UNP staff members are always reading new books, both within our list and outside of what we publish. Here are some of the titles where our noses have been buried.

“This month I’ve been reading Janelle Bassett’s short story collection, Thanks for This Riot. Some favorites of mine from the collection are ‘Enviable Levels’ and ‘The Crowded Private Cottage.’ I’ve also slowly been working my way through Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros.” -Sarah Kee

“I just started Table for Two: Fictions by Amor Towles. If you read and enjoyed any of his previous books (The Lincoln Highway, A Gentleman in Moscow, and Rules of Civility) you’ll probably like this, too.” -Erica Corwin

“I just started reading The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson – it has such mixed reviews I’m curious to see what side I’ll land on.” -Rosemary Sekora

“I’m reading Ronald Grigor Suny’s They Can Live in the Desert But Nowhere Else: A History of the Armenian Genocide (Princeton, 2017), a history of how Turk nationalism and modernization led to ethnic divisions in Central Asia and precipitated the Armenian genocide. Suny’s book is a primer on ethnic nationalisms in Central Asia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century told in a gripping narrative.” -Matt Bokovoy

“I’m reading The Tobacco Wives, a novel by Adele Myers. I was gifted this book by a paralibrarian friend of mine who knows I love historical fiction, and this book is wonderful so far. It feels like I am right in the heart of North Carolina in the 1940’s, following the protagonist as she begins to piece together the dangers of Big Tobacco and the growing urgency to stand up for the women of this time period—women working in the tobacco factories and expecting mothers whom the cigarette advertisements are knowingly targeting. I’m learning a lot!” -Taylor Gilreath

“I’ve just finished Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez. Inspired by true events, this novel tells the story of a nurse from an Alabama Family Planning Clinic in the 1970s whose patients are two under-aged poor, uneducated Black girls who have been put on birth control due to their position in society. Although heartbreaking, this book opened my eyes to the horrific situations our healthcare system inflicted upon those on welfare during this period. A must-read for anyone interested in the history of family planning or the U.S. welfare system.” -Emily Casillas

“In August I read Laziness Does Not Exist by Devon Price, PhD. Living in a society that values our worth based upon our output of productivity, Laziness Does Not Exist does a wonderful job helping us unlearn that problematic expectation and instead, embraces people for their intrinsic value. In this book the author encourages compassion, curiosity, and self-reflection.” -Lacey Losh

“I’ve been reading Antillia by Henrietta Goodman. It has felt like just the right time to read it. The poems question themselves, and they question me too (‘are you so afraid of loving something that will die?’; ‘Why is even / temperature so unreliable?’). So far I have especially loved ‘Caryatids’ and ‘Red-Winged Blackbirds.’ A good haunting read as we head into fall.” -Rebecca Jefferson