DEBORAH LIPSTADT, a professor of modern Jewish and Holocaust studies, is one of the most popular faculty members at Emory. But what really sets her apart is a book written a dozen years ago in which she lambastes one of the world’s most infamous Holocaust deniers, David Irving. Irving turned around and sued Lipstadt for libel in British court, but the judge found in favor of Lipstadt, calling Irving a racist and anti-Semite. Sweet. Lipstadt was back in the news last spring when she refused to allow C-Span to tape a lecture she was giving. Why? The network wanted to air it back-to-back with one by Irving. Seems the battle against Holocaust deniers isn’t over yet.
www.lipstadt.blogspot.com. www.hdot.org.

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The thousands of young male refugees who fled genocide in Sudan, walking first to Ethiopia, then to Zaire, have been co-opted as the poster boys for just about any self-righteous movement that could spin some faint association around them with fairy tale revisions of their struggles. So kudos to Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter MARK BIXLER for telling the whole story, with all its complexities and contradictions, in his book The Lost Boys of Sudan (Warner Brooks, $19.95), a rich study woven together by the life stories of several “lost boys” who immigrated to Atlanta. less...

We know Georgia novelist TERRY KAY was plenty pleased to win this year's prestigious Townsend Prize for "The Valley of Light", but here's the award he's really been waiting for: the "CL" "Best of" nod of approval. Kay's mystical traveling fisherman can find behemoth bass in dead lakes and lure even the most tragic secrets of a small North Carolina town to the surface. Quiet, lyric and gentle, Kay's magical novel tastes finer on the tongue than a month of fried catfish dinners, with only half the fat and twice the satisfaction. ("CL" urges you to catch and release.) "Atria Books, $24." less...

MELVIN KONNER, you sure are "smart". I mean, the way you figured out that whole human behavior thing, how it's not just nature or nurture but a little of both. And that book you wrote, "The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit" - that was heady stuff, man! And all those degrees, like the Ph.D. in biological anthropology from Harvard and the postdoctoral work in neuroendocrine regulation (whatever that is) at MIT? And deciding to go to Harvard Medical School after spending six years on the Harvard faculty! Your SATs must've been unbelievable! Then, getting the gig at Emory, where you teach both anthropology "and" medicine? Plus, your students keep telling us what a cool professor you are. By the way, how'd you even find the time to spend two years in Africa with the Kalahari Bushmen, or to keep going up to Washington to push for health care reform? Anyway, congratulations. We think you're a really, really smart dude. "www.emory.edu/COLLEGE/ANTHROPOLOGY/FACULTY/ANTMK" less...

Call her a master of reinvention. In 1991 KATHY HOGAN TROCHECK left her reporting job at the "AJC" to launch a career as a mystery author, penning a successful series set in Atlanta featuring police officer-turned-house cleaner Callahan Garrity. This year Trocheck pulled a fast one on fans. Under the pseudonym Mary Kay Andrews, she published the breezy "Savannah Blues", about an antiques buyer named Weezie Foley who digs through the discarded junk of the city's uppercrust. The Candler Park resident says her new "nom de plume" is no secret, and who are we to argue? It worked for Anne Rice.

"www.kathytrocheck.com."

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Ha Jin's personal story is nearly as fascinating as his fiction: Born in China and having served in the People's Liberation Army, he studied English following the Cultural Revolution. He only began writing fiction in English in 1989, yet he has since picked up the PEN Hemingway and Flannery O'Connor awards, as well as the National Book Award for his first novel, Waiting. Currently an Emory professor and Lawrenceville resident, his work is an exemplar of simplicity and precision. less...