News Bytes

Vol. 4, No. 4                                    October 15, 1997
          I cannot live without books.--Thomas Jefferson

We're changing! We are working to make News Bytes an Internet destination: a site that you'll want to bookmark and revisit frequently. To that end, we're adding features that you might find in any general interest magazine, including travel, gardening, and food stories, author interviews and profiles, and book excerpts--all featuring UNC Press books and authors. We also plan to go from quarterly to bimonthly publication, beginning in 1998. If you'd like to send comments or suggestions about the new News Bytes, please click here.

Contents:


Note: You can order any of the books mentioned in News Bytes by calling 1-800-848-6224, or you can print out an order form to fax. We hope to accept secure email orders in the near future. Be sure to say you saw it on our website!

75 Years of Publishing Excellence

On October 7, more than 350 people, including UNC Press staff, authors, booksellers, reviewers, and other friends, gathered at UNC's Morehead planetarium to toast the Press's 75th anniversary. UNC Chancellor Michael Hooker, UNC President Molly Corbett Broad, and North Carolina Secretary of Cultural Resources Betty Ray McCain praised the press for its contributions to the university, the state, and the world of scholarship in general. This party was the culmination of a year-long celebration by the Press.

Also this fall, forty bookstores in North Carolina will hold "Happy Birthday, UNC Press" displays. Customers will be able to participate in a drawing for a special anniversary tote bag containing popular UNC Press books. To find out if your favorite store is participating, click here.

If you'd like to read more about UNC Press history or send anniversary best wishes in our electronic guest book, click here.


Author Profile: Janice Radway is Hooked on Books!

The Book-of-the-Month Club has had a profound effect on American reading tastes. Author Janice Radway spent several summers in the mid-1980s doing field research at the Club, culminating in her long awaited A Feeling for Books: The Book-of-the-Month Club, Literary Taste, and Middle-Class Desire. To find out what Radway learned about American readers--herself included-- click here.

Available in October. $29.95 hardcover


Author Interview: Stewart Burns on the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott

When Civil Rights activist turned scholar Stewart Burns was working on Volume 3 of The Papers of Martin Luther King Jr., he turned up a number of fascinating documents about the Montgomery Bus Boycott that didn't fit the editorial framework of the King Papers. So he has produced Daybreak of Freedom: The Montgomery Bus Boycott. To find out about his work on this project, why it is important for young people to learn about the bus boycott, and why Burns is challenging President Clinton to issue a national apology for racial segregation, click here.

Available in October. $17.95 paperback, $45 hardcover


Book Excerpt: Into the Sound Country by Bland Simpson

In North Carolina, it's always news when writer and musician Bland Simpson comes out with a new book. This time he has teamed with his wife, photographer Ann Cary Simpson, on Into the Sound Country: A Carolinian's Coastal Plain. In words and photographs, these two natives of the North Carolina coastal plain return to their roots. Join them as they explore scuppernong vineyards from Hertford to Southport, Pasquotank swamps and Croatan pine savannas, Roanoke River oyster bars, and Core Banks fishing shanties.

In his introduction, Simpson reminisces about the word sound and its resonance from his earliest days. Click here to read an excerpt from the introduction.

Available in November. $19.95 paperback, $34.95 hardcover


Recipe: A Holiday Punch from Mrs. Robert E. Lee

Part cookbook, part culinary history, part family history, The Robert E. Lee Family Cooking and Housekeeping Book was a labor of love for Anne Carter Zimmer. The great-granddaughter of Lee, Zimmer has taken Mrs. Lee's small notebook of recipes, remedies, and household inventories and transformed the "receipts" it contained into recipes that can be prepared in modern kitchens.

If you're interested in serving something other than the traditional champagne or egg nog at your holiday party this year, click here for Mrs. Lee's Roman Punch.

Available in November. $24.95 hardcover


Books Make Great Gifts: A Holiday Checklist

Books do make great gifts for all occasions. If you're looking for a holiday gift idea for your favorite hard-to-buy-for friend or relative, click here for a checklist of gift book ideas, including The Foxfire Christmas.


UNC Press Authors on the Road

This fall we're keeping our authors busy, with appearances in bookstores and other venues. Click here for a list of upcoming events.


Book Club Adoptions

War at Every Door: Partisan Politics and Guerrilla Violence in East Tennessee, 1860-1869, by Noel C. Fisher, is a selection of the History Book Club

Award-winning books

Recent Award-winners from UNC Press

A Guide to the Historic Architecture of Eastern North Carolina
by Catherine Bishir and Michael T. Southern, winner of an Award of Merit, American Association for State and Local History

From People's War to People's Rule: Insurgency, Intervention, and the Lessons of Vietnam
by Timothy J. Lomperis, winner of the 1996-97 Alpha Sigma Nu National Jesuit Book Award in the Social Sciences

Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender, Race, and Power in Colonial Virginia
by Kathleen M. Brown, Honorable Mention, 1996 Berkshire Conference Book Prize

The Last Chivaree: The Hicks Family of Beech Mountain
by Robert Isbell, winner of the 1997 Thomas Wolfe Literary Award, Western North Carolina Historical Association

The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to Final Solution
by Henry Friedlander, winner of the 1997 Book Prize, German Studies Association-DAAD

Southern Slavery and the Law, 1619-1860
by Thomas D. Morris, winner of the 1996 SHEAR Prize, Society for Historians of the Early American Republic

Talk about Trouble: A New Deal Portrait of Virginians in the Great Depression
edited by Nancy J. Martin-Perdue and Charles L. Perdue Jr., winner of the 1997 Award for Outstanding Book in Oral History, Oral History Association


Links to previous features and excerpts

In previous issues of News Bytes, we have featured excerpts or detailed information about selected UNC Press books. We will maintain those links with each new issue of the newsletter.


Bookstores that carry UNC Press books

Exhibits attended by UNC Press staff members


Feedback

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