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Tuesday Trivia: February 10, 2009

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New from the University of Nebraska Press: Searching for Tamsen Donner, by Gabrielle Burton. One summer in the 1970s, Burton, her husband, and their five daughters piled into the family station wagon and meticulously traced the path of the Donner Party, stopping at places the ill-fated pioneers stopped, visiting their graves and trying to understand that long-ago journey. Burton, a fledgling writer, intended to write a novel about Tamsen Donner, the wife of party leader George Donner. Decades later, Burton wrote instead about her summer searching for Tamsen, and what that journey meant for her family, and for her development as … Continue reading Tuesday Trivia: February 10, 2009

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Another week, an award and a podcast

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Welcome back to the work week. I hope you’re enjoying the warm (yet rainy weather), and perhaps have the good fortune of being able to spend the day curled up with a good book. If not, here’s a bit of reading to tide you over. Remember how on Friday I mentioned that University of Nebraska Press author John Turnbull (The Global Game) would appear on NPR’s Only a Game? Well, he did, on Saturday, and you can listen to him and fellow editor Alon Raab discuss soccer with host Bill Littlefield here. In other news, UNP author William L. Ramsey has received … Continue reading Another week, an award and a podcast

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Off the Shelf: The Real Lincoln by Jesse W. Weik

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The Real Lincoln cover image Read from the editor's introduction of The Real Lincoln: A Portrait by Jesse W. Weik, edited by Michael Burlingame:

"When published in 1922, Jesse W. Weik's The Real Lincoln impressed one reviewer as "a singularly rounded, yet unstudied, unretouched portrait of Lincoln as a private man, not that vague abstraction, a public character." Weik's pages, she added, convey "the profound vitality of the man himself" and are "of far more absorbing interest than the smooth surfaces of such a book as Charnwood's Lincoln." Readers of Weik's study of Lincoln seem to "just glimpse him disappearing around the corner of yesterday, to catch an echo of his grave, jesting tones," to feel "the pressure of the atmosphere which enveloped him, the deprivations which left their marks upon him." The Real Lincoln, she said, should be regarded as "a complement or appendix" to William H. Herndon's 1889 biography of Lincoln, which Weik co-authored.1

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February 6, 2009: Two radio shows and one award

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University of Nebraska Press title In the Mind’s Eye by Elizabeth Dodd was featured on the NET Radio program “All About Books” yesterday. To listen to Otis Young and Charles Stephen discuss Dodd’s critically acclaimed collection of nature essays, visit the NET Radio podcast page (then click on the Feb. 5 link under “All About Books”). In other news, each year The National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum (formerly the Cowboy Hall of Fame) selects an Outstanding Western Novel of the year. The 2008 winner is UNP title Jackalope Dreams, by Mary Clearman Blew. Set in Montana, Jackalope Dreams is … Continue reading February 6, 2009: Two radio shows and one award

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Today’s round of accolades

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Shelf Awareness is reporting today that University of Nebraska Press author Dinty Moore has received the Grub Street National Prize for his memoir, Between Panic and Desire. Moore won in the non-fiction category, in which, interestingly enough, Terese Svoboda was a finalist for her title, Black Glasses Like Clark Kent: A GI's Secret from Postwar Japan. This fall, Bison books will reprint Svoboda’s short story collection, Trailer Girl and Other Stories. For the full Shelf Awareness mention, click here (and scroll down to the books and authors section). Grub Street, by the way, is a non-profit creative writing center in … Continue reading Today’s round of accolades

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Wednesday morning book news roundup

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First, some bragging: Two University of Nebraska Press titles took top honors at the 2009 American Association of University Presses Book, Jacket and Journal Show. Valentines, by Ted Kooser, was recognized for its dust jacket design, and Corkscrewed: Adventures in the New French Wine Country, by Robert V. Camuto, was recognized in the trade typographic category. Hooray for our talented designers! Another bit of local(ish) news: Shelf Awareness mentioned the Bookworm, an Omaha bookstore, in today's daily e-newsletter. The bookstore is among several shops to begin book clubs for adults who want to read children’s titles. Click here for the … Continue reading Wednesday morning book news roundup

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Classic books by two Nebraska authors

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Valentine’s Day is one of those holidays that sneaks up on a person. It seems that Christmas has just passed and that you’re just getting back into the groove of not going to holiday parties and not shopping for gifts when all of a sudden, it’s Feb. 12 and the hand-knitted scarf you had planned to make for your beloved just isn’t going to happen. However, you still have plenty of time to buy Valentines, former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser’s collection of more than two decades worth of Valentine’s Day poems. Every year for 22 years, Kooser wrote a … Continue reading Classic books by two Nebraska authors

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Off the Shelf: Searching for Tamsen Donner by Gabrielle Burton

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Searching for Tamsen Donner cover image Read Chapter 4 from Searching for Tamsen Donner by Gabrielle Burton:

"1841 was the first year that families went on the Oregon Trail. Before that, when men went off alone into the wilderness, it was only adventure, but when men, women, and children went, they were making a civilization. After that first covered wagon went West in 1841, a few more families went every year, but 1846, the year the Donners went, was "the year of the families," with twelve hundred men, women, and children going in wagons to Oregon, fifteen hundred to California.

1977 turned out to be "the year of the family" for me.

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January 30, 2009: Technology edition

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We here at the University of Nebraska Press have a new presence on the internet. We're now at — where else — Facebook. Facebook members: Click here to check out our page, which includes, among other things, a photograph submitted by a fan of one of our books on display at the Tattered Cover bookstore in Denver. And if you like what you see, become a fan, please. In other technology news, a new Kindle may be on the way. Here's a piece from the New York Times speculating on what new features the device may have. Finally, Amazon was … Continue reading January 30, 2009: Technology edition