Ron Gonen, together with pals Ran Efraim and Johnny Attias, ran a multi-million dollar drug distribution and contract murder syndicate that rose to prominence in Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan during the 1980s. Calling themselves the "Israeli Mafia," Gonen and his pals led one of the most brutal gangs ever to operate in New York City. The gang made the three richer than they had ever dreamed, but brought on troubles they never expected. In Blood & Volume: Inside New York's Israeli Mafia, author Dave Copeland gives an exclusive and never-before revealed look into one of the most successful Israeli gangs ever to operate on American soil. While the book gives readers an intimate portrait of Gonen, Efraim, and Attias, the book focuses most deeply on the life and crimes of Ron Gonen. A charismatic rouge, Gonen lived life in the fast lane and eventually spiraled out of control. Blood & Volume is filled with paranoid mobsters, clever scams, deep betrayals, and the struggles Gonen faced as he tried to find redemption and do the right thing by his young daughter and his family. Readers will see firsthand the crimes that could have propelled Gonen and his gang to the top of the New York underworld--if he hadn't agreed to cooperate with federal law enforcement officials.

Dave Copeland ’96 is the first journalist to gain inside access to this brutal gang of Israeli ex-pats. For more info visit bloodandvolume.com.

Before the days of TV, DVDs, and video games, there was the circus. When it came to town, businesses and schools would shut down. Folks would gather round, for there, right in front of their eyes, was drama, action, and intrigue. There was the grace ofthe bareback rider, the daring of the acrobat, the strangeness of the snake lady, and the delight of the dancing pigs.

Vintage-style circus posters capture the weird and the wonderful while fascinating sidebars reveal historical truths behind America’s circuses. What was it like when the circus came to town? This book, illustrated in rich oils, gives us a ringside seat.

Carlyn (Cerniglia) Beccia ’95 is an author and illustrator. Her work can be seen at carlynbeccia.com.

Before his motorcycle accident, Travis saw himself becoming a pro football player. Now, paralyzed from the nipple down, he says, "At times it's a pain in the ass-literally and figuratively. But it allows me to not be as threatening to some people [the way I was when] I was still an athlete. Because a lot of times male interaction is done on the basis of pissing contests: I'm bigger, I'm tougher, I'm stronger, I'm smarter. When you're in a chair, they don't look at you like that." At the same time, Travis complains that many people are uncomfortable interacting with him because of his disability. "I would rather you make a mistake and deal with me than not deal with me at all." Meghan is a high-level quadriplegic, living alone, who uses a power wheelchair and requires daily attendant care. She laments, "There are so many people who think we're asexual, we're not pretty, and we're creeps and weirdoes." To dispel this myth, she envisions a fashion show of women in wheelchairs parading down a runway. Meghan has been involved in a number of sexual relationships since sustaining her injury. While she doesn't think her disability has diminished her sexual pleasure, she feels that it has affected her sexual performance: "Well, you can't move it. You can't, like, bump and grind." In 32 unusually frank in-depth interviews like these, the men and women in this book freely discuss their sex lives, their beliefs about God, how they want others to treat them, and whether they want to walk again. In each chapter the author presents their complex voices and comprehensive research about different facets of spinal cord injury (SCI).

Wheeling and Dealing explores the extent to which people with spinal cord injury locate their challenges in their physical impairments or in the social environment. Some disagree with those disability activists who focus almost exclusively on the latter, but the author examines this issue in depth.

Topics include:

• Physical health from degrees of loss of function to problems like pressure sores, temperature regulation, and bladder control.
• The stages of psychological adjustment and rehabilitation.
• Obstacles to sexual intimacy, treatment of erectile dysfunction, and new sources of sexual pleasure and emotional intimacy.
• Religion and spirituality.
• Social and political beliefs, with those with SCI weighing in on everything from welfare services to embryonic stem cell research.
• Dating, marriage, and parenting.
• Friendship networks and social supports; concerns about transportation and accessibility; stigma.
• Education, employment, and economic consequences.

This book is the recipient of the 2004 Norman L. and Roselea J. Goldberg Prize from Vanderbilt University Press for the best project in the area of medicine.

Esther Wilder ’91 lives in the Bronx with her husband, Sam, and their daughter, Naomi.

A glimpse into the mind of a laid-back yet stressed-out, insecure, sleep-starved, TV-obsessed, news-junkie, Generation X parent navigating the labyrinth of modern parenthood with three young children, including a set of twins. From critiquing fashionistas who try to convince the pregnant public to buy maternity thongs and discussing whether at-home moms have sold out their feminist sisters, to tackling topics such as how to have a sex life while three kids are pounding on their parents' locked bedroom door, how to look cool while driving a mini-van (a clue: you can't) and what happens when a toddler eats trash, O'Brien's collection of 76 columns illustrates how parents are living their lives in the real American suburbs, not in the white picket fenced world portrayed in fuzzy, honey-hued greeting card ads.

Meredith O'Brien-Weiss ’91 is an adjunct faculty member in the journalism department at UMass Amherst.

A book of poems that is the winner of the Starting Gate Award.

Anne Johnson Mullin ’91G is retired from Idaho State University and lives in New Harbor, Maine.

Interested in the nexus between sport, gender, and language, Sport, Rhetoric, and Gender deconstructs the role of rhetoric in the multi-billion dollar popular cultural/infotainment business. Wide-ranging, its 21 chapters, from contributors representing a number of different disciplines and athletic interests, examine sport vis-à-vis the language surrounding and incorporated by it in the world arena. Edited by Linda K. Fuller, it consists of these divisions:

1. Sport language per se;
2. Historical perspectives;
3. Print media representations;
4. Broadcast media representations;
5. Visual media representations; and
6. Classic case studies.

Linda K. Fuller ’84G is a communications professor at Worcester State College.

Lynn, in a blink-of-the-eye event, loses the person dearest in the world to her—her husband. This tragedy starts Lynn out on both a spiritual search, in which she delves into meditation and Eastern religion, and a path of self-destruction. Things start to go better for Lynn, however, when, as a way of looking outside of herself, she volunteers at a suicide-prevention hotline and begins to develop a relationship with a caller. Or do they? Numbering Stars is an elegiac love story, an exploration of life and meaning, and a suspenseful read rolled into one. It is ultimately about a woman who is struggling with faith under the onus of loss-who keeps trying and failing and trying again.

Charlotte Hebert ’82 is a writer living in Northboro, Massachusetts, with her husband, Tom Nelson ’81.

In this nuanced revisionist history of modern American poetry, John Lowney investigates the Depression era’s impact on late modernist American poetry from the socioeconomic crisis of the 1930s through the emergence of the new social movements of the 1960s. Informed by an ongoing scholarly reconsideration of 1930s American culture and concentrating on Left writers whose historical consciousness was profoundly shaped by the Depression, World War II, and the Cold War, Lowney articulates the Left’s challenges to national collective memory and redefines the importance of late modernism in American literary history.

The late modernist writers Lowney studies most closely—Muriel Rukeyser, Elizabeth Bishop, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Thomas McGrath, and George Oppen—are not all customarily associated with the 1930s, nor are they commonly seen as literary peers. By examining these late modernist writers comparatively, Lowney foregrounds differences of gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, and social class and region while emphasizing how each writer developed poetic forms that responded to the cultural politics and socioaesthetic debates of the 1930s. In so doing he calls into question the boundaries that have limited the scholarly dialogue about modern poetry.

No other study of American poetry has considered the particular gathering of careers that Lowney considers. As poets whose collective historical consciousness was profoundly shaped by the turmoil of the Depression and war years and the Cold War’s repression or rewriting of history, their diverse talents represent a distinct generational impact on U.S. and international literary history.

John Lowney ’79, ’86G is an associate professor of English at St. John's University in New York.

Is it a career or just a series of lame jobs? It's all here--from doing time as a miniature golf lackey, to going bust in the internet boom. Beaupre recounts skirmishes with bad bosses, crazy co-workers, sex, drugs and polyester uniforms as he delineates his quest to find and hang onto a job he can live with.

Steve Lafler ’79 is an illustrator whose work can be seen at stevelafler.net.

Everyone says braces are worth it (and they are) but that's little consolation for the days when your teeth hurt so much you wonder if you can eat a slice of bread. Whether you've just had elastics inserted as temporary spacers, the orthodontist has completely covered your teeth with cemented brackets, or the technician has tightened your wires again, the last thing you need is food that makes the situation even harder to handle.

The Braces Cookbook: Recipes You (and Your Orthodontist) Will Love

solves this problem by offering dozens of recipes for dishes that are easy on tender teeth yet don't reduce the ingredients to mush. From Very Tender Vegetables to Definitely Deserved Desserts, each section includes simple directions, substitution specials and orthodontic trivia. Soothing Tips for Those First Few Days will help ease the toughest hours of getting started, Prepared Foods that Work Well simplifies packing lunches and fixing quick meals, and Dining-Out is Do-able gives suggestions for enjoying restaurant outings and party events. In fact, every aspect of this book helps children, teens, parents and adults readily adapt to life with braces.

Did you just get your wires adjusted? Treat yourself to a Be-Nice-to-Me Beverage. Is this the third pair of elastics you're supposed to wear? It's time for a Mellow Main Meal. Are you craving "forbidden fruit" (like caramel apples?) Check out the recipe for the Caramel Apple Dip Substitution Special.

Remember, you're not alone. From Chelsea Clinton and Prince Harry to Cameron Diaz and Emma Roberts, more people of all ages are making the most of their smiles and showing them to the world. Wear school colors in alternating elastics. Have your retainer made in purple neon glitter. And indulge yourself in these truly delicious yet braces-friendly delights.

Pam (Robinson) Waterman ’77 is an engineer and author living in Mesa, Arizona.

Rossiya: Voices from the Brezhnev Era is a poignant sketch of the Soviet Union prior to its disastrous invasion of Afghanistan. It is also a bittersweet tale of an American coming to terms with his Russian roots.

One summer in the late 1970s, author Alex Shishin travels through the USSR on the Rossiya, the Trans-Siberian train that runs between Vladivostok and Moscow and that twice carries him across the vastness of Siberia. Fluent in Russian, the young Russian American converses with countless citizens from every strata of Soviet society. An extended side trip to Poland brings him in contact with a simmering revolution. Everywhere he goes, Shishin meets ordinary people imbued with a generosity that transcends all political systems and times.

Alexander Shishin ’76G is a professor at Kobe Women's University.