The Weekly Blog: 3/14/07

New York Magazine profiled Richard Stengel ’77, the managing editor of Time magazine, in its March 12 issue. “Stengel has already given Time magazine a narrower and sharper editorial profile,” New York reported, “with more covers about war and politics than usual and almost no pop culture (Anna Nicole Smith didn’t make the cut) or soft social reporting (like the ever-popular Jesus Christ covers). … Jonathan Safran Foer ’99, author of the novels Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, was selected as one of the best American novelists under age 35 by Granta, a British literary magazine. Also on the list was Gabe Hudson, a visiting fellow and creative writing instructor at Princeton. … Woodrow Wilson School Dean Anne-Marie Slaughter ’80 and colleague Thomas Wright, a senior researcher for the Princeton Project on National Security, examined the penalties for nuclear trafficking in a March 1 Washington Post op-ed piece. “Current efforts to close down the nuclear black market have an Achilles’ heel,” they wrote. “[C]ertain states will not cooperate and will even protect nuclear criminals.” Slaughter and Wright recommended making the trafficking of nuclear materials a crime against humanity, because it endangers so many people, and allowing the International Criminal Court to prosecute those involved in the crime.

In Roberta Isleib ’75’s new book, Deadly Advice (Berkley Prime Crime), the author, a clinical psychologist turned mystery writer, draws on her own experience in private practice. The book is Isleib’s first in a new series based on the main character, Dr. Rebecca Butterman, a psychologist and advice columnist. When Butterman returns home to find her young neighbor, Madeline, dead by apparent suicide, she can’t believe that she missed the signs and can’t help herself from hunting for the truth. She finds Madeline’s blog, a chronicle of her dating adventures. When Butterman’s editor asks her to write a column on the modern singles scene, she retraces her neighbor’s steps into the dating world, looking for clue’s to Madeline’s death. Isleib has also written a mystery series based on professional golfer Cassie Burdette. For information about other books by alumni and faculty, visit New Books at PAW online.