Princeton Alumni Weekly Podcasts

Robert Masello ’74 has carved a niche in the writing world: His novels place real historical figures in fictional stories with a touch of the supernatural. One follows Albert Einstein into a battle between good vs. evil at Princeton; the latest sends H.G. Wells through a haunted adventure. With a second edition of his nonfiction book about writing due out in September, Masello shared his story on the PAWcast along with advice for aspiring writers.

As a journalist, Cate Holahan ’02 covered some dark stories, like the Bernie Madoff scandal. Today, she uses what she learned to write domestic psychological thrillers. Karma always comes for her characters, but there are no perfect villains, and no one emerges a complete hero. In her fifth and latest book, “Her Three Lives,” Holahan probes the way security technology can twist a mind pushed to the edge by violence and paranoia.

Taishi Nakase, an operations research and financial engineering concentrator who hails from Melbourne, Australia, was named Princeton’s valedictorian for the Class of 2021. He spoke with PAW about his research into measles vaccinations campaigns, his plans for medical school, and the challenges and lessons of being a Princeton student in this pandemic year.

Wisconsin’s Appleton Coated nearly became the next American paper mill to go under, even as state officials fought to bring in a massive new electronics plant, Foxconn, with public subsidies. But Appleton didn’t go under, thanks to a fight by the mill’s workers and the county executive, Thomas Nelson *04. Nelson’s book, “One Day Stronger: How One Local Union Saved a Mill and What it means for American Manufacturing,” details that victory and why it reinforces his belief in American labor unions.

Birds arrived in Julia Zarankin’s life at a moment of change. In her memoir, Field Notes from an Unintentional Birder, she writes that the career she worked so hard for had become unfulfilling, and her first marriage had fallen apart. Her search for meaning took her to a birding group in Toronto, where she fell hard for the red-winged blackbird. That sighting began a decade-long love affair with the avian world that took Julia to many places to find birds, including a sewage lagoon, the first of many, and to a rain-soaked tent on Straten Island, Maine, to count black-bellied plovers. Along the way she learned life lessons, including how to really listen, how to leave perfectionism at the door, and how to cultivate a sense of wonder.

Princeton 43, UCLA 41. Twenty-five years after the final backdoor layup dropped through the net, the Tigers’ memorable 1996 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament upset win lives on in the memories of fans — and not just Princetonians. On this month’s PAWcast, we talk about how Princeton knocked off the defending national champs with the starting five from that game: Chris Doyal ’96, Sydney Johnson ’97, Steve Goodrich ’98, and Mitch Henderson ’98, and Gabe Lewullis ’99. (Photo of Lewullis by Lawrence French)

Jeffery Schwartz *87, the author of Work Disrupted: Opportunity, Resilience, and Growth in the Accelerated Future of Work, leads the Future Work practice for Deloitte. Over the last decade or so, his team has said that we are on the precipice of major transformations in how and where we do our work. In this PAWcast, he speaks about his findings over the years and how COVID-19 has, in many regards, resulted in changes his team saw coming, such as working remotely, and how the timeline for the onset of those changes to the status quo has accelerated dramatically due to the pandemic.

Our guest this month is Maria Tatar, the John L. Loeb Research Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures and of Folklore and Mythology at Harvard University. Maria, who received her Ph.D. from Princeton in 1971, has recently published a book, Fairest of the Them All: Snow White and 21 Tales of Mothers and Daughters, which explores Disney’s Snow White and all of the Snow White-esque folklore found in cultures across the globe. Tatar shifted the focus of her scholarship to folklore in the 1980s and was one of the first American scholars to seriously study fairy tales and folklore. Maria discusses why the theme of mother-daughter jealousy has proved to be so universal, and why fairy tales are retold in new ways with each generation.

Eleanor Roosevelt was many things: an orphaned child in a prominent family, a stellar student, an ambitious social reformer, a savvy political spouse, a tireless humanitarian, and a syndicated columnist whose daily dispatches were followed by millions of readers. According to David Michaelis, author of the new biography Eleanor, the former first lady built a remarkable legacy by engaging with the public and pursuing her passions. “She truly was a far more evergreen person, in a way, even than her husband,” Michaelis says, “because she kept growing.”

This month, Cara Jones ’98 and her father, Farley Jones ’65 discuss their relationship with the Unification Church created by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. Cara grew up deeply devoted to the religion, like her father, and accepted a marriage arranged by the Rev. Moon. But in a new documentary, Blessed Child, she explains how that marriage ultimately led to her disillusionment with the religion and her decision to separate from the church.