University of Michigan Press Blog

Fall 2009 Catalog Now Available

Our Fall 2009 catalog is hot off the press. Browse through the PDF, or search on the UMP site to view all of our great new titles. Some highlights this season include Barack Obama's America: How New Conceptions of Race, Family, and Religion Ended the Reagan Era; The Accidental Teacher, a touching memoir about the life lessons learned from a son with autism; Grand River and Joy, a novel about the race riots in Detroit in the 1960s. Later this fall be on the lookout for Orville Brims' Look at Me! examining why some people seek out fame – and what it does to them when they do.

University Press 2.0 by Phil Pochoda

The following essay by Phil Pochoda, Director of University of Michigan Press, was presented recently at a symposium on "Bookishness" organized by the Michigan Quarterly Review. The essay will appear in a somewhat different form in a forthcoming issue of the MQR.

Beef up your Supreme Court knowledge with these UMP titles

Today, President Obama has announced his pick for the Supreme Court, Judge Sonia Sotomayor. Judge Sotomayor is a graduate of Princeton University and Yale Law and has served as a federal judge the  U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit since 1998 following a 1992 appointment as a federal judge in the U.S. District Court in New York.

View President Obama's Nomination on CNN.com HERE

If you want to learn more about the Supreme Court here are some notable UMP books:

• A Good Quarrel: America's Top Legal Reporters Share Stories from Inside the Supreme Court
  Edited by Timothy R. Johnson and Jerry Goldman
• Ellery's Protest: How One Young Man Defied Tradition and Sparked the Battle over School Prayer
  by Stephen D. Solomon
• The Supreme Court on Trial : How the American Justice System Sacrifices Innocent Defendants
  by George C. Thomas III

Petoskey Library Heats Up Cold Case

For the first time that librarian Barbara Cook can remember, she had to turn people away from a library event. Not because the event was cancelled, not because it was by invitation only, but rather because she has a healthy respect for fire codes.

Cold Case Investigation – Library Style

Can bookworms solve a crime?  That’s the question that will be considered at the Petoskey Public Library tonight.

In June of 1968 all five members of the Detroit-based Richard Robison family were ambushed inside their Good Hart cottage.  The investigation is chronicled in my book, When Evil Came to Good Hart.

Running Out of Money, LITERALLY.

History seems to be repeating itself - our current economic climate is being compared to the Great Depression, Michael Jackson is making a comeback and nations are running out of currency.

In Good Money: Birmingham Button Makers, the Royal Mint, and the Beginnings of Modern Coinage, 1775-1821, George Selgin tells the fascinating story of British manufacturers' challenge to the Crown's monopoly on coinage. This book has been received with widespread critical acclaim and has resulted in Selgin becoming an expert on coin shortages, resulting in his recent authorship of an article for the Wall Street Journal.

Take a look at reviews of Good Money and Selgin's article in the complete entry.

UMP Author Dave Dempsey Petitions to Name State Forest in Honor of Gov. Milliken

Michigan's forest giants include the majestic white pine, which fueled Michigan's initial boom and bust economy of the 1800s. But the biographer of Michigan's longest-serving governor wants to honor another forest giant still standing tall -- the conservation partnership of William and Helen Milliken.

Q&A with Arnie Bernstein, author of Bath Massacre: America's First School Bombing

On the morning of May 18th, 1927, in Bath Michigan, Andrew P. Kehoe’s farm caught fire.

At roughly the same time, the north wing of the Bath Consolidated School exploded.

Chaos ensued as those uninjured or killed by the blast worked to clear the rubble and get to the trapped children.

We have made it onto President Obama's Reading List...

President Obama viewed our advertisement of the UM Press' titles!  Interested in what he might be reading?   Find out more in the complete entry!