Books by Alums

Finding Amal

Julia Maclean — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 17:42:48 +0000

Finding Amal Julia Maclean Mon, 11/03/2025 - 10:42

By Firyal Alshalabi (MEdu'77; PhDEdu'82)

(Green Place Books; 340 pages; 2025)

Finding Amal is a literary novel that seeks to empower young Muslim women grappling with societal conventions to a new stimulating intellectual level. It is a unique coming-of-age story that reveals the relationship between Islam and the West throughout the last few centuries in an entertaining, yet thought-provoking way. Hadeel, a young devout Muslim woman from Kuwait, embarks on a secret journey to America to save her Aunt Amal’s soul from Hell. In Boulder, Colorado, she meets Jonathan, her aunt’s grieving husband for the first time. Jonathan, who asked Hadeel to visit, is hoping she’d clear her aunt’s name from defamation, and reclaim the copyright to a literary discovery related to Washington Irving, Percy Shelley, and the nineteenth-century British Poet Laureate Robert Southey.

Finding Amal is a literary novel that seeks to empower young Muslim women grappling with societal conventions to a new stimulating intellectual level.

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All the Wisdom and None of the Junk: Secrets of Applying for College Admission and Scholarships

Julia Maclean — Thu, 30 Oct 2025 18:53:15 +0000

All the Wisdom and None of the Junk: Secrets of Applying for College Admission and Scholarships Julia Maclean Thu, 10/30/2025 - 12:53

Contributions by Katie Kramer (Mgmt'97), Curtis Esquibel (Jour'99; MPubAd'16), Vanessa Roman (Psych'07; MEdu'10), Maria Alsubhi (Bio'22; MEdu'23), and Holly McCollough (Mktg'24)

(Boettcher Foundation; 86 pages; 2025)

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Applying to college and scholarships can feel overwhelming, for students and their families. That’s why the Boettcher Foundation created this no-nonsense playbook to help cut through the chaos and bring some clarity (and even a little humor) to the journey.
For students, this book is:

A writing coach, mentor, and cheerleader in one.
Packed with practical tools, real examples, and bite-sized advice.
Designed to help young people shine authentically, not artificially.

For parents, this book is:

A trusted roadmap to support your student through every phase of the process.
A guide to knowing when to step in and when to step back.
Reassurance that you don’t have to have all the answers—just the right questions.

For high school counselors and college access advisors, this book is:

A ready-to-go resource you can hand to students with total confidence.
A practical tool to reinforce what you're already teaching, without repeating yourself.
A flexible guide you can use in classrooms, workshops, or one-on-one meetings.

Written by two seasoned experts and updated by the Boettcher Foundation, this guide has helped thousands of students win scholarships and enroll at their first-choice colleges nationally.

Applying to college and scholarships can feel overwhelming, for students and their families.

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Justice Required: Police Shootings as Legalized Violence

Julia Maclean — Mon, 27 Oct 2025 16:37:57 +0000

Justice Required: Police Shootings as Legalized Violence Julia Maclean Mon, 10/27/2025 - 10:37

By Robert J. Durán (PhDSoc'06)

(Columbia University Press; 368 pages; 2025)

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Police have remarkably broad discretion to use deadly force. Evidence shows that more than 1,000 shooting deaths occur each year at the hands of the police in the United States, disproportionately in minority communities and often under questionable circumstances. Despite public outrage, there continue to be obstacles to assessing the extent of bias and addressing the harms of police violence, including a lack of transparency and limitations on access to data.

Justice Required is a groundbreaking quantitative and qualitative investigation of police violence. Robert J. Durán and Oralia Loza provide a comprehensive data analysis of all police shootings in Denver, Colorado, over nearly forty years, highlighting persistent patterns of racial and ethnic inequality. They examine the institutional and political dynamics that thwart efforts to hold police officers accountable after controversial incidents. Durán and Loza contextualize the data with regional comparisons and enliven the analysis with vivid storytelling. Justice Required argues that while police shootings are typically treated as a criminal justice issue, they should be understood as a public health problem. Rigorous and urgent, this book provides evidence-based, data-driven solutions to prevent further loss of life and promote accountability.

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If You Lived in the Sea, Who Would You Be?

Julia Maclean — Mon, 27 Oct 2025 16:31:21 +0000

If You Lived in the Sea, Who Would You Be? Julia Maclean Mon, 10/27/2025 - 10:31

By Julie Honan Johnston (Engl'96)

(Web of Life Children's Books; 32 pages; 2025)

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If you lived in the sea, would you dive to the depths of cold, murky water or fly high above warm coastal waves? With animals grouped according to opposite traits and shared characteristics, this rhyming adventure inspires readers to imagine what it would be like to live in the sea. From a grazing dugong rooting about to an elephant seal with an inflatable snout, children will learn about a wide variety of beloved and obscure sea creatures that live in our world's oceans and seas. Curious minds can delve deeper into the extensive back matter.

The Who Would You Be? series invites readers to embark on rhyming adventures throughout different habitats around the world, while imagining what it might be like to live in those places as different types of creatures. Sparking joy and curiosity for ecosystems and the species who inhabit them, readers will discover that all creatures play important roles in their ecosystems, regardless of their size, shape, appearance, or lifestyle.

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Heart of the Jaguar: The Extraordinary Conservation Effort to Save the America's Legendary Cat

Julia Maclean — Mon, 22 Sep 2025 17:17:53 +0000

Heart of the Jaguar: The Extraordinary Conservation Effort to Save the America's Legendary Cat Julia Maclean Mon, 09/22/2025 - 11:17

By James Campbell (MAeroEngr'94)

(W. W. Norton & Company; 336 pages; 2025)

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A fascinating story of the movement to protect the jaguar, and the man who devoted his life to saving the species.

Once indigenous to North America, the jaguar is one of the wildest creatures left on the planet, a resilient and efficient predator, with a natural habitat that extends throughout Mexico and Central and South America. But today, one million years after it appeared in the New World, the jaguar is struggling to survive. It has disappeared entirely from Uruguay and El Salvador, and is critically endangered across much of its range.

Heart of the Jaguar tells the story of the extraordinary undertaking to save the jaguar, as well as the impassioned conservationist who dedicated his life to the species. James Campbell tracks the legacy of Alan Rabinowitz, a complex personality and a formidable scientist whom Time magazine called “the Indiana Jones of wildlife protection.” Rabinowitz first studied jaguars in the jungles of Belize and the Brazilian Pantanal in the 1980s, and later led the charge for the Jaguar Corridor Initiative, making it his dying mission to protect the big cat’s historic habitat.

Campbell journeys across two continents in search of the species’ past, present, and future, taking readers from the Bering Land Bridge to pre-Columbian jungle temples and modern-day jaguar preserves. Despite the thriving trade in jaguar parts and the ravages of industrial agriculture and climate change, Campbell finds sources of hope: wildlife biologists, Indigenous organizers, ranchers, and park administrators who carry on Rabinowitz’s legacy. Compelling and clear-eyed, Heart of the Jaguar celebrates these protectors, who continue to make enormous personal sacrifices to ensure that jaguars, the most charismatic of all the big cats, always have a home on this planet.

A fascinating story of the movement to protect the jaguar, and the man who devoted his life to saving the species.

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Wildlife Through the Lens: Animal Stories From Montana and the Rocky Mountains

Julia Maclean — Mon, 22 Sep 2025 16:13:25 +0000

Wildlife Through the Lens: Animal Stories From Montana and the Rocky Mountains Julia Maclean Mon, 09/22/2025 - 10:13

By Scot Bealer (Bio'86) and Lea Frye

(Sweetgrass Books; 160 pages; 2025)

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Dive into the captivating world of wildlife photography with Lea Frye and Scot Bealer as they share their adventures in pursuit of stunning animal portraits.

Behind-the-Scenes Adventures: Join Lea and Scot on their journeys through the Rocky Mountains, from heartwarming encounters to unexpected laughs in the field.
Photography Insights: Learn Lea's approach to capturing wildlife personalities and behaviors, blending artistry with natural history.
Fun Facts and Natural Wonders: Explore fascinating tidbits about Montana's diverse wildlife, sprinkled throughout their captivating stories.

Immerse yourself in the wild world of Montana's creatures through Lea Frye's lens. Perfect for animal lovers and aspiring photographers alike, this book celebrates the beauty and resilience of nature.

Dive into the captivating world of wildlife photography with Lea Frye and Scot Bealer as they share their adventures in pursuit of stunning animal portraits.

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Just-In-Time: The Future of Enablement in a World of AI

Julia Maclean — Wed, 27 Aug 2025 19:26:05 +0000

Just-In-Time: The Future of Enablement in a World of AI Julia Maclean Wed, 08/27/2025 - 13:26

By Melanie Fellay (Acct'15)

(Spekit; 172 pages; 2025)

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We're living in the Change Economy. The age of AI is disrupting everything and your enablement strategy is no exception.

In Just-In-Time: The Future of Enablement in a World of AI, Melanie Fellay, co-founder and CEO of Spekit, delivers a powerful wake-up call to marketing, enablement and sales leaders: the playbooks that got us here won’t get us where we’re going. Traditional methods are failing because they weren’t designed for the pace of today’s workforce or the realities of an AI-driven world.

This book challenges the status quo and offers a bold new vision for enablement. It's a vision built on speed, agility, and continuous learning. With practical strategies and real-world examples, Melanie shows how organizations can unlock performance, scale knowledge, and thrive by embracing a Just-in-Time Enablement approach.

But this isn’t just a book about enablement. It’s about the future of work itself. The AI-driven changes we’ve been predicting for years are no longer on the horizon, they’re here. The clock is ticking, and the leaders who act now will build teams that are more adaptive, more productive, and more prepared for what comes next.

Just-In-Time is both a guide and a manifesto: a roadmap to transform enablement into a competitive advantage in the AI era.

We're living in the Change Economy. The age of AI is disrupting everything and your enablement strategy is no exception.

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Upward Bound

Julia Maclean — Fri, 15 Aug 2025 17:14:34 +0000

Upward Bound Julia Maclean Fri, 08/15/2025 - 11:14

By Karl Gustafson (ApMath'58; Fin'58)

(Filter Press; 188 pages; 2025)

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During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Karl "Gus" Gustafson and his closest friends were at the forefront of the sport of free climbing in Colorado, achieving many first ascents. Upward Bound details the adventures of ten teenage climbers who took on Colorado's fiercest rock faces and towering mountain peaks, discovering courage, character, and camaraderie in the process.

This coming-of-age memoir is filled with untold Colorado history, climbing lore, and historic climbing photographs.

During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Karl "Gus" Gustafson and his closest friends were at the forefront of the sport of free climbing in Colorado, achieving many first ascents.

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The Reel Thrilling Events of Bank Robber Henry Starr

Julia Maclean — Wed, 06 Aug 2025 17:16:25 +0000

The Reel Thrilling Events of Bank Robber Henry Starr Julia Maclean Wed, 08/06/2025 - 11:16

By Mark Archuleta (Engl’86)

(University of North Texas Press; 320 pages; 2025)

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In 1921 headlines across the country announced the death of Henry Starr, a burgeoning silent film star who was killed while attempting to rob a bank in Harrison, Arkansas. Cynics who knew the real Starr were not surprised. Before becoming a matinee idol, Starr had been the greatest bank robber of the horseback bandit era.

Born in 1873, Cherokee outlaw Henry Starr had survived shootouts and death sentences and lived long enough to witness the invention of moving pictures. In 1919, after Starr was released from the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, a hotshot movie producer convinced him he had the looks, charisma, and “wild and woolly” life story to become the next big movie star.

When filming began in 1920, powerful organizations aligned to censor Starr, attempting to prevent him from exposing Oklahoma’s corrupt legal system and the government’s mistreatment of the Cherokee. The Women's Christian Temperance Union pressured theater owners to ban his film, state and federal lawmakers drafted legislation to stymie theatrical distribution, and police and district attorneys threatened to send him back to prison.

Starr's only film, the biographical movie A Debtor to the Law, is lost to history, but through surviving memorabilia, newspaper accounts, and interviews with people who worked with him on set, author Mark Archuleta traces how the reformed gentleman bandit attempted to use the power of cinema to reframe his life story and redeem himself in the eyes of the public, his family, and the Cherokee Nation.

The Reel Thrilling Events of Bank Robber Henry Starr is about more than heists and Hollywood glamor. Starr’s journey is about the American myth of reinvention, recidivism, and the founding of the motion picture industry when racial tensions were simmering to a boil.

In 1921 headlines across the country announced the death of Henry Starr, a burgeoning silent film star who was killed while attempting to rob a bank in Harrison, Arkansas.

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A Spy Walked Into A Bar: A Practitioner's Guide to Cocktail Tradecraft

Julia Maclean — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 20:12:20 +0000

A Spy Walked Into A Bar: A Practitioner's Guide to Cocktail Tradecraft Julia Maclean Wed, 07/30/2025 - 14:12

By Rob Dannenberg (IntlAf'78)

(Ci4 Publishing; 130 pages; 2025)

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A Spy Walked Into A Bar: A Practitioner's Guide to Cocktail Tradecraft by former senior CIA Officers Rob Dannenberg and Joseph P. Mullin Jr. is a real-life guide to spies and their favorite cocktails. Based on experiences from their clandestine operations backgrounds, Rob and Joe have collected, curated and perfected the cocktails that were enjoyed while celebrating milestone events during their CIA careers. From the drinks that were ordered after successfully recruiting assets, to marking the end of a major operation, this book features real life stories and homegrown photos by the authors themselves. A Spy Walked Into A Bar brings the reader into the real world of espionage with a tasty twist.

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