It’s a novel (and non-fiction) way to connect to UC Davis authors
By Paul Takushi and Claudia Morain
From critically acclaimed novels to nonfiction looks at the Israeli foreign policy, primate parenting and the paranormal, UC Davis authors have published an array of provocative new books in the last year. Here are 10 titles that will smarten up any summer reading list:
The Vagrants by Yuyun Li
Yiyun Li’s first novel, set in China during the Cultural Revolution, has been nothing short of a literary sensation. A reviewer for the London Times Literary Supplement called it “dazzlingly successful.” A Washington Post reviewer said it is “powerful and thoughtful.” The novel “reminds us that there are more things on heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy,” a New York Times Book Review critic wrote in a cover essay. The New Yorker, O the Oprah Magazine and more than two dozen other publications have also hailed the book. Li is an assistant professor of English at UC Davis.
Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11 by Kathryn Olmsted
“Summer” and “fiction” seem to go together — but who needs fiction when reality reads like a thriller? In Real Enemies, UC Davis history professor Kathryn Olmsted reveals that U.S. officials once plotted to kill Cuban President Fidel Castro by planting an exploding seashell in his favorite scuba-diving bay, U.S. officials once discussed blowing up John Glenn’s rocket during his historic spaceflight (as a pretext for triggering war with Cuba), and U.S. government-funded scientists once dropped hallucinogenic drugs into the drinks of unsuspecting Americans in random bars. Real Enemies is Olmsted’s third book about government secrecy and lies.
A Land So Strange: The Epic Journey of Cabeza de Vaca by Andrés Reséndez
The economic downturn may keep us closer to home this summer, but we can still enjoy vicarious adventures — like the one that Andrés Reséndez, an associate professor of history, recounts in A Land So Strange. First published in hardback in 2007 and newly released in paperback this year, it tells the story of 300 conquistadores who set out from Spain in 1528 to colonize what is now Florida. Only four survived. Carolyn See of the Washington Post compared the book to Moby Dick and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.Publishers Weekly called it “a marvelous addition to the corpus of survival and adventure literature.”
Two Billion Cars: Driving Toward Sustainability by Daniel Sperling
If your summer involves driving, toss this title in the trunk. Author Daniel Sperling, founding director of the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies, lays out his vision of the revolutionary new cars, fuels and personal behaviors that we will need to ensure a sustainable future. The book, written with co-author Deborah Gordon and with a foreword by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, has attracted worldwide attention from leaders in government, industry and science. And it earned Sperling a guest gig on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
Breadline USA: The Hidden Scandal of American Hunger and How to Fix It by Sasha Abramsky
Carbon emissions and global warming may get more headlines nowadays, but poverty remains an important problem in the U.S. In Breadline USA, freelance journalist and author Sasha Abramsky reports that more and more Americans are struggling to put food on the table in the face of a worldwide recession and fraying social safety net. Abramsky also discusses solutions. The Sacramento-based writer is lecturer in the UC Davis Writing Program and a fellow at Demos, a think tank in New York City.
Defending the Holy Land: A Critical Analysis of Israel’s Security & Foreign Policy by Zeev Maoz
Another compelling nonfiction title — this one from Zeev Maoz, a professor of political science at UC Davis — offers a revisionist view of Israeli foreign policy. Hailed as scathing and brilliant, Defending the Holy Land analyzes Israel’s troubled history from its inception to the present. Maoz argues that, with the possible exception of the 1948 War of Independence, all of the wars in which Israel has engaged have been wars of choice, not necessity. The book appeared in hardcover in 2006 and was published in paperback in January. A nationally recognized scholar of Mideast politics and an expert on the Israeli security establishment, Maov directs the International Relations Program at UC Davis, serves as a distinguished fellow at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel, and is a past director of academic programs at Tel Aviv University, the University of Haifa and the Israeli Defense Forces’ National Defense College.
Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy
If you’re spending time with kids this summer — yours or others’ — Sarah Blaffer Hrdy’s latest book offers a new way to think about them. Hrdy, an emeritus professor of anthropology at UC Davis, argues that the human capacity for trust and empathy evolved to meet the demands of childrearing, rather than give us an edge in combat. Hrdy notes that a mother gorilla clings jealously to her infant for the first six months of its life, viewing other adults as rivals with potential infanticidal impulses. Most human moms, in contrast, are only too happy to trust a grandmother, sister, aunt, father or friend with a newborn. Raising an utterly dependent human baby — and seeing it through the extended human childhood — would be all but impossible otherwise, the author argues.
Missing: Youth, Citizenship, and Empire after 9/11 by Sunaina Maira
Young South Asian Muslim immigrants are the focus of Sunaina Maira’s new book, Missing. Maira, an associate professor of Asian American studies at UC Davis, explores what was life like for this generation of immigrants in the years immediately following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Maira’s subjects are a group of mostly working-class immigrants at one New England high school. Through their stories, Maira explores such issues as civil rights, globalization and what she argues is an imperial U.S. foreign policy.
The End of Materialism: How Evidence of the Paranormal Is Bringing Science and Spirit Together by Charles Tart
Telepathy, psychic healing, reincarnation and other paranormal phenomena are the focus of Charles Tart’s latest book. Tart, a professor of psychology at UC Davis from 1966 to 1994, outlines 50 years of scientific research into the paranormal — and concludes that humans are much more than simple products of biological and chemical forces. “The truth is that unseen forces … inextricably link us to the spiritual world,” the book jacket asserts. Now a member of the faculty of the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto, Calif., Tart is the author of 13 other books, including On Being Stoned: A Psychological Study of Marijuana Intoxication.
The Servants’ Quarters by Lynn Freed
For escapists, English professor Lynn Freed’s latest novel offers a love story that has absolutely nothing to do with global warming, 9/11 or other 21st-century problems. Fellow novelist Amy Tan, in a book-jacket blurb, hails Freed’s as the voice “of an observant and wickedly truthful Jane Eyre.” Booklist had this to say: “Echoes of Jane Eyre are so strong, the story could almost be seen as a retelling, but the South African setting and World War II time frame give it a fully fresh feeling … a strange and beautifully told story of love and growth.”
On the home page: Vicky Chow dives into one of the provocative new titles published by campus authors this year. (Chen Saechao/UC Davis photo)
Paul Takushi is the trade books buyer at the UC Davis Bookstore. Claudia Morain is a senior public information representative at the UC Davis News Service.
