Blog Archives

Join the #ReadUCP Book Club: Read the Opening Extract from “The Safe House: A Novel”

April 30, 2020
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Friends, we have your quarantine reading right here: The Safe House: A Novel by Christophe Boltanski and translated from the French by Laura Marris. In Paris’s exclusive Saint-Germain neighborhood is a mansion. In that mansion lives a family. Deep in that mansion. The Bolts are that family, and they have secrets. The Safe House tells their story. The Safe House was a literary sensation when published in France in 2015 and won the Prix de Prix, France’s most prestigious book prize. With hints of Oulipian playfulness and an atmosphere of dark humor, The Safe House is an unforgettable portrait of a self-imprisoned family. We invite you to read with us throughout May and June and then join us for our virtual book club meeting with translator Laura Marris on Twitter on June 25 at 2PM CT. Follow #ReadUCP and @LauraMarris on Twitter for all the latest. CAR: 1 I never saw them walk outside alone. Or even together. Never saw them so much as stroll the length of a block. They only ventured out on wheels. Sitting pressed against each other, shielded by the body of the car— behind some cover, no matter how slight. In Paris, they drove around in a Fiat 500 Lusso, a white one. It was a . . .

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Five Questions with Chad Zimmerman, Executive Editor for Economics

March 26, 2020
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Chad Zimmerman recently joined the Press as executive editor in the Books Division, acquiring new titles in economics, business, and public policy. Chad came to us from Oxford University Press, where he worked most recently as a senior editor building a robust list in public health, including books in health economics and policy. We’ve been excited to welcome him not only to the Press but to Chicago, and by way of introduction, we put together some questions about his interests. What are you looking for in a book, and what kind of project gets you excited? Voice. That is a terribly nonspecific answer, but hear me out: Most people who write books are experts in what they’re writing about. Whether their book is any good depends on how they express (and in many cases, limit) their knowledge for the good of the reader. That expression takes the form of their writing voice. And writing voice comprises not just narration, but also how the work is structured.    Reading is a “what’s in it for me?” activity. It is the author’s job to respect their reader and meet them on their level, whether that’s expert or non-expert. Very few authors have the . . .

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Chicago Distribution Center Temporarily Closed

March 21, 2020
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In response to the Illinois Stay-at-Home Order and with the greatest concern for the health and welfare of our staff and the greater community, we have decided to temporarily close the Chicago Distribution Center (CDC) effective Monday, March 23. The CDC will remain closed for the duration that the Stay-at-Home order is in effect, until April 7 or longer if required.  Though print book orders for our titles are delayed, all e-books published by the University of Chicago Press are available and on sale at 30% off using code EBOOK30 at checkout through our website.  In the last two weeks, many members of the Press staff have worked to ensure that parts of our business can continue unimpeded in case of a shutdown, including increased use of print-on-demand resources and increased availability of e-books. We are also considering relationships with other suppliers that would allow a portion of orders to be filled if they cannot be filled at the CDC. We will continue to work on all of these efforts.  Meanwhile, we recognize that this has been a challenging time for many in the publishing industry, including our partners at many booksellers around the country. You can still continue to order our books and those of our distributed client publishers directly from many independent bookstores through their websites and indiebound.org as well as through major online retailers.  . . .

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Expanded E-Book Access and Virtual Bookfairs

March 18, 2020
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As many of us transition to a remote teaching and working environment in response to COVID-19, we are trying to respond as quickly as possible to ensure that you continue to have access to the books that you need. We are a community of readers, and books should be one thing we can all rely on in this unprecedented time of uncertainty. We’re working with many partners in e-book delivery to ensure that students have access to coursebooks. Many providers are also offering free access for online learning for qualifying schools during the pandemic. Your institution may qualify. Here is a current list of our partner initiatives, which we will continue to update: Expanded access to e-books for course use ProQuest (library): Immediate upgrades for all purchased e-books at a library to unlimited concurrent multi-user status through mid-June. VitalSource (e-textbook): Free access to e-books for students who are finishing the semester at verified 2-4yr schools that have moved to online courses through May 25th. RedShelf (e-textbook): Free access to e-books for students who are finishing the semester at schools that have moved to online courses through May 25th. UPSO (library): Gratis trial access to all of UPSO + all Oxford platforms . . .

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Read an Excerpt from “The Culture of Feedback: Ecological Thinking in Seventies America” by Daniel Belgrad

December 12, 2019
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Read an Excerpt from “The Culture of Feedback: Ecological Thinking in Seventies America” by Daniel Belgrad

National Horse Day (#NationalDayoftheHorse) is December 13th. And in honor of this equestrian holiday, we’d like to share an excerpt from The Culture of Feedback by Daniel Belgrad focusing on human-animal relationships, particularly those between horses and their humans. The book digs deep into a dazzling variety of left-of-center experiences and attitudes and looks anew at the wild side of the 1970s. In doing so, Belgrad tells the story of a generation of Americans who were struck by a newfound interest in—and respect for—plants, animals, indigenous populations, and the very sounds around them.  In conjunction with the growing impact of ecological thinking and its emphasis on empathy, the Seventies witnessed a new focus on the affective quality of human-animal interactions. Acknowledging the emotional lives of animals demanded moving beyond behaviorist approaches to animal behavior, which remained rooted in the dualism of mind and matter that characterized Enlightenment science. This led to a particular excitement about exploring new forms of human relationship with horses, as these were animals that were known to resist behavioral conditioning. Due to its reliance on empathy and physicality, the new ideal for interacting with animals was often described in ecological texts as a kind of dance. The . . .

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Congratulations to Our 2019 “Choice” Magazine “Outstanding Academic Titles”

December 3, 2019
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All of these books are available from our website or at your favorite bookseller. Don’t forget to request them for your university library too! . . .

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Q & A with Poets Ahmad Almallah and Graham Barnhart

October 1, 2019
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This fall, the Phoenix Poets series features debut collections by two poets: Ahmad Almallah and Graham Barnhart. We spoke with these poets about their new books, the process of writing and assembling their collections, and their experiences of war, central to both of their works. This fall, each of you will publish your first book of poetry as part of the Phoenix Poets series (congratulations!). Could you both talk a little about your process of organizing your work into a collection and how you decided on the theme and scope for your book? Graham Barnhart (GB): I started writing these poems while I was in the MFA program at Ohio State. I’d been active duty for six years and just transferred to the national guard, so it was a strange time. I was still in the Army but also kind of not. I didn’t think of the poems as a book until later, but at the time I just followed the stories and experiences that most interested me—that sparked poems. I knew the theme of the book in very general terms would be war and my military experience, but the scope or focus didn’t emerge until I started trying to . . .

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Fall #ReadUCP Book Club: Read an Excerpt from the novel “Papi”

September 5, 2019
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Fellow readers, we are excited to share that our Fall #ReadUCP Twitter Book Club pick is Papi, a novel by Rita Indiana and translated by Achy Obejas. Drawing on her memories of a childhood split between Santo Domingo and visits with her father amid the luxuries of the United States, Indiana mixes satire with a child’s imagination, horror with science fiction, in a swirling tale of a daughter’s love, the lure of crime and machismo, and the violence of the adult world. Expertly translated into English for the first time, Papi is furious, musical, and full of wit—a passionate, overwhelming, and very human explosion of artistic virtuosity. Chapter One Papi is like Jason, the guy from Friday the 13th. Or like Freddy Krueger. But more like Jason than Freddy Krueger. He shows up when you least expect him. Sometimes when I hear that scary music, I get really happy cuz I know he might be coming this way. That scary music is sometimes just Mami telling me Papi called and said he’s picking me up to take me to the beach or shopping. I pretend I don’t care, like I’m sure he’s not coming cuz you don’t get told ahead of . . .

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Reflections on “Young Men and Fire” by James Kincaid

August 2, 2019
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August 5, 2019 marks the 70th anniversary of the Mann Gulch tragedy, when a crew of fifteen of the US Forest Service’s elite airborne firefighters, the Smokejumpers, stepped into the sky above a remote forest fire in the Montana wilderness. Two hours after their jump, all but three of the men were dead or mortally burned. Haunted by these deaths for forty years, Norman Maclean put together the scattered pieces of the Mann Gulch tragedy in his Young Men and Fire, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1992. In honor of the anniversary, we invited James Kincaid, who reviewed Young Men and Fire for the New York Times Book Review when it was first published, to offer his reflections on the book and its enduring significance. My first encounter with Mann Gulch came when my raucous, unpredictable editor at the New York Times Book Review called:  “Kincaid, got the best thing in years.  Homeric, positively Homeric.  I’ll send it on if you think you’re up for it.  I know you’re not up for it, but you probably think different.” I don’t know if I thought different, but within a few days, I was there, in my head . . .

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Remembering Vivian Paley (1929–2019)

July 31, 2019
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Vivian Gussin Paley worked for nearly forty years as a preschool and kindergarten teacher and was a dear friend to the Press. Her books about young children include The Boy on the Beach, Boys and Girls, and A Child’s Work. We were sad to learn of her passing this week, and we would like to share this obituary provided by her family. About Vivian Paley Vivian Paley was a keen observer of young children who defined a key tenet of how children should negotiate relationships at the Laboratory Schools and on the playground in general: You can’t say you can’t play. Ms. Paley, who spent most of her nearly four decades teaching at Lab, wrote a dozen books about children based on her experiences in the classroom. Paley was Lab’s most prominent example of Lab teachers who contribute to academic scholarship in the area of education.  Ms. Paley was recognized for her work with a 1989 MacArthur Fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The award recognizes outstanding people from a variety of fields for their creativity. In Ms. Paley’s case, the prize recognized her special contributions to education, which included developing a “story playing” technique that . . .

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