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Board lander photo
Board lander photo caption

front row left to right: L. Bollinger, N. Barnes, E. Robinson, D. Canedy, G. Collins, J. Díaz, J. Daniszewski; back row left to right: N. Brown, S. Engelberg, K. Boo, A. Marqués, S. Hahn, R. Blau, E. Ramshaw, T. Shelby (absent: E. Alexander, S. Coll; N. Carroll subsequently elected) (Photo by Bruce Gilbert/Columbia University)

Board Lander Sub Title
Eugene Robinson, chair; Dana Canedy, administrator

Suzy Hansen

Publication
Notes on a Foreign Country: An American Abroad in a Post-America World
Citation
A brave and disturbing account of what it means to be an American in the world during the first decades of the 21st century.
Publisher
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Tags: 2018
Categories: General Nonfiction

James Forman Jr.

Citation
An examination of the historical roots of contemporary criminal justice in the U.S., based on vast experience and deep knowledge of the legal system, and its often-devastating consequences for citizens and communities of color.
Tags: 2018
Categories: General Nonfiction
Publisher
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication
Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America

Patricia Smith

Publication
Incendiary Art
Citation
A searing portrait of the violence exacted against the bodies of African-American men in America and the grief of the women who mourn them, infused with a formal virtuosity emblematic of the poet’s aesthetic sophistication and savvy linguistic play.
Publisher
TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press
Tags: 2018
Categories: Poetry

Evie Shockley

Publication
semiautomatic
Citation
A brilliant leap of faith into the echoing abyss of language, part rap, part rant, part slam, part performance art, that leaves the reader unsettled, challenged—and bettered—by the poet’s words.
Publisher
Wesleyan University Press
Tags: 2018
Categories: Poetry

Frank Bidart

Citation
A volume of unyielding ambition and remarkable scope that mixes long dramatic poems with short elliptical lyrics, building on classical mythology and reinventing forms of desires that defy societal norms.
Tags: 2018
Categories: Poetry
Publisher
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication
Half-light: Collected Poems 1965-2016

Kay Redfield Jamison

Publication
Robert Lowell, Setting the River on Fire: A Study of Genius, Mania, and Character
Citation
A superb examination of the life, work and struggles of Robert Lowell, which painstakingly explores the bipolar disorder that plagued the poet and elicits greater understanding of the relationship between mania and creativity.
Publisher
Alfred A. Knopf
Tags: 2018
Categories: Biography

Caroline Fraser

Citation
A deeply researched and elegantly written portrait of Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the Little House on the Prairie series, that describes how Wilder transformed her family’s story of poverty, failure and struggle into an uplifting tale of self-reliance, familial love and perseverance.
Tags: 2018
Categories: Biography
Publisher
Metropolitan Books
Publication
Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder

John A. Farrell

Publication
Richard Nixon: The Life
Citation
A tale that presents Nixon from boyhood to senator, power broker and president, in all of his complexity and contradiction.
Publisher
Doubleday
Tags: 2018
Categories: Biography

Steven J. Ross

Publication
Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews Foiled Nazi Plots Against Hollywood and America
Citation
For a terrifying, revelatory and inspiring masterpiece that probes the flourishing fascism of 1930s America, and the power of popular resistance to combat an alliance of Nazism, the Ku Klux Klan and other homegrown paramilitary groups.
Publisher
Bloomsbury
Tags: 2018
Categories: History

Kim Phillips-Fein

Publication
Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics
Citation
A fine work of historical craftsmanship that revises conventional wisdom about New York’s 1975 fiscal crisis and its aftermath with sensitivity, empathy and clarity.
Publisher
Metropolitan Books
Tags: 2018
Categories: History
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