Indiana University Press blog

Three IUP books win 2013 IPPY Awards

We are pleased to announce that three of our books have won Gold, Silver, and Bronze in the 2013 Independent Publisher Awards (IPPY)! In the Religion category, Claiming Society for God by Nancy J. Davis and Robert V. Robinson, tied for Gold. In the Biography category, Howard Fast by Gerald Sorin tied for Silver. And in the Great Lakes—Best Regional Non-Fiction category, Indiana Covered Bridges by Marsha Williamson Mohr tied for Bronze.

These awards will be presented on May 29 at the 17th Annual IPPY Awards at Providence NYC, kicking off the annual BookExpo America convention.

All IPPY Award medalists will receive a medal, a certificate, and 20 awards seals. For more information, visit the IPPY's website.

May events with Scott Russell Sanders

Scott Russell Sanders. Photo by Ruth Sanders.

Scott Russell Sanders, author of Earth Works and A Conservationist Manifesto, has the following events scheduled for this month: 

May 17-19

Sanders, along with IUP author Rebecca McClanahan, will be a featured guest speaker at the River Teeth Nonfiction Conference held at Ashland University in Ashand, OH. For more information, contact Sarah M. Wells at swells@ashland.edu or call 419-289-5957.

May 23

Sanders will speak at "Minnesota Made," sponsored by the Minnesota Land Trust. The talk takes place at 6:00 p.m. in New Century Theater in Minneapolis. Tickets are required and can be purchased online.

May 24

Sanders will give a talk at 7 p.m. at the Wood Lake Nature Center in Richfield, MN. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, visit the Minnesota Land Trust website.

See a complete list of upcoming events for Scott Russell Sanders on his website.

Book review: A Lancastrian Mirror for Princes

"[McGerr's] study, scholarly and intuitive in equal measure, demonstrates that what may appear to be an inert status symbol, is actually a highly charged, and exquisitely wrought, political document." —Renaissance Quarterly

Book review: Howard Fast

"Gerald Sorin tells Fast's story in this engaging and fluidly written biography. He draws connections among Fast's Jewishness, his writings, and that most curious part of his life: his long embrace of the Communist Party. In so doing, Sorin illuminates a complex part of American Jewish life in the twentieth century. ... Sorin is a brilliant biographer who proves to be both sympathetic and critical of his subject. This is Gerald Sorin's second National Jewish Book Award. He won in the category of history for his Irving Howe: A Life of Passionate Dissent, in 2003" —Jewish Book World

Learn more about Howard Fast in this WAMC interview with author Gerald Sorin.

Book review: Anne Frank Unbound

"Anne Frank Unbound ... tell[s] us a great deal about the myriad uses to which one individual story has been and can be put. ... In addition to these ethical and political questions, the essays engage productively with the aesthetic choices made by writers, visual artists, filmmakers, performance artists, and comedians, who recast Anne Frank in a variety of media and situations. ... If Anne Frank Unbound is any indication, the diary will certainly continue ... to raise a set of persistent ethical, political, and aesthetic questions that have been with us since its first publication." —Women's Review of Books

Curl up with a good (short) read during Short Story Month!

May is Short Story Month! We're celebrating this occasion by offering reading selections from some of our recently published short story collections. Check them out and see if you agree with the Short Story Month founders that "we are on the verge of the second golden age of the short story."

Sightings
Stories
B. J. Hollars

B. J. Hollars’s debut short story collection offers ten thematically linked tales, all of which are out to subvert conventional notions of the midwestern coming-of-age story. The stories feature an assemblage of Bigfoot believers, Civil War reenactors, misidentified Eskimos, and grief-stricken clowns, among other outcasts incapable of finding a place in their worlds.

 Read excerpt

 Book trailer

New Stories from the Midwest
2012
Introduction by Guest Editor John McNally
Edited by Jason Lee Brown and Shanie Latham

New Stories from the Midwest presents a collection of stories that celebrate an American region too often ignored in discussions about distinctive regional literature. This collection features short fiction by Charles Baxter, Dan Chaon, Christopher Mohar, Rebecca Makkai, Lee Martin, and others.

 Preview book

Reply All
Stories
Robin Hemley

Reply All, the third collection of award-winning and widely anthologized short stories by Robin Hemley, takes a humorous, edgy, and frank look at the human art of deception and self-deception. 

 Read excerpt

 IU Press podcast with Robin Hemley 

Follow Short Story Month on Twitter or visit its website for the latest events and news!

New book on Elie Wiesel reviewed in Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly reviewed our new Elie Wiesel book, calling it "[an] illuminating collection of 24 academic essays...[and a] valuable look back on Wiesel’s heroic authorial career."

For more information on Elie Wiesel: Jewish, Literary, and Moral Perspectives visit our website or read this excerpt. 

Earth Day book giveaway!

Happy Earth Day! We're celebrating our planet by giving away two environmentally friendly books by Scott Russell Sanders: A Conservationist Manifesto and Earth Works. In his Manifesto, Sanders advocates that conservation is not simply a personal virtue but a public one. He continues his exploration of this idea and how we can care for each other and the world in Earth Works, a collection of 30 of his finest essays.

To enter the contest, send an email to winiupress@gmail.com with your name and mailing address. Entries will be accepted through 4/26/13 at 11:59 p.m. EDT. Winners will be notified by email and books will ship via USPS.

Learn more about Scott Russell Sanders's writing and his views on conservation in his recent interview with Dr. Bob Leonard on KNIA's In Depth radio show.

Reading selections for Holocaust Remembrance Day

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. To commemorate this occasion, we offer the following reading selections to further your understanding of the history of the Holocaust:

Anne Frank Unbound
Media, Imagination, Memory
Edited by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and Jeffrey Shandler

"Principally the work of senior international scholars in history, literature, Hebraic and Judaic studies, and performance and film studies, and of museum curators, this volume is a major contribution to scholarship regarding Anne Frank's diary and its cultural influence. ... Highly recommended." —Choice

 Read excerpt

 IU Press podcast

Available May 2013
Elie Wiesel
Jewish, Literary, and Moral Perspectives
Edited by Steven T. Katz and Alan Rosen

"[An] illuminating collection of 24 academic essays ... [and a] valuable look back on Wiesel’s heroic authorial career." —Publishers Weekly

 Read excerpt

Available June 2013
Père Marie-Benoît and Jewish Rescue
How a French Priest Together with Jewish Friends Saved Thousands during the Holocaust
Susan Zuccotti

"Who better to rescue from obscurity an Oskar Schindler–like hero than historian Zuccotti? ... This account of the life of Capuchin priest Père Marie-Benoît and his successful efforts to save thousands of Jews offers the perfect amount of detail and context. Relying on archival sources and her own interviews with Marie-Benoît and those he helped to save, Zuccotti’s portrait of the 'Father of the Jews' is as historically important as it is entertaining." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

 Read excerpt 

Available June 2013
Resurgent Antisemitism
Global Perspectives
Edited by Alvin H. Rosenfeld

Dating back millennia, antisemitism has been called "the longest hatred." By exploring the sources, goals, and consequences of today's antisemitism and its relationship to the past, this original research contributes to an understanding that could help diminish its appeal and mitigate its harmful effects.

 Read excerpt 

Available in paperback June 2013
The End of the Holocaust
Alvin H. Rosenfeld

"The End of the Holocaust is a model of critical intelligence, restrained in its judgments, never shrill or accusatory in its disagreements, always illuminating in its insights into the motives and achievements of the major Holocaust writers Rosenfeld discusses." —Forward

 Read excerpt

 IU Press podcast

Available July 2013
The House at Ujazdowskie 16
Jewish Families in Warsaw after the Holocaust
Karen Auerbach

In a turn-of-the-century, once elegant building in the center of Warsaw, ten Jewish families atypically began reconstructing their lives after the Holocaust, creating new communities as they sought to distance themselves from the memory of a painful past.

 Read excerpt

Scott Russell Sanders to speak at Central College

Author Scott Russell Sanders is currently in residence at Central College and will speak at the Writers Reading series March 21. Sanders will read excerpts from his book Earth Works in the Cox-Snow Recital Hall at 7:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, visit Central College's website.