book

The new book ‘The Diversity Principle: The Story of the Transformative Idea’ David Oppenheimer gives a 200-year history of diversity in education, science, and commerce. The debate of diversity upends our current government, education policies, and corporate world, the idea of diversity has never been more important. Oppenheimer also shows how over a 200-year period diversity evolved and how it was adopted in science and commerce.

Genevieve Wheeler Brown is a decorative arts specialist and author of the new book ‘Beyond Blue and White: The Hidden History of Delftware and the Women Behind the Iconic Ceramic.’ She will be in discussion with a New Netherland Institute Director Dr. Deborah Hamer coming up on 4/12 at 2 pm at the Albany Institute of History and Art. They will discuss the women in the Netherlands who made the beautiful ceramics, the woman who brought it to New Netherland and New York, and the 19th Century Collectors who collected and championed it. In addition, selections of blue and white delft objects from the Albany Institute’s collection will be on display as well.

Benjamin Wood has written four very different novels that explore the creative process and relationships between parents and children. His fifth novel, Seascraper, is a vividly imagined, layered, and economical mediation on these themes, and it is full of surprises. From a very atmospheric description of a vanishing way of life, to great suspense, to the hint ultimately of optimism in its final characters. The novel was longlisted for the 2025 Booker prize.

In the new book ‘Son of Nobody,’ Yann Martel offers a compelling dual narrative that is immediately striking and unusual on the page. At once a retelling of the trojan war and a heart wrenching record of modern grief and ambition; Martel’s novel grapples with questions of history and mythology whose stories deserve to be told, how do we make meaning in the face of fate’s random cruelty, and chaos.

Historian Robert Brigham has spent a career studying the Vietnam War, shaping how Americans understand one of the nation’s most complex conflicts. A professor at Vassar College and a leading voice on U.S. foreign policy, Brigham now turns inward with his new book, 'This Is a True War Story: My Improbable History with Vietnam.' The memoir blends scholarship with deeply personal discovery, tracing his journey as an adoptee who learns that his biological father was a renowned Marine combat photographer in Vietnam. As Brigham reconstructs both a family history and a national one, the book explores memory, identity, and the enduring legacy of war - on the battlefield and across generations at home.

Historian Ryan Gingeras has spent years tracing the hidden networks of power that operate just beneath the surface of modern states. A professor at the Naval Postgraduate School and a specialist in late Ottoman and modern Middle Eastern history, his work often explores crime, politics, and the blurred lines between them.His new book, 'Mafia: A Global History,' widens that lens, charting the evolution of organized crime across continents and centuries. It’s a sweeping, deeply researched account of how mafias emerge, adapt, and endure—and what their stories reveal about the world we live in.

In the new book “Selected Letters of John Updike” editor James Schiff offers readers a window into that private world drawing from decades of correspondence. Schiff presents a portrait of Updike is both craftsman and confidante, generous, witty, and endlessly reflective about writing and life.

In Tom Junod's new book, 'In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What it Means To Be A Man,' Junod turns his attention inward, blending memoir and cultural criticism to examine the evolving idea of masculinity. Tom Junod will be in the region for a NYS Writer’s Institute Event4:30 p.m. on 4/7 at The University at Albany’s Multi-Purpose Roomin the Campus Center West Addition.

Dr. Ibram X. Kendi is one of the nation’s most influential historians of race and public policy, a MacArthur “genius” fellow, and the founding director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. He is the bestselling author of Stamped from the 'Beginning,' which won the National Book Award, as well as 'How to Be an Antiracist and Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You.'In his new work, 'Chain of Ideas: The Origins of Our Authoritarian Age,' Kendi turns his attention to the intellectual roots of authoritarianism. Tracing a lineage of ideas from colonial ideologies to present-day political discourse, he argues that systems of power are sustained not only by policies, but by deeply embedded ways of thinking about race, hierarchy, and belonging.

For 55 years Judy Blume's work has done something revolutionary, rewire the world’s expectation of what literature for young people can be. It can be frank, it can be candid, earthy, and unafraid to show the messier sides of humanity. However, there is very little known about the real woman behind the persona of Judy Blume and the unlikely journey of her literary ascension. Mark will be at the Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley MA, on 3/24 at 7 pm.