THE FACE TO FACE BOOK: Why Real Relationships Rule in a Digital Marketplace By Ed Keller C’77 ASC’79 and Brad Fay (Free Press, 2012, $26.) Even in today’s digital world, 90 percent of recommendations about products and brands that lead to consumer action still occur offline. Drawing on their proprietary market research, Keller (CEO of the Keller Fay Group and past president of Word of Mouth Marketing Association) and Fay show how to tap that powerful in-person social-networking marketing tool. BUY THIS BOOK
EXCEPTIONAL VIOLENCE: Embodied Citizenship in Transnational Jamaica By Deborah A. Thomas (Duke University Press, 2011, $23.95.) Thomas, a professor of anthropology at Penn, picks apart the sources of violence in postcolonial Jamaica. Rather than an inherent cultural characteristic, she argues, the violent behavior results from a “structural history of colonialism and underdevelopment” and is fueled by such contemporary phenomena as Jamaican national media and pop culture, status symbols, and practices of punishment. BUY THIS BOOK
CODE NAME VERITY By Elizabeth Wein G’89 Gr’94 (Hyperion, 2012, $16.99.) After a British spy plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France in late 1943, “Verity,” one of the two young women aboard, is arrested by the Gestapo. Given a choice between a grisly execution and writing an extended confession, she chooses the latter—which slowly reveals the details of her past and her horrific imprisonment as well as her friendship with the pilot, Maddie, even as she holds back as many secrets as she can. BUY THIS BOOK
THE END OF ILLNESS by David B. Agus, MD M’91 (Free Press, 2011, $26.) Doctors tend to focus on individual body parts or systems when addressing health issues. Agus, a leading cancer researcher and head of the USC Norris Westside Cancer Center, explains how treating the body as a whole, complex system can lead to better health and more birthdays. Discussing common topics like sleep, exercise, and medication, he outlines the simplicity of avoiding disease and living healthfully. BUY THIS BOOK
BY SWORD AND PLOW: France and the Conquest of Algeria By Jennifer E. Sessions Gr’05 (Cornell University Press, 2011, $49.95.) The French conquest and settlement of Algeria used colorful propaganda as well as military force to legitimize new forms of rule and recruit settlers. Sessions, an associate professor of history at the University of Iowa, carefully reconstructs the political culture of mid-19th-century France and shows how its colonial policies affected life on both sides of the Mediterranean. BUY THIS BOOK
THE THINGS WE CHERISHED By Pam Jenoff L’01 (Doubleday, 20011, $24.95.) Roger Dykmans, a wealthy financier and brother of a Holocaust hero, has been accused of World War II-era war crimes—including the betrayal of his brother, Hans, and the Jews Hans had tried to save. Charlotte Gold and Jack Warrington, two fiercely independent lawyers, are working to prove the charges false, even as they find themselves falling for each other. Jenoff’s previous novels include The Kommandant’s Girl and The Diplomat’s Wife. BUY THIS BOOK
