How have you been spending your weekends?  The University of Nebraska Cornhuskers spends weekends working on the football field.  Why, just Saturday they went into overtime in a game with the KU Jayhawks, and won by a touchdown, final score 39-32.  What to do while waiting for next game?  Check out these titles available from the University of Nebraska Press: The Wow Boys A Coach, a Team, and a Turning Point in College FootballBy James W. Johnson Chronicles Stanford’s miraculous 1940 season, from the surprise hiring of coach Clark Shaughnessy and his marshalling of the previously untapped talents of left-handed … Continue reading Weekdays for the Football Fan

ere’s the second and the last of the (downtown) Omaha Lit Fest interviews.  This one is with Bob Vivian for about his book The Mover of Bones.   Listen to Bob Vivian talk about violence, writing, and Nebraska.   Note: This interview was conducted outside within the wind.  Continue reading Talking with Bob Vivian about The Mover of Bones

am smack in the middle of reading The Orange Tree by, Mildred Walker, and I am blown away by how easy it is to relate to the simple nuances of life that she writes about, and how comforting it is to know that someone else recognizes these tendencies and traits in folks.  It is all of these "simple" things that are what inevitably build up to be either the assurance or down-fall of any relationship.  How clearly she writes about Tirese and Paulo and their separate-but-equal soul mates sort of relationship.  How they totally depend on each other everyday, but how they make it clear that they have different minds and thoughts. 

Continue reading “Why I will buy a lemon tree…”

Elsie’s Business by Frances Washburn “Washburn weaves together a murder tale, a story of small-town prejudice, and a bit of Native American mysticism in a haunting debut.”—Booklist Continue reading Praise for Elsie’s Business

At Speed: Traveling the Long Road between Two Points by W. Scott Olsen “It’s not where he goes, but what he sees and how he glowingly describes the scenes that make this book a pleasure to read.”—Booklist Continue reading Praise for At Speed

Tales from the Journey of the Dead: Ten Thousand Years on an American Desert by Alan Boye “Firsthand accounts are aptly balanced by personal histories and thorough research. . . . With wonderfully accessible and consistently engaging writing, Boye adds a long-overlooked and essential piece to the puzzle of American history.”—Booklist Continue reading Praise for Tales from the Journey of the Dead

Nocturnal America by John Keeble “Like the setting, this book is rich and rewarding.”—Publishers Weekly “Keeble’s Pacific Northwest [is] a rich and desolate landscape that yields a limitless trove of both peril and passion. . . . Keeble is adept at speaking from either the male or female point of view. . . . Daily existence is a wild and precarious dance in Keeble’s world, where lives gingerly balance between hope and grief.”—Booklist “Nocturnal America, winner of the 2006 Prairie Schooner Prize for fiction, is a supremely satisfying set of nine loosely connected stories that interweave raw emotion, spiritual searching … Continue reading Praise for Nocturnal America