ExcerptsLeave a comment

Off the Shelf: This Is Not the Ivy League by Mary Clearman Blew

univnebpress

Blew Read the beginning of Chapter 1 from This Is Not the Ivy League: A Memoir by Mary Clearman Blew:

"In the spring of 1944 my mother and father borrowed more money than they had ever seen and purchased the old home ranch on Spring Creek, in central Montana, that had been my great-grandfather’s 1882 homestead. My father would be thirty-one in a few weeks, my mother had just turned thirty. I was four years old, my sister a toddler of eighteen months. We had been living on an alkali ranch in the sagebrush, down on the Judith River, and the move meant hay meadows and fresh water and good grazing for the cattle on the slopes of the mountains that overlooked the creek drainage, together with all the family associations with place, which even in 1944 were becoming emblematic. My great-grandfather had been one of the earliest homesteaders in central Montana, and it seemed that every shale hill and coulee, bend of the creek or grove of cottonwood trees, had its name and its position in the landscape of the family narrative.

Continue reading “Off the Shelf: This Is Not the Ivy League by Mary Clearman Blew”

ExcerptsLeave a comment

Off the Shelf: What They Saved by Nancy K. Miller

univnebpress

Read the beginning of Chapter 1, "The Heiress", from What They Saved: Pieces of a Jewish Past by Nancy K. Miller: "When my father died, I became a middle-aged Jewish orphan. It’s not that I wasn’t already Jewish, of course, or that I set out to say Kaddish for him—I had no idea how to do that, even if it had been a daughter’s place. But now that the last keeper of my Jewish past was dead and I was free to put it behind me, I started worrying about the future of my Jewish self. As I began to … Continue reading Off the Shelf: What They Saved by Nancy K. Miller

ExcerptsLeave a comment

Off the Shelf: When We Walked Above the Clouds by H. Lee Barnes

univnebpress

Read the beginning of Chapter One from When We Walked Above the Clouds: A Memoir of Vietnam by H. Lee Barnes: "In midsummer of ’63 the outside buzzer to my apartment rang. I’d worked until late at the press preparing layouts for the camera. I lived alone and no one ever came to see me, so I figured it was someone wanting another apartment and mistakenly pushing the button to my buzzer. It had happened before. I lay back. The bell rang again, this time insistently. I awoke and half asleep slipped on jeans and shirt and tottered into the … Continue reading Off the Shelf: When We Walked Above the Clouds by H. Lee Barnes

UncategorizedLeave a comment

Judy Muller on ABC

univnebpress

UNP author Judy Muller was recently interviewed on ABC News. In the interview, she discusses her new book, Emus Loose in Egnar. In this book, Muller, an award-winning journalist, takes her readers on a grassroots tour of rural American newspapers. These weeklies cover what larger papers don’t, and the eclectic mix of stories keeps these publications alive and well while many traditional media are slowly dying off. Filled with characters both quirky and courageous, the book is a heartening reminder that there is a different kind of “bottom line” in the hearts of journalists who keep churning out good stories, … Continue reading Judy Muller on ABC

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

UncategorizedLeave a comment

Author Susan Supernaw on Book-TV July 4th

univnebpress

If you need a break from outdoor festivities this July 4th, head inside, crank up the air conditioning, and tune into Book-TV on C-Span 2. At noon on Monday, UNP author Susan Supernaw will be talking about her book Muscogee Daughter. Muscogee Daughter is the personal story of Supernaw, a Muscogee (Creek) and Munsee Native American, and the many obstacles she had to overcome in order to reach her goals. Eventually, she won a college scholarship and was crowned Miss Oklahoma in 1971. This book chronicles her quest to discern her true identity among competing notions of what it is … Continue reading Author Susan Supernaw on Book-TV July 4th

Uncategorized1 Comment

SMH Drawing Winner

univnebpress

Congratulations to Gregory Ball of San Antonio, Texas, who is the winner of our Register to Win drawing from the Society of Military History Conference (SMH). Gregory won the book Beneficial Bombing by Mark Clodfelter. In Beneficial Bombing, Clodfelter describes how American airmen, horrified by World War I’s trench warfare, turned to the progressive ideas, with the heavy bomber as their solution to limiting the bloodshed. The book examines this progressive idealism, which led to the creation of the U.S. Air Force and its doctrine that precision bombing would end wars more quickly and with less suffering. Clodfelter presents the … Continue reading SMH Drawing Winner

AwardsLeave a comment

UNP ForeWord Book of the Year Award Winners

univnebpress

The ForeWord Book of the Year Awards have been announced, and two of our books were winners. Stolen Horses by Dan O’Brien won silver in the Fiction-General category, and Quotidiana by Patrick Madden took bronze in the Essays category. Stolen Horses describes the conflict between long-time residents and affluent newcomers in the ranch town of McDermot, Nebraska. McDermot is an ideal place for those who want to escape from their hectic city lives, but the town means something very different to these people than it does to its original inhabitants. This disagreement between new and old interests escalates, leading to … Continue reading UNP ForeWord Book of the Year Award Winners

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”