Duke University Press Log

Praise for Bring on the Books for Everybody

Some great praise today for Jim Collins's Bring on the Books for Everybody: How Literary Culture Became Popular Culture. Collins's book is a hopeful assesment of the culture of reading and books that considers film, e-books, Oprah, and the rise of the chain bookstore. Writing in the Times Higher Education Supplement, Tara Brabazon says the book is "the "killer app" for popular cultural studies." She exhorts readers to "Buy it. Borrow it. Download it. Now. It is a book that we will remember where we were when we we first read it. This is a game-changer for popular cultural studies, media studies and the new humanities." The Chicago Tribune thinks the book is one of five that writers should read right now. So what are you waiting for? Get reading!

Review and Interview Roundup

A grab bag post today, featuring some of the great reviews our books have received recently and some fascinating interviews with our authors.

  First up, Amitava Kumar's much-praised A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb  gets more accolades, this time in Bookslut, where Daisy Rockwell calls it "eloquent analysis of the weird cocktail of buffoonery, violence and inefficacy that is the War on Terror" in an interesting piece on how Americans think about Pakistan. Also recently reviewed was our latest book in the World  Readers series, The Russia Reader, edited by Adele Barker and Bruce Grant. The Morning Star says the book is "both well written and informative . . . beautifully illustrated throughout" and "refreshing."

We also want to share two great podcast interviews. Judith Armatta talks with Transitions Online about the her book Twilight of Impunity and the lasting legacy of the trial of Slobodan Milosevic. And Roberto Abadie introduces the folks at the CUNY Graduate Center to the scary world of pharmaceutical test subjects, the theme of his book The Professional Guinea Pig. 

Kumar Reviewed in New York Times

Amitava Kumar's A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb is reviewed in today's New York Times. Dwight Garner says the book is a "perceptive and soulful . . . meditation on the global war on terror and its cultural and human repercussions." He concludes, "A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb carries in the crook of its own arm Mr. Kumar’s plaintive appeal. If we’re to bridge the perilous divide that separates us from those poor and unnamed people who resent us, we first need to see them, to look into their eyes. We need, Mr. Kumar writes, 'to acknowledge that they exist.' This angry and artful book is a first step." An excerpt from the book is also posted on Guernica this week, and Kumar's new novel, Nobody Does the Right Thing is reviewed at Sepia Mutiny. And you can listen to WNYC's Leonard Lopate interview Kumar about the War on Terror here.

Washington Monthly Praises Armatta's Twilight of Impunity

Wesley Clark pens a rave review of Judith Armatta's Twilight of Impunity: The War Crimes Trial of Slobodan Milosevic in the new issue of The Washington Monthly. Clark, who was Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO during the Kosovo War, calls the book "wonderful and important." He says Armatta "brings a boots-on-the-ground understanding of the Balkans from previous work in Serbia, Montenegro, and Macedonia. In her observations, she proves to be an acute student of law, character, strategy, and history." Clark focuses his review on the lasting importance of the trial, which he says "may have been one of the most important international events of a new century." Both Clark and Armatta believe that if we absorb the lessons of the Milosevic trial, "we will have decisively shattered the notions of sovereign impunity, even in the ambiguous and deliberately obscure machinations of internal conflict." Clark concludes, "Every practitioner and student of international relations should read Armatta’s book."

Collins Reviewed in Chronicle of Higher Ed

Jim Collins's new book Bring on the Books for Everybody: How Literary Culture Became Popular Culture is featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education's "Nota Bene" section this week. Nina Ayoub says the book is "a lively study that moves from strip mall to television to the multiplex to virtual reading communities." Collins takes on book superstores, Amazon.com, Oprah, and Merchant-Ivory film adaptations of novels in his book, an engaging assessment of the robust popular literary culture that has developed in the United States during the past two decades.

Publishers Weekly Gives Starred Review to New Kumar Book

Publishers Weekly has given a Starred Review to Amitava Kumar's forthcoming book A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb. The reviewer writes that "Kumar’s searching and humane account of the global consequences of the U.S. 'war on terror' gets behind the rhetoric and state public relations campaigns in a brisk but thoughtful narrative." The reviewer concludes: "An arresting and heartrending work of public protest and valuable social analysis, this work contributes forcefully to a subtle, human-scaled accounting of 21st-century geopolitics." The book will be available in August, along with Kumar's first novel, Nobody Does the Right Thing. Check out Kumar's website or follow him on Twitter.

The Unknown History of the Birth Control Pill

May 2010 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the FDA's approval of the birth control pill. Time Magazine did a long story on the development of the pill and its integration into American society. But they left out a fascinating and mostly unknown part of the story. In the 1940s chemists discovered that barbasco, a wild yam indigenous to Mexico, could be used to mass-produce synthetic steroid hormones. The development of the Pill led to increased demand for the yams, and to thus to increased opportunities for the Mexican farmers who cultivated and harvested them. In her new book Jungle Laboratories: Mexican Peasants, National Projects, and the Making of the Pill, Gabriela Soto Laveaga reconstructs the story of how rural yam pickers, international pharmaceutical companies, and the Mexican state collaborated and collided over the barbasco. By so doing, she sheds important light on a crucial period in Mexican history and challenges us to reconsider who can produce science. In a review of the book on Feminist Review this weekend, Maya N. Vaughan-Smith says Jungle Laboratories is "an engaging read for women who are curious about the political economy of the pills they are popping on a daily basis."

Indonesia Honors S. Ann Dunham

President Obama may have canceled his trip to Indonesia, but a number of events to honor his mother, S. Ann Dunham, proceeded without him. Dunham lived in Indonesia for many years while she did her field work for her dissertation, and Indonesians remember her fondly. On Thursday, March 18, a seminar on Dunham's life and work featured her dissertation adviser, Alice Dewey, and other former colleagues. The Jakarta Post interviewed a number of her acquaintances about her legacy and her influence on President Obama. Her close friend Julia Suryakusuma, a writer, reviews Dunham's book Surviving against the Odds: Village Industry in Indonesia, in today's Jakarta Post. Suryakusuma says the book "is a fascinating and important scholarly piece of work. It's also a good reminder that Ann not only had sharp intellect, but was a perfectionist too, and a hard-working one at that. Her work is extremely well documented, with hard statistical data making the book extremely detailed and well informed."

Hold On to Your Dreams Reviewed in Times Higher

The Times Higher Education Supplement has a rave review of Tim Lawrence's Hold On to Your Dreams: Arthur Russell and the Downtown Music Scene, 1973-1992. Reviewer Martin James says that too often pop music books stick to tried-and-true subjects. "Full marks to Duke University Press, then, for this welcome addition to the pop music pantheon," he writes. "Not only is it not another foray along well-trodden routes (do we really need more books about the Beatles and Bob Dylan?), but it's also an exemplary demonstration of exactly what a biography should do." James says Lawrence "effortlessly explores his subject and in so doing shines fresh light on the darkened recesses of both New York's downtown music scene and the popular cultural landscape of Russell's times." He concludes that Hold On to Your Dreams is "a must if you're interested in untold tales rather than yet another wander through familiar territory."

Roundup of Weekend Coverage

Some diverse media coverage of Duke Press books this weekend. First up, a very nice profile of Thomas Glave, editor of Our Caribbean: A Gathering of Lesbian and Gay Writing from the Antilles, in FootNotes. D. Kevin McNeir says, "In one word, Glave is—brilliant." McNeir writes, "Our Caribbean is a unique analysis of how same-gender loving and longing intersects with religion, family, race and class all within the Caribbean context and how ostracism and alienation become the common factor and obstacle that stands in the way of true equality and freedom for far too many men and women."

Meanwhile, in California, Arnold J. Bauer did a reading at the Colusa Business and Visitors Center, and the Colusa Sun-Herald reported on the event. They quote an area librarian praising Bauer's new book The Search for the Codex Cardona. "Catherine Bernard, president of the Friends of the Colusa County Library, said she was fascinated by Bauer's book, which is a mystery that touches on the curious — and often illegal — workings of the rare books and manuscripts trade. 'I wasn't really interested in Mexican history,' Bernard said. 'I'm very Euro-centric. But the book had me booking my flight to Mexico City.'"

And over at the literary blog Beatrice, there's a nice excerpt from Fred Moten's new book of poetry, B Jenkins. Ron Hogan posts Moten's poem "Njeeri Wa Thiong’o."