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Forty Martyrs
 | A Novel by Phillip Deaver Burrow Press Paperback, $16 March 29, 2016. ISBN: 978-1941681947 Forty Martyrs is an ode to a small Midwestern town that collectively experiences a spectacular fire, a terrible stabbing, and a questionable religious sighting. "I could hardly stop reading, from first to last. These piercingly direct stories contain endless subtleties and subtexts, uniting and dividing them in the most convincing and intricate way." –- Ann Beattie “Nine loosely linked stories-or perhaps one loosely episodic novel-about infidelity, alcoholism, insanity, and other small-town ills, all told brilliantly and with humor and great compassion.” -– Kirkus **Starred Review** “I have deeply admired, for many years, the work of Philip F. Deaver, a writer unparalleled in his examination of lost souls longing to be found. In prose that is quietly lyric, and sharp with truth, his stories are kinetic with heartbreak and magic. His work is a triumph, and I would follow it anywhere.” –- Laura van den Berg, author of Find Me |
| The long-awaited follow-up from the author of the Flannery O'Connor Award-winning collection, Silent Retreats, Forty Martyrs follows the intertwining lives of the people of Tuscola, Illinois, a small Midwestern college town that, over the course of the book, collectively experiences a spectacular fire, a terrible stabbing, and a questionable religious sighting. Through shifts in tone and perspective, Deaver's natural storytelling creates a beautiful symphonic effect, an ode to small towns and Midwestern lives. Philip Deaver is a writer from Illinois, currently living and writing in Florida. He's a permanent writer in residence and Professor of English at Rollins College and teaches fiction and poetry in the brief residency MFA program at Spalding University in Louisville, KY. |  |
If you're interested in inviting Philip to your store, please contact Susan Lilley at susan.lilley@icloud.com
Why I'm an Only Child & Other Slightly Naughty Plains Folktales
 | Folktales by Roger Welsch Foreword by Dick Cavett University of Nebraska Press Paperback, $19.95 March 1, 2016. ISBN: 978-0-8032-8428-9 Not a joke book, but a book that jokes about life on the plains that is sure to make you laugh out loud. “Roger Welsch has his finger firmly on the pulse of rural Plains humor because it’s his own pulse. He knows this tradition from a life spent where it happens—in the field, the tavern, the church hall, and the pickup cab—and his ear is perfectly attuned to catch its modest, ribald hilarity.” -- Tim Lloyd, executive director of the American Folklore Society “It would be difficult to find a folklorist more prolific and more popular than Roger Welsch, or ‘Captain Nebraska’ as some have dubbed him with great affection, following his hugely successful years as a correspondent on CBS News Sunday Morning. . . . Readers in Nebraska and beyond will be pleased to see yet another volume of good-humored Plains folklore in this latest work collected by Roger Welsch.” -- Elaine J. Lawless, Curators’ Distinguished Professor Emerita at the University of Missouri and past president of the American Folklore Society |
| One day Roger Welsch ventured to ask his father a delicate personal question: “Why am I an only child?” His father’s answer is one of many examples of the delightful and laughter-inducing ribald tales Welsch has compiled from a lifetime of listening to and sharing the folklore of the Plains. More narrative than simple jokes, and the product of multiple retellings, these coarse tales were even delivered by such prudish sources as Welsch’s stern and fearsome German great-aunts. Speaking of cucumbers and sausages in a toast to a newly married couple, the prim and proper women of Welsch’s memory voice the obscene and unspeakable in stories fit for general company. Why I’m an Only Child and Other Slightly Naughty Plains Folktales is Welsch’s celebration of the gentle and evocative bits of humor reflecting the personality of the people of the Plains. Roger Welsch is a retired professor of English and anthropology at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and a former essayist for CBS News Sunday Morning. He is the author of more than forty books, including A Treasury of Nebraska Pioneer Folklore (Nebraska, 1966), My Nebraska: The Good, the Bad, and the Husker(Nebraska, 2011), and most recently, The Reluctant Pilgrim: A Skeptic’s Journey into Native Mysteries (Nebraska, 2015). |  |
Lab Girl
 | A Memoir by Hope Jahren Knopf Hardcover, $26.95 April 5, 2016. ISBN: 9781101874936 An illuminating debut memoir of a woman in science; a moving portrait of a longtime friendship; and a stunningly fresh look at plants that will forever change how you see the natural world. “Lab Girl made me look at trees differently. It compelled me to ponder the astonishing grace and gumption of a seed. Perhaps most importantly, it introduced me to a deeply inspiring woman—a scientist so passionate about her work I felt myself vividly with her on every page. This is a smart, enthralling, and winning debut.” -- Cheryl Strayed “Jahren’s journey from student to scientist has the narrative tension of a novel, and characters she imbues with real depth.... Jahren transcends both memoir and science writing in this literary fusion of both genres.” -- Kirkus Reviews(starred) “Some people are great writers, while other people live lives of adventure and importance. Almost no one does both. Hope Jahren does both. She makes me wish I’d been a scientist.” -- Ann Patchett |
Acclaimed scientist Hope Jahren has built three laboratories in which she’s studied trees, flowers, seeds, and soil. Her first book is a revelatory treatise on plant life—but it is also so much more.
Lab Girl is a book about work, love, and the mountains that can be moved when those two things come together. It is told through Jahren’s remarkable stories: about her childhood in rural Minnesota with an uncompromising mother and a father who encouraged hours of play in his classroom’s labs; about how she found a sanctuary in science, and learned to perform lab work done “with both the heart and the hands”; and about the inevitable disappointments, but also the triumphs and exhilarating discoveries, of scientific work.
Lab Girl is a book about work, love, and the mountains that can be moved when those two things come together. It is told through Jahren’s remarkable stories: about her childhood in rural Minnesota with an uncompromising mother and a father who encouraged hours of play in his classroom’s labs; about how she found a sanctuary in science, and learned to perform lab work done “with both the heart and the hands”; and about the inevitable disappointments, but also the triumphs and exhilarating discoveries, of scientific work.
| Yet at the core of this book is the story of a relationship Jahren forged with a brilliant, wounded man named Bill, who becomes her lab partner and best friend. Their sometimes rogue adventures in science take them from the Midwest across the United States and back again, over the Atlantic to the ever-light skies of the North Pole and to tropical Hawaii, where she and her lab currently make their home. Jahren’s probing look at plants, her astonishing tenacity of spirit, and her acute insights on nature enliven every page of this extraordinary book. Lab Girl opens your eyes to the beautiful, sophisticated mechanisms within every leaf, blade of grass, and flower petal. Here is an eloquent demonstration of what can happen when you find the stamina, passion, and sense of sacrifice needed to make a life out of what you truly love, as you discover along the way the person you were meant to be. |  |
Hope Jahren has received three Fulbright Awards in geobiology and is one of four scientists, and the only woman, to have been awarded both of the Young Investigator Medals given in the earth sciences. Named by Popular Science in 2005 as one of the “Brilliant 10” young scientists, she has taught and pursued independent research at universities around the country, most recently as a tenured professor at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa in Honolulu.
If you're interested in inviting Hope to your store, please contact jkals@randomhouse.com or ehartmann@randomhouse.com.
