Inside the Hot Zone, by Mark G. Kortepeter 83, M.P.H. 95 (Potomac Books/University of Nebraska, $34.95). Now a public-health professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, the author is a retired army colonel with long experience in defense against biological agents. His thriller-like account, subtitled a soldier on the front lines of biological warfare, is a timely reminder that alongside natural threats (Ebola, coronavirus), life sciences can be weaponized in stealthy, alarming ways.

Traces of J.B. Jackson, by Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, Ph.D. 69, RF 01 (University of Virginia, $39.50). John Brinckerhoff Jackson 32 had an engaging, diverse, creative three-year undergraduate career at Harvard, following which his life experiences in Europe, New Mexico, and the military led him to create Landscape magazine and to shape, profoundly, landscape studies at Berkeley, the Graduate School of Design, and elsewhere. Horowitz, now emerita from Smith College, provides an accessible, handsomely illustrated guide to the life and work of the man who taught us to see everyday America.

Baby Jails: The Fight to End the Incarceration of Refugee Children in America, by Philip G. Schrag 64 (University of California, $29.95 paper). A Georgetown Law professor details the too-long history of locking up minors (he worked in a jail full of toddlers) brought into this country, often for basic reasons of safety, and political leaders refusal to address their needs for minimally humane care. An issue that lingers because the people who would have to caredont.

Nothing Is Wrong and Here Is Why, by Alexandra Petri 10 (W.W. Norton, $25.95). A collection from the work of The Washington Post columnist, whose zany satiresfar more carefully and wickedly crafted than they at first seemgo far beyond her role as dedicated humorist in the nations capital. It seems almost unfair for her to get to practice in an era so rich in possibilities. A Good Time to Talk About Gun Laws (President Donald Trump said he would do so as time goes by) notes that Not now is not the same as never. It must be on a day when there has been not recent gun violence. So not today, and not tomorrow, and not the day after that. But someday. That was in 2017.

The Last Negroes at Harvard: The Class of 1963 and the 18 Young Men Who Changed Harvard Forever, by Kent Garrett 83 and Jeanne Ellsworth (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $27). A retired television journalist (see Reel Revolution, March-April 2017, page 55) tells the stories of 18 youngsters who grew up when Brown vs. Board of Education was decided; entered Harvard as the largest group of Negroes admitted to a freshman class to date; and graduated as the civil-rights confrontation campaign in Birmingham, Alabama, began to break segregation: the era when Negro gave way to black (hence the title). He recalls the special sting of dorm crew: I was a Negro doing Negro workI was in my place. In recording what it meant to be pulledinto an unknown world, Garrett and Ellsworth have captured the nascent movement toward a broadened institutiona change well worth remembering.

Why We Swim, by Bonnie Tsui 99 (Algonquin Books, $26.95). The writer/swimmer/surfer reports on the enigma of land-adapted Homo sapiens loving to live by and plunge into the water. Journalism cum poetry: We submerge ourselves in the natural world because the natural world has a way of eliciting awe.

The Long Fix, by Vivian S. Lee 87, M.D. 92 (W.W. Norton, $26.95). The president of health platforms at Verily Life Sciences, an Alphabet/Google analytics enterprisea Rhodes Scholar, and former dean of the University of Utah School of Medicineseeks solutions to Americas health care crisis with strategies that work for everyone. In a system marked by waste, overtreatment, deadly mistakes, inconsistent care, excessive bureaucracy, and other serious ailments, she attacks the bias of paying for action (the pervasive fee-for-service paradigm) rather than demanding results.

Healthy Buildings, by Joseph G. Allen, assistant professor of exposure and assessment science, and John D. Macomber, senior lecturer in finance (Harvard, $35). A public-health scientist and a Business School teacher join forces to explain why the indoorswhere humans in developed societies spend 90 percent of their timedrive performance and productivity, as the subtitle puts it. A useful complement to the energy- and climate-focused concerns of the green-building movement.

A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth, by Daniel Mason 98 (Little, Brown, $27). The physician-novelist (The Winter Soldier, The Piano Tuner) presents a series of precisely crafted, often historically informed, stories about mystery and the unexpected turns of diverse lives.

The Caregivers Encyclopedia, by Muriel R. Gillick, professor of population medicine (Johns Hopkins, $22.95 paper). Given the burgeoning obligation to assist increasingly dependent elders, many of their grown children, and others, will gratefully receive this compassionate guide to caring for older adults. It is admirably forthright, clearly organized, and helpfully illustrated, proceeding from an initial focus on understanding someones underlying health state through visiting doctors, entering the hospital, and proceeding from acute to long-term care, at home and in specialized facilities.

The Fairest of Them All, by Maria Tatar, Loeb research professor of Germanic languages and literatures and of folklore and mythology (Harvard, $27.95). The preeminent scholar of folklore (profiled in The Horror and the Beauty,November-December 2007, page 36) here examines the cruel, jolting tale of Snow White in the global context of 21 tales of mothers and daughters. A creepy, revealing collection.

Cook, Taste, Learn, by Guy Crosby, adjunct associate professor of nutrition (Columbia University Press, $26.95). A brisk, attractively formatted history of the science of cookingwith color-coded inserts on the learning (emulsions, the chemical structure of fats, etc.) and for recipes.

Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All, by Suzanne Nossel 91, J.D. 96 (Dey Street, $28.99). The CEO of PEN Americaformerly COO of Human Rights Watchadvances a common set of rules for speech in an era when our global conversation is now a mosh pit of expression and [h]ateful speech is on the rise.

The Obama Portraits, by Tana Caragol, Dorothy Moss, Richard. J. Powell, and Kim Sajet (Princeton, $24.95). Three National Portrait Gallery colleagues and a Duke art historian (Powell) document the making of and extraordinary public response to the official portraits of President Barack Obama, J.D. 91, and First Lady Michelle Obama, J.D. 88.

The first post-nomination portrait of Abraham Lincoln, by William Marsh, May 20, 1860, taken in Springfield, IllinoisPhotograph by William Marsh/ The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Public Domain

Lincoln on the Verge, by Ted Widmer 84, Ph.D. 93 (Simon & Schuster, $35). A gripping, minutely detailed account of Abraham Lincolns 13-day progress from Springfield to Washington, to take possession of the presidency at the then-United States moment of greatest challenge. Evocatively illustrated, and resonant with the kind of leaderly rhetoric and character that sustained the nationand made it great.

When Truth Mattered, by Robert Giles, curator emeritus, Nieman Foundation for Journalism (Mission Point Press, $16.95 paper). The then-managing editor of the Akron Beacon Journal, Giles now has written a fiftieth-anniversary account of the Kent State shootingswhen protest was cut down by state power gone horribly wrongand of the role of a free press in getting the news right. In an uncomfortable number of ways, his story resonates with current circumstances.

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Recent books with Harvard connections - Harvard Magazine