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 finished Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, a fantasy novel set in England during the Napoleonic Wars. It follows the relationship between the two magicians as magic is returned to England. I loved it and am excited to start the BBC miniseries once I finish watching The Pitt.” -Sarah Kee

“I recently finished Harlem Rhapsody by Victoria Christopher Murray. This is one of the best books I’ve read in a while. I didn’t know the name Jessie Redmon Fauset before I read this work of fiction about her life and her influence in the Harlem Renaissance. Her mentorship of young, black writers during this period is nothing short of inspirational.” -Lacey Losh

“I’m reading Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead, a contemporary take on Dickens’ David Copperfield that follows a young boy’s life through institutional poverty, a broken foster care system, addiction, and redemption from growing out of the ‘lost boys’ generation in rural Appalachia. It’s been on my list for awhile, and a recent long layover was my justification for buying it at the airport! I’m also listening to Robert Leckie’s Helmet for my Pillow on audio, a Marine’s memoir from World War II that begins with his enlisting shortly after Pear Harbor. I enjoy listening to nonfiction on my commutes between Lincoln and Omaha.” -Taylor Gilreath

“A friend recommended The Quiet Damage: QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family by Jesslyn Cook. I don’t usually read nonfiction, but I flew through the audiobook while making my first stumbling steps into crochet. I thought Cook did an excellent job of emphasizing the very real and human cost of rampant misinformation in online spaces in a narrative that deftly humanized believers without condoning their beliefs. An important read in times where even the most agreed-upon truths are up for interpretation.” -Rebecca Jefferson

“As we sit on a beautiful terrace on our last day in Madeira I am reading Brigitte Reimann’s Siblings, a beautifully written novel about the relationship between a sister and her two very different brothers and their parents in 1960 as the border between East and West Germany closes. The hotel here in Funchal has lots of bookcases throughout, and this was the second of two reads.” -Jane Ferreyra

“I’m reading The Good Lord Bird by James McBride, about a young slave (Henry Shackleford) in Kansas Territory during the Bleeding Kansas conflict. He gets picked up by the abolitionist John Brown who’s in the territory to rouse the free staters, dispatch the pro-slavers (violently dispatch), and keep Kansas from becoming a slave state. Brown thinks Henry is a girl, thinks he’s his good-luck charm, calls him Little Onion, and Henry adopts this persona to stay alive. I’m about halfway through and it’s a wild ride! I gave it as a Christmas present a few years ago (because I wanted to read it), and I’ve finally gotten around to it.” -Annie Shahan