Off the Shelf

Off the Shelf is a Columbia News series in which professors discuss their recently published books, as well as what they have read recently and recommend, and who they would invite to the perfect dinner party.

In “Rescuing Socrates,” Roosevelt Montás describes how Plato, Augustine, Freud, and Gandhi transformed his life.

Jeremy Dauber’s new book tells the story of cartoons, comic strips, and graphic novels and their hold on the American imagination.  

Classics Professor Katharina Volk takes on Cicero, Caesar, Brutus, Cassius, and others in “The Roman Republic of Letters.”

“Our Country Friends” follows eight characters who gather in a house and fall in and out of love and friendship.

In “Read Until You Understand,” Professor Farah Jasmine Griffin sets her personal story against the changing definition of American democracy.

In Information Security Essentials, Susan McGregor explains how to protect news writers, sources, and organizations in the digital era.

In “The End of Trauma,” Psychologist George Bonanno sheds light on how resilient people really are.

In his collection of essays, Iconoclasm, David Freedberg explores the power of images and why people feel so strongly about them.

Theater director Anne Bogart draws connections between visual art, performance theory, neuroscience, music, and architecture in her new book.

David Hajdu draws parallels between the early 20th century and current questions of race, gender, and sexual identity in his new book.

In “The Comedians of the King,” Professor Julia Doe explores opéra comique and the Bourbon monarchy on the eve of the French Revolution.

In his new book, astronomer Caleb Scharf explores how our relationship with data will affect our ongoing evolution as a species.