language Sciences at Rochester, coauthors an introduction to a novel approach to natural language interpretation. (Oxford University Press)

Flying High: Ed’s Words of Wisdom from the Real World

University Life Trustee Ed Colodny ’48 tells his life story, from his beginnings as the son of a grocer in Burlington, Vermont; to his years as the CEO of what became US Airways; to his service as interim president of the University of Vermont and its medical center. (Bethesda Communications Group)

A Dictionary and Grammatical Sketch of Dagaare

Scott Grimm, an associate professor of linguistics and the director of the Quantitative Semantics Lab at Rochester, coauthors a dictionary of the Dagaare language of the Dagaaba people in Ghana and Burkina Faso. The dictionary is intended as a resource both for linguists and for Dagaare speakers. (Language Science Press)

The Witch Demands a Retraction: Fairy Tale Reboots for Adults

Humorist Melissa Balmain, an adjunct instructor in the English department at Rochester and editor of the journal Light, presents a collection of “adult fairy tales” written as light verse, including “The Peeved Piper,” “Not So Snow White,” and others. The book is illustrated by Ron Barrett, illustrator of the classic children’s book Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. (Humorist Books)

Deaf Players in Major League Baseball: A History, 1883 to the Present

Rebecca Rourke Edwards ’97 (PhD), a professor of history at Rochester Institute of Technology, tells the little-known stories of the deaf players who “developed a distinctive approach, bringing visual acuity and sign language” to the highest ranks of professional baseball. (McFarland)

Letters to Men of Letters

Diane Charney ’68 writes to the authors she admires, both living and dead, including Kafka, Proust, Nabokov, and Leonard Cohen. Charney taught French and served as an English writing tutor at Yale University. (Ology Books)

The Essential MD-PhD Guide

Mark Eisenberg ’85M (MD), director of the MD-PhD program at McGill University in Montréal, coedits a guide to becoming a physician-scientist, offering insights from students, recent graduates, and practicing physician-scientists. (McGraw-Hill)

False Wisdom

Gary Merrill ’74 (PhD), a former philosophy professor at Loyola University Chicago, addresses such questions as: What is pseudo-philosophy? How is it different from genuine philosophy? How can we identify pseudo-philosophy when we encounter it? (Bowker)

The Right Price: A Value-Based Prescription for Drug Costs

Coauthor Dan Ollendorf ’86, a director at the Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies at Tufts Medical Center, offers an overview of the American pharmaceutical market and a critique of drug pricing practices. (Oxford University Press)

Unlike Anything That Ever Floated: The Monitor and Virginia and the Battle of Hampton Roads

Dwight Hughes ’76 (MA) explores the first engagement between ironclad steam warships—a naval, industrial, technological, and social revolution during the Civil War. Hughes is a retired lieutenant commander in the Navy and a contributing writer at the Emerging Civil War blog. (Savas Beatie)

Hospital Capacity Management: Insights and Strategies

Robbin Dick ’88M (Res) coauthors a guide to the processes and procedures that patients encounter in emergency rooms and hospitals—and explains how to improve the system. (Routledge)

Topics in Jazz Bass Vol 2: Soloing
Danny Ziemann ’12E, ’19E (MM) offers a book for bassists to “step into the foreground and solo with freedom and authentic self-expression.” (Low Down Publishing)

Recordings

Aquarelles

The Eastman School of Music faculty trio of flutist Bonita Boyd, cellist Steven Doane, and pianist Barry Snyder ’66E, ’68E (MM) perform four classics from the repertoire. (Bridge Records)

Dreams of a New Day: Songs by Black Composers

Baritone Will Liverman and pianist Paul Sánchez ’09E (MM), ’13E (DMA) perform selections by Black composers from the early 20th century to the present. (Cedille)

Love the Color of Your Butterfly

Soprano Janinah Burnett ’02E (MM) fuses jazz and opera. (Clazz Records)

Glass and Bach in Dresden

Mark Steinbach ’90E (DMA), performs music of Philip Glass and J.S. Bach on the 1755 Silbermann organ at the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Dresden, Germany. Steinbach is the university organist and instrument curator and a senior lecturer in music at Brown University. (Orange Mountain)

Mozart: Complete Piano Sonatas

Kristian Bezuidenhout ’01E, ’04E (MM) presents a nine-CD box set of Mozart’s complete keyboard sonatas. (Harmonia Mundi)

YAZZ Band: New Normal

Saxophonist, composer, and arranger Greg Yasinitsky ’95E (DMA) features original compositions newly scored for “little big band”—four saxophones, two trumpets, trombone, and rhythm section. (Origin Records)

Sandburg Songs

Composer Matthew Schreibeis ’03E, an assistant professor of composition at Hong Kong Baptist University, presents a song cycle based on Carl Sandburg’s Chicago Poems, along with chamber works. The Zohn Collective, including pianist Daniel Pesca ’05E, ’16 (DMA), violinist Hanna Hurwitz ’08E, ’16E (DMA), and guitarist Dieter Hennings ’15E (DMA), performs on the recording. (Albany Records)

Luminous

Pianist Siu Hei Lee ’11E (MM) presents her debut album, with soprano Kirsten Ashley Wiest. (Centaur)

Dedications

Pianist and composer Dave Flippo ’82E (MM) performs original compositions as well as jazz arrangements of works by Radiohead, Amy Winehouse, and Stevie Wonder. (Oppilf Records)

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Books & Recordings is a compilation of recent work by University alumni, faculty, and staff. For inclusion in an upcoming issue, send the work’s title, publisher, author, or performer, a brief description, and a high-resolution cover image, to Books & Recordings, Rochester Review, 22 Wallis Hall, Box 270044, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627-0044; or by email to rochrev (at) rochester (dot) edu.