Need for the Bike

Happy Friday! If you live in Nebraska, I hope you’re enjoying the beautiful day as much as I am. And if you’re in the Boston area next week, you can attend one of two lectures by Nobel Prize winner and University of Nebraska Press author J. M. G. Le Clézio for free. On Tuesday, April 28th, he’ll give a talk and reading in English at MIT, 32 Vassar Street, in Cambridge. The talk begins at 6 p.m. Or, if you’d prefer to hear him speak in his native language, you can attend a lecture in French on Wednesday, April 29th, … Continue reading Need for the Bike

Book bargains galore!

Attention book lovers and bargain hunters: Our hurt book sale is tomorrow! Visit our warehouse (in the Haymarket) for lots and lots of cheap books — $4 for hardcovers, $2 for paperbacks, or fill a bag for a mere $12. There’s lots of good stuff, including Kooser titles, sports history books, and, naturally, lots and lots of stuff about the American West. Exciting stuff! In other event news, Hilda Raz will read from her recent work tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the Great Plains Art Gallery, 12th and Q streets. Among Raz’s recent work is What Happens, a poetry collection … Continue reading Book bargains galore!

Holocaust Remembrance Day, honoring Holocaust Survivor Hédi Fried, UNP author and subject of new documentary

Today marks Holocaust Remembrance Day, a day set aside to remember those who suffered more than 60 years ago. Hédi Fried, a Holocaust survivor, is the author of the autobiography, The Road to Auschwitz: Fragments of a Life, edited and translated by Michael Meyer and published by the University of Nebraska Press. Fried commented, "It took me forty years to realize that I am a witness and that it is my task to tell what I experienced." Read more about Hédi on her blog entry at the Huffington Post. Hédi is featured in the documentary, The Last Survivor, presented by Righteous Pictures. The … Continue reading Holocaust Remembrance Day, honoring Holocaust Survivor Hédi Fried, UNP author and subject of new documentary

Pulitzers, UNP in Publishers Weekly, and three titles up for awards

The 2008 Pulitzer Prize winners were announced yesterday. You can view the full list of this year’s winners and finalists in poetry, literature, and various categories of news reporting here. No University of Nebraska Press titles won Pulitzers this year, but today does bring news from our Nobel Prize-winning author, J. M. G. Le Clezio. The University of Nebraska Press has obtained rights to publish an English translation of Le Clezio’s short story collection Mondo and Other Stories. The collection is slated for publication in spring 2011. Even Publishers Weekly took notice. In other award news, The Great Plains during … Continue reading Pulitzers, UNP in Publishers Weekly, and three titles up for awards

University of Nebraska Press in the Omaha World-Herald

Are you finding yourself drawn to books that describe the place where you live in these tough economic times? According to a story in Saturday’s Omaha World-Herald, you’re not alone. Bookstores are noticing a trend toward regional-interest books, particularly non-fiction, as readers seek out books depicting people, places and events that are familiar to them. Call it comfort reading. As University of Nebraska Press Marketing Manager Rhonda Winchell, who was quoted in the story, says “Everyone is looking for the book form of macaroni and cheese in a blue box.” The full story is here. Along those lines, wouldn’t some of those comforting … Continue reading University of Nebraska Press in the Omaha World-Herald

Off the Shelf: Take Me Out to the Ball Game by Amy Whorf McGuiggan

Take Me Out to the Ball Game cover image Read from Chapter 4, "1908: The Year of the Song", in Take Me Out to the Ball Game: The Story of the Sensational Baseball Song by Amy Whorf McGuiggan:

"That magical 1908 season seemed to have turned every New Yorker into a Giants—and baseball—fan. The old wooden grandstand was routinely filled with celebrities, politicians, and the stars of Broadway and vaudeville. But the thrills of that 1908 season, its ecstasies and agonies, were all still months away on the April day when Jack Norworth, riding the New York subway, saw a gaudy, lithographed poster of a silk-hosed baseball player standing with a bat on his shoulder.

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A. B. Guthrie Jr. in the Gallery of Outstanding Montanans

Today, A. B. Guthrie Jr. will be inducted into the Montana State Historical Society’s Gallery of Outstanding Montanans. In honor of his induction, here's a synopisis of why he's notable: Shortly after graduating from college with a journalism degree, Guthrie took a job with the Lexington Leader, in Kentucky, and worked there for 30 years. In 1944, 18 years after he started at the paper (and when he was 43 years old), he received a Nieman Fellowship to Harvard University, where he wrote his first novel, The Big Sky. Many other titles followed, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Way West, … Continue reading A. B. Guthrie Jr. in the Gallery of Outstanding Montanans

Remembering Jim Johnston, Yellowstone Autumn reviewed

Jim Johnston, author of the University of Nebraska Press title, The Long Road of War: A Marine’s Story of Pacific Combat, died earlier this month. He was 86 years old. Johnston lived most of his life in southwest Nebraska community of Wauneta, in Chase County, where he established Johnston Real Estate in 1963. His wife and three sons still live there. In 1998, the University of Nebraska Press published The Long Road of War, in which Johnston told his story of service during WWII, which he served mostly in the Pacific. The book was well received in military circles and … Continue reading Remembering Jim Johnston, Yellowstone Autumn reviewed

More poetry during National Poetry Month

An interview with Terese Svoboda (author of Trailer Girl and Other Stories, which will be published as a Bison paperback in December) was featured on the arts and culture blog The Millions last week, as part of a National Poetry Month feature. In the interview, Svoboda discusses the importance of song in Sudan, something she spent time researching and translating years ago – and also something she discussed at an event in Grand Island a few weeks back. Click here for an interesting interview with a surprise coincidence. In other, more general, National Poetry Month news, ForeWord Magazine has is … Continue reading More poetry during National Poetry Month

Off the Shelf: Kokomo Joe: The Story of the First Japanese American Jockey in the United States by John Christgau

Kokomo Joe Read an excerpt from the title chapter of Kokomo Joe: The Story of the First Japanese American Jockey in the United States by John Christgau:

"The radio news was that Santa Anita Race Track had opened. Tucked up against the wall of the San Gabriel Mountains, the track seemed an inviting playground, utterly free of irritating stiff rules of conduct. Those magazines he read pictured rich gamblers wearing bowties standing alongside bathing beauties and movie actors, all of them flashing exactly the same broad smiles that had become his trademark. It was obvious that a good smile was the passkey to American success.

Carrying his small suitcase again, Joe hitchhiked across Los Angeles to Santa Anita racetrack. He made his way through a sea of pansies planted around the track to a gate at the backstretch, where a guard in a baggy suit and a police hat stopped him.

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