FICTION

Breakfast with a Cereal Killer, Geoffrey Gamble's (communication studies '85) first published book, is designed to resemble a cereal box. The listed "ingredients" include "one chief detective (aged vinegar and a touch of prejudice as a preservative), two deputies, one rookie newspaper reporter (gay TM brand fruit filling added)."

The mystery begins when a former Olympic hopeful is found dead, face-down in a bowl of the cereal he officially represented but admitted he "wouldn't be caught dead" eating. As more murders follow, a rookie newspaper reporter begins to see patterns the chief detective is missing.

The book is published by Decent Exposure Press, P.O. Box 6612, Oakland, CA 94603.

Queen City Jazz, the debut novel of Kathleen Ann Goonan (English '75), follows a young woman of the future through a world where technology has run rampant. When the technologically induced plague hits her tiny Shaker community, Verity sets off for the Enlivened (computer-enhanced) City of Cincinnati carrying an injured friend whom she hopes to revive. The book is published by Tom Doherty Associates Inc., 175 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10010.

Virginia Tech Professor Emeritus of Education Dean Hummel has written Jonah: An Amish Love Story, an account of the strength of the Amish way through 75 years of turbulence, tragedy, and triumph in the lives of the book's characters. The author, who grew up in Ohio as the son of an Amish mother and Mennonite father, provides vivid descriptions of Amish life style. "My objective," Hummel writes, "was to write a love story which would do justice to the Amish and Mennonites and to their mores." The book is published by Truax/HUM, 425 East Haskell St., Loudonville, OH 44842.

COOKBOOKS

Jim Casada (history M.S. '68) has the solution for anyone who's ever looked at a freezer full of venison and wondered what to do with it. Casada and his wife Ann are the authors of The Complete Venison Cookbook: From Field to Table. From ribs in beer to lasagna to loin steak with crab and shrimp sauce, the recipes run the gamut from simple to elegant. The authors suggest accompaniments for many of the venison dishes. The book is published by Krause Publications, 700 E. State St., Iola, WI, 54990-0001. It is available from the author, Jim Casada, 1250 Yorkdale Drive, Rock Hill, SC 29730-7638.

Casada also is editor of Campsite to Kitchen: Tastes and Traditions from America's Great Outdoors. Casada intersperses articles about hunting, fishing, and other outdoor activities among recipes that range from marinated bear steak and squirrel mulligan to southern fried quail, puffball fritters, cowslip greens, paw paw ice cream, and persimmon meringue pie. The book is published by the Wimmer Companies Inc., Memphis, Tenn., and is available from Jim Casada, 1250 Yorkdale Drive, Rock Hill, SC 29730-7638.

CRIME

Eight Bullets: One Woman's Story of Surviving Anti-Gay Violence is the true story of a shooting attack on the Appalachian trail in May 1988 that nearly killed the author, Claudia Brenner (architecture M.S. '89). Brenner's companion, former Tech business graduate student Rebecca Wight, died at the scene. Brenner recounts the unprovoked attack and its aftermath, including the trial and her long struggle for physical and emotional health. As she stands to identify her assailant, Brenner says, "Part of me must have been terrified to actually see him again. However, I wasn't going to let anything get in the way of sending the man who had willfully killed my lover to prison."

The book is published by Firebrand Books, 141 The Commons, Ithaca, NY 14850.

INSPIRATIONAL

Charley Swayne (business administration '65) is the author of Life etc.: Advice for the Real World, previously titled What a College Senior Should Know. The book contains the author's responses to questions thousands of his college students have asked him over the last decade. "These responses represent my beliefs, the things I have learned in business and in life," he writes.

Pithy statements such as "No one ever injured his eyesight by looking at the bright side" are interwoven with inspiration, instruction, and jokes. Titles of the 12 chapters include knowledge, integrity, living, family, friends, and success. "You are what you think you are, and you will become what you think you will become," is his central theme.

The book is published by Fireside, Rockefeller Center, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

LITERATURE

English professor Anne Cheney is the editor of The Life and Letters of Jesse Hill Ford, Southern Writer, a book that intertwines narrative about Ford's life with 138 letters he wrote to his editor. Cheney documents the tragic life of Ford, author of The Liberation of Lord Byron Jones through the time he accidentally killed an AWOL soldier who was trespassing on his property. Cheney maintains that "the jury acquitted him, but the press did not." Ford committed suicide in June 1996.

Cheney's book, the only biography Ford authorized, is published by the Edwin Mellen Press, Box 450, Lewiston, NY 14092-0450.

MANAGEMENT

Management professor Christopher Neck co-authored For Team Members Only, Making Your Workplace Team Productive and Hassle-Free as a personal learning tool for teamwork. Topics include teamthink, team leadership, team self-leadership, team talk, and team problem-solving. The pages are filled with word games, practical suggestions, inspirational passages, and reflective exercises, such as a self-examination of personal leadership styles. The book is published by AMACON, a division of the American Management Association, 1601 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.

SCIENCE AND MEDICINE

Doris Teichler Zallen, a geneticist and science policy expert at Virginia Tech's Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, explains how genetic disorders are passed along in Does It Run in the Family? A Consumer's Guide to DNA Testing for Genetic Disorders. She describes how the new DNA tests for genetic disorders work and explains why results are not often clear cut. In addition, she lists questions people seeking such testing should ask their doctors and genetic counselors. She also provides information about resources for obtaining more information and counseling.

The book is published by Rutgers University Press, Livingston Campus, Bldg. 4161, P.O. Box 5062, New Brunswick, NJ 08903.

Teacher Frank Taylor (zoology M.S. '84) has joined with Alan Raflo and Llyn Sharp of the Virginia Tech Museum of Natural History to write Model Inquiries into Nature in The Schoolyard: An Inquiry Field Guide to the Natural History of Southwestern Virginia Schoolyards. The book helps teachers use the resources of their schoolyards to teach science, emphasizing students' observations in the real world. Chapters include such activities as investigating animal tracks, comparing leaves and twigs from different trees, and investigating the flower structures of violets.

The book is published by the Virginia Tech Museum of Natural History, Blacksburg, VA 24061-0542.

TECHNOLOGY

Community Networks: Lessons from Blacksburg, Virginia, edited by Virginia Tech adjunct professor of architecture Andrew Cohill and communication studies researcher Andrea Lee Kavanaugh, examines the five-year evolution of the Blacksburg Electronic Village (BEV) and addresses the social, economic, technical, and education impact of living in a town where more than half the population is connected to the Internet.

Cohill, director of BEV, says, "A community network is not about technology, it is about giving people a new way to communicate with each other." The book includes chapters by other Virginia Tech professors and administrators as well as individuals from local businesses and schools.

The book is published by Artech House Inc., 685 Canton St., Norwood, MA 02062.

FOR CHILDREN

Michael Bentley of the College of Human Resources and Education is the author of Astronomy Smart Junior: The Science of the Solar System and Beyond. Designed for children in grades six to eight, the book presents scientific information about our galaxy, 20th-century space exploration, and the evolution of matter through the adventures of a group touring the solar system. The book is published by Princeton Review Publishing, 2315 Broadway, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10024.

Professor Bentley also is the author of two books in the Science Timelines series, designed for use in the classroom. The large books are accompanied by teachers' notes and visual aids. They are published by Mimosa Publications, 8 Yarra Street, Hawthorn 3122, Australia.

If you are an alum, faculty member, or staff member and have written or edited a book that you would like to have considered for review in the Virginia Tech magazine, send an e-mail to vtmag@vt.edu. Please include your name, the book title and publisher, and let us know how we can obtain a copy (include name and phone number of person who can get us a review copy.)