Winged Creatures
By Roy Freirich’74
St. Martin’s Press
New York, N.Y., 2008
Winged Creatures has barely begun when shots ring out in a fast food restaurant, the event that underpins this novel.
On an ordinary day, a gunman has fired randomly at innocent bystanders before turning the weapon on himself. In the aftermath, several people are dead, but even more are either left in shock at what they’ve witnessed or are suddenly grieving the loss of their loved ones.
Freirich’s debut novel, which is soon to be a motion picture starring Forest Whitaker, Kate Beckinsale, Dakota Fanning, and others, reveals the interconnectedness of people through suffering. It traces the different reactions of a disparate array of characters after they unwittingly share a common tragedy. The story follows six characters as they attempt to move on after this life-changing event and struggle to regain their trust in the ordinary world.
Freirich is a screenwriter and songwriter living in Malibu, Calif. The film is expected to be released in December.
Four-Letter Words And Other Secrets of a Crossword Insider
By Michelle Arnot’75
Penguin Group, Inc.
New York, N.Y., 2008
Practiced and beginning crossword puzzle solvers alike will enjoy veteran crossword puzzle editor Michelle Arnot’s latest work. Her entertaining salute to the popular pastime also centers on practical matters for those addicted to crossword puzzles, such as revealing insider’s secrets to decoding “crosswordese” and other tips and techniques. As the title suggests, some of the most commonly used four-letter names and places employed in puzzles are included, as are helpful tactics for deciphering tricky clues regarding history, language, and cultures, and advanced strategies for tackling difficult puzzles.
The book is filled with the trivia, lore, and lingo of crosswording, and engaging stories about the sometimes eccentric culture of the crossword world.
Arnot has spent more than 25 years creating, editing, and championing crossword puzzles. She has served as an editor and publisher of dozens of national puzzle magazines, most notably for the Herald Tribune and the Kappa Publishing Group. She is also the author of What’s Gnu: History of the Crossword Puzzle (1981) and Crossword Puzzles for Dummies (1998).
Free Ralph! An Evolutionary Fable
By Stephen Wing (Wingeier)’78
Wind Eagle Press
Atlanta, Ga., 2008
Stephen Wing’s first novel looks at evolution from a very different viewpoint: a chimpanzee’s. A young chimp named Kimbu is captured in Africa and taken to a circus in America.
At the same time, Wilbur Trimble of Indiana has gotten lost while on Safari and is rescued by Kimbu’s family. When the band of chimps discovers that Wilbur is able to communicate telepathically like them, they ask him to rescue Kimbu.
This fable reminds us that all species are interconnected, and what happens to one inevitably affects the others. Wing explores the concept of conscious evolution, the notion that with all the power humans possess over the planet, we must take care to treat it and other species ethically.
Wingeier lives in Atlanta. Under the name “Stephen Wing” he has published two books of poetry and dozens of essays.
Chastity Hoar: My Life
By George Evans’56
iUniverse
Lincoln, Neb., 2006
Set in the Massachusetts Bay Colony of pre-revolutionary America, this novel explores the harsh lives that women led under the strict laws of Puritan society. Chastity receives her name because her mother believes a good first name will outweigh a bad last one and grant her a better lot in life.
But as she grows up, Chastity witnesses the sad fates of women who dare to defy convention. As she matures and enters into a stifling marriage, she becomes critical of her society, her religion, and the obstacles that independent women must face in Puritan communities.
Evans dedicates this book to Marion Stocking, professor emerita of English at Beloit, with thanks for the guidance and support she gave him as a student. Evans is a professor emeritus of English from Pacific University in Oregon and a playwright with more than 15 plays produced in Seattle, Portland, and Phoenix. He has written three novels.
Professor Tawney’s Chronoscope:
Psychology and Psychologists at Beloit College
By Lawrence T. White
Beloit College Professor of Psychology
Beloit College Press, 2008
When Larry White came to Beloit in 1984, the newly minted assistant professor and social psychologist never expected to be cleaning out abandoned rooms. But as the most recent hire, he was asked to clear out a storage room and a former lab that had been doubling for years as a closet. As he sorted through stacks of discarded materials, he came face to face with the rich history of Beloit’s psychology department. As if the old books and files were not enough to pique White’s interest, he also discovered a Skinner box and a mysterious remnant from psychology’s past at Beloit: A chronoscope. Thinking about who owned this “elegant and expensive apparatus” helped set him on a path toward investigating the history of psychology at Beloit. He pursued the quest for a dozen years, enlisting the help of College Archivist Fred Burwell’86, a succession of students, and dozens of alumni who responded to questionnaires and requests for interviews. The result is Professor Tawney’s Chronoscope: Psychology and Psychologists at Beloit College, an excerpt of which follows.
The story I tell is, in many ways, the story of a living entity: teaching and research in psychology at a small, liberal arts college in southern Wisconsin. The entity itself has existed for nearly 150 years, even though the individuals who give it life have come and gone with surprising frequency. In telling the story, I depict psychology at Beloit against two shifting backdrops—major events in American history and important developments in American psychology. These backdrops add national color to a local story and help us better understand why psychology at Beloit evolved as it did.
The primary focus of this book is the individuals who formed and shaped the study of psychology at Beloit. Most of these individuals are, in the words of historian Benjamin Harris, forgotten psychologists who made a difference. When I say “forgotten,” I don’t mean that psychologists who teach at small colleges like Beloit are forgotten by their colleagues or by their students. Quite the contrary. Many former students remember little about their academic life in college, but they almost always remember one or two professors. They remember because the professors made a difference—sometimes large, sometimes small, but always memorable.
When I say “forgotten,” I mean that psychologists who teach at small colleges are often forgotten by their field, by the organized discipline of psychology. They’re forgotten because they usually produce neither celebrated texts nor Ph.D. students, and these legacies are the means by which one makes a name for one’s self in academia. Ironically, fame within one’s discipline doesn’t guarantee commensurate recognition within one’s immediate circle. Psychologist Fred McKinney tells the story of how he met Mrs. Edward B. Titchener shortly after her eminent husband’s death in 1927. “She was greatly astonished … that I, as a college student, knew of her husband, and when I said, ‘But he was a great man,’ she answered with great seriousness and frank surprise, ‘Was he?’” Titchener was more famous in psychological circles than he was among his faculty colleagues at Cornell University.
As I tell the story of psychology at Beloit, I sometimes stray from the main path for a short side-trip. These scenic detours usually illustrate how psychology at a small, somewhat isolated college has always been connected—either directly or indirectly—to the study and practice of psychology at large.
Excerpted with permission from the book’s prologue. Professor Tawney’s Chronoscope is available for purchase through Turtle Creek: The Beloit College Bookstore. Call 608-363-2375.
