Indiana University Press blog

Happy Book Blogger Appreciation Week!

Have you hugged a book blogger lately? September 14 - 18 is Book Blogger Appreciation Week! We may not literally be able to hug them, but we do figuratively embrace all the book bloggers who have written about our books. We appreciate your support!

To find out more about Book Blogger Appreciation Week, visit their website or follow them on Twitter.

Blogged: Sound Targets

Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker, discusses Jonathan Pieslak's book Sound Targets on his blog, The Rest Is Noise. Read what he has to say about our latest release here.

Blogged: The New Black Gods

Thanks to Phillip Luke Sinitiere at the Religion in American History blog for this nice mention of our book, The New Black Gods:

Edward Curtis and Danielle Sigler have edited what looks to be a fantastic new collection of essays on Arthur Huff Fauset and African American religious traditions. Titled The New Black Gods: Arthur Huff Fauset and the Study of African American Religion, essays cover multiple traditions and explore many issues in the field. Religion in American History's own Kathryn Lofton has an essay. Among many others, this collection of essays might be beneficially read alongside Edward Blum's work on Du Bois, Barbara Savage's new work on Black religion and politics, Wallace Best's study of Black Chicago and religion, and Curtis Evans's book The Burden of Black Religion.

Indiana Poet Laureate explains where words come from

For National Poetry Month, Indiana Poet Laureate Norbert Krapf shares his thoughts on where words come from in a post on the Hoosierati blog:

As part of an e-mail interview for National Poetry Month with Rosa Salter of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, I was asked, as Indiana Poet Laureate, to answer ten questions. The last one produced what I think are the best results: “Where do the words come from?”

Here is my answer: “The words come from the people you descend from, those who made you and brought you up and taught you to read and write and talk and communicate and how to live and conduct yourself. The words come from the culture you live in, they come from the books you read and the songs you listen to, but if you learn how to listen to the deepest part of yourself, that’s where the most important words that are yours come from, in your unique combinations and rhythms, in what is your verbal DNA! And words come from beyond and through you, if you learn how to put yourself in the right place and develop a keen pair of ears, good eyes, and an open heart.” Continue reading...

Norbert Krapf was Professor of English at Long Island University from 1970 to 2004. He is the author of two IU Press books: Bloodroot and Invisible Presence.

Blogged: A Sea without Fish

"Anyone with an interest in the life found during the Ordovician Period will want this book!"—The Birdbooker Report

Blogged: Revenge of the Women's Studies Professor

Twitter is really shrinking the size of my world. The latest example: Carole Sargent from Georgetown University's Booklab started following me on Twitter (or I started following her...can't remember who followed whom first). Through our Twitter connection, she discovered one of publications, The Revenge of the Women's Studies Professor. Turns out she also knows the author! Check out what she has to say about Bonnie Morris and her latest book here.

New Year's resolutions

We're almost 13 days into the new year, and I've already broken some of my resolutions (one of which was posting this blog last week). I guess that's why I usually don't make resolutions. But maybe if I publish them on the blog for the world to see, I'll hold myself more accountable. So with trepidation that I'll be taken to task by the blogosphere if I break them, I declare the following resolutions for 2009:

1. Post the Choice reviews to the blog at the beginning of the month. Progress report: Fail. I hope to do better next month when I'm not trying to catch up from a two-week vacation. Meanwhile, my goal is to get the reviews from January's issue up later this week.
2. Try to make a recipe from The Tao of Cooking. I need to expand my culinary repertoire, which currently consists of about eight rotating dishes. My palate is bored! Progress report: I have looked at the book, but am still searching for a dish that will pass the taste test of my picky husband and even pickier toddler (who would only eat yogurt if I let her). Maybe I'll find something suitable within the next 11 and a half months.
3. Read The Sound and The Fury. I'm not sure how I graduated with a degree in English without having to read Faulkner for any of my classes. The only story of his that I've ever read is A Rose for Emily, and that was way back in high school. So when I recently saw The Sound and The Fury at a used book store, I decided that it was time to fill the Faulkner gap in my literary education. Progress report: I'm on page 54. For several pages, I had no clue what was going on. Now that I'm further into the book, I only have slightly more of a clue of what is going on. I can see why Howard Rockey cautioned Philadelphia Inquirer readers that this book might push them "to apply for admission to the nearest insane asylum."
4. Do more author interviews on the blog. Ideally, I'd like to do one a month, but more realistically I'll say at least one every other month. Progress report: So far, so good. An interview with Norbert Krapf is in the works!
5. Learn more about writing HTML code. I rely on Dreamweaver, a WYSIWYG program, to generate the code for our email promotions. I know the basics of HTML, but want to increase my understanding of it as multiple email clients and browsers present challenges for email deliverability and the correct display of messages in a user's inbox. Progress report: Not started. I get overwhelmed just thinking about it! I might need to force myself to tackle it by signing up for an HTML class.
6. Go to bed earlier. Progress report: Fail. It's 11:34 p.m. and I'm blogging and watching The Ellen DeGeneres Show. 

IU Press author's blog named one of the Top 100 Anthropology Blogs

Online Universities (who recently declared that our blog will make you smarter) has given us another honor: it named IU Press author Grant McCracken's blog as one of the Top 100 Anthropology Blogs (#29). McCracken is the author of Culture and Consumption I and II, Flock and Flow, and Transformations. Congratulations!

Book review: A History of Paleontology Illustration

Brian Switek posted the following review (excerpted below) of A History of Paleontology Illustration on his Laelaps blog:

...Davidson has written a valuable introduction to paleontological illustration that could very well serve as a jumping-off point for future studies. There are many books chock-full of paleo art, but Davidson has contributed a new, quick overview containing information I had not previously seen elsewhere. ...Davidson has done an admirable job of recounting the basic history of paleo art from the 15th century to the beginning of the 20th century. (Her discussions of artistic techniques, particularly of classic artists like Dale David Owen and Erwin Christiansen, are especially valuable as I have not seen them discussed in detail previously.) Simply put, I recommend picking up A History of [Paleontology] Illustration and putting it on your shelf next to Scenes From Deep Time and The Earth on Show. <read review>

Blog recommends Made in Mexico

Thanks to the Oaxaca Cultural Navigator blog for recommending Made in Mexico as a resource on Zapotec weaving!

If you are interested in textiles, and especially in Zapotec and Navajo weaving, comparing them, and understanding the economic viability and marketability of handmade textiles in a global economy, I suggest you read, “Made in Mexico: Zapotec Weavers and the Global Ethnic Art Market,” by W. Warner Wood (Indiana University Press, ISBN 978-0-253-21986-2). It is a wonderful discussion of the issues around how the work of weaving is organized from a social, political and cultural perspective, and factors that determine success and failure. <continue reading>