University of Nebraska Press

Lost Lamb (rediscovered)

The Wall Street Journal recently ran this fascinating story about pulp writer Harold Lamb, and about the volumes of his short stories that the University of Nebraska Press began publishing three years ago. Lamb’s stories were fixtures in the pulp magazines of the 1950s, and his stories were usually set in Asia and on the Russian Steppes. His stories pure adventure, without the sorcery and science fiction elements of many pulp stories of the day. The author of the WSJ article, John J. Miller, wrote this about Lamb’s writing:

"Lamb ... didn't stick magical or supernatural elements into his historical settings. The Asian backdrop probably seemed exotic enough, with its khans, yurts and mare's milk. The first Khlit story takes place on the banks of the Dnieper River, which runs through Ukraine and drains into the Black Sea. By the third tale, the hero has gone into an unwarranted exile. He spends the rest of his days wandering among Muslims and Mongols.

"Long before multiculturalism became a byword for political correctness, Lamb appreciated an authentic form of it. He once described why he wrote on the people and societies of Asia: 'It all came out of an ­intense irritation over the fact that all history seemed to draw a north-south line across ­Europe, through Berlin and Venice, say. Everything was supposed to have happened west of that line, nothing to the east. Ridiculous, of course.'"

This just in: Just Breathe Normally by Peggy Shumaker

Last week, I started reading Peggy Shumaker’s memoir, Just Breathe Normally. This is a book the University of Nebraska Press published as a hardcover a few years back, before I had begun working here. This fall, the press is releasing it as a paperback. Drawn by its beautiful cover (a swimmer gliding through cool blue-green water), I picked it up as soon as it came arrived in stock. I’m glad I did. 

Just Breath Normally jumps back and forth between two difficult times in Shumaker’s life: her childhood, in which she was the oldest of four children of poor, alcoholic, unpredictable parents; and, in adulthood, a period of recovery after a bicycling accident that almost killed her. The episodes in Shumaker’s life – snapshots of childhood and, years later, of recovery – are written almost like postcards. Some stories are told in a paragraph or two; others in a few pages. Many resemble poetry more than prose, with good reason: Shumaker is the author of many books of poetry.

Among my favorite stories in this collection is a remembrance of a favorite blue dress with translucent puffed sleeves (I imagined the dress as being the same color as the water in the photograph on the cover). To the author, the dress was magical, but perhaps not as special as words of comfort the author’s teacher whispered after the dress ripped: You don’t need a special dress to be special.

Another fall sneak peek

Last week, I posted about some of our Fall/Winter titles. Today, I’m going to offer a preview of a few more. 

In Rooms of Memory, by Hilary Masters: A collection of beautiful and carefully crafted essays by a man who has lived a very full life, connected to a lot of other very full lives. Masters is the son of the poet Edgar Lee Masters. He was close friends with writer and photographer (and Nebraska native) Wright Morris. In this collection, he steps back and forth through time – in one essay, he’s a college student and budding writer living in New York City and dreaming of escaping to Cuba with a woman he’s just met. In another essay, he’s a boy in Kansas City, living with his grandparents as his parents live the glamorous life in New York. In another, he’s past middle age, trying to see the world as his friend, photographer, novelist and essayist Wright Morris, did. His writing inspires the reader to see the world through a different lens, too.

Taste of Cherry, by Kara Candito: A collection of poems by a first-time author still in her 20s, who already has made a name for herself. Candito’s work has been published in journals including Gulf Coast, Blackbird, Prairie Schooner, Nimrod, Best New Poets 2007, and the Florida Review, and she’s also a scholarship winner to the Breadloaf Writer’s Conference. In this collection, she covers topics both mundane and taboo – lust, love, physical pain, emotional pain, exclusion, and pornography, to name a few – in haunting, well-turned verse. Her poems have a strong sense of place, as well, and take readers to New York, Miami and Egypt and elsewhere.

Swords from the Desert and Swords from the West, by Harold Lamb: These two volumes contain various short stories of Harold Lamb, a famous pulp fiction writer, and technical adviser to Cecil B. DeMille. They tell the fantastical tales of heroic crusaders, cunning maidens, scheming nobles and other memorable characters, set in the 16th Century and thereabouts against the mysterious backdrop of dunes and sand. His stories have appeared before in the pulp magazines of his day, but this is the first time these particular stories have been collected together. 

Stay tuned for more preview posts in upcoming weeks and months...

A whole lotta NYT; also a whole lotta quilts

I begin today’s blog post with Google news: You may have heard about Google Book Search, which basically provides scans of books online for free, and the full text of certain books and collections for a fee. Some authors feel this violates copyright laws, and filed a class action suit against Google in 2005. And today, the Justice Department granted those authors opposed to Google Book Search a four-month extension to decide whether to opt out of Google Books Search, which some say means the Justice Department is taking the authors’ concerns seriously. New York Times story is here, and some background information on the issue, also from the NYT is here.

In semi-related news, the Internet (including, presumably, Google), has allowed two authors to turn their vacation cottage in Ireland to their full-time home/office (oh to be so lucky). Story, again, from the New York Times, is here.

And in University of Nebraska Press news, yesterday marked the official publication date of our book Quilts in the Modern Age: 1870-1940. This book is two things: a comprehensive history and analysis of American quilts from that era, and also a very beautiful picture book of many quilts that defined the era (some of which are located right here in Lincoln, at the International Quilt Study Center & Museum, with whom we collaborated on this book). An exhibition of these quilts is coming up, so stay tuned for details. But in the meantime, you can view a few sample photos here.

New this month from the University of Nebraska Press

New this month from the University of Nebraska Press: a new edition of Allen Barra's biography of Wyatt Earp, a look at the aesthetics of boxing, an essay collection that examines regionalism in the humanities, plus many others. Read about all of our new books here.