In a 1998 NPR documentary, Graduate School of Journalism teaching fellow Sandy Tolan reported on a friendship between a Palestinian man and an Israeli woman. His new book, The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew and the Heart of the Middle East (Bloomsbury USA), explores the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the experiences of their two families.

Stinger (Aventine Press), the latest suspense novel by Diana R. Chambers ’69, is set against the backdrop of cold war Afghanistan and Pakistan, where a rogue CIA officer, monitoring the arrival of the first shipment of American "Stinger" missiles, crosses paths with an investigative journalist from San Francisco.

Berkeley sociologist Kristin Luker ’68 examines the ideas and values behind the fight over sex education through the lives of parents in When Sex Goes to School (W. W. Norton). By talking to parents from various representative communities, tracing sex education from its birth in 1913 to its more politicized modern incarnation, and examining in detail the marriage-minded 1950s and the sexual and gender revolutions of the 1960s, she argues that Americans are deeply divided over sex, largely as a legacy of the 1960s.

Sports Illustrated reporter Michael Silver ’88 recounts how swimmer Natalie Coughlin ’05 battled injuries and burnout to become a two-time Olympic Gold Medal winner in Golden Girl: How Natalie Coughlin Fought Back, Challenged Conventional Wisdom, and Became America's Olympic Champion (Rodale Books).

Marilyn Desmond, Ph.D. ’85, examines how Ovid’s Ars amatoria—regarded as an authoritative treatise on desire in medieval France and England—shaped the erotic discourses of the medieval West in Ovid’s Art and the Wife of Bath (Cornell University Press).

In Dustin Long’s (Class of ’99) debut novel, Icelander (McSweeney’s), Shirley MacGuffin is found murdered one day prior to the annual town celebration in remembrance of the heroine’s mother—the legendary crime-stopper and evil-thwarter Emily Bean. But our heroine has no interest in inheriting the family business, or listening to skaldic karaoke, or fleeing the inhuman Refurserkir—but evil has no interest in her lack of interest, and thus, adventure ensues.

Annalee Newitz ’89, Ph.D. ’98, argues that the slimy zombies and gore-soaked murderers who have stormed through American film and literature over the past century embody the violent contradictions of capitalism in Pretend We’re Dead: Capitalist Monsters in American Pop Culture (Duke University Press).

School of Information professor and linguist Geoffrey Nunberg describes how the political right has ushered in a new world order, aided by the unwittingly liberal media, in Talking Right: How Conservatives Turned Liberalism into a Tax-Raising, Latte-Drinking, Sushi-Eating, Volvo-Driving, New York Times-Reading, Body-Piercing, Hollywood-Loving, Left-Wing Freak Show (Public Affairs).

Quentin Norvell, a young man from Louisiana, joins the French Air Service during World War I and falls in love with a beautiful, married French woman in Twist of Fate: Love, Turbulence and the Great War (Vantage Press) by Roberto de Haro ’58, M.A. ’59, MLS ’62.

After struggling for 20 years in his punk-rock band The Mr. T. Experience, Frank Portman ’87 has penned King Dork (Delacorte Books for Young Readers). Hailed as "a great punk-rock coming-of-age novel" by the Village Voice , frustrated songwriter and high school student Tom Henderson undergoes a life-changing experience after finding his dead father’s copy of The Catcher in the Rye .

Susan Alcorn ’74 weaves together the rich history and cultural setting of Spain with the modern experience of hiking an ancient pilgrimage trail in Camino Chronicle: Walking to Santiago (Shepherd Canyon Books).

Ralph Shanks ’64 honor Native American culture with his guide, Indian Baskets of Central California: Art, Culture, and History, which contains nearly 200 photos and illustrations. (University of Washington Press and the Miwok Archeological Preserve of Marin).

Send your own Book Reports submission, with press release and info, to californiamag@alumni.berkeley.edu with "Books" in the subject line or mail to: California, CAA, 1 Alumni House, Berkeley, CA 94720-7520.