Shelf Life
New leaders at Leapfrog
In recent weeks, New York-based publishing giants HarperCollins and Random House have named new CEOs. Closer to home, Leapfrog Press has undergone big changes, too.
Marge Piercy and her husband, Ira Wood, have sold the book publishing company they founded in Wellfleet 12 years ago to two scientists.
The new owners are Lisa M. Graziano, formerly an oceanography professor in Woods Hole, and her brother, Michael Graziano, a neuroscientist at Princeton University. They have moved the editorial offices to Falmouth.
Over the years, Leapfrog has published an eclectic mix of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, including works by Piercy and Wood. Among four books the Grazianos are publishing this fall is "Cretaceous Dawn," a scientifically accurate dinosaur novel they co-wrote.
Piercy and Wood now have more time for their own writing. Wood is finishing a memoir and Piercy, an avid gardener, is working on a cultural history of roses.
Looking back
In the 1960s, even women with graduate degrees had few career options beyond the secretarial pool.
Yet Judith Nies, having earned a master's degree in international studies, was hired as a speechwriter and chief staffer for a group of congressmen opposed to the Vietnam War. In this role, she organized historic hearings on US military policy. Meanwhile, her husband's career at the US Treasury Department was thriving - until he was confronted with the FBI's dossier on her. It highlighted her research as a grad student on Soviet politics and her work for a women's peace organization.
With a wry sense of humor, Nies, a Cambridge resident, recounts how sexism and politics thwarted her ambitions to change the world. Colorful exchanges, including one with Congressman Tip O'Neill at a Capitol Hill Weight Watchers meeting, invigorate her new memoir, "The Girl I Left Behind" (Harper).In fact, it was O'Neill who tipped her off to one of her victories. After she challenged the rule mandating that female visitors to the House be confined to the Ladies' Gallery, the tradition was ended.
A voice of experience
Louisa Solano, who owned the Grolier Poetry Book Shop for 32 years, has lived her life on the margin between town and gown. Born in Cambridge, she is a graduate of its public schools. Her father was a Harvard faculty member. Through poetry, Solano aimed to unite locals and academics. Now, in some measure, she feels she has succeeded.
The city of Cambridge will install a plaque in her honor at the corner of Bow and Plympton streets near Harvard. Joined by poet Ifeanyi Menkiti, the new owner of the Grolier, Solano will say a few words when the plaque is installed at 11 a.m. Saturday.
Coming out
Pick of the week
Jill Cadogan of Willow Books in Acton recommends "Judas Horse" by April Smith (Knopf): "In the third thriller in this series, FBI agent Ana Grey goes undercover to infiltrate a possible homegrown terrorist cult. Smith's real talent is in the way she brings you into the plot and the mind of Grey - your heart pounds right along with hers as she tries to navigate the complex physical and psychological aspects of being undercover."
Jan Gardner can be reached at JanLGardner@yahoo.com. 