Our roundup of noteworthy publications by Wesleyan alumni, faculty members, and parents.

WENDY LUSTBADER ’76

What’s Worth Knowing

(Tarcher/Putnam, 2001)

As a young social work student, Wendy Lustbader was given a challenging assignment: to record the life stories of residents of a nursing home so the staff could learn more about each person living there. She found that listening to what the older people had to say “opened up a world of unexpected richness.” Today she is a nationally known speaker and commentator on aging issues as well as an affiliate assistant professor at the University of Washington’s School of Social Work.

Lustbader has spent most of her work life with people in their 70s and older. In this new book, she assembles the best of what she has learned from older people, with firstperson accounts from more than 100 individuals, who share their thoughts and advice on love, friendship, spirituality, marriage, work, illness, regret, good conduct, and the passage of time. Along the way, the reader encounters fascinating characters such as Giuseppe Maestriami, who cherishes his time carefully tending to his tomato plants, which “isn’t so different from raising children,” or Edna Harris, who doesn’t want to feel “like an old lady,” and takes part in a 34–mile hike in New Zealand. What’s Worth Knowing is full of characters whose testaments you’ll want to read more than once.

–David Low ’76

SUZANNE BERNE ’82

A Crime In The Neighborhood

(Henry Holt, 2000)

ROBERT J. CALVIN ’56

Sales Management (McGraw–Hill, 2001)

DONNA MAY AND ALAN CHIEN ’52

Eyes of Sophia: A Dream Come True

(Trafford Publishing, 2000)

THE REV. GARY COMSTOCK, PROTESTANT CHAPLAIN AND VISITING ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY AT WESLEYAN

A Whosoever Church: Welcoming Lesbians and Gay Men into African American Congregations

(Westminster John Knox Press, 2001)

JONATHAN P. EPSTEIN ’99

Breathing Sin’s Grace

(1st Books Library, 2000).

LAURA FRASER ’82

An Italian Affair

(Pantheon Press, 2001)

LAWRENCE G. GREEN ’74

Managing Partner 101: A Guide to Successful Law Firm Leadership

(American Bar Association, 2001)

JULES DAVID PROWN AND KENNETH HALTMAN ’80, editors

American Artifacts: Essays in Material Culture

(Michigan State University Press, 2000)

GERALD HOLTON ’41 and Stephen G. Brush

Physics, The Human Adventure: From Copernicus to Einstein and Beyond

(Rutgers University Press, 2001)

MATTEO MOLINARI AND JIM KAMM ’92

The Horror Movie Survival Guide

(Berkeley Publishing Group, 2001)

BRAD KESSLER ’86

Lick Creek

(Scribner, 2001)

LORNE LADNER ’89, editor

The Wheel of Great Compassion: The Practice of the Prayer Wheel in Tibetan Buddhism

(Wisdom Publications, 2000)

Also, co–authored with ALEX CAMPBELL

Bridges of Compassion: Insights and Interventions in Developmental Disabilities

(Jason Aronson, Inc., 1999)

ANNA McCARTHY ’88

Ambient Television: Visual Culture and Public Space

(Duke University Press, 2001)

JOEL OSTROW ’87

Comparing Post– Soviet Legislatures

(Ohio State University Press, 2000)

FRANKLIN D. REEVE, WESLEYAN PROFESSOR OF LETTERS

Robert Frost in Russia

(Zephyr Press, 2001)

ROBERT CHADWELL WILLIAMS ’60

Ruling Russian Eurasia: Khans, Clans, and Tsars

(Krieger Publishing Company, 2000)

JAN WILLIS, PROFESSOR OF RELIGION

Dreaming Me: An African– American Woman’s Spiritual Journey

(Riverhead Books, 2001)

WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY PRESS

JOHN CAGE

Anarchy

“That government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.” This quote from Henry David Thoreau’s “Essay on Civil Disobedience” is one of 30 quotations from which John Cage created Anarchy, a book–length lecture comprising 20 mesostic poems. Now widely available for the first time, Anarchy marks the culmination of Cage’s work as a poet, composer, and as a thinker about contemporary society.

John Cage (1912?1992) was one of the seminal figures of the avant–garde in the United States.