A interview with Twelfth and Race author Eric Goodman posted on Cincinnati.com yesterday, and the setting of the book likely will sound familiar to most Cincinnatians. Goodman takes  familiar “events that form the backdrop for the interracial love story at the heart of it – riots that erupt after the police shooting of a young African-American man in April 2001– and many of the names of people and places” to explore the complicated emotions about racism. Lauren Bishop of Cincinnati.com spoke with Goodman about the novel's setting, which is a fictional city with elements of both Cincinnati and Kansas City called … Continue reading Cincinnati roots

Today in the Omaha World-Herald, two new UNP books were reviewed. Bound to Have Blood: Frontier Newspapers and the Plains Indian Wars by Hugh J. Reilly, and Eyewitness at Wounded Knee by Richard E. Jensen, R. Eli Paul and John E. Carter were called two historical studies that “…do an outstanding job of deepening the knowledge of Plains history.” Bound to Have Blood takes readers back to the late nineteenth century to show how newspaper reporting influenced attitudes about the conflict between the United States and Native Americans. Eyewitness at Wounded Knee brings together and assesses for the first time … Continue reading Great Plains in spotlight

Inside In the United States of Africa (2009), French-speaking African writer Abdourahman A. Waberi turns the fortunes of the world upside down. On this reimagined globe a stream of sorry humanity flows from the West, from the slums of America and the squalor of Europe, to escape poverty and desperation in the prosperous United States of Africa. It is in this world that an African doctor on a humanitarian mission to France adopts a child. And this story is as deadly serious as it is wickedly satiric. Thanks to the translators, David and Nicole Ball, this tale was made available … Continue reading A new year’s resolution of reading

Last week on Salon.com, writers gave their opinions on their favorite books of 2011. Among those chosen was Bohemian Girl by Terese Svoboda. Lydia Millet, author of Ghost Lights, chose Bohemian Girl as her favorite and said, “Terese Svoboda writes some of the loveliest prose in America but has been startlingly overlooked by literary critics and readers.” Millet also called Bohemian Girl her favorite Svoboda book so far saying, “…its language is both modern and passably archaic — translucent, elevated but not pretentious, and often sly.” Read the rest of the authors’ favorites here. Continue reading Bohemian Girl listed as a favorite

This past weekend, NPR's Only a Game chatted with author John Schulian about his book Sometimes They Even Shook Your Hand: Portraits of Champions Who Walked Among Us. In Sometimes They Even Shook Your Hand, Schulian, a much-honored sportswriter for nearly forty years, takes us back to a time when our greatest athletes stood before us as human beings, not remote gods. In this compelling collection, Schulian paints prose portraits to remind fans of what today’s cloistered stars won’t share with them. The review says that”…Schulian deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as some of his heroes…”  Click … Continue reading NPR review