Last Thursday the Press had a fabulous launch party for Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue at The Pit in downtown Raleigh. We celebrated with authors John Shelton Reed, Dale Volberg Reed, and William McKinney as well as several pitmasters featured in the book, including Ed Mitchell (pitmaster at The Pit), Samuel [...]

On WUNC’s (91.5 FM Chapel Hill) The State of Things today at noon, Frank Stasio and a panel of guests will be discussing the legal and religious meanings of marriage in light of the passage of Prop 8 in California and similar amendments in other states.
Guests will include UNC Press author E. Patrick Johnson, professor [...]

Folks, Holy Smoke is hot! Thank you!
The book popped up in the #15 spot in hardcover nonfiction on SIBA’s (Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance) Southern Indie Bestseller List for the week ending November 2.
This morning’s News & Observer featured an interview with the Reeds.
Today, John and Dale Reed talked to Frank Stasio on The State of [...]

Well, it’s the semi-annual “clean-up day” here at UNC Press. That means everybody (except Courtney, whose office is always clean) takes some time to get their offices in order, thin out their email archives, and purge outdated files. A few extra HUGE recycling bins are brought in and are often filled to overflowing. Oh, [...]

It’s hard to think about anything else right now, as far as I’m concerned. And I don’t even watch teevee! That’s the thing about the internet: if you need a fix of pretty much anything, you can get it, and get it immediately. Sometimes hitting “refresh” over at fivethirtyeight.com or pollster.com feels as good as [...]

Three UNCP authors deserve special cheers for winning awards recently:
Rob Christensen, author of The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics, has been awarded the 2008 Ragan Old North State Award for Nonfiction by the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association. The successor to the organization’s Mayflower Cup, the Ragan Old North State Award honors Sam Ragan: [...]

The Wall Street Journal has published a series of “Five Best” book lists in various subjects this month, including books on financial meltdowns and books on the history of medicine. This week’s list offers Pulitzer Prize-winning author James M. McPherson’s top five books about the Civil War away from the battlefield.
Of the five books on [...]

The world’s largest annual book trade show, the Frankfurt Book Fair, just wrapped up its 60th anniversary gathering. From October 15-19, the Frankfurt, Germany, fair hosted more than 50,000 visitors each day, peaking at a record 78,218 on Saturday!
Vicky Wells, our director of contracts and subsidiary rights, hopped on a plane last week, crossed the [...]

Tune in or set your TiVo: Nortin Hadler, M.D., author of Worried Sick: A Prescription for Health in an Overtreated America will be D. G. Martin’s guest on North Carolina Bookwatch this weekend. The show airs on UNC-TV Friday evening at 9:30pm and Sunday afternoon at 5pm.

Before the week gets away from me, I wanted to be able to share some more of the online buzz UNC Press books have gotten lately. It’s all about FOOD . . .

Nancy Carter Crump’s Hearthside Cooking: Early American Southern Cuisine Updated for Today’s Hearth and Cookstove is hitting bookstores now. Get an early taste [...]

The University of North Carolina Press was not the only out-of-towner attending the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville Oct. 10-Oct. 12. Comedian and actor Robin Williams strolled through the War Memorial Plaza on Sunday and checked out what UNC Press had to offer. He even purchased Lincoln and the Decision for War, by [...]

According to an article in the New York Times today, tens of thousands of eligible voters have erroneously—and illegally—been removed from voter rolls in at least six battleground states, including North Carolina.
On top of the fact that it is against the law (with few exceptions, such as death) to purge voter rolls within 90 days [...]

See Gus Read.
Gus is reading a book.
Read, Gus! Read!
What book is Gus reading?
Oh, oh! Gus is reading a banned book!
Bad, Gus! Bad!
Gus should not read banned books!
Banned books are bad.
Bad, banned books. Bad!
Banned books might make you think in ways book banners think you should not think!
That sort of thinking is [...]

Dear, sweet readers, do you know what this week is? It’s Banned Books Week, brought to you by the American Library Association. It’s that time once a year when we celebrate the freedom to read what we want by flaunting all the books that people at one time or another, for one reason or another, [...]

Greetings from Mobile, Alabama! What a weekend-well-spent at the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (commonly referred to as SIBA) 2008 trade show. The University of North Carolina Press received quite a bit of positive feedback for many reasons. EVERYONE we spoke with is anxiously awaiting the arrival of Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue [...]