Fall books are starting to arrive in the University of Nebraska Press offices, and, very soon, they will begin arriving in bookstores and in libraries, too. I have a big stack on my desk right now: pristine covers with beautiful, modern designs, smooth pages, straight spines. They smell new, too, like crisp, clean paper and a little bit of glue. I am admiring them as I write.

And I figured that now, with these new books in plain sight, would be a good time for a preview of our small season. A small sampling of what’s to come this fall:

Reconsidering Happiness, by Sherrie Flick: This is the story of two east coast women who wind up in the Midwest (one in a small, nameless Nebraska town not far outside of Lincoln; the other in Des Moines). They’re drawn by restlessness, ambition, adventurousness and a desire to escape from a place where everyone knows everyone else. This is also a story about self-discovery and self-reliance. It’s getting quite a bit of pre-publication attention, too.

Call Me Ahab, by Anne Finger: This is a vivid and imaginative short story collection. In the opening story, Frida Kahlo and Helen Keller are lovers. In every story, disabled people live lives that are ordinary in some ways and extraordinary in other ways, and are, above all, human. Finger has a precise, somewhat haunting writing style, and she, like Flick, has already attracted some pre-publication buzz. The Feminist Review had this to say.

Rock, Water, Wild, by Nancy Lord: A moose and her offspring sit just outside the kitchen window as the author works inside. Later, when the author moves into the living room to watch television, the moose follows her and settles down under a tree, as if to keep an eye on her. In this essay collection, Nancy Lord explores the relationships between wild animals and humans, the allure of remoteness and the fine line between relying on the land to make a living and exploiting the land. Lord is the Alaska state writer laureate.

Like I said, this is just a small sampling of what’s to come this fall. More preview notes to come later…