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World’s most expensive book

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John James Audubon (1785–1851) is one of America’s premier wildlife artists. His monumental Birds of America, a collection of 435 life-sized prints, was published from 1826 to 1838 and is often considered the greatest picture book ever produced. The book huge — three feet long and two feet wide — because Audubon wanted to paint the birds as life sized.   One of the best preserved editions of the 19th century masterpiece was just sold for 7.3m GB in London this month, which makes it the most expensive book ever sold. If the book was sold in the United States, … Continue reading World’s most expensive book

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Off the Shelf: Footprints in the Dust edited by Colin Burgess

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Burgess Read the beginning of Chapter 1, "The Whole World Was Watching" from another featured gift book, Footprints in the Dust: The Epic Voyages of Apollo, 1969-1975 edited by Colin Burgess, foreword by Richard F. Gordon:

"The world watched and listened, breathless and mesmerized.

“Houston, this is Neil. Radio check.”

Could this really be happening? It all just seemed so . . . what’s the word for it? Unreal. That’s it. Unreal. This stuff happened in comic books, not in real life.

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Cervantes Prize winner

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Ana Maria Matute earned this year's Cervantes Prize, which is given annually to a Spanish or Latin American writer for lifetime achievement. Founded in 1976 by the Spanish Ministry of Culture, the Cervantes Prize is the highest award given for contributions to Spanish literature. Matute is the third woman to receive this prestigious honor.  In 1997, we published an English translation of her book, Celebration in the Northwest (Spanish title: Fiesta al Noroeste), as part of our European Women Writers series. Previous winners include the 2010 Nobel Prize Winner in Literature Mario Vargas Llosa, who was also a contributor to … Continue reading Cervantes Prize winner

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Searching for Tamsen Donner listed as a favorite

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The year was 1846. The Donner Party set out for California in a wagon train, a trip that usually takes between four and six months. When winter set in, they became snowbound in the Sierra Nevadas. They food supplies became low, along with their health and spirits, and some, it is believed, resorted to cannibalism. Searching for Tamsen Donner is about Gabrielle Burton’s quest to find the truth about Tamsen Donner, who was a stoic pioneer woman who saw her children to safety but stayed with her dying husband at the cost of her own life. For Burton, Tamsen’s story … Continue reading Searching for Tamsen Donner listed as a favorite

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LJS gives rave reviews of two fall titles

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Dan O’Brien's work of fiction, Stolen Horses is about pleasant McDermot, Nebraska and how the cattle town came to be a place of quiet, beautiful refuge to those looking for a place to relax. This of course was the case until a local journalist uncovers a medical scandal epitomizing the problems facing the divided community, between the local inhabitants and the new comers looking to settle in. Francis Moul from the Lincoln Journal Star called Stolen Horses a “beautiful, complex, rich tale that draws the reader into the disparate lives of characters that grip our attention.” Read the full review   Enrique Martínez Celaya: … Continue reading LJS gives rave reviews of two fall titles

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Off the Shelf: In Trace of TR by Dan Aadland

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Aadland Read the beginning of the Introduction from a freatured gift book idea, In Trace of TR: A Montana Hunter's Journey by Dan Aadland:

"Fifty years ago I sat on a wooden rail enclosing a large observation deck behind the visitor’s center at Mount Rushmore. Encircled by a crowd of chattering siblings, so many of them that my father required us to count off military style each time we reentered the car, I watched a bedecked Sioux pose for pictures with admiring tourists. He was having a fine time, a midsummer Santa Claus with headdress, surrounded by suitors—and so were the tourists.

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UNP books in national magazines

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Two UNP books received accolades from national magazines: Palmento: A Sicilian Wine Odyssey by Robert V. Camuto is in the Dec. 31 issue of Wine Spectator. Thomas Matthews said Camuto’s “affection for Sicily and its citizens is heartfelt, and his skill and enthusiasm combine to create a captivating portrait of a singular culture.” In Palmento, Camuto explores Sicily’s emerging wine scene, but what he discovers during more than a year of traveling the region, however, was far more than a fascinating win frontier. To read the full article click here.   Sleep in Me by Jon Pineda was listed as … Continue reading UNP books in national magazines

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UNP author wins 2010 Athearn Prize

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UNP congratulates Margaret D. Jacobs again on winning the 2010 Athearn Western History Association Prize for her book White Mother to a Dark Race. We just received this photo from the annual awards banquet at the WHA Conference in Lake Tahoe on Friday, Oct. 15. Jacobs is a professor of history and the director of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. She has also won the 2010 Bancroft Prize and the Armitage-Jameson Prize sponsored by the Coalition for Western Women’s History.    Heather Lundine, UNP managing editor; Margaret D. Jacobs, author; John R. Wunder, President … Continue reading UNP author wins 2010 Athearn Prize

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Off the Shelf: In Search of Powder by Jeremy Evans

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Evans Read the beginning of Chapter 1, "Shangri-la" from one of our featured gift books, In Search of Powder: A Story of America's Disappearing Ski Bum by Jeremy Evans, Foreword by Glen Plake:

"Shangri-la, as described by James Hilton in Lost Horizon, is a place where the mind, body, and soul is at peace, where sparkling emerald grasses spray across a mountain valley broken by tumbling waterfalls, where the people who inhabit this utopia are as virtuous as the essence of its existence. For decades this refuge, rumored to be in a secret region of Tibet, has baffled those who have sought its coordinates, but the fortunate who have found it never needed a map to locate it. In 1973, an impressionable college student named Johnny Davis, escaping a disjointed childhood in Kona, Hawaii, stumbled upon his Shangri-la.

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