The Great Pyramid at Giza: Tomb of Wonders and Pompeii: City of Ashes
By Sarah Pitt Kaplan’00
Children’s Press
Danbury, Conn., 2005
These children’s books—two in a series titled “Digging Up the Past”—are primers for readers ages 9 to 12. At fewer than 50 pages each, they are written in clear prose suitable for grade-schoolers who may have little prior knowledge of history and archaeology. Each book is chock full of illustrations, photos, and maps that illuminate the text and draw readers in. Useful additions include a glossary of new words, reference guides to additional reading materials, and a list of other resources.
Kaplan, who majored in art history at Beloit, later earned a master’s degree from the Institute of Egyptian Art & Archaeology at The University of Memphis. She has visited the ruins at Pompeii and Herculaneum.
Potscrubber Lullabies:
Poems by Eric McHenry
By Eric McHenry’94
The Waywiser Press
London, England, 2006
Beloit makes its way into this debut effort by McHenry in the opening lines of its first poem, “Rebuilding Year.” From there, he takes the reader on a journey through people, places, music, and observations. Expressing his delight with this “fabulous book,” poet Alan Shapiro commended the author as “a new and significant voice in American poetry.”
McHenry is the associate editor of Columns magazine, the alumni publication of the University of Washington, and a contributing editor for the Poetry Foundation. His poems have been published in American Literary Review, The New Republic, and Slate.
Beloit — A Great Sports Town! A Century of Recollections, Records, and Rivalries
By Daniel Green’56
Self-Published
Beloit, Wis., 2006
Green has compiled a volume detailing the city of Beloit’s storied sports history, covering such perennial favorites as baseball, basketball, football, and golf, and other notable endeavors such as horse-shoe pitching, billiards, and yachting and sailing.
Drawing extensively on archival material, Green outlines the contributions of Beloit College athletes and local and regional teams and individual competitors. Historical notes, statistics, and photographs round out this compendium. Beloit trivia buffs may be interested to read about Edward Strong Merrill (class of 1902), a “legendary Buccaneer hero” who was judged by one trainer as a superior athlete to his more famous contemporary, Jim Thorpe; or about Michael Paesler’68, a Beloit College swim team veteran who traversed the English Channel in 1970.
Great Philanthropic Mistakes
By Martin Morse Wooster’80
Hudson Institute, Inc.
Washington, D.C., 2006
This report examines eight philanthropic programs that failed to meet their mandates in spite of having an abundance of financial and other kinds of support. A publication of The Bradley Center for Philanthropy & Civic Renewal, it includes eight case studies of programs such as The War on Cancer (1944-76), School Decentralization (1967-68), and The MacArthur Fellows Program (1981-present).
After outlining the development and history of each program, Wooster summarizes where and how they missed the mark in delivering on promises and expectations. An author and a senior fellow at the Capital Research Center, Wooster is also a contributing editor for Philanthropy.
The Universe is Otherwise: External Gravitation
By Paul Schroeder’64
BookSurge, LLC
Charleston, S.C., 2006
Schroeder, a mathematics and economics major at Beloit, developed an interest in physics while reading astronomy articles from the physics library. His book offers a new perspective on existing theories of cosmology and suggests that a different paradigm might better support current data and commonly accepted assumptions about physics.
The author contends that dominant theories of gravitation are inadequate in explaining how the force of gravity affects patterning and other applied principles of cosmic order. “External gravitation, which I introduce, provides more options with bending gravitation paths, and thus acts in more ways,” he writes.
