LETTERS OF E. B.WHITE,  revised edition by E. B.White '21 (HarperCollins). "Ideally, a book of letters should be published posthumously,"White wrote. "The advantages are obvious: the editor enjoys a free hand, and the author enjoys a perfect hiding place—the grave, where he is impervious to embarrassments and beyond the reach of libel." For a man who claimed to avoid writing letters because "it resembles too closely writing itself, and gives me a headache," he wrote a great many. This new collection expands upon the 1976 edition of White's letters and includes correspondence with Garrison Keillor, Andy Rooney, John Updike (who wrote the introduction), and White's biographer, Cornell English professor Scott Elledge, PhD '41.

AFTER EDEN  by Kirkpatrick Sale '58 (Duke University Press). Sale examines the destructive habits of Homo sapiens from the prehistoric record to our modern era of human dominance. He posits a return to the ecological habits of our ancestor Homo erectus. "[I]n evolutionary terms, what we have developed now as modern civilization has lasted a mere blip in time, and it has had very little real depth of influence on our basic hominid nature. Underneath the veneer is a Stone Age mind and a Stone Age heart, and they may still be our guide today, leading us toward a saner and more harmonic world in which the human is in balance with the rest of nature."

GOOD BREAD IS BACK  by Steven Laurence Kaplan (Duke University Press). Kaplan's passion for good French bread grew out of his enthusiasm for French culture. As the Goldwin Smith professor of history writes, "Bread is located at the crossroads between the material and the symbolic, between economics and culture." He juxtaposes the history of bread during the Old Regime before the Revolution with its place in contemporary France and discusses the work of several Parisian bakers. After decades of decline in the quality of baking, good bread is enjoying a renaissance as artisanal bakers employ ancestral practices.

SCOT ON THE ROCKS  by Brenda Janowitz '95 (Red Dress Ink). Just when Brooke Miller is about to attend her exboyfriend's wedding, her Scottish fiancé breaks up with her. Determined not to go unescorted, she scrambles to save face and find a substitute date in time. Almost by accident, she stumbles upon true love. Janowitz, a Manhattan attorney who teaches creative writing at Mediabistro, proves in her first novel that "chick lit" is more than just throwing together a bunch of bad date and wedding horror stories.

PARK IT! NYC2007  by Margot Tohn '86 (Park It! Guides; www.parkitguides.com). The idea for this book grew out of the author's frustration at being turned away from a parking garage on her way to the theater. If you've ever wondered where to park in Manhattan, this book takes the guesswork out of the hunt. Tohn, a marketing consultant, conducted painstaking research and checked every garage in Manhattan twice. Her guide gives maps, locations, rates, number of spaces, hours of operation, advice on tipping, and payment methods of more than 1,100 parking garages and outdoor lots.

Recently Published | Non-fiction

GOOD KIDS, BAD HABITS  by Jennifer Trachtenberg '89 (Harper Collins). A pediatrician outlines ways for parents to teach their children healthy eating habits, get them to play more than video games, encourage good homework habits, build their self-esteem, and reduce the risk of accidents.

FROM IMMIGRANT TO NATURALIZED CITIZEN  by Catherine Simpson Bueker '96 (LFB Scholarly Publishing). Bueker, a visiting professor of sociology at Emmanuel College, found that immigrants with the least likelihood of naturalization because of country of origin tend to vote in greater numbers than those who have had an easier path to citizenship.

WHY AREN'T MORE WOMEN IN SCIENCE?  edited by Stephen Ceci and Wendy M.Williams (American Psychological Association). Fifteen essays edited by Ceci, a professor of developmental psychology, and Williams, a professor of human development, discuss why fewer women than men pursue careers in science and engineering. As the editors said in an interview for Inside Higher Ed, "The pipeline leading females into mathematically intensive science careers leaks at every step along the way, from elementary school through post-PhD tenure decisions."

TEN DOLLARS IN MY POCKET  by Elizabeth Welt Trahan, MA '53 (Peter Lang). In this sequel to Walking with Ghosts: A Jewish Childhood in Wartime Vienna, Trahan assembles letters and diary entries to document her American education after surviving the Holocaust.

COLORED AMAZONS  by Kali N. Gross '94 (Duke University Press). The director of Africana studies at Drexel University delves into the history of the crimes and imprisonment of black women in Philadelphia between 1880 and 1910, and explains how subsequent reforms strengthened white authority.

OBSERVING AMERICA  by Robert Frankel '80 (University of Wisconsin Press). Frankel examines the commentaries of British visitors who cast a critical eye on American culture and politics from 1890 to 1950, including H. G.Wells, Rudyard Kipling, G. K. Chesterton, Harold Laski, Beatrice Webb, and George Bernard Shaw.

THE SCIENCE OF FALSE MEMORY  by Charles Brainerd and Valerie Reyna (Oxford University Press). Two Cornell professors of human development analyze the psychological and legal ramifications of false memory and examine why some people recall events they never experienced.