LA DOLCE VITA UNIVERSITY: An Unconventional Guide to Italian Culture from A to Z By Carla Gambescia C’77 with Michael Stein (Traveler’s Tales, 2018, $19.99) Writer, restaurateur, and entrepreneur Gambescia offers a treasure trove of information on Italian history, art, cuisine, personalities, and places in 165 mini-essays ideal for browsing. Buy this book
MAKE ME EVEN and I’ll Never Gamble Again By Jerrold Fine W’64 (Rosetta Books, 2018, $24.99) Hedge fundfounder and first-time novelist Fine tells the story of Rogers Stout, a highly intelligent but apathetic high school student who lacks direction—until his gifts for gambling and taste for risk lead to Wharton and Wall Street at a time of rapid change. Buy this book
FROM HEAD SHOPS TO WHOLE FOODS: The Rise and Fall of Activist Entrepreneurs By Joshua Clark Davis C’01 (Columbia University Press, 2017, $35). Davis, an assistant professor of history at the University of Baltimore, investigates the historical roots of the movement for ethical consumption—starting with head shops and Whole Foods in the 1970s—and how conditions have changed over the years as companies have embraced the rhetoric but largely abandoned the mission of liberation and social change. Buy this book
CONJUGAL MISCONDUCT: Defying Marriage Law in the Twentieth-Century United States By William Kuby G’07 Gr’11 (Cambridge University Press, 2018, $49.99) Kuby, an assistant professor of history at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, writes that he was inspired to begin this study of marital arrangements that challenged sexual and marital laws by “my fascination with the personal advertisements in the New York Review of Books, and my realization that those outlandish sources just might lend themselves to meaningful historical research.” Buy this book
DAUGHTER DETOX: Recovering From an Unloving Mother and Reclaiming Your Life By Peg Streep CW’69 (Ile D’Espoir Press, 2017, $16.95) In her 12th book, “unloved daughter” Streep mixes science and her own experience in dealing with anxiety in a self-help book that seeks to aid other women in coping with the negativity a mother might have planted in their still naïve minds and achieving greater peace and happiness. Buy this book
