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 reading Prophet Song by Paul Lynch after it caught my eye on a display stand in Barnes & Noble. A work of speculative fiction, the novel is set in Dublin and follows Eilish as she struggles to keep her family together after the country’s newly formed secret police interrogate her husband, a trade unionist. I also stopped by The Wandering Page, a new bookstore/café in Omaha, and bought a copy of Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll that I plan to start reading soon.” -Sarah Kee

“I recently finished I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman. It’s a dystopian story of 40 imprisoned women, told from the perspective of a young girl among the women who is trying to make sense of their circumstances. It follows her through her life, including refreshing perspectives given from someone brought up in extreme isolation and with limited community.” -Lacey Losh

“I have unfortunately been in a reading funk the last few months and while I have started multiple books, I have been struggling to find something I want to finish. Not too long ago, I finished The Color of Magic by Sir Terry Pratchett, the first in his Discworld series, so I recently picked up two more books in that series, Wyrd Sisters and Witches Abroad, the second and third books of the Witches subseries. The nice thing about Discworld is that there’s several subseries and you can read them in any order, so I’m able to just kind of pick and choose whatever I feel like I’m in the mood for.” -Taylor Martin

“I’m nearly finished with The Secret History by Donna Tartt. I’ve been on the waitlist to borrow this one for months, so I was thrilled when I got the notification that it was available! As a past Classics student myself, this one sometimes hits a little too close to home but overall, I love the atmospheric writing and air of mystery that surrounds the entire novel. I can see this being one of my all-time favorites!” -Shannyn McEntee

“I recently finished Pearly Everlasting by Tammy Armstrong. It’s a novel set in the 1920s and 1930s about a girl growing up in a logging camp with her twin brother—who happens to be a bear. No, it’s not a children’s tale nor is it fantasy. It is a coming-of-age story (inspired by an actual photo from the era!) with a courageous, resourceful, and fiercely loyal protagonist.” -Joyce Gettman

“I’ve been reading Shakespeare and Company, which is a really fun behind-the-scenes look at the literary scene in Paris in the 1920s. I had no idea there was a previous iteration of the current Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris, which was named in honor of the one opened and ran by Sylvia Beach, as depicted in this book. Beach’s writing reads like journal entries or letters to a friend, but casually featuring some of the most famous writers of the 20^th century.” -Madison Wigley

“I just read two books I bought at a poetry reading at the Montana Book Company: Joe Wilkins’ Pastoral, 1994 and Corrie Williamson’s Your Mother’s Bear Gun. I bought the former because everything Wilkins writes is brilliant and the latter after reading the opening lines of ‘Bone Pilgrims’: ‘How terribly beautiful a name for the men who skulked the prairie/seeking the last of the bison bones scattered by ghosts…’ I can’t even remember the last time I bought a book of poetry, but these two voices provide a wonderful sense of experiencing the modern rural West.” -Clark Whitehorn