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Award-winner Andrew Klavan writes “Salzberg
is a hell of a writer. He delivers thrills, insight
and plenty of laughs. Swann is a very cool
take on the classic PI.”
The book is about skip tracer Henry
Swann—the quintessentially jaded private eye.
Swann cares little about anything but money,
so when a beautiful Upper East Side woman
shows up in his office and hires him to find
her missing husband, he smiles and takes
the cash. But when this seemingly simple
missing-person case turns into homicide,
Swann finds himself trapped in a complex
web of connections and multiple identities that
take him out of New York City and across two
continents. As Swann struggles to uncover the
truth, he stumbles across deceptions that test
his limits as an investigator and as a man.
Linked/Robins
By Dan Saxon ’56
Xlibris, 2008
“When the moon
speaks an unintelligible
language and the stars
do not know what they
are doing it is time to
move on to another
planet…
“…. Don’t tell me
you’re comfortable
not knowing if you’ve
miscalculated light
years, galaxy distances, or the proximity of
asteroids… what’s another million, million
miles? We haven’t put it all together yet, just
where we are, how high is high, what else is
out there?...”
from “Floating Around” by Dan Saxon ’56
With such evocative ponderings as are
found in the poem “Floating Around” Dan
Saxon ’56 offers in his newest book Linked/
Robins a collection of his poems and writings
on a variety of topics composed during the
1990s through 2003. Saxon has been publishing
poetry since the early 1960s when he
contributed to “Poets at Le Metro.” His poetry
has been published in magazines and anthologies
including East Side Scene, American
Poets 1960-1965, In a Time of Revolution,
and Poems from our Third World. The lines
excerpted here represent only a taste of work
that truly transforms its readers.
Genomes, Browsers and Databases,
Data-Mining Tools for Integrated Genomic
Databases
By Peter Schattner ’65
Cambridge University Press, June 16, 2008
The recent explosive
growth of biological
data has lead to a
rapid increase in the
number of molecular
biology databases.
Held in many different
locations and often
using varying
interfaces and
non-standard data formats, integrating and
comparing data from these multiple databases
can be difficult and time-consuming. In this
book Prof. Peter Schattner ’65, a research
associate in Biomolecular Engineering at the
University of California, Santa Cruz, provides
an overview of the key tools currently available
for large-scale comparisons of gene sequences
and annotations, focusing on the databases
and tools from the University of California,
Santa Cruz (UCSC), Ensembl, and the
National Centre for Biotechnology Information
(NCBI). Genomes, Browsers and Databases
aims to give an appreciation of the methods by
which the browsers and their databases are
constructed, enabling readers to determine
which tool is the most appropriate for their
requirements. Each chapter contains a
summary and exercises to aid understanding
and promote effective use of these important
tools in a book written both for biologists with
limited programming skills, and informaticists
with limited biology experience.
The Real McCain: Why Conservatives Don’t
Trust Him and Why Independents Shouldn’t
By Cliff Schecter ’90
PoliPoint Press, May 1, 2008
The Real McCain: Why Conservatives Don’t
Trust Him and Why Independents Shouldn’t by
Cliff Schecter ’90 is a hard-hitting profile that
explores the gap between the public record of
Senator John McCain and his media image.
Drawing on a range of sources and adding his
unique perspective and humor, Schecter guides
the reader though McCain’s history in this
best-selling book by the Knight-Ridder
columnist, a regular contributor to the
Huffington Post, and a frequent guest on NPR,
CNN, MSNBC, and
other national media
outlets—as well as
someone known for his
incisive humor.
Anti-war Major Paul
Hackett, USMCR
offered this review:
“Cliff Schecter provides
us with some real
‘straight talk’ about
John McCain. Everyone who wants to know
why John McCain won’t give us healthcare but
will keep us fighting endless wars and sell our
personal freedoms to far-right theocrats should
read this book.”
The Perfect Game
By W. William Winokur ’78
Kissena Park Press, August 2008
In the pews of San
Juan Bautista Church,
a ragtag band of street
urchins of Monterrey,
Mexico’s slums try to
escape the dismal
conditions that
surround them. Life
holds anything but
promise for these
children. But The
Perfect Game by W. William Winokur ’78 lets
the kids’ one ray of light shine. After Mass on
Sundays, their priest gathers them around an
old radio to listen to broadcasts of the far-away
Brooklyn Dodgers. The children’s devotion to
baseball, and some chance encounters, inspire
them to form a team and a dream: to wear
actual uniforms and play just one “real game”
in the United States. Based on a true story
The Perfect Game tells how the boys journey
to Texas for the first round of the 1957 Little
League Tournament, crossing the Rio Grande
and walking 12 miles through desert. With
nothing more than three-day visas and barely
any money they assume the game will be their
first and last. But a different destiny awaits.
The story, (the basis for an upcoming movie)
offers a timeless tale of faith and the human
spirit’s ability to overcome all adversity in
pursuit of a dream. $
52 Horace Mann Magazine Fall 2008