Edited by Margie Kelley

The Juneteenth Story: Celebrating the End of Slavery in the United States
By Alliah L. Agostini (MBA 2009); Illustrated by Sawyer Cloud
becker&mayer! Kids
On June 19, 1865—more than two years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation—the enslaved people of Texas first learned of their freedom. That became a day of remembrance and celebration. In this book, readers learn about the events that led to emancipation and why it took so long for the enslaved people in Texas to hear the news. The first Juneteenth began as “Jubilee Day,” where families celebrated and learned of their new rights as citizens. As Black Texans moved to other parts of the country, they brought their traditions along with them, and Juneteenth continued to grow and develop. Juneteenth’s powerful spirit has endured through the centuries and became an official holiday in the United States in 2021. The Juneteenth Story provides an accessible introduction for kids to learn about this important American holiday.

The Changing C-Suite: Executive Power in Transformation
By José Luis Alvarez (PhD OB 1991) and Silviya Svejenova
Oxford University Press
Over the last two decades, we have seen a distinct transformation of the C-suite—a term denoting the most important senior executives in an organization—characterized by the proliferation of new Chief X Officer (CXO) roles, in which X stands for a specific domain such as sustainability, communication, digital, human resources, or finance. By exploring the emergence and evolution of these positions, the authors examine the ways in which power at the apex of complex organizations is structured through roles and relationships, in response to diverse contingencies and interests. The book develops a theoretical account, combined with a rich empirical illustration, of the C-suite’s transformation to enhance our understanding of these elites’ new command posts, sources of expertise and identity, competition and collaboration, and ways of getting things done. In doing so, it extends the political perspective of organizations which has largely overlooked the changing design of executive power and the means of senior executives, who have more leeway to construct their roles than managers at any other organizational layer.

F.A.R.T.: Top Secret! No Kids Allowed!
By Peter Bakalian (MBA 1986)
Aladdin
When a young teen discovers a top-secret parenting manual, it’s kids versus grownups in this kooky, illustrated middle-grade thriller with nonstop, seat-of-your-pants action that will delight fans of Jarrett Lerner and Stuart Gibbs. When tween boy FP (codename: Furious Popcorn) picks up what he thinks is a cookbook and finds a diabolical parenting manual, his world turns upside down. The Ultimate Guide to Hacking Your Kids was written by an organization called Families Against Rotten Teens (F.A.R.T.), a secret society of grizzled parents whose origins date back to antiquity. FP is determined to get to the bottom of this, but when he begins investigating, the manual goes missing, his parents deny knowing anything about any kind of book, and—maybe strangest of all—kids at school start listening to their parents and teachers. What kid would ever do that? FP and the Only Onlys, his best friends since preschool, discover F.A.R.T.’s grand plan: a brain modem that can turn kids into well-behaved zombies! This wacky crew has no choice but to find out who’s behind the nefarious organization and save young people the world over.

Let’s Be Frank
By Frank Biondi (MBA 1968), with Jane Biondi Munna
River Grove Books
Integrity. Kindness. Hard work. Substance and value. Are these the words that describe a media mogul? They are when it’s the late Frank Biondi, the former CEO of HBO, Universal Studios, and Viacom, who leaves a legacy far beyond the movies and TV you love. Through Frank’s example, we can learn how to make good relationships alongside great deals, earn respect while earning multi-million dollar returns, and maintain character even when surrounded by an industry full of characters. Let’s Be Frank began in the final years of Frank Biondi’s life as he recorded the story of his career while fighting stage-four cancer, a battle he sadly lost in 2019. His daughter, Jane Biondi Munna, compiled his words—along with recollections from Peter Chernin, Alan Schwartz, and Sherry Lansing, to name a few—so that we can all draw inspiration from Frank Biondi’s remarkable business acumen and management style and channel our inner Frank as we navigate life’s challenges and opportunities.

Nothing They Won’t Do
By Benjamin Campbell (MBA 1992)
Teutoburg Forest Press
Mason Wright is living the dream as a first-year student at the most famous business school in the world, until a tragic accident in Boston derails his life. Expelled from school, with a cloud over his head, he jumps at a chance opportunity to interview for a job in Paris, hoping for a fresh start away from everyone who knows his past. Alone in a foreign land, Mason is befriended by a German expat named Hans von Eiger, who introduces him to beautiful, aristocratic friends at parties in chateaux across Europe. However, Mason discovers that not everyone in his new friend group is who they appear to be. Framed for a crime he didn't commit, Mason finds himself completely alone again—on the run, trying to out-smart enemies who reach the highest echelons of power.

A Place of Refuge: Book Four of First Light
By Linda Cardillo (MBA 1978)
Bellastoria Press
In 1971, a near-fatal automobile accident throws Izzy Monroe’s life into upheaval after a traumatic brain injury leaves her with no short-term memory. Unable to continue her graduate studies, she retreats to her childhood home on Chappaquiddick Island. Izzy’s closest friend, Maria Belli, confronts her with a choice: sink deeper into a numbing grief or find the courage to redefine who she is. Izzy sets aside her fear and takes a job on a farm in Italy owned by Maria’s grandfather. She begins to find purpose on the farm, but is consumed with hiding her impairment and unwilling to form a bond with anyone—until she encounters Daniel Richetelli, a troubled Jesuit priest who has returned to his grandfather’s farm seeking a respite from his own crisis. Battered by family expectations, guilt, betrayal, and self-doubt, Izzy and Daniel struggle to reconcile their immediate and compelling intimacy with their search for new and fulfilling lives.

Longevity: Reinvent Yourself at Any Age
By Maria L. Ellis (OPM 32, 2003)
Difference Press
Do you dream of adding years to your life so you can see your grandchildren grow? Do you yearn to be healthier so you can be there to support your family, but have no idea where to begin or how to achieve this longevity goal? In Longevity: Reinvent Yourself at Any Age, Ellis will share the blueprint to a healthier and longer life that includes laughter, music, eating well, and finding joy at any age; the role of caregivers and their critical impact on extending your lifespan; how your environment and demographics affect aging, and how to adopt new technologies and advance research on aging.

User Experience Design: A Practical Playbook to Fuel Business Growth
By Satyam Kantamneni (GMP 14, 2013)
Wiley
In his book, UXReactor co-founder Satyam Kantamneni distills 25 years of industry experience into a pragmatic approach to help organizations advance in the highly competitive and rapidly changing digital world. You’ll discover why putting users at the center of strategy leads to an almost unfair competitive advantage; ways to build an organizational system that delivers a superior user experience that is replicable, consistent, and scalable; common shortfalls that prevent organizations from reaping the value of experience design; 27 proven “plays” from the UXReactor playbook to put concepts into practice, and game planning examples to execute at different levels of an organization. A comprehensive and practical book for business leaders, design leaders, product managers, engineers, and designers, User Experience Design: A Practical Playbook to Fuel Business Growth is also an ideal blueprint for current and prospective UX practitioners seeking to improve their skills and further their careers.

Creativity Unlocked: An Inside-Out Approach to a Life of Joy
By Chris Lumry (MBA 2015)
OneStepGrowth LLC
In Creativity Unlocked, discover an everyday approach to increasing joy and momentum in life. Upgrade your process with neuroscience-informed tools, get unstuck on long-term projects, find expressions that naturally spur delight, explore the narrative of your own journey, activate the secret sauce of creative flow, and build supportive community for your expressions. The question is not if you are creative, but what and how you are creating. Rediscovering creativity can help you flourish emotionally, professionally, and relationally. Your expressions can spark joy and meaningful connection in the present that fuel growth, enhance problem-solving capacity, increase resilience, and provide clarity for your career, your home life, and everything in between. Join entrepreneur and former self-proclaimed ‘non-creative’ Chris Lumry in a narrative-driven guide that will brighten your present and future seasons.

Fact, Fiction, and Polygamy: A Tale of Utah War Intrigue, 1857–1858 ―A. G. Browne’s The Ward of the Three Guardians
By William P. MacKinnon (MBA 1962) (Editor) and Kenneth L. Alford (Editor)
University of Utah Press
Fact, Fiction, and Polygamy rescues an exciting true tale of international intrigue from 150 years of neglect. It tells of the travails of Henrietta Polydore, a young Anglo-Italian girl spirited out of an English Catholic convent school in 1854 and bundled across the Atlantic, the Great Plains, and the Rocky Mountains by her Mormon-convert mother and aunt to live in Salt Lake City under an alias in the polygamous household of a Latter-day Saint leader with five wives and 20 children. Midway through Henrietta’s secret sojourn in the City of the Saints, she was caught up in the Utah War of 1857–1858, President Buchanan’s attempt to suppress a perceived Mormon rebellion with nearly one-third of the US Army.

Polydore’s saga was originally published as a novella titled The Ward of the Three Guardians in Boston’s Atlantic Monthly in 1877. This short piece was the work of Albert G. Browne, Jr., who, at age 23, was in Utah as the war correspondent for Horace Greeley’s New-York Tribune. Browne reported on Henrietta’s story and used his legal training to bring about her repatriation to her father in England through a sensational legal case.

Forever Sheriff (The High Mountain Sheriff Series)
By Edward Massey (MBA 1967)
Five Star
From the moment the wounded boy in the wagon interrupts his swearing-in, Deputy Mark Simms, in line to be the third Sheriff Simms of Summit County, devotes his life to pursuing cattle rustlers turned butchers who become murderous meatpackers in the early twentieth century. Eighteen today, the deputy grows as a determined lawman. Tom Hixson, the hired hand who shot the boy, grows as the meatpackers' muscle. The close of World War I ends the monopoly, and the company cleans up Hixson and his mess with a series of accidents. Returning home from a picnic prescribed by his father, his mother hands him the family star. Sheriff Simms pins on his star and rushes his father's funeral to take on the task of leading his county's battle with the Spanish flu. The pioneers die, leaving children with the frontier spirit to handle bad things as they arise. He leads the hardest hit community in the third hardest hit state in the union to a calm and certain victory over the flu.

Smart Leadership: Four Simple Choices to Scale Your Impact
By Mark Miller (AMP 170, 2006)
Matt Holt
Have you ever wondered what it would take to be a better leader, or achieve your wildest dreams, or make a bigger difference in the world? The answer lies in the choices you make, about everything from how you spend your time to the way you view the world. In Smart Leadership, Mark Miller—author of bestsellers Win the Heart and Chess Not Checkers—shares the four research-based “smart choices” the best leaders make to scale their influence and results. Miller teaches you to confront reality, grow capacity, fuel curiosity, and create change so you can bring fresh eyes and fresh thinking to your leadership approach; increase your confidence in your ability to make a difference; lead at levels you never thought possible, and accelerate your learning curve so that all these benefits come faster and more naturally.

Bookends: A Memoir of Love, Loss and Literature
By Zibby Owens (MBA 2003)
Little A
Zibby Owens has become a well-known personality in the publishing world. Her infectious energy, tasteful authenticity, and smart, steadfast support of authors started in childhood, a precedent set by the profound effect books and libraries had on her own family. But after losing her closest friend on 9/11 and later becoming utterly stressed out and overwhelmed by motherhood, Owens was forgetting what made her her. She turned to books and writing for help. Just when things seemed particularly bleak, Owens unexpectedly fell in love with a tennis pro turned movie producer who showed her the path to happiness: away from type-A perfectionism and toward letting things unfold organically. The result was a meaningful career, a great love, and finally, her voice. Bookends is an honest and moving story about relationships, love, food issues, the writing life, and finding one’s true calling.

Princess Charming
By Zibby Owens (MBA 2003); Illustrated By Holly Hatam
Flamingo Books
Princess Charming can’t quite seem to find her “thing.” She’s tried everything from cooking to hip-hop, and hasn’t been able to perfect either. Even her cartwheels are subpar. But when the castle hosts a superstar for a special event, Princess Charming finally finds her time to shine. Princess Charming is about a brand-new princess character filled with fun, humor, and girl power.

Sunrise to Sunset: Photography at Fort Sheridan
By Steve Schaumberger (MBA 1988)
Independently Published
Steve Schaumberger is an avid photographer who finds his inspiration watching the many sunrises and sunsets of Fort Sheridan, Illinois. When renowned landscape designer O.C. Simonds (1855–1931) conceived plans for the Fort Sheridan army base in 1889, he meticulously merged military needs with the land’s rolling terrain and ecologically sensitive bluffs and ravines while making breathtaking views of Lake Michigan a priority. A team of landscape architects, ecologists, and educators considered many of the same philosophies when planning how the public would experience the site and learn from its unique history. Fort Sheridan is one of a few places in Lake County that offer free public access to Lake Michigan and an awe-inspiring lake overlook perched on a 70-foot-high bluff. The preserve’s savanna, ravines, and lakefront location allow visitors to observe one of North America’s busiest flyways for migratory birds.

Inflection Points: How to Work and Live with Purpose
By Matt Spielman (MBA 1999)
Wiley
Using a powerful life transformation system called the “Game Plan System”—or GPS — executive coach and speaker Matt Spielman guides readers through straightforward questions designed to reorient your perspective and refocus your efforts on realizing happiness and fulfilment in life. You will also learn to create a powerful new roadmap to achieve what truly matters to you and move aside what may be getting in the way; celebrate your wins and effectively process your setbacks; and discover and consider the value of coaching in your personal and professional life. The perfect book for anyone hoping to move through life with confident and renewed purpose and vigor, Inflection Points is an expertly crafted and powerful collection of strategies to act with more intention, help yourself and others, realize your goals and achieve greater fulfillment.

International Sport Business: Current Issues, Future Directions
By Hans Westerbeek (AMP 192, 2017)
Routledge
International Sport Business: Current Issues, Future Directions offers a contemporary and forward-looking survey of the global sport industry, introducing the key themes, trends, and critical issues that will impact decision-making and strategy in the coming decade and beyond. Against a background of globalization, disruption, and social change, the book explores key influences on the development and commercialization of the sport industry. It examines themes such as governance, the social role of sport, value chains and innovation, the increasing importance of data, digital technology, and leadership. Every chapter includes cutting-edge case studies, commentaries, examples of best practice and interviews with leading sport business professionals, encouraging the reader to reflect on the factors that determine success.

Private Equity
By Paul A. Gompers, Eugene Holman Professor of Business Administration, and Steven N. Kaplan (PhD BE 1988) 79834
Edward Elgar Publishing
This advanced introduction provides an illustrative guide to private equity, integrating insights from academic research with examples to derive practical recommendations. The authors begin by reviewing the history of private equity then exploring the evidence on performance of private equity investments at both the portfolio company level and fund level, documenting the creation of economic value. The book then presents a set of actionable frameworks for driving value creation in private equity investments. It concludes by examining how private equity investors raise funds and how they successfully manage their private equity firms. This text is an excellent resource for investment bankers and consultants as well as prospective investors who are looking for a comprehensive yet succinct introduction to the topic. Scholars interested in the fields of finance and private equity will find the research and case studies informative and enlightening.

Empires of Ideas: Creating the Modern University from Germany to America to China
By William C. Kirby, T.M. Chang Professor of China Studies and Spangler Family Professor of Business Administration
Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press
American institutions dominate nearly every major ranking of global universities today. Yet, in historical terms, America’s preeminence is relatively new, and there is no reason to assume that American schools will continue to lead the world a century from now. Indeed, America’s supremacy in higher education is under great stress, particularly at its public universities. At the same time, Chinese universities are on the ascent. Thirty years ago, Chinese institutions were reopening after the catastrophe of the Cultural Revolution; today they are some of the most innovative educational centers in the world. Will China threaten American primacy? Empires of Ideas looks to the past 200 years for answers, chronicling two revolutions in higher education: the birth of the research university and its integration with the liberal education model.

William Kirby examines the successes of leading universities to determine how they rose to prominence and what threats they currently face. He draws illuminating comparisons to the trajectories of three Chinese contenders: Tsinghua University, Nanjing University, and the University of Hong Kong, which aim to be world-class institutions that can compete with the best that the United States and Europe have to offer. But Chinese institutions also face obstacles. Kirby analyzes the challenges that Chinese academic leaders must confront: reinvesting in undergraduate teaching, developing new models of funding, and navigating a political system that may undermine a true commitment to free inquiry and academic excellence.

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