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Horace Mann School celebrates our many alumni authors in this column, and by showcasing
alumni-written books in the Olshan Lobby, in the School’s Mullady Hall. Please share
news of a new book you or another alum has written. The Alumni House and Development
Office makes every effort to keep up-to-date with books by alumni. Please let us know of any publications
we may have missed by contacting 718-432-3453 or alumni@horacemann.org. If you
would like to purchase any of the books noted here, a portion of the sales will benefit Horace Mann
School when you shop through The General Store on www.horacemann.org.
To All Gentleness, William Carlos Williams,
the Doctor-Poet
By Neil Baldwin ’65
Black Classic Press, 2008
Prof. Neil Baldwin ’65
originally published the
critically-acclaimed To
All Gentleness, William
Carlos Williams, the
Doctor-Poet in 1984.
In April 2008 Black
Classic Press published
a new trade-paperback
edition of the book, in
time for poetry month,
and in commemoration
of Williams’ (HM 1903) 125 th birthday. This
richly-illustrated book (including vintage
photographs from the Williams family archives)
includes an illuminating new preface by
Baldwin, as well as an introduction by William
Eric Williams, MD.
The lasting significance of Williams’ writing
can be understood through Baldwin’s
observation that: “William Carlos Williams
believed that the power of the local landscape
should be harnessed by the poet to drive the
shape and subject-matter of his work; and he
also believed that American speech should
be exploited as the root for our native poetry
to assert itself, free from the constraints of
derivative English tradition.”
The Ghost War
By Alex Berenson ’90
G.P. Putnam’s Sons, February 19, 2008
Having foiled an al-Qaeda plot in The Faithful
Spy, Alex Berenson’s ’90 debut novel,
maverick CIA agent John Wells confronts a
very different threat in The Ghost War—a
pulse-pounding sequel. The Ghost War finds
Agent Wells back in Washington. When the
CIA presents evidence of a surge in Taliban
activity, backed by an unknown foreign power,
it takes little to
convince him to
Afghanistan to
investigate.
With its real-world
threats and authentic
details The Ghost War
is another “timely reminder
of the extremely
precarious way we
live now” wrote The
Washington Post. The New York Times Book
Review praised the book for a “plot (that) moves
quickly, in tight, essayistic paragraphs that
show Berenson’s command of such disparate
worlds as the United States Navy and Chinese
migrant workers… Berenson is also geopolitically
savvy, and maps out how a single crisis
can ripple across several regions.” The Ghost
War proves that this New York Times reporter
has become a master of the spy-thriller.
Small Loans, Big Dreams
By Alex Counts ’84
Wiley, April 4, 2008
The stark reality of
global poverty—that
the poorest half of the
world’s population
owns less than one
percent of its assets,
and that nearly one
billion people subsist
on less than $1 per
day—rarely registers in
the international
media. Western attempts to stem hunger and
poverty are often piecemeal, and lack
permanent solutions. But Muhammad Yunus,
visionary founder of the Grameen Bank,
demonstrated different and more inclusive
ways of approaching the problem. In creating
the Bank he turned the conventional wisdom
of traditional financial institutions on its head,
seeking to work with the impoverished and not
the rich. His approach, known as microfinance,
has revolutionized global antipoverty
efforts. In Small Loans, Big Dreams, author
Alex Counts ’84, who worked with Yunus,
looks at the lives of micro-lending borrowers
from the Grameen Foundation in Bangladesh
and Chicago. Subtitled How Nobel Prize
Winner Muhammad Yunus and Microfinance
Are Changing the World Counts’ book
describes the work that earned his mentor the
Nobel Peace Prize—establishing the Grameen
Bank in Bangladesh in 1976, and traces its
phenomenal impact today, while describing
how this work has been successfully
replicated in the world’s wealthiest country.
The Cambridge Introduction to Robert Frost
By Robert Faggen ’78
Cambridge University Press, 2008
The work of Robert
Frost, one of the most
widely-read American
poets, is deceptively
simple, but reveals its
complexities upon close
reading. In his
Introduction to Robert
Frost Robert Faggen
’78 provides a
comprehensive but
intensive look at the poet’s remarkable oeuvre.
The poetry is discussed in detail in relation to
ancient and modern traditions as well as to
Frost’s particular interests in language and
sound, metaphor, science, religion, and politics.
“The Cambridge Introductions to Literature”
series addresses fundamental issues of literary
studies as leading scholars guide students
through the major issues involved in each
area. In this work on Frost Dr. Faggen, the
Barton Evans and H. Andrea Neves Professor
of Literature at Claremont McKenna College,
and one of the world’s foremost Frost scholars,
looks at the literary traditions that shape
Frost’s use of form and language, while examining
his influence on poets writing today.
The Notebooks of Robert Frost
By Robert Frost (author), Robert Faggen ’78 (Editor)
Belknap Press, January 30, 2007
“A new book containing unpublished work by
America’s most famous poet is a literary
Horace Mann Magazine Fall 2008
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