October is a great month to be a sports fan. The World Series playoffs are televised, the NBA season begins, NFL fans are still cheering on their favorite teams – college teams included – and the NHL schedule is well underway. October is also a great time for sports-related reading, and UNP has several new sports books that have attracted national attention. Scoreboard, Babywas reviewed by Steve Weinberg of The Seattle Times, who wrote “The book shocked me — because I do not follow college football as a spectator, I knew almost nothing about the unethical and even lawless nature … Continue reading UNP sport books reviewed in three publications

Palmento, by Robert V. Camuto, made the New York Times yesterday, in wine critic Eric Asimov's roundup of his favorite new wine books. Palmento, which chronicles a year the author spent researching (and drinking) wine in Sicily, received high marks from Asimov, who wrote, among other things:  " … Mr. Camuto extracts fascinating and illuminating details about Sicily, bringing to life the characters, conflicts and family dynamics that define a culture and its wines. It’s a beautiful, enthralling work, eternally wistful and hopeful, much like Sicily itself." To read the whole NYT review, click here.   In other national news, … Continue reading UNP authors in the NYT and on NPR

Ted Gilley’s Bliss and Other Short Stories is a collection of nine stories that introduces readers to an edgy vision and a world in which certainties are tested and found wanting. The stories in Bliss all feature characters going about their business, developing relationships, living their lives, and generally aspiring toward happiness, even when faced with violence, unrequited love, deaths of loved ones, and other tragedies.  Gilley is the recent winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize. Bliss, which is Gilley’s first book, has received tons of praise. Kevin O’Kelly of the Boston Globe wrote, “Bliss and Other Stories is … Continue reading Bliss and Other Short Stories receives glowing reviews

Stolen Horses, by Dan O’Brien, is an old-fashioned Western novel in some ways. The fictional setting – McDermot, Nebraska – is a place where cowboys still live on the ranch homesteads settled by great-great-grandparents, where everyone knows the local history, where many people are resistant to change. But in other ways, it’s a modern story, one that touches on healthcare inequity, corruption, the growing gulf between the rich and poor, and what happens when change finally does come to a place as remote and untouched as McDermot. NPR’s Alan Cheuse reviewed Stolen Horses on All Things Considered last night. A … Continue reading Stolen Horses reviewed on NPR’s All Things Considered

NPR listeners and UNP fans, be sure to tune in to Fresh Air this evening to hear book critic Maureen Corrigan’s rave review of Gabrielle Burton’s memoir/biography, Searching for Tamsen Donner, published last year by the University of Nebraska Press. In the review, which also highlights Burton’s novel about Donner Party matriarch Tamsen Donner, titled Impatient with Desire, Corrigan calls Searching for Tamsen Donner “extraordinary” and a “must read.” Pretty high praise from one of this blogger's favorite radio programs.  A short excerpt from the review follows: Burton writes about a shoestring-budget trip she took in 1977, along with her … Continue reading Searching for Tamsen Donner reviewed on NPR’s Fresh Air