Category: Excerpts

ExcerptsLeave a comment

Off the Shelf: Emus Loose in Egnar by Judy Muller

univnebpress

Read the beginning of Chapter One, "Everything Old is New Again" from Emus Loose in Egnar: Big Stories from Small Towns by Judy Muller: "With all the hand-wringing about the “death of journalism,” it is more than a little ironic that small-town papers have been thriving by practicing what the mainstream media are now preaching. “Hyper-localism,” “Citizen Journalism,” “Advocacy Journalism”—these are some of the latest buzzwords of the profession. But the concepts, without the fancy names, have been around for ages in small-town newspapers. And the weeklies have learned a lesson from watching the financial stress of their city cousins: … Continue reading Off the Shelf: Emus Loose in Egnar by Judy Muller

Excerpts1 Comment

Off the Shelf: Wins, Losses, and Empty Seats by David George Surdam

univnebpress

Surdam Read the beginning of the Prologue, "Clash of Titans" from Wins, Losses, and Empty Seats: How Baseball Outlasted the Great Depression by David George Surdam:

"Two of baseball’s most famous teams arrived at Yankee Stadium on September 9, 1928 for a four-game series that began with a doubleheader. The Philadelphia Athletics, managed by Connie Mack, held a one-half game lead over the New York Yankees.

Continue reading “Off the Shelf: Wins, Losses, and Empty Seats by David George Surdam”

ExcerptsLeave a comment

Off the Shelf: Or Perish in the Attempt by David J. Peck

univnebpress

Peck Read the beginning of Chapter 1, "Politics and Passion: The Exploration of the American Wilderness" from Or Perish in the Attempt: The Hardship and Medicine of the Lewis and Clark Expedition by David J. Peck:

"A love for the wilderness and outdoor adventure are born into the heart and mind of nearly every American, or, at the least, learned early in life. It is nurtured and grows in some more than in others, but it is difficult to grow up in the United States without a strong love of the vast open expanses with which we North Americans are blessed. Coupled with our love of the wilderness comes a fascination with the people who blazed the trails into the wild. That sense of awe and admiration for these pathfinders is cultivated and personified by American icons of the wilderness, men such as Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, Joe Walker, John Muir, Richard Byrd, and the most famous of all, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.

Continue reading “Off the Shelf: Or Perish in the Attempt by David J. Peck”

ExcerptsLeave a comment

Mimi Schwartz Essay

univnebpress

Mimi Schwartz is an author of two books with the University of Nebraska Press. Good Neighbors, Bad Times is the story of Schwartz’s twelve-year, three-continent quest to uncover her Jewish past. In Thoughts from a Queen-Sized Bed, Schwartz writes with a keen and amused eye about growing up in an immigrant Jewish family, coming of age in New York in the 1950s, marrying her high school beau, and arriving at feminist consciousness in the 1970s. Tikkun, a magazine that promotes peace, healing, and transformation throughout the world, recently published an essay by Schwartz. The piece is a compilation of Schwartz’s … Continue reading Mimi Schwartz Essay

ExcerptsLeave a comment

Off the Shelf: Ten Years on the Rock Pile by Lee Vincent

univnebpress

Vincent Read the beginning of "A Slife of Life on the Mountain" from Ten Years on the Rock Pile: A Collection of Stories, Some Hilarious, Some Tragic, about Life at the Summit of Mount Washington by Lee Vincent, Foreword by Guy Gosselin:

"For a long time nothing has been written about Mount Washington and the immediate area, and to me this has been sort of a tragedy in that there has been so much taking place on the mountain in the past ten years and nothing has really been said. It is with this idea in mind that I have written these short stories pertaining to the mountain, trying to include the humor, tragedy, and everyday lifestyle of those men that inhabit the summit of Mount Washington year-round.

Continue reading “Off the Shelf: Ten Years on the Rock Pile by Lee Vincent”

ExcerptsLeave a comment

Off the Shelf: Let There Be Pebble by Zachary Michael Jack

univnebpress

Jack Read the beginning of Chapter 1 from Let There Be Pebble: A Middle-Handicapper's Year in America's Garden of Golf by Zachary Michael Jack:

"When I announced to my coworkers I would be taking a “professional leave” from teaching to spend a U.S. Open year on the storied fairways of Pebble Beach, they looked at me as if I’d taken leave of something else: my senses. They’re intellectuals, teachers all, and not one of them an avid golfer.

Continue reading “Off the Shelf: Let There Be Pebble by Zachary Michael Jack”

ExcerptsLeave a comment

Off the Shelf: Realizing Tomorrow by Chris Dubbs and Emeline Paat-Dahlstrom

univnebpress

Dubbs Read the beginning of the Prologue from Realizing Tomorrow: The Path to Private Spaceflight by Chris Dubbs and Emeline Paat-Dahlstrom:

"The Holland America cruise ship SS Statendam stood at berth in New York Harbor on 4 December 1972 preparing for a curious mission related to the American space program. Tom Buckley, reporter for the New York Times, boarded the ship, unsure what to expect. There was a buzz that this trip would be something special, with big-name headliners: Wernher von Braun, head of the American space program; Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell, who eleven months earlier had walked on the moon; and writer Arthur C. Clarke, whose novel 2001: A Space Odyssey had been made into a movie in 1968.

Continue reading “Off the Shelf: Realizing Tomorrow by Chris Dubbs and Emeline Paat-Dahlstrom”

ExcerptsLeave a comment

Off the Shelf: Mondo and Other Stories by J. M. G. Le Clézio

univnebpress

LeClezio Read the beginning of the title story, "Mondo", from Mondo and Other Stories by J. M. G. Le Clézio, translated by Alison Anderson:

"No one really knew where Mondo came from. He just showed up one day, by chance, here in our town, and no one really noticed, and then we got used to him. He was ten years old or so, with a round, tranquil face and fine, slightly slanted black eyes. But it was, above all, his hair that we noticed, ash brown hair that changed color with the light and seemed almost gray at nightfall.

Continue reading “Off the Shelf: Mondo and Other Stories by J. M. G. Le Clézio”

ExcerptsLeave a comment

Off the Shelf: Under Pallor, Under Shadow by Bill Felber

univnebpress
Felber Read the beginning of Chapter 1, "Ralph Young’s Big Moment" from Under Pallor, Under Shadow: The 1920 American League Pennant Race That Rattled and Rebuilt Baseball by Bill Felber:
"Ralph Young was a second baseman of unremarkable talent for nine Major League seasons during the first quarter of the twentieth century. He never hit better than .300, and his career .247 batting and .959 fielding averages failed to gain much notice among contemporaries.

Continue reading “Off the Shelf: Under Pallor, Under Shadow by Bill Felber”

ExcerptsLeave a comment

Off the Shelf: Pitchers of Beer by Dan Raley

univnebpress

Raley Read the beginning of Chapter 2, "Sick and the Needy" from Pitchers of Beer: The Story of the Seattle Rainiers by Dan Raley, Photographs from the David Eskenazi Collection:

 "After his 1937 franchise takeover, Seattle’s new baseball proprietor turned up at a Pacific Coast League (PCL) meeting held in Sacramento, California, and introduced himself to one of his peers with a handshake and the words, “Sick here.” To which the other man responded in wise-guy fashion: “I’m not feeling too well myself.” Some easily could have questioned Emil Sick’s sanity, if not his future health, for deciding to involve himself in Seattle’s complicated baseball affairs.

Continue reading “Off the Shelf: Pitchers of Beer by Dan Raley”