Our Essential Reads selection include new releases that offer a general audience a depth of understanding and some fresh approaches across a wide range of important subjects. These titles also represent the unique and diverse output our University Presses offer. Read on to find out which books we’ve chosen this month.
Use the code ERF24 for 20% discount on any of our essential picks
Stories of the Street
University of Minnesota Press
When walking down the street, it is not uncommon to see lost items that have escaped their proper receptacles, but how often does one stop to read the messages left behind? David Lazar has stopped often, capturing the pieces of a “lost world on the streets” and thinking about the life of the discarder from the fragments left behind.
“‘One must awaken the stories that sleep in the streets,’ wrote the philosopher of everyday life Michel de Certeau. David Lazar has assembled an anthology of them, found underfoot and awakened with deft artistry and genuine wonder. Balanced between prose poetry and flash fiction, these pieces, with their instigating photographs, reveal that stories waiting to be told may be found wherever you look.”
D. J. Waldie, author of Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir and Becoming Los Angeles: Myth, Memory, and a Sense of Place
Corporatocracy
New York University Press
Reveals the role corporations play in political affairs, and explains why and how they should be held accountable.
“Torres-Spelliscy’s takedown is biting—she dubs Trump ‘a cotton-candy-haired Mussolini’—and concludes with a sensible proposal for public funding of election campaigns… It’s a persuasive wake-up call.”
Publishers Weekly
Read a Q&A with author Ciara Torres-Spelliscy
Clearing Out
University Of Minnesota Press
Winner of the Nadia Christensen Prize for translation from the American-Scandinavian Foundation
In a masterful blend of fiction and autobiography, a Norwegian novelist sends her character to the far north to learn what she can about their Sami ancestry.
“I’ve long been fascinated by the culture of the Sami people and the part of the world that Helene Uri explores in her new novel. Beautifully translated, Clearing Out is a well-crafted investigation of the stories we inherit and the stories we create.”
Vendela Vida, author of Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name
Fur, Fleas, and Flukes
University of Toronto Press
Shedding light on the unseen world around us, Fur, Fleas, and Flukes reveals the role parasites play in shaping the lives of wild mammals.
“This book is fascinating – I couldn’t put it down! A tale of ecology, evolution, and threats such as climate change, woven together into stories about parasites and their ecosystems that are both riveting and informative. This will be one of my top-recommended books to help others learn about the natural world from an engaging author.”
Jessica Haines, Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences, MacEwan University
Changing on the Job
Stanford University Press
An advanced guide to leadership development and intentional evolution—your own or others. Berger explains the advanced perspective, maturity, and personal evolution leaders need to make a powerful difference.
“Brilliantly captures the essence of adult development, offering leaders a roadmap to growth amidst complexity. A must-read for anyone committed to evolving their consciousness and leadership practice.”
Robert Kegan, Harvard University Graduate School of Education, co-author of Immunity to Change and An Everyone Culture
Read an excerpt from Changing on the Job on Fast Company
Cyberlibertarianism
University Of Minnesota Press
An urgent reckoning with digital technology’s fundamentally right-wing legal and economic underpinnings.
Listen to George Justice, who wrote the foreword to Cyberlibertarianism, in conversation with Frank Pasquale, professor of law at Cornell Tech and Cornell Law School:
