BAD MONKEYS  by Matt Ruff '87 (Harper- Collins). "We don't fight crime, we fight evil," says Jane Charlotte, the heroine of Ruff's latest novel. Under arrest for murder, she reveals to a police psychiatrist her membership in a shadowy organization and the super-secret division she works for, the "Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons," an assassination squad nicknamed "Bad Monkeys" that takes out the worst of the worst. But as Jane Charlotte tells her story, is she describing the truth or spinning a web of delusions? The author of Fool on the Hill and the Tiptree Award-winning Set This House in Order sustains the suspense with a set of unexpected comic reversals and absurd twists that keep the reader guessing.

THE ECONOMIC NATURALIST by Robert H. Frank (Basic Books).Why do brides spend so much money on dresses they wear once, while grooms often rent cheap tuxedos? Why do the keypads on drive-up ATMs have Braille dots? Frank, the Henrietta Johnson Louis Professor of Management at the Johnson School, asks his students to come up with such questions as a way of understanding economics. By using concrete examples drawn from familiar experience, Frank demonstrates how the basic principles of economics are simple and commonsensical. Half the royalties from the book will go to the University's John S. Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines.

GOLFING ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD by Rick Lipsey '89 (Bloomsbury).When Lipsey, a writer for Sports Illustrated and member of the Cornell Alumni Magazine Committee, was asked to be the first golf pro at the Royal Thimphu Golf Club in Bhutan, the experience turned out to be nothing like playing at Pebble Beach. Buddhism's importance in the culture extends even to the rules of golf. Lipsey also witnesses the tensions within the Himalayan kingdom as it makes the transition from a traditional monarchy to a twenty-first-century democracy.

THE FIRST STONE by Judith Kelman '67 (Berkley). Emma Colten, a young artist and mother pregnant with her second child, watches Dr. Malik, the new star cardiologist at New York General, move into her building with his wife and daughter, Adriana, "a ticking, four-foot, fifty-pound bomb." Emma's husband, Sam, a resident, wants to study with Dr. Malik. But the doctor brings secrets with him. Soon Emma worries about the shouting that she hears every night from the apartment above her, and when Malik comes under investigation, Sam's career and Emma's life are in danger.

THE GENERAL AND HIS DAUGHTER by Barbara Gavin Fauntleroy '55 (Fordham University Press). During World War II, Major General James Gavin wrote to his daughter Barbara more than two hundred times while he commanded the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment and then the 82nd Airborne Division. Gavin led his paratroopers through campaigns across Europe, but he always took time to write to Barbara.Whether written on V-mail, confiscated German letterhead, or division stationery, the general's letters convey his private thoughts about his combat duties honestly, and demonstrate the loving bond between father and daughter.

Recently Published | Children's

E IS FOR EXTREME by Brad Herzog '90, illustrated by Melanie Rose (Sleeping Bear Press). The author of the travel book States of Mind and several alphabet books for children creates an alphabet for extreme sports, from adventure race to motocross to zip line.

Recently Published | Fiction

LATER, AT THE BAR by Rebecca Barry '90 (Simon & Schuster). The setting of Rebecca Barry's first book is Lucy's Tavern, a small-town bar in Upstate New York, a place for "people who liked longing more than they did love." This novel in stories sketches the damped-down lives of the bar's regulars. Barry avoids the temptation of Bukowski-style histrionics, choosing instead to depict the heartaches, emotional reticence, and enduring humanity of her characters who seek refuge at the tavern.

A DAY AT THE BEACH by Helen Schulman '83 (Houghton Mifflin). The faltering marriage of the Faltkopfs—Gerhard, a German choreographer, and Suzannah, his former principal dancer—is further tested when they witness the destruction of the twin towers on September 11, 2001. In the aftermath, their long-buried resentments rise to the surface.

MARCH INTO THE ENDLESS MOUNTAINS by Ray Ward '43 (Weldon Publications). During the Revolutionary War, the Susquehanna River marked the western boundary of colonial settlement. Ward follows the stories of the Tory spy Samuel Wallis, Mohawk Chief Joseph Brant, Esther Montour of the Seneca, and Continental and British soldiers as they fight along the frontier in New York and Pennsylvania.

Recently Published | Nonfiction

THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE AND ITS AFTERMATH by Robert Pierce Forbes '80 (University of North Carolina Press). The compromise of 1820 set Missouri's southern border as the northern limit of future slave states and held sectional discord in check for a generation, yet it marked the end of the Era of Good Feeling. Forbes, a lecturer in history at Yale, chronicles the role of President Monroe in cajoling Congress into passing the first Missouri Compromise.

MINE'S BIGGER by David A. Kaplan '78 (HarperCollins). Kaplan, a senior editor for Newsweek, tells the story of the 289-foot-long Maltese Falcon, the largest, most expensive sailboat ever built, and its owner, Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tom Perkins. In addition to bankrolling Genentech, Google, Netscape, and Amazon, Perkins blew the whistle on boardroom spying in the HP case, was the fifth ex-husband of romance novelist Danielle Steel, and was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in a sailing accident in France.

THE FIRST 75 YEARS by Warren D.Allmon (PRI). The director of the Paleontological Research Institution celebrates the organization's seventyfifth anniversary in an overview of its work and history from 1932 to the present and the construction of the Museum of the Earth, including a discussion of its relationship with Cornell.

MARRIED TO A DAUGHTER OF THE LAND by María Raquél Casas, GR '86–87 (University of Nevada Press).Casas, an associate professor of history at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, explores the lives of Spanish-Mexican Californianas who married Euro-American men in the period 1820–1880. Using primary sources in Spanish and English, she reveals the women's roles in the transformation of the two clashing cultures.

ARTSCAPES by James M. Chadwick '48 (ChadwickArtscapes). An award-winning landscape architect, nurseryman, and designer of Plaza Square at the Boston Center for the Arts displays his innovative work in residential landscaping and the importance of creating harmony for plants and people.

BUILDERS OF EMPIRE by Jessica L. Harland- Jacobs '92 (University of North Carolina Press). An assistant professor of history at the University of Florida examines the influence of Freemasonry on British imperialism. Nationalism and capitalism challenged the Masonic Enlightenment ideal of universal brotherhood in the nineteenth century, and the group came to identify itself with the British Empire.

SACRED AND PROFANE edited by Carol Crown and Charles Russell, PhD '72 (University Press of Mississippi). Scholars examine the role of religious vision, history, and social customs on the work of outsider artists in the South.

ILLIBERAL JUSTICE by David Lewis Schaefer '64 (University of Missouri Press). A professor of political science at Holy Cross College critiques John Rawls's writings on political philosophy and legal theory and what he sees as their detrimental effect on jurisprudence.

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF GARDEN FERNS by Sue Olsen '55 (Timber Press). The editor of the Hardy Fern Foundation Quarterly describes nearly 1,000 species of fern, from the tree ferns of New Zealand to the small varieties grown in rock gardens, including several that have recently become commercially available.

BUILDING GENETIC MEDICINE by Shobita Parthasarathy, PhD '03 (MIT Press). The codirector of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy program at the University of Michigan analyzes the development of genetic testing for breast cancer and compares the effect of the new technology on health care in the United States and Great Britain.

THE ENERGY BUS by Jon Gordon '93 (John Wiley & Sons). Gordon, co-founder of the Positive Energy Program, provides ten simple rules for infusing your life and work with the essential ingredients of positive energy.

JUST ONE MORE THING, DOC by Bradford B. Brown, DVM '56 (Tilbury House). Brown recounts his adventures and misadventures from more than twenty years as a country veterinarian in rural Maine, where people often paid for his services in eggs, potatoes, corn, cucumbers, and "just about every ceramic configuration made."

JOEY GREEN'S MEALTIME MAGIC by Joey Green '80, BFA '81 (Rodale).Green continues his mission of finding creative uses for household products. This time he ransacks the pantry and the back of the refrigerator for recipes that veer from pineapple-glazed pork chops to love apple pie made with apples and ketchup.