Bigger than Life: A Murder, a Memoir by Dinah Lenney “This affecting memoir ends on a note of grace as Lenney acknowledges her hard-won peace with her father’s memory and his murder. . . . Such transcendent realizations elevate Bigger Than Life . . . beyond an account of the bombastic life and brutal death of Nelson Gross to speak of life and healing found in the midst of tragedy.”—Paula L. Woods, Los Angeles Times Book Review Read More Reviews for Bigger than Life Continue reading More Praise for Bigger than Life

illiam Shakespeare was born on this day in the year 1564 and, incidentally, died on this day in 1616.  All the world’s a stage,And all the men and women merely players.They have their exits and their entrances;And one man in his time plays many parts.       —As You Like It Happy Birthday, William! And because it’s National Poetry Month, I think I’ll paste one of my favorite sonnets by Shakespeare below, Number 130: My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;If hairs … Continue reading The Bard’s Birthday

Africa on Six Wheels: A Semester on Safari by Betty Levitov “Readers [are] sure to enjoy this virtual tour as Levitov takes them on a sometimes wild, sometimes exhausting, always instructive bus ride from Kenya through Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. . . . Levitov’s writing entices; one could plan an inexpensive itinerary through southern Africa based on her experiences, good and bad. . . . Any open-minded traveler can experience and appreciate the expanded sense of community that Levitov and her students bring home. For those without benefit of a transglobal plane ticket, Africa on Six … Continue reading Praise for Africa on Six Wheels

by Terese Svoboda n honor of National Poetry Month, I would like to celebrate the poetry of Nebraska’s newest arrivals, the Nuer. When I lived with the Nuer in the Sudan in the seventies, collecting and translating their songs, I was surprised to find myself in a landscape very much like western Nebraska, surrounded by cattle. Now, so many decades later, I’m truly astonished that in the wake of the terrible fighting in the Sudan, many Nuers have moved to Nebraska, primarily to Omaha, but there is also a community within a hundred miles of Ogallala, where I was born. … Continue reading Songs of the Nuer

Select Ted Kooser Titles are on sale now through April 27, 2007! The Blizzard VoicesBy Ted KooserWith a new introduction by the authorIncluded in the 2007 Book Sense Poetry Top Ten Picks The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice for Beginning PoetsBy Ted Kooser See other poetry titles for sale during our April Poetry Month Sale! Continue reading Ted Kooser Titles On Sale

f anyone is guilty about not celebrating The National Poetry Month enough, do not worry — you probably didn’t even know there is a World in Translation Month as well. Or, at least, a celebration of that, according to PEN American Center for Translations. It’s in May. It is still April, but I thought I’d let the two overlap the calendar month boundaries, sort of like Zodiac signs, and let this post pass from the sign of Poetry into the sing of Translation. I have been translating a lot of poetry lately — a secretly pleasurable and highly frustrating pastime, … Continue reading The Poetry Month – in Translation

On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson was signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking baseball’s color line. Branch Rickey: Baseball’s Ferocious GentlemanBy Lee Lowenfish Branch Rickey, the Dodgers’ manager at the time, was brave enough to sign Robinson. Blackout: The Untold Story of Jackie Robinson’s First Spring TrainingBy Chris Lamb A Year earlier, Robinson trained in segregated Florida while he was a prospect for the team Montreal Royals. Extra Bases: Reflections on Jackie Robinson, Race, and Baseball HistoryBy Jules Tygiel "[T]he essays about Jackie Robinson and Jim Crow baseball, Tygiel’s specialities, are small gems that are worth the price of this … Continue reading It’s Been Sixty Years and One Day

The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939–March 1942 By Christopher R. BrowningWith contributions by Jürgen Matthäus "Christopher R. Browning firmly ties what the Nazis called their ‘war of destruction’ against the Soviet Union to the Holocaust. In Mr. Browning’s view . . . Germany’s mass murders of Jews and non-Jews alike on the Eastern Front crystallized Nazi policy regarding the eradication of European Jewry."—The New York Times. Women’s Holocaust Writing; Memory and Imagination By S. Lillian Kremer "Though similar in terms of hunger, cold, fear, and mistreatment, women’s ordeals in the camps and … Continue reading National Days of Remembrance