Amherst's own world-class jazz musician
Yusef Lateef has written an autobiography,
The Gentle Giant: The Autobiography of Yusef Lateef. A musician's musician, Lateef's career has spanned more than sixty years beginning with the glory days of jazz through the new beat of world music. The roster of luminaries he's performed with reads like a who's who of the music world—Charlie Mingus, John Coltrane, Quincy Jones, Thelonius Monk, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderley, to name but a few. Lateef, with the help of Herb Boyd, delves deep into his long & fruitful life. (2006)
Beyond Garrison: Antislavery & Social Reform is the latest book by University of Massachusetts history professor,
Bruce Laurie. It asks & answers such questions as: Why was Massachusetts one of the few Northern states to grant African-American males the right to vote? Why did it pass personal liberty laws, which helped protect fugitive slaves
from federal authorities in the two decades immediately preceding the Civil War? Focusing on anti-slavery advocates, Laurie's analysis answers these important questions in unfamiliar & surprising places. Laurie is also author of
Working People of Philadelphia, 1800-1850 &
Artisans into Workers: Labor in Nineteenth Century America.
(2005)
Brad Leithauser, Amherst resident & Emily Dickinson Senior Lecturer in the Humanities at Mt. Holyoke College, has a new collection of poetry—
Curves & Angles. Leithauser is author of, among other books, four previous volumes of poetry, five novels, & a book of essays. (2006)
University of Massachusetts professor
Sara Lennox has a new book on the German poet & novelist, Ingeborg Bachmannn—
City of the Murdered Daughters: Feminism, History, & Ingeborg Bachmann. Karen Remmler wrote of the book, “Lennox’s meticulously written & researched study of feminist readings of the Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann provides us with a genealogy of feminist literary criticism in the last four decades. . . . It will be the definitive book on Bachmann in the English language, & also a book that will stir up debate in broader feminist & non–feminist circles. (2006)
Julius Lester has a new hit for young adults,
Cupid: A Tale of Love & Desire. This is the story of Cupid—the god responsible for heartache, sleepless nights, & all those silly love songs—finally getting his comeuppance. When the god of love falls in love himself, things are bound to get interesting. And when he crosses his mama, Venus, in the process . . . Well, things could get downright messy. The much–lauded author of
Pharaoh’s Daughter &
When Dad Killed Mom brings his renowned storytelling skills to one of the world's most famous tales. In doing so he weaves a romantic, hilarious drama brought to life with a bold new voice that’s loaded with sly wisdom. Julius Lester’s retelling is sure to draw new readers to classic mythology while satisfying old fans as well.
(2007)
Local polymath
Julius Lester has a new book for young adults.
Day of Tears: A Novel in Dialogue is a powerful & engaging historical novel told in dialogue & through monologues. It moves in time from the largest slave auction ever held in the U.S.—on Pierce Butler's plantation in Georgia in 1859— through a series of "interludes," in which the various characters reflect on the auction years later. (2005)
Let's Talk About Race, a new beautiful children's book by award-winning author
Julius Lester is now available. Illustrated by Karen Barbour, the book is about the story of race—the stories some people tell, & the stories we might choose to tell. As the narrator says, "Which story shall we believe? The one that says 'My race is better than yours'? Or the one we just discovered for ourselves:
Beneath our skin I look like you & you look like me....." (2005)
Northampton resident,
Kelly Link, author of a strange & wonderful collection of tales,
Stranger Things Happen, has a new collection of fiction (what we used to call “speculative fiction”)—
Magic for Beginners. Link's earlier stories have won many prizes, including the Tiptree Award, the World Fantasy Award, the Nebula Award. The title story in
Magic for Beginners won the 2005 Nebula Award for Best Story, while another story in the collection, “The Faery Handbag”, won both the Hugo
& the Nebula awards for Best Novelette! The paperback edition of
Magic is due in September. (2005; paper 2006)
Writing of
Margaret Lloyd’s new collection of poetry,
A Moment in the Field: Voices from Arthurian Legend, Thomas Moore (author of
Care of the Soul) wrote, “You need courage to take these poems in, given the hot blood & sharp edge that Margaret Lloyd brings to them.” Lloyd, who teaches at Springfield College, has published poetry in
Poetry East,
Seneca Review,
Gettysburg Review,
New England Review,
Planet: the Welsh Internationalist, &
Poetry Wales. Her first book of poetry was
This Particular Earthly Scene.
(Event scheduled!))
University of Massachusetts history professor
Laura Lovett has a new book—
Conceiving the Future: Pronatalism, Reproduction, & the Family in the United States, 1890-1938. Through nostalgic idealizations of motherhood, family, & the home, influential leaders in early twentieth-century America constructed & legitimated a range of reforms that promoted human reproduction. Their pronatalism emerged from a modernist conviction that reproduction & population could be regulated. European countries sought to regulate or encourage reproduction through legislation; America, by contrast, fostered ideological & cultural ideas of pronatalism through what Lovett terms “nostalgic modernism,” which romanticized agrarianism & promoted scientific racism & eugenics. (2007)
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Last updated 16 October, 2008
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