We invite you to check out our new 2012 literature catalog at: http://press.princeton.edu/catalogs/lit12.pdf

You will find new books such as The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, Michelangelo, Enigmas of Identity, Whatever Gets You through the Night, and more. New paperbacks are also available—great titles such as Allegory, Lincoln on Race and Slavery, and Not for Profit.

The MLA meeting is going on now in Seattle. We’re there at booth no. 408. Stop by to say hello and browse new books.

‘Tis the season for giving—and we’re feeling very generous today! We’re hosting 2 book giveaways next week, one on our main PUP Facebook page, and the other on our Princeton Birds and Natural History Facebook page. 1 winner from each page will be selected Thursday, December 22 at noon. All you have to do is “like” our Facebook pages and you’ll be entered to win! Here are the details:

On our main PUP Facebook page, the winner will get to choose a prize from 3 of our bestsellers: On Bullshit by Harry G. Frankfurt, Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn’t Buy Presents for the Holidays by Joel Waldfogel, and Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk among Us by John Quiggin. The choice is yours! Just be sure to “like” us by next Thursday at noon!

Over on our Princeton Birds and Natural History Facebook page, we’re giving away a copy of The Crossley ID Guide: Eastern Birds by Richard Crossley. This stunningly illustrated book from acclaimed birder and photographer Richard Crossley revolutionizes field guide design by providing the first real-life approach to identification. “Like” this page by Thursday at noon if you haven’t already to win!

Good luck, and Happy Holidays from Princeton University Press!

FACT: “In World War II (1939–45) more men (and women) were mobilized than in the Great War. The United States mustered 14.9 million men and women; the British Empire raised 6.2 million; the USSR 25 million; Germany 12.5 million; Japan 7.5 million. Many women entered the armed forces to fill noncombat positions. The U.S. Army Air Force had hundreds of women pilots, some of whom had such hazardous duty as flying aircraft from the United States to the war zones.”

On War and Leadership: The Words of Combat Commanders from Frederick the Great to Norman Schwarzkopf
by Owen Connelly

What can we learn about leadership and the experience of war from the best combat leaders the world has ever known? This book takes us behind the scenes and to the front lines of the major wars of the past 250 years through the words of twenty combat commanders. What they have to say—which is remarkably similar across generational, national, and ideological divides—is a fascinating take on military history by those who lived it. It is also worthwhile reading for anyone, from any walk of life, who makes executive decisions.

The leaders showcased here range from Frederick the Great to Norman Schwarzkopf. They include such diverse figures as Napoleon Bonaparte, commanders on both sides of the Civil War (William Tecumseh Sherman and Stonewall Jackson), German and American World War II generals (Rommel and Patton), a veteran of the Arab-Israeli wars (Moshe Dayan), and leaders from both sides of the Vietnam War (Vo Nguyen Giap and Harold Moore). What they have had in common is an unrivaled understanding of the art of command and a willingness to lead from the front. All earned the respect and loyalty of those they led—and moved them to risk death.

Edwidge Danticat’s collection of essays, Create Dangerously, originally published in cloth by PUP and now in paperback by Vintage, has been selected for the One Book, One Philadelphia reading program. What this means is that the Free Library of Philadelphia is encouraging all Philadelphians (Is that what they are called?) to read the book and will sponsor a series of events — readings, lectures, film screenings — to foster a dialogue around the issues in the book.

Create Dangerously is a beautiful, moving book that presents Edwidge’s thoughts on what it means to be a writer; what it means to be an immigrant writer; and what it means to be an immigrant writer, writing outside of your homeland. I love the title of this article announcing the selection: “Creating dangerously, reading collectively”, as it really captures one of the themes in the book: an author may write at their own peril in order to bring important ideas about human rights to a global audience.

While I know many will pick up the paperback for economic reasons, I hope some people will opt to purchase the hardback edition. It is such an elegant and provocative package — with a printed case and a little slip of a dust jacket that is hand-printed — that it would be a lovely addition to anyone’s personal library (especially since it can be found on some online retailers for a mere $3-$4 more than the paperback!).

Edwidge Danticat, author of Create Dangerously, returns to Haiti and finds resilience and regeneration: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/08/07/edwidge-danticat-reflects-on-port-au-prince.html

Built for 200,000 people yet home to more than 2 million, Port-au-Prince is a city that constantly reminds you of the obvious, as though you were a 6-year-old. No, not everything is broken. And no, not all the people are dead. It is a city that everything—political upheaval, fires, hurricanes, the earthquake—has conspired to destroy, yet still it carries on. The still-leaning houses and the rubble that has begun to grow weeds, the tent camps that have become micro-cities of their own, all bear their own testimony to a city that should have ground to a halt long ago, yet continues to persevere.

Create Dangerously will soon be published in paperback, but the cloth edition with its exclusive cover design and half jacket is still available everywhere. One of my favorite features of this book is that the half jacket can be shifted up and down along the spine, revealing different portions of the artwork beneath. It subtly changes the cover each time I pick it up. Check it out for yourself!

This is some heavy reading – especially if you love dogs – but Colin Dayan, author of this season’s The Law is a White Dog: How Legal Rituals Make and Unmake Persons isn’t afraid to explore the often unpleasant treatment of canines in literature and society. Check out her latest piece in the July/August issue of The Boston Review for a preview of what you’ll find in her engrossing and disturbing book.

Celebrate what would have been Walt Whitman’s 192nd birthday with the Princeton University Press today by reading a few of our favorite Whitman books:

Michael Robertson – Worshipping Walt: The Whitman Disciples
Read Chapter 1, here.

C.K. Williams – On Whitman
Read Chapter 1, here.

Helen Vendler – Invisible Listeners: Lyric Intimacy in Herbert, Whitman, and Ashbery
Read the Introduction, here.

This week’s book giveaway is To Die For: The Paradox of American Patriotism by Cecilia Elizabeth O’Leary.

July Fourth, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” Memorial Day, and the pledge of allegiance are typically thought of as timeless and consensual representations of a national, American culture. In fact, as Cecilia O’Leary shows, most trappings of the nation’s icons were modern inventions that were deeply and bitterly contested. While the Civil War determined the survival of the Union, what it meant to be a loyal American remained an open question as the struggle to make a nation moved off of the battlefields and into cultural and political terrain.

The most thought-provoking question of this complex book is, Who gets to claim the American flag and determine the meanings of the republic for which it stands?

“This study is not only well researched but also a sprightly written account of the development of modern American patriotism. . . . This is truly a work ‘to die for.’”–Choice

“Well written . . . O’Leary makes an important contribution to a growing body of scholarship that seeks to understand the vital role that rituals and symbols have played in the development of American nationalism.”–Journal of Military History

Check back Friday on our Facebook page when we make the draw for “To Die For.” If you have LIKED US on Facebook, you may be the winner. If you don’t win this week, you have plenty of other chances to win a PUP book in our weekly random draws. Thanks for taking the time to follow us.

To Die For: The Paradox of American Patriotism by Cecilia Elizabeth O’Leary

In recent weeks, we’ve had tremendous good news. Not only has Create Dangerously won OCM Bocas Prize for Nonfiction, but author Edwidge Danticat was announced as the winner of the Harold Washington Literary Award joining earlier winners like Barbara Ehrenreich (2010), Walter Mosley (2007), Grace Paley (2002), Isabel Allende (1996), and Ralph Ellison (1992). This is an amazing honor and we extend our congratulations to Edwidge!

Thoreau on books:
Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.

Thoreau on love:
What is the singing of birds, or any natural sound, compared with the voice of one we love?

Thoreau on life and death:
Pursue, keep up with, circle round and round your life, as a dog does his master’s chaise. Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.

Few writers are more quotable than Henry David Thoreau. The Quotable Thoreau, the most comprehensive and authoritative collection of Thoreau quotations ever assembled, gathers more than 2,000 memorable passages from this iconoclastic American author, social reformer, environmentalist, and self-reliant thinker. Including Thoreau’s thoughts on topics ranging from sex to solitude, manners to miracles, government to God, life to death, and everything in between, the book captures Thoreau’s profundity as well as his humor (“If misery loves company, misery has company enough”). Drawing primarily on The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau, published by Princeton University Press, The Quotable Thoreau is thematically arranged, fully indexed, richly illustrated, and thoroughly documented. For the student of Thoreau, it will be invaluable. For those who think they know Thoreau, it will be a revelation. And for the reader seeking sheer pleasure, it will be a joy.

The Quotable Thoreau
Edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer
We invite you to read the introduction online: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9391.html

Also available:
Walden
Henry David Thoreau
Edited by J. Lyndon Shanley
With a new introduction by John Updike

Cape Cod
Henry David Thoreau
Edited by Joseph J. Moldenhauer
With a new introduction by Robert Pinsky

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
Henry David Thoreau
Edited by Carl F. Hovde, William L. Howarth, and Elizabeth Hall Witherell
With a new introduction by John McPhee

The Higher Law:
Thoreau on Civil Disobedience and Reform
Henry David Thoreau
Edited by Wendell Glick
With an introduction by Howard Zinn

The Maine Woods
Henry David Thoreau
Edited by Joseph J. Moldenhauer
With a new introduction by Paul Theroux

The Press is publishing a plethora of new poetry titles this April, so we have a lot to celebrate! We are pleased to announce two important translations, the first annotated critical edition of a major poem by W. H. Auden, and two books in the revived Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets. Don’t forget to join the Lewis Center for the Arts later this month for the second biennial Princeton Poetry Festival and you can check out the Press’s poetry offerings here.

	Poems Under Saturn: Poèmes saturniens Paul Verlaine Translated and with an introduction by Karl Kirchwey The first complete English translation of the collection that announced Paul Verlaine (1844-1896) as a poet who would come to be regarded as one of the greatest of nineteenth-century writers. This new translation, by respected contemporary poet Karl Kirchwey, faithfully renders the collection’s heady mix of classical learning and earthy sensuality in poems whose rhythm and rhyme represent one of the supreme accomplishments of French verse.
	The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue W. H. Auden Edited and with an introduction by Alan Jacobs This volume–the first annotated, critical edition of the poem–introduces this important work to a new generation of readers by putting it in historical and biographical context and elucidating its difficulties. Alan Jacobs’s introduction and thorough annotations help today’s readers understand and appreciate the full richness of a poem that contains some of Auden’s most powerful and beautiful verse, and that still deserves a central place in the canon of twentieth-century poetry.
	New Impressions of Africa Raymond Roussel Translated and introduced by Mark Ford This bilingual edition of Raymond Roussel’s most extraordinary work, New Impressions of Africa, presents the original French text and the English poet Mark Ford’s lucid, idiomatic translation on facing pages. It also includes an introduction outlining the poem’s peculiar structure and evolution, notes explaining its literary and historical references, and the fifty-nine illustrations anonymously commissioned by Roussel, via a detective agency, from Henri-A. Zo.
	At Lake Scugog: Poems Troy Jollimore The eagerly awaited collection of new poems from the author of Tom Thomson in Purgatory, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was hailed by the New York Times as a “snappy, entertaining book.” A triumphant follow-up, At Lake Scugog demonstrates why the San Francisco Chronicle has called Troy Jollimore “a new and exciting voice in American poetry.”
	Carnations: Poems Anthony Carelli Often taking titles from a biblical vocabulary, Anthony Carelli’s remarkable debut, Carnations, reminds us that unremarkable places and events–a game of Frisbee in a winter park, workers stacking panes in a glass factory, or the daily opening of a café–can, in a blink, be new.

You didn’t pick up an Oscar this year at the Academy Awards? Well, with Hollywood films in mind, here’s a book you’ll want to pick up: Working-Class Hollywood by Steven J. Ross. In addition, it’s this week’s book giveaway on Facebook.

Liberal and radical films declined in the 1920s as an emerging Hollywood studio system, pressured by censors and Wall Street investors, pushed American film in increasingly conservative directions. Appealing to people’s dreams of luxury and upward mobility, studios produced lavish fantasy films that shifted popular attention away from the problems of the workplace and toward the pleasures of the new consumer society. While worker filmmakers were trying to heighten class consciousness, Hollywood producers were suggesting that class no longer mattered. Working-Class Hollywood shows how silent films helped shape the modern belief that we are a classless nation.

“Steve Ross has written an absorbing and important book about a time when working-class life and working-class filmmakers occupied a central place in American cinema. I strongly recommend that anyone interested in the politics of American film read this book.”–Michael Moore, Director of Roger and Me and TV Nation

Anyone who LIKES us on Facebook is automatically entered in our weekly draws. This Friday at 3:30 p.m. EST, check out our facebook page to find out, “And the winner is….”

Working-Class Hollywood by Steven J. Ross