The Scholar and the Housewife

August 26, 2013, 6:32 am

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In her newly published memoir The Scholar and The Housewife, Boston College alumna Susan (Marren) Whelan recounts the people and events that informed her choices and strengthened her beliefs. Set against the backdrop of Wall Street in the 1980s and ’90s, Whelan, now a legal expert/delegate for the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations, brings her experience as a wife and mother of six, volunteer and lawyer to an honest discussion of the pressures on women, children and families today in America. In her introduction, an open letter to her children, she calls her book the musings of a parent struggling to find truth in the mundane and searching for wisdom and understanding.  For more on Whelan, find her on Twitter  or facebook.

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Invasion: Diaries and Memories of the War in Iraq

October 31, 2013, 7:14 am

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A powerful multimedia exhibition that combines photographs, diary entries and a journalistic account of the War in Iraq is on display at the Boston College Law Library throughout the month of November. Based on the diary of Boston College Law School graduate Timothy McLaughlin, “Invasion: Diaries and Memories of the War in Iraq” has been called “a stinging rebuke of the news media’s early unquestioning coverage as well as a window into the nature of war”  by the New York Times. Marine Lt. McLaughlin, who was at the Pentagon during the 9/11 terrorist attack, commanded a tank during the invasion of Iraq, and his American flag was memorably draped on a statue of Saddam Hussein at Firdos Square. Collaborating with McLaughlin on the exhibit are writer Peter Maass, who was covering the invasion for the New York Times Magazine, and Gary Knight, an award-winning photographer for Newsweek. Heralded for its human view of life on the front line, the exhibit breaks new ground in documentary storytelling, and displays an innovative grid of 36 pages from McLaughlin’s diaries along with Knight’s images and Maass’ stories. McLaughlin, Knight and Maass  will come to the Law School for a panel discussion and reception on Nov. 5 at 6:30 p.m. More from Boston College Chronicle

Leaving Russia

November 18, 2013, 6:44 am

≫ Next: more on Leaving Russia

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Maxim D. Shrayer, professor of Russian, English, and Jewish Studies, has published a powerful new memoir: Leaving Russia: A Jewish Story.  In the first English-language, autobiographical and nonfictional account of growing up Jewish in the former USSR—of refuseniks and the Jewish exodus from Russia—Shrayer poignantly conveys the triumphs and humiliations of a Soviet childhood and expresses the dreams and fears of his family, which never lost hope for acceptance and a better life. A book launch for Leaving Russia will be held on Thursday, December 12 at 7 p.m. at the Brookline Booksmith. More in a  news release from  the Office of News & Public Affairs. Read an expert of Leaving Russia starting on page 41 of Baltic Worlds.

more on Leaving Russia

December 16, 2013, 6:33 am

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Leaving Russia: A Jewish Story, the new memoir from Professor of Russian and English Maxim D. Shrayer, “poignantly captures [the] double life of [a] refusenik,” according to a review in the Jewish Journal. An excerpt was published by The Forward, and Shrayer discussed the work in a Q&A with the Russian-Jewish newsletter, The Soviet Samovar.

Honors for Shrayer

January 23, 2014, 6:34 am

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Congratulations to Maxim D. Shrayer whose book, Leaving Russia: A Jewish Story (Syracuse University Press), was named a finalist for a 2013 National Jewish Book Award in the category of Modern Jewish Thought and Experience. Now in its 63rd year, the National Jewish Book Awards is the longest-running North American awards program in the field of Jewish literature. Established to recognize outstanding books of Jewish interest in various categories, it has earned its place as one of the nation’s premiere literary honors.

Girls like us

April 7, 2014, 6:33 am

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Author Rachel Lloyd will present “Girls Like Us: The Commercial Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking of Girls in the US” on Apr. 8 at 4 p.m. in McGuinn Auditorium. Lloyd is the founder and CEO of Girls Educational and Mentoring Services (GEMS), and author of the memoir, Girls Like Us: Fighting for a World Where Girls Are Not for Sale. Lloyd’s presentation will be followed by a Q&A and book signing. Sponsors: Women’s and Gender Studies Program, Women’s Resource Center, Office of Health Promotion, Sociology Department, REACT and VSA.

Elizabeth Smart

April 8, 2014, 6:30 am

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Elizabeth Smart, who wrote about her traumatic abduction and nine months of captivity in her best-selling memoir My Story (St. Martin’s Press, 2013), will speak at Boston College on Apr. 10 at 7 p.m. in McGuinn Auditorium. Smart’s testimony helped to convict her captors and she has gone on to become an advocate and public speaker. As president of the Elizabeth Smart Foundation, she works to prevent crimes against children and to improve child abduction and recovery programs and legislation. Smart and other abduction survivors worked with the Department of Justice to create a survivors guide, “You’re Not Alone: The Journey From Abduction to Empowerment,” to encourage children who have gone through similar experiences to not give up and to know that there is life after tragic events. Sponsors: Women’s Resource Center, Office of Health Promotion, Science Club For Girls, R.E.A.C.T, FISTS, Sharps, To Write Love On Her Arms, I Am That Girl, Winston Center for Leadership and Ethics, UGBC & SWSG.

Herzlich has “What It Takes”

May 29, 2014, 7:15 am

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Super Bowl champion and former Boston College football star Mark Herzlich has written (with Isaac Eger) What It Takes: Fighting For My Life and My Love of the Game (NAL/Penguin, 2014), a new book that tells his story from his childhood to his cancer fight to his dream come true of playing professional football. His dream was put into serious jeopardy when he was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare bone cancer, while playing for the BC Eagles. Doctors put his odds of survival as low as fifteen percent—and no one thought he would be able to run, much less play, again. But, Herzlich  returned to the game of football. Told with candor and raw emotion, Herzlich’s story is for anyone who has ever fought to beat the odds, for anyone who has ever been told that what they are about to attempt is next to impossible. Giants Head Coach Tom Coughlin provides the forward for the book.  Read an excerpt published in the NY Post. Follow Herzlich on Twitter or Facebook for news about his book tour and upcoming book signings. He will be signing books at Boston College May 31 at 10:30 a.m. in Yawkey Center, Murray Room.

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Review of Golinkin’s forthcoming book

August 5, 2014, 6:27 am

≫ Next: Escape from the Soviet Union

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Coming this fall is a memoir by Boston College alumnus Lev Golinkin titled A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka (Doubleday, 2014). Golinkin writes about his Jewish family fleeing the Soviet Union in the waning years of the Cold War, with only the vague promise of help awaiting in Vienna. Years later, Golinkin would return to Austria and Eastern Europe to track down the strangers who made his escape possible and say thank you. According to a review in Publishers Weekly, “Golinkin has created a deeply moving account of fear and hope.”

Escape from the Soviet Union

October 29, 2014, 6:34 am

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Boston College alumnus Lev Golinkin has published A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka (Doubleday, 2014), about his Jewish family fleeing the Soviet Union in the waning years of the Cold War, with only 10 suitcases, six hundred dollars, and the vague promise of help awaiting in Vienna. Years later, Golinkin would return to Austria and Eastern Europe to track down the strangers who made his escape possible and say thank you. According to the publisher, Golinkin’s debut is a thrilling tale of escape and survival, a deeply personal look at the life of a Jewish child caught in the last gasp of the Soviet Union, and a provocative investigation into the power of hatred and the search for belonging. Kirkus Reviews calls Golinkin’s memoir “a mordantly affecting chronicle of a journey to discover that ‘you can’t have a future if you don’t have a past.'”

“Genius” in the house

February 6, 2015, 6:38 am

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MacArthur “Genius Grant” winner Alison Bechdel will give a talk at 7 p.m. on Feb. 11 in Gasson Hall, room 100 under the sponsorship of the Lowell Humanities Series. Bechdel is a cartoonist best known for her comic strip “Dykes To Watch Out For,” which was self-syndicated from 1983 to 2008. Her memoir, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, was named a Time magazine Best Book of the year, a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award and was adapted into an award-winning musical that opened Off-Broadway in 2013.  Her newest memoir is Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama. Bechdel is also the Marsh Professor at Large at the University of Vermont. NPR interview

Healing Himalayas

March 17, 2015, 6:38 am

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Author Stephen Alter will read from his new memoir, Becoming a Mountain: Himalayan Journeys in Search of the Sacred and the Sublime (Arcade Publishing, 2015), on Mar. 19 at 5:30 p.m. in Stokes Hall, Room 195S. Alter was raised by American missionary parents in the hill station of Mussoorie, in the foothills of the Himalayas, where he and his wife, Ameeta, now live. Their idyllic existence was brutally interrupted when four armed intruders invaded their house and viciously attacked them, leaving them for dead. Becoming a Mountain is Alter’s account of a series of treks he took in the high Himalayas following his convalescence—to prove that he had healed mentally as well as physically and to re-knit his connection to his homeland. Alter is the author of 15 other works of fiction and nonfiction. He is founding director of the Mussoorie Writers’ Mountain Festival. Sponsor: English Department.

Book review: Golinkin’s memoir

April 6, 2015, 6:45 am

≫ Next: Postcards from Paris

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A Commonweal magazine review of A Backpack, A Bear and Eight Crates of Vodka (Doubleday, 2014) by Boston College alumnus Lev Golinkin draws comparisons to another memoir about a Jewish family fleeing the Soviet Union —Waiting for America by Boston College Professor Maxim D. Shrayer. Called a “gripping account of a family’s flight from tyranny,” Golinkin’s memoir “delves into the experience of everyday life under totalitarianism, the effects of official and cultural anti-Semitism, and the difficulties of growing up as a refugee with a past you would rather forget.” Commonweal magazine review

Postcards from Paris

June 30, 2015, 6:30 am

≫ Next: A boyhood remembered

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In Bettyville (Viking, 2015), magazine and book editor George Hodgman, travels from New York City to Paris, but readers should not expect a glamorous travelogue. The destination is Paris, Missouri, and Hodgman returns to his childhood home and cares for his mother who is living with dementia. Hodgman’s memoir, a New York Times bestseller, is a bittersweet story about a mother and a son. Sharing a home once again, they grapple with regrets and resentments while finding humor, grace and respect in the everyday life of this new chapter of their relationship.  Hodgman, who earned a master’s degree from Boston College, has been an editor at Simon and Schuster, Vanity Fair and Houghton Mifflin. Listen to an interview with Hodgman on NPR’s “Fresh Air.” | More from the New York Times. Last week, Paramount Television announced that it is in development to adapt the book into a half-hour dramedy series.

A boyhood remembered

July 7, 2015, 6:38 am

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In his memoir, Kaufman’s Hill (Bancroft Press, 2015), author John C. Hampsey recalls his boyhood in Pittsburgh during the 1960s, before the counterculture revolution takes hold. Hampsey’s world is a mix of exhilarating freedom — because of absent parents, teachers, and priests — and imminent dangers. His middle-class Catholic neighborhood is dominated by bullies who often terrify him. He befriends the enigmatic, erratic, but charismatic Taddy Keegan. Hampsey focuses on uncovering the mystery of Taddy. Hampsey, who graduated from Boston College with a doctorate in English, is a professor at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. His stories and essays have been published in The Gettysburg Review, The Midwest Quarterly, Antioch Review, The Alaska Quarterly, The Boston Globe, Arizona Quarterly, European Romantic Review, Witness, Colby Quarterly, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and McNeese Review.

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Writing & sports

August 13, 2015, 6:38 am

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≪ Previous: A boyhood remembered

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Boston College alumnus Bob Ryan has been called the “quintessential American sportswriter.” After decades as a writer/columnist for the Boston Globe, Ryan has published the bestseller Scribe: My Life in Sports (Bloomsbury, 2014). Part memoir and part Boston sports history, Scribe recounts Ryan’s childhood, memorable people and moments in sports–especially the Celtics, as well as the changing way sports is covered by the media. In addition to the Globe, Ryan is known for his work on ESPN. Ryan is the author/co-author of more than 10 other books, including Celtics Pride and When Boston Won the World Series. Boston College student Mike Kotsopoulos recently interviewed Ryan for the Vineyard Gazette. 

Caring for women in regions affected by war

November 16, 2015, 12:00 pm

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≪ Previous: Writing & sports

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Nurse-midwife Linda Robinson, a Boston College alumna whose work has taken her across the globe, will present “Nurse-Midwifery Care to Women in Areas Affected by War: Addressing Global Public Health,” on Nov. 18 at 7 p.m. in Gasson 210. Robinson has volunteered for the Peace Corps and Doctors Without Borders. Her memoir, Sunday Morning, Shamwana: A Midwife’s Letters from the Field (Pine Knoll Press LLC, 2012), recounts her assignment in a remote village in Democratic Republic of Congo deeply affected by a decade of war and famine. At once heart-­wrenching and humorous, joyful and filled with grief, her riveting narrative allows readers to encounter the realities of childbirth and survival in a time of war. Robinson shares her own horror, frustration and small victories while questioning the limits of human strength, the role of international aid and the meaning of her place in the world. Sponsors: Connell School of Nursing, Medical Humanities, and BC Public Health Sequence.

Waiting for America in Italian

January 14, 2016, 6:38 am

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Two chapters from BC Professor of Russian, English, and Jewish Studies Maxim D. Shrayer‘s memoir of emigration, Waiting for America, have appeared in Italian translation in a special issue of the Italian magazine eSamizdat. In Waiting for America, Shrayer writes of leaving Moscow with his family to head to a new life in America.

 

A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka

January 22, 2016, 6:40 am

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Alumnus Lev Golinkin will discuss his memoir, A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka, at BC on January 27 at 7 p.m. in Gasson Hall, room 100.  Golinkin came to the US as a child refugee from the Soviet Union in 1990. His op-eds and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe and Salon, among other outlets. Sponsor: Lowell Humanities Series, with funding from the Gerson Family Lecture Fund, established by John A. and Jean N. Gerson, P’14.

Book review: Leaving Russia

February 24, 2016, 7:41 am

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In a book review for Leaving Russia: A Jewish Story, Boston Bibliophile calls Professor of Russian, English and Jewish Studies Maxim Shrayer‘s memoir “a searing portrait both of Soviet life as the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse and the very daunting struggles of Jewish refuseniks to carve out a life while they waited to leave.”  Read more about Shrayer’s book in this 11/18/13 BC Bookmarks post.