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Off the Shelf: The Hard Way Home by Steve Kahn

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Hard Way Home cover image Read the beginning of "One Last Cast" from The Hard Way Home: Alaska Stories of Adventure, Friendship, and the Hunt by Steve Kahn:

"I remember gazing into a mountain stream near Turnagain Pass. Minute air bubbles formed along the backs of polished granite boulders hunched at the bottom, then rose in a swirl of motion to the surface. My little hands held tight their first fishing pole: a willow branch rigged with a piece of string from the glove box, a safety pin, and a half-ripe cranberry. I was four years old, maybe five. My folks tell me I was more interested in fishing than a potty stop.

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Off the Shelf: Cover Me by Sonya Huber

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Cover Me cover image Read the beginning of Chapter 1, "Waiting for the Placebo Effect" from Cover Me: A Health Insurance Memoir by Sonya Huber:

"My sinuses throbbed and pressed against the bones of my face like overcooked bratwurst. I pulled open the glass door of the community co-op in Columbus, Ohio. I wanted to fill my skull with brightly colored vitamin cocaine and blot out the suicide gray midwestern sky.

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Author recognized in The Best American Essays collection

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Great news for the Press: an excerpt of Black Elephants by Karol Nielsen (due out in Fall 2011) has been selected as a notable essay by The Best American Essays 2010!  The Best American Series is a collection of the best literature in North America, edited by a respected author in their particular field, and published on a yearly basis.   Black Elephants is Nielsen’s story of romance and reality, war and peace.  As a young journalist, her quest for adventure and a story led her to backpack through South America, where she fell in love with an Israeli soldier.  Nielsen … Continue reading Author recognized in The Best American Essays collection

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Author, Teammates to be inducted into Basketball Hall of Fame

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Author Oscar Robertson will be making another trip to the Basketball Hall of Fame, this time to be inducted with his Olympic teammates.  In a recent New York Times article, Robertson writes about the 1960 Olympic gold medal winning basketball team that he co-captained, a team he calls “the original Dream Team.”  He credits coach Pete Newel (subject of A Good Man: The Pete Newell Story by Bruce Jenkins) for helping the team of college athletes beat the establishment, the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU), and for the first time change how American basketball was represented abroad.  The team will be inducted … Continue reading Author, Teammates to be inducted into Basketball Hall of Fame

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Off the Shelf: Breaking into the Backcountry by Steve Edwards

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Breaking into the Backcountry cover image Read the beginning of Chapter 1, "Getting There" from Breaking into the Backcountry by Steve Edwards:

"By midafternoon we’ve crossed Iowa on I-80 and started north to South Dakota on I-29. It’s the same route we took on a family vacation to the Badlands when I was fourteen, only on that trip we stopped and spent a night in Mitchell, home of the Corn Palace. Today we hit Mitchell and keep on rolling. All afternoon and into the evening the scenery is the same: the highway’s broken white center line, semitrailers streaming west in plumes of exhaust, the flatness of the plains. Checking our mileage, I’m amazed by how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go. Riddle, Oregon, where my father and I will meet the homestead’s owners at a gas station and follow them into the homestead, is 2,316 miles from my little hometown in Indiana. I can no more fathom this distance than I can fathom the distance from Earth to the moon. And though I have poured over the manual Bradley sent me and spent the last few months reading everything I can get my hands on about the Pacific Northwest, I still don’t totally know what to expect. The moon might actually be more familiar a place to me than the Rogue River canyon.

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World War II sale

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World War II ended in August 1945, but its impacts are not forgotten 65 years later.  To remember the sacrifices of the soldier and the citizen, the Press is having a World War II sale.  Now through August 31st, you can save 25 percent on books that show the truly global influence of World War II.   To hear directly from one soldier, read In the Neighborhood of Zero: A World War II Memoir by William V. Spanos.  Taken prisoner during the Battle of the Bulge, then marched and transported by freight train to Dresden, Spanos recalls the experience of being a … Continue reading World War II sale

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A pardon for Billy the Kid?

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New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson may pardon Billy the Kid — not because he disputes the Kid’s outlaw ways, but because another governor had promised to issue a pardon, according to this CNN story. Nearly 130 years after Billy the Kid’s death, the possible pardon is still stirring up controversy, even though no one disputes that Billy the Kid, also known as Henry McCarty, Henry Antrim, Kid Antrim, Billy Bonney, was, indeed, an outlaw. But do you know what crimes he committed that led to outlaw status? Didn’t think so. Shortly after Billy the Kid’s death, at the age of … Continue reading A pardon for Billy the Kid?

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Off the Shelf: Muscogee Daughter: My Sojourn to the Miss America Pageant by Susan Supernaw

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Muscogee Daughter cover image Read from Chapter 3, "Bozo" from Muscogee Daughter: My Sojourn to the Miss America Pageant by Susan Supernaw:

"On Saturday nights we often visited Jonesy, an old family friend who had a color TV. One night Mom saw the Lennon Sisters perform on The Lawrence Welk Show. That convinced her to make us into a family act. Mom sang soprano in the church choir and understood basic harmony and vocal arrangements. She taught Louise and Judy to sing first and second soprano parts, while Kathy and I, with lower voices, sang the alto parts. A song called “Whispering Hope” was supposed to be our big debut. Instead it was my biggest disaster. We wore blue dresses with a small lace yoke in the front. Another member of the congregation owned a beauty salon and volunteered to give matching haircuts and perms to the Supernaw Sisters. When it came time to perform, my sisters all looked great, with their matching hairstyles and dresses. Although my dress matched the others, however, my hair did not. My baby-fine, thin hair couldn’t handle the chemicals, so the same perm that looked great on them burned my hair, breaking it off and frizzing what remained, turning it a funny orangey color. Hiding my hair under a red baseball cap in embarrassment, I was aghast when Mom said, “You must take off that awful hat. We’re going to sing, you can’t wear it. You must remove it. It doesn’t matter how you look, it’s how you sing.”

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A big honor, two awards, and accolades from the Washington Post

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Today’s a big news day for the University of Nebraska Press! Let’s cut right to the chase. Sleep in Me by Jon Pineda has been selected as a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection for the holiday season. Sleep in Me, which will be published in September, is Jon’s very beautiful and very moving memoir, which is part coming-of-age story, part remembrance of his big sister, Rica, who was severely disabled in a car accident when she was a teenager.  Intrigued? Read an excerpt online. And look for displays of this book and the other Discover selections this holiday … Continue reading A big honor, two awards, and accolades from the Washington Post

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Off the Shelf: Scoreboard, Baby by Ken Armstrong and Nick Perry

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Read the beginning of Chapter 1 "Freeze", from Scoreboard, Baby: A Story of College Football, Crime, and Complicity by Ken Armstrong and Nick Perry: "March 14, 2000: Six Months before the Season Begins Kerry Sullivan tried to be careful. Sometimes, when customers would telephone, he’d turn them away. Not today, he’d say, or at least not right now. He wanted to space things out. He wanted to avoid heavy traffic. His rule was: Don’t push it. A typical house does not have people lined up out front—people who knock, enter, and leave in five minutes, one after the other. If … Continue reading Off the Shelf: Scoreboard, Baby by Ken Armstrong and Nick Perry