Bill Gifford ’88
Spring Chicken: Stay Young Forever (or Die Trying)
Grand Central Publishing
Sixteenth-century Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León never did find the Fountain of Youth. Instead, a poisoned arrow struck his thigh and took his life. He was only 47.

Many have taken up his quest in hopes of putting an end to aging, and today a veritable industry has sprung up around the search for a way to live longer, whether through drugs, diet, lifestyle, exercise—or even cold showers. Gifford, an Outside magazine correspondent and DAM contributor, embarks on a grand tour of the state of that industry. With a mix of hope, cynicism and self deprecation as he plays guinea pig, Gifford meets up with dozens of anti-aging scientists and laymen, doctors and quacks, controversies and quick fixes. It’s never dull. “We’re bombarded with confusing health news, each study contradicting the next,” Gifford tells DAM, “and everybody seems to be promising to have the secret or the magic pill or diet to cure all our ailments. I see my job as helping my readers cut through the noise and the scams.”

There are many poisoned arrows. And a little bit of promise. Gifford’s cast of characters includes A-Rod, Suzanne Somers, Peruvian mummies, lab rats, a buff septuagenarian named Dr. Life (seriously), athletes in the Senior Games, a guy named Phil Bruno who undergoes a 200-pound weight loss, Dr. Alois Alzheimer and a 57-year-old who insists the key to staying young is taking cold showers. As Gifford submits his body to scientists and explores his family history, he learns not only that we all age differently, but also that every alleged fountain of youth—whether caloric, mental, cellular or medicinal—has a dark or unknown side.

Engaging and informative, Spring Chicken offers two points that cannot be questioned: There’s no panacea for getting older, and the La-Z-Boy is a killer. As Gifford says, the best way to unlock longevity pathways is through exercise, the only proven method of slowing or reversing the aging process. “That’s why I spend most of my procrastination time on my bike,” he says. —Sean Plottner

Bill Price ’72
Your Customer Rules!
Jossey-Bass
Price, who has been involved in customer service for almost 40 years, follows his 2008 book, The Best Service is No Service: How to Liberate Your Customers from Customer Service, Keep Them Happy, and Control Costs, with a guide to interacting with customers in ways that keep them coming back.

Bartholomew Sparrow ’81
The Strategist
PublicAffairs
University of Texas government professor Sparrow offers a comprehensive examination of the career of Brent Scowcroft and the central role he has played in American foreign policy—from managing the country’s departure from Vietnam to advising President George H.W. Bush to repel the invasion of Kuwait to helping shape the West’s response to the collapse of the Soviet empire.

Kelly McMann ’92
Corruption as a Last Resort
Cornell University Press
A political science professor at Case Western Reserve University, McMann draws on her research on Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan to consider why ordinary citizens pay bribes and sell political support and what governments can do to fight fraud and promote stability.

Timothy White ’98
Blue-Collar Broadway
University of Pennsylvania Press
White, who teaches history at New Jersey City University, takes the reader backstage to reveal the theater industry virtuosos who built the scenery, costumes, lights and other components of theatrical productions for more than a hundred years.

Victoria Moy ’03
Fighting for the Dream
Chinese Historical Society of Southern California
Moy, who has written for Huffington Post and New York Press, captures the aspirations and inner conflicts of Chinese American veterans in this collection of oral histories of 40 men and women—ages 24 to 94—who served in conflicts from World War II to Afghanistan.

Additional books that were not listed in our print edition:

R.K. “Chip” Simpson ’62, a former U.S. diplomat and pediatric nurse, crafts an eclectic cast of characters—from a practical joker to a victim of sexual assault—in his collection, Webley .45 and Other Short Stories (CreateSpace).

Former reporter John Pappenheimer ’66 follows the adventures of a troubled teen as he grows up fast on a fishing boat off the coast of Alaska in Fast Hands (Epicenter Press).

University of Virginia law professor Frederick Schauer ’67, Tu’68, explains the importance of compulsion and sanction in the legal system. He also challenges the assumption that people obey laws merely out of deference to authority, arguing that laws would be much less effective without force in The Force of Law (Harvard University Press).

Peter Forbes ’83 coauthors with his wife a tribute to a longtime friend, a rugged Maine homesteader whose striking wooden yurts and dedication to living made him a local icon in A Man Apart: Bill Coperthwaite’s Radical Experiment in Living (Chelsea Green).

Surgical oncologist Quyen D. Chu ’90 combines the expertise of doctors across the country to offer a guide for students and educators in Surgical Oncology: A Practical and Comprehensive Approach (Springer).

Stephanie Williams ’92, drawing on her own struggle with a degenerative genetic disease, describes the setbacks and triumphs faced by Willow, a young woman with a neurological disorder, in her children’s book, Wanda Wants a Walker (Amazon Digital).