Looking for that next great read? Here you'll find books published by UC faculty, staff and alumni.
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by Brian Ambroziak foreword by Michael Graves, DAAP '58, HonDoc '82 Michael Graves, now a master architect, was awarded the American Academy's Rome Prize in 1960, which gave him two years to see and study masterworks in Italy, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Germany, France and England. As he camped his way across the continent -- at 25 cents a night -- he would photograph and make analytical pencil sketches or pen-and-sepia drawings of the structures that interested him, both the monumental and the humble. This collection features 300 of those illustrations. Graves includes a short foreword, written from a 40-years-later perspective, and a reprint of his 1977 essay, "The Necessity for Drawing," outlining the types and purposes of architectural drawing. Author Ambroziak, a former Graves architecture student at Princeton, and project designer for Michael Graves & Associates, comments on the tour's impact on Graves' life and work. He is currently a professor at the University of Tennessee. Order Information:
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ISBN # : 1568985290
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by Joseph Clark, UC professor of neurology At 18, Joseph Clark started working as an ambulance attendant to pay his way through college. For the next seven years he worked New York City's most dangerous neighborhoods as an emergency medical technician, dealing with the medical emergencies from drug overdoses, gang fights, car crashes and worse, all while juggling schoolwork and a personal life.His stories are a graphic portrayal of the life of an ambulance EMT. From dealing with a body that is frozen solid and trapped under a front porch to climbing into the burned-out wreck of a car to treat the seriously injured driver, Clark's stories are horrifying, poignant, touching and often filled with the dark humor that is so characteristic of the people who work under extreme stress. Order Information:
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ISBN # : 1554074479
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by Jay Coffman, edited by Thomas Fulks, (A&S) '58 Like many WWII soldiers in the South Pacific, Coffman spent a fair amount of time wishing for mail from home, dreaming of his sweetheart, getting sick from malaria, making friends with native families, going horseback riding, hearing bullets "zing" past his head in combat and hoping to get home alive. He wrote his thoughts on hundreds of scraps of paper and tucked them into his personal gear. When Coffman made it back to the U.S., he got married and forgot about war stories for a while. When the veteran uncrumpled his notes, he had his wife type them up in chronological order, for family eyes only. After his death, nephew Tom Fulks received the diary, went through the text -- identifying family and friends mentioned, researching America's wartime strategies such as food rationing, adding historically accurate notes about WWII battles and making the diary relevant to a larger audience. Order Information:
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ISBN # : 1890905526
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by Jules Fern, MA (A&S) '39, edited by Juliana Fern Patten Lt. Jules Fern's Coast Guard service was great material for his natural storytelling and reporting skills. In his tour of duty in the final years of WWII, his letters home were often amusing, intriguing and minus the most gruesome details, perhaps to keep his mother from worrying. Fern's first ship was an LST landing ship/tank, a vessel he claimed was blessed with good luck -- where he managed the ship's commissary. After the Allied Forces landed on Leyte in the Philippines, Fern describes a series of 32 enemy air raids in one week. "The ammunition dump on the beach was hit by a bomb dropped from a high level; we watched the terrific conflagration all night. . Hundreds of soldiers bivouacked nearby were killed, and next day several who survived came aboard our ship for treatment and clothing. . They are all ambulatory cases, so we are spared the unpleasant ceremonies which take place at sundown on the other ships in our convoy." After active military service, Fern resumed his career as an English instructor at UC. His daughter discovered his letters many years later and created this book. Order Information:
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ISBN # : 1572493771
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by Elizabeth Evans Fryer, MA (A&S) '03 The odds were definitely against 13-year-old Libbi. While riding along a country road in early July 1983, her horse stumbled and fell. Libbi hit the pavement head first, arriving at the hospital in a coma. Her worried family learned that if she lived, she would be unable to speak, have no control over her body, a feeding tube in her throat, double vision and mental confusion. Libbi did wake up with all those problems. "Part II" of the book, written from her own memories of recovery, is the heart of this story. The young teen's sense of humor and determination helped her get through long days of frustration and painful therapy. After several weeks, still without a voice, Libbi learned to control one hand enough to point out her first words in alphabet letters. As her family watched, wondering what she would say, they read: "Stop picking on me." Another time, when she tipped over her wheelchair as she tried to climb into her hospital bed without help, she didn't cry for help; she just took a nap under it. Finally well enough to return to junior high in October, Libbi parked her wheelchair, and asked students to walk her to classes. Libbi makes the reader want to cheer when she not only graduates from high school and college, but goes on to earn a master's degree. And write a book. Order Information:
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ISBN # : 1411662962
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by Robert Leo Greiwe, DAAP '55 Cincinnati in the 1930s, '40s and '50s was far too tame for young Bob Greiwe and his pals, so they hatched schemes, played pranks and attempted harebrained stunts to make life exciting. Having survived this risky business, Greiwe now comes clean, confessing hilarious tales involving friends and family, and adding his original cartoon art and "historic" photos. This is Greiwe's second book; the first was a tribute to his German ancestors who immigrated to the U.S. in the mid-19th century. Much-honored by the American Society of Interior Designers, Greiwe is also known for his oil and watercolor paintings. Order Information:
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ISBN # : B000J4UBSS
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by Frank Leo, DAAP '62 The traditional aristocracy of his grandfather's time, the Japanese occupation experienced by his parents and his own flight from the Communists all find a place in Frank Leo's story of his family in China during the turbulent 20th century. Born in Shanghai, Leo fled to Hong Kong with his mother after the Red Guard came to power. He eventually studied architecture at UC and became head of a successful interior design firm in California. During China's revolution, Leo's family saw scores of handwritten manuscripts destroyed that had described 20 generations of ancestral history. While he couldn't begin to restore those documents, "Shanghai Remembrance" allows Leo to honor the Chinese tradition of the eldest son taking responsibility for recording his family's story. Order Information:
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ISBN # : 1561675962
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by Jeffrey Lueders, Eve '77 and '81, MA (A&S) '98 Snatched from the edge of death by lifesaving organ transplant surgery? This modern miracle happens fairly often today, giving grateful recipients the proverbial "second chance" at life. Lueders writes from experience -- he received a new heart in 1989 -- and tells stories of other survivors, valiant physicians and sorrowing families who generously allow their lost loved ones' organs to restore vitality to the waiting. Order Information:
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ISBN # : 1572492198
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by Joe Martinelli, Eve '54 Blessed with an ability to recollect his growing-up years in hilarious detail, Martinelli has written this affectionate homage to the "Little Italy" community within Cincinnati's Walnut Hills neighborhood. He doesn't claim that life was easy in the years during and after the Great Depression and World War II, but says that for a boy growing up in those times, days were filled with another kind of richness. The things he recalls fondly include close family ties, true friends, playing sports, singing in amateur musicals, discovering girls, goofy misadventures, meeting girls, working after-school jobs and learning more about girls. Martinelli, who now lives near Pittsburgh, was among authors honored at an Ohioana Library Association reception at Cincinnati's main library in 2004. His three-act musical, "Zoot Alley," about an unforgettable eighth-grade dance an event also mentioned in his book premiered in Lebanon, Ohio, in 2004. The script is available at UC Libraries. Order Information:
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ISBN # : 1592680429
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by Alex Meacham, Univ '98 Very few high school basketball players have a chance to play in a college program as noteworthy as UC's -- especially as "walk-ons" -- but Alex Meacham did it in the 1997-98 and '98-99 seasons. Encouraged by UC professor and publisher Simon Anderson, Meacham tells his story of the power of hard work and determination. Currently, Meacham is assistant varsity basketball coach at Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati. Order Information:
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ISBN # : 0915725053
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by Werner Von Rosenstiel, att. (A&S) '36 Cincinnati was the "turning point" in this German exchange student's life. In political science classes at UC, Von Rosenstiel first heard: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." It amazed a youth from Nazi-led Germany, where even speaking one's opinion could mean jail or death. Although Werner studied law in Germany, as expected, he requested a month in the U.S. after graduation to improve his English. He didn't go back to Germany that year. When he returned, it was as an American soldier, the Battle of the Bulge, 1944-45. Later, he assisted prosecutors at the International War Crimes Tribunal at Nuremberg, where most of the Nazi leaders received death sentences or life in prison. Von Rosenstiel's book is an intriguing story of honor and love in a time of horror. The author visited UC in 2001 to present a generous endowment to the history department, as well as his collection of books, documents and photographs that he hopes will help students understand "how it came that we would get a Hitler," he said. "Perhaps they can also learn how not to do it." Order Information:
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ISBN # : 0759693390
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by Colter Rule, (A&S) '38 There weren't many jobs available during the Depression -- even for college graduates. Colter Rule was happy to tutor a wealthy family's sons, even creating incentives to make their study as palatable as possible. When the grateful father asked Rule what he might do to help him, the young man was surprised to hear himself say he'd like to go to medical school. So he did. With that candid admission, 91-year-old Dr. Rule's autobiography follows a long and winding path to his development into a distinguished psychiatrist and researcher. Though childhood polio left him with emotional as well as physical scars, he was blessed with a bright mind, an agreeable personality and an ability to write with humor and amazing detail. It was as an intern at Cincinnati General Hospital that he discovered he genuinely enjoyed helping patients. He also learned that people who couldn't wouldn't pay a traffic fine got thrown into jail. The event became front-page news as the public found out that the $500 stipend interns were "paid" never saw their pockets; it went directly back to the hospital to pay for room and board. Rule became the interns' hero; they demanded better treatment, and got it. Among other tales: Creating Siamese-twin rats for early hypertension studies. Witnessing the first use of drugs that could destroy germs without harming patients. Working alongside Nobel Prize winners and world-famous scientists at the "stuffy" Rockefeller Institute. Observing Dr. Helen Taussig, who could diagnose a child's cardiac condition through her gentle touch. Order Information:
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ISBN # : 0931761751
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by Dorothy Weil, MA (A&S) '69, PhD (A&S) '74 Author Weil's childhood with "mismatched" parents -- a roughneck Appalachian father and a proper Cincinnati Dutch mother -- was often as tumultuous as the rushing rivers they depended upon for their livelihood. When the riverboat captain lost his job in the 1930s, the family's fortunes plunged like the stock market, forcing them into dreary tenements or dependence on relatives. Weil's wry storytelling keeps her "memoir" from sentimentality, and readers will enjoy the Coomer family's foibles, dreams and strengths. We hear mother drilling the children to "make something" of themselves and battling with father over accepting a Thanksgiving food basket. Dot and her brother, Jim, play Kick-the-Can, try to fit in at strange schools and marvel at their relatives' abundance of food and peculiarities. Eventually, good times return. Before writing her book, Weil travelled the Ohio, Missouri and Mississippi rivers to talk with old-timers who remembered her father and to reclaim her "river roots." She is an accomplished poet, novelist, TV producer and writer. Order Information:
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ISBN # : 0821414054
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By Jane Wells, att. '94 Jane Wells is a survivor. She escaped an abusive husband in Appalachian Kentucky, only to have him stalk her, kill someone she loves and threaten her children. In her first book, the author shares her story with an honesty intended to help other women in dangerous relationships. Wells' case and subsequent work eventually led to important law changes in Kentucky to better protect domestic abuse victims there. Order Information:
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ISBN # : 1933893133
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by Douglas Cooper-Spencer, public inquiries assistant, UC College of Arts and Sciences advising A marriage ends after the husband comes out the closet. Now the ex-couple must struggle with the love and respect they once had for each other as well as with their new identities -- she, as a single woman scorned by her gay husband and he, as a man who has come to identify himself as gay -- and what about their children? This book is for anyone who has ever been married or in a relationship where one partner comes out of the closet. Order Information:
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ISBN # : 1435720725
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By Sharon Wheatley, CCM att.'90 This memoir shares the story of Sharon Wheatley, a Broadway singing star and alumna of the College-Conservatory of Music. While funny, candid, revealing and wise, it also reveals a heartbreaking and tragic journey to the top. Order Information:
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ISBN # : 1593375433
