Singer and ­guitarist GEORGE KILBY JR. ’82’s new album, Six Pack, includes six songs, featuring Kilby, who plays what he calls “rough-cut American roots music,” and his band, The Road Dogs. At Princeton, Kilby was a member of the George Dickel Band.

Above, watch a video for the song “When the People Sang,” from the album Six Pack.

Set in Northern Iran, DINA NAYERI ’01’s debut novel, A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea (River­head Books), ­follows an Iranian girl as she grows up in ­post-revolutionary Iran after her mother and twin sister disappear. Born in  Iran, Nayeri emigrated to the United States at age 10 and today is a fellow at the Iowa Writers Workshop.

In The Evil Necessity: British Naval Impressment in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World (Univer­sity of Virginia Press), DENVER BRUNSMAN *04 examines how naval impressment — ­forcing skilled sailors into service — affected seamen, their families, and ­seaport communities. This book began as Brunsman’s ­dissertation. He is an assistant professor of history at George Washington University.

KJERSTIN GRUYS ’04 was struggling with her body image and decided to forgo looking at herself in a mirror for a year. In her memoir, Mirror, Mirror Off the Wall: How I Learned to Love My Body by Not Looking at It for a Year (Avery), she recounts her journey to ­self-acceptance and discusses our obsession with ­beauty. A Ph.D. candidate in sociology at UCLA, she researches how the fashion industry shapes ideas about body size.