Jeremy Adam Smith: Father’s Day Recommended Reading

Today's post is from Jeremy Adam Smith, senior editor of Greater Good magazine and author of The Daddy Shift: How Stay-at-Home Dads, Breadwinning Moms, and Shared Parenting are Transforming the American Family. He blogs about the politics of parenting at Daddy Dialectic.

It's an empirical fact that fathers are comparatively rare in children's books — when economist David A. Anderson and psychologist Mykol Hamilton studied 200 children's books in 2005, they found that fathers appeared about half as often as mothers. Mothers were ten times more likely to be depicted taking care of babies than fathers and twice as likely to be seen nurturing older children.

No surprise there, of course. Moms are still the ones most likely to be taking care of kids. But where does that leave families who don't fit the traditional mold? And how does that help parents who want to provide caring role models to their sons?

There are books out there, few and far between, that depict dads as co-parents and primary caregivers. In an effort to find them, I consulted bookstores in San Francisco as well as my local children's librarian.

My list is not exhaustive; these are only the ones I can recommend, and there are many titles I found online that I wasn't able to read in real life. And because these kinds of books are so rare, I'm willing to bet that there are plenty out there that few people know about.

A New Climate of Fear?

"It has all the hallmarks of suppression of speech: incitement of fear, intimidation of well-meaning folks, mob rule." So said Bill Ayers in response to the cancellation of a scheduled talk he was to give to high school students, whose parents would have been required to sign permission slips for them to attend, in Naperville, Ill. 

Ayers, author of Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Antiwar Activist, is Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His relationship with Barack Obama became a source of controversy during the Presidential campaign in what Ayers described as a “dishonest narrative.” 

An event at Anderson's Bookshop in Naperville, scheduled for April 8 and tied to his new book from Third World Press, Race Course, was also cancelled. The bookshop cited security concerns. Similarly, an event at Brandeis University has been postponed due to the cost of security.

And a Boston College engagement at which Ayers was to speak about education reform was first cancelled by the college, then moved off campus, and briefly reworked into an event by satellite before that, too, was blocked by the BC officials. A local radio personality incited the protests that prompted the College to cancel the event. The student group that had invited Ayers to campus instead sponsored a discussion of freedom of speech and academic freedom on campus which drew 300 students, staff and faculty members. 

This is not the first time venues hosting speaking engagements featuring Ayers have come under fire. Officials at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln cancelled a lecture last fall, citing safety concerns. Countless events, however, have gone on in spite of attempts to suppress Ayers' speech. In October of 2001, when the late A. David Schwartz of Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops stood firm in the face of calls and letters urging him to cancel an event tied to the original release of Fugitive Days, he offered this eloquent defense to his critics: 

"I myself grew up in Wisconsin during the McCarthy era and witnessed firsthand the attack on civil liberties and civic life that crippled America at that time. My father was accused of running a Communist bookshop by many people just because he thought it important to stock and promote books which were unpopular in the political climate of the time. I also was engaged in the movement against the Vietnam War and had some opportunities to view the Weathermen in action. I decided that I was politically and intellectually opposed to their positions on most matters.

Now to the specific issue of whether or not Bill Ayers should be allowed to be one of the 26 authors who will visit our shops in October. It seems to me this is what America is about: listening to many freely expressed viewpoints so we can decide for ourselves the truth. America's brilliance and enormous distinction from other democracies is that it truly believes in the democratic process. Letting Bill Ayers speak is a part of that process. I hope customers who disagree with Bill Ayers and his views will attend this book reading so you can question him about this ideas. That's another part of the process."

(Incidentally and on a sad note, Schwartz Bookshops very recently closed its doors for good after 82 years. Two of the chain's four locations will reopen soon under new names, and we wish the new owners all the best.)

Helene Atwan, director of Beacon Press, offers these thoughts on the cancellations:

"Like most of our colleagues in the publishing and media communities, we deplore a climate in which schools, universities and bookstores are made fearful of having any author--or indeed any one--speak in their venues.  As the management of Anderson's Bookshop put it:

'Bookstores play an integral part in the process by which ideas are disseminated and debated. Debate is essential in our society, and we take seriously our responsibility to promote ideas, including those that we personally do not endorse or condone. This week freedom of speech was threatened.'

For all of us involved in the work of publishing ideas, the suppression of speech is a blow to democracy. It impoverishes us all to live in a climate where ideas are suppressed rather than discussed and debated, where anger overtakes discourse.  We remain hopeful that the fear-mongering that led to these cancellations can be staunched by the many individuals and organizations dedicated to protecting the free speech rights so integral to our national health."

Beacon Press Visits an Exceptional Boston School

Today's post is from Alexis Rizzuto, an assistant editor at Beacon Press.

As soon as we walked through the front doors of Boston Arts Academy, the energy and creativity were palpable. Earlier this month, a delegation of Beacon Press staff (Director Helene Atwan, Associate publisher Tom Hallock, Director of Publicity Pam MacColl, and myself) went to experience the BAA, a public arts high school under the direction of founding headmaster Linda Nathan, firsthand. All of us, having already read about the faculty, students, activities, and principles of the BAA, were thrilled to see them all in action.

The BAA belongs to the Boston Public School system, but as a pilot school enjoys a more freedom than most public schools in curriculum and scheduling. Students from the city of Boston audition for the 140 spots available each year, and are selected for their passion and commitment to seriously pursuing their chosen art form (music, theater, dance, visual arts). The students are trained as scholars as well as artists, and an astounding 94% of them are accepted to college (compared to 50% on average district-wide). Linda writes that the secret to the school's success lies in asking the right questions and listening as all players grapple with the answers. This process has led to practices such as developing a school-wide set of Shared Values, supporting the teachers by giving them time to discuss ideas in a professional learning community, opening doors to college through offering help with the application process, and being open about ethnic and economic differences in students' backgrounds.

These aspects of the school were all demonstrated as we walked through the hallways and into the classrooms and studios of the BAA. The hallway walls were covered not only with some impressive work from the visual arts students and stills from theater productions, but also a bulletin board filled with kudos to students "caught in the act of shared values"—in other words, those who had done good deeds in keeping with the school's ideals of responsibility, integrity, and respect. Another wall displayed the photos of graduates with the names of the colleges to which they were accepted. In studios we saw dance students going through exercises at the barre and heard music students warming up their voices, and in classrooms we observed SAT prep, offered by the school to make sure students who might not otherwise have access to this instruction wouldn't be at a disadvantage.

Reading on the Kindle: Notes from a Beacon Press Staffer

Beacon is now selling several hundred books a month via Amazon's Kindle program--Man's Search For Meaning, Sowing Crisis, and Kindred are among our best-selling titles in the Kindle store. So far, we have one resident devotee of the elegant e-reader: Sales Assistant Sara Hatch. Beacon Broadside asked her a few questions about Kindle and what she's using it to read.

Tell our readers a little bit about yourself.
At Beacon, I work with our marketing department on Sales, Ebooks, and help with updates to our website. I’m a graduate of Boston University with a Bachelor of Science in Journalism. I grew up in Connecticut and have lived in Boston, D.C., and London. I’ve written for several publications including Roll Call and the New London Day. I got my start in publishing at MIT Press. In my spare time, I read and watch movies and TV on my computer.

How long have you had a Kindle?
I’ve had it for about a week now.

Speaking as a consumer--and not as an employee of a publishing house--do you think that the $9.99 price for a new book is a good value?
A lot of the books I've bought aren’t $9.99, more like $5 or $6 dollars, which is a nice value. I think if it's a brand new hardcover and you can get it for $9.99, it's a steal. Books are so expensive, and they're my one extravagance, so it's nice to be able to spend $5 or $6 dollars on a book that would cost me $7 or more in a store. I can also carry several books around with me at once, which is good for me since I generally don't read just one book at a time.

What books do you have on your Kindle?
I have the collected works of Shakespeare, Jane Austen and sixteen Dickens novels. They have relatively cheap collections of several authors like that. It cost me about $7 total for all of those, a great deal. I also have two books by Charlaine Harris from the “Sookie Stackhouse” series (which is the basis for the HBO series “True Blood”) and a sample of a book by Kim Harrison, another fantasy writer. You can download a sample from any book on Kindle for free, which is a really nice feature.

Has using the Kindle made your bag lighter, or do you still carry a bunch of traditional books around?
I’m not sure if my bag will ever be light but I definitely don’t carry as many books any more.

Have your reading habits changed?
I don't think they've changed. I think it’s a lot easier to read on my morning commute since the Kindle is a lot less cumbersome. I have a 45 minute commute both ways so I can get a lot of reading down.

Do you have any Beacon Press books on your Kindle?
Not yet, but I hope to put some on at some point. I can email manuscripts straight to my Kindle—an awesome feature.

Not Lost in Translation: Beacon’s Reach Overseas

Today's post is from Reshma Melwani, Beacon’s Foreign Rights Assistant. Since joining Beacon a little over a year ago, Reshma has overseen countless translation deals; this post explores some of her more inspiring deals and their significance in today's world. When she’s not selling foreign rights for Beacon, Reshma works as a freelance writer in Boston.

During his inauguration, President Barack Obama spoke of the strength of our "patchwork heritage," describing America as "a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers... shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth." Weeks later, these words still reverberate within me.

Perhaps, because, like my country, I too am a product of a "patchwork heritage"-- purposefully shaped by many cultures, molded by many languages.

I spent monsoon summers in Bombay, watching my aunts bargain for glass bangles and silk saris at bustling bazaars. I enjoyed warm winters with my maternal grandparents in Indonesia. Rather than a bowl of cereal, I woke up to a steaming bowl of spicy fried rice topped with an over-easy egg. I cherish my memories of lazy afternoons in Spain, taking a siesta on the cool tile floor alongside my paternal grandparents.

I've worshipped in Catholic churches, Islamic mosques, and temples both Hindu and Buddhist. I've grown up with an agnostic mother, a meditating father, and everything else in between. I am who I am precisely because of my "patchwork heritage."

But even in my day-to-day life in Boston, as a foreign rights liaison at Beacon Press, I see President Obama's words materialize. I bear witness to the steps the international publishing community is taking to embrace other cultures and promote tolerance.

Telling the Story of the Great Boston Molasses Flood

Today's post is from Stephen Puleo, author of the critically acclaimed Boston-area bestseller Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919. A former award-winning newspaper reporter and contributor to American History magazine, he holds a master's degree in history and is also the author of The Boston Italians: A Story of Pride, Perseverance, and Paesani, from the Years of the Great Immigration to the Present Day. His website is http://www.stephenpuleo.com/.

At first, the woman in front of me jumped a bit when I popped my head over the seatback and said, "Would you like me to autograph that?"

We had just taken off from Charlotte, on a connector flight from Boston to Hilton Head, and her movement had caught my eye when she pulled a copy of Dark Tide from her bag and settled in to read. When I asked the question, she glanced quickly from me to the book and back to me again, and said, "No – you're not…are you?" But there's no author's photo on the paperback, after all, so she wasn't entirely sure. I whipped out my driver's license to convince her I wasn't a stalker, and more importantly, that I was who I claimed to be. "Wow, this is great," she said. "I love the book and you're coming to speak to my book club." Of course, I responded, and named the town and date, further verifying my identity. Now we were friends. She introduced me to her husband, and after we landed, we took pictures at the airport so she could e-mail them to her book-club colleagues. When I spoke to the club a week or so later, the story of our meeting had made the rounds.

When the 90th anniversary of the Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919 occurs on January 15, Dark Tide will be close to celebrating its own five-and-one-half year anniversary. The blink-of-an-eye passage of time is astounding enough to me, but even more amazing (and gratifying) has been the book's continued popularity and appeal. I have been truly blessed and humbled by the chord it has struck with readers, and my book-club friend on the plane was representative of the enthusiastic response Dark Tide has generated. I have made more than 150 appearances on this book alone since its publication, and at least 40 book clubs have selected it as their choice. In the winter and spring of 2009, the Massachusetts cities of Beverly and Medford will be reading Dark Tide as part of town-wide reading programs, bringing to six the number of communities that have selected the book for this honor.

Why Write Books?

Today's post is from Jeremy Adam Smith, senior editor of Greater Good magazine and author of The Daddy Shift, forthcoming from Beacon Press in spring 2009. He blogs about the politics of parenting at Daddy Dialectic.

One night at dinner a cynical relative challenged me on my choice of career: Why bother to write books and articles? We were talking about my current project, on the communities that straight and queer parents build together. He asked: Whose mind do you hope to change? Will it make any difference? Who reads books these days, anyway? They were thinking especially of hardcore members of the religious right, who will never read a book like that, and if they do, they will likely reject what it has to say out of hand.

These were good questions. I surprised myself by having some answers. My first thought is that, on the most personal level, none of that matters. I like to tell stories and, for a combination of personal and political reasons, this is the story I want to tell right now. If two people want to hear the story, I'm happy with that. If two hundred thousand want to hear it, even better.

How many I reach is, of course, partially a function of how good a job I do, along with timing, marketing, and many other factors. And I also get existential satisfaction out of the job, because it is a job, and not a well-paying one; still, the process of putting words together and striving to improve my skills gives me pleasure, albeit of the tortured sort. Why, I'm not sure.

Beyond those personal reasons, however, there are people out there who readily agree with me but who need to hear these stories told to them, so that they can think through problems with another mind (as I have many times, through the medium of books) and so that they can feel connected to something larger than themselves.

Link Roundup: Mary Oliver, Ayers interviews, Race and the Election

"The Poet Goes to Indiana" by Mary Oliver was featured on the Writer's Almanac recently.

Bill Ayers was interviewed by the Washington Post for this piece that ran that day after the election—the New Yorker's David Remnick was there, too. Last week, Garry Trudeau offered this commentary on the pre-election media.

On Slate, one more eloquent defense of scholar Rashid Khalidi made it in before the election.

Colm Tóibín wrote this piece for the New York Review of Books about similarities between Barack Obama's Dreams of My Father and James Baldwin's Notes of a Native Son.

Kevin Scott appeared on New Hampshire Public Radio to discuss The Porning of America.

Amy Alexander and Dr. Alvin Pouissaint co-wrote a pre-election article for The Root about managing the stress of history and led this post-election discussion about African-American reactions at Washington Post.

Latoya Peterson analyzed the ways we talked about race and identity during the campaign.

Jay Wexler submits a Supreme Court Humor Special Report on the "F-Word and S-Word Case" (except that he uses bad words). Frederick Lane discussed the lower court ruling here.

Recent Posts on Beacon Broadside

Memories of Studs Terkel from One of Thousands of Good Friends

Before the Victory Celebration: Religious Scholars in Chicago

Thoughts on Race, Identity and the Obamas

Greenspan Passes the Buck

Memories of Studs Terkel from One of Thousands of Good Friends

Studs Terkel passed away last week at the age of 96. Rick Ayers, the author of Studs Terkel's Working: A Teaching Guide (New Press, 2002) and Great Books for High School Kids (Beacon Press), shares here some of his memories of the great oral historian.

When my friends and I met Studs Terkel, in 1963, we were a bunch of high school suburban rebels, living twenty miles west of Chicago. We sought freedom by turning our dial to the black music stations, WVON and WYNR – discovering the beat of Bo Diddley and the heart of Aretha Franklin. And we also came across WFMT, Chicago's "fine arts" radio station. We would sit up with the funky and eclectic folk and blues show, Midnight Special, on Saturday nights and listen to Studs Terkel interviews in the mornings.

One day we ventured down to the loop to take a record album in to the Midnight Special producer. As we sat in the WFMT studio, Studs came bustling out, all distracted and busy, his hair flying, a sheaf of papers, notes and records under his arm. In all his hurry, though, he stopped and said, "Hello, you young people, what are you doing here?" He immediately gave us all of his focus. Leaning over, then sitting on the edge of a chair, he wanted to find out all about us. Soon he boiled down his search to a central question, one he came back to again and again in our years of acquaintance, "I wonder, though, what made you bunch of suburban kids – you're supposed to be training to be bank managers, you're supposed to be practicing your swing at the country club – what made you come down here to Chicago, what made you dissatisfied with your world? What is making these kids from the suburbs go down south, go on picket lines? What makes you tick?"

With that, we began to think differently about ourselves. We weren't just confused and bored and dissatisfied. We were a phenomenon. We were pioneers. We were interesting. You can't imagine what that means to a teenager.

In many ways, the interviewer, the documenter, tells you back your story with more clarity than you told it. If the interviewer is sloppy, selfish, or narrow, you will resent the story he tells and deny its truth. If he is Studs, you recognize its essential truth and begin to understand yourself, and your life, better.

Link Roundup: Rashid Khalidi, Bill Ayers, Recent Reviews

Scott Horton, in his always excellent blog at Harpers, skewers the "New McCarthyism" in a defense of Rashid Khalidi. More commentary in support of Khalidi, a respected scholar at Columbia University and author of the forthcoming Sowing Crisis: The Cold War and American Dominance in the Middle East, is flooding the web and mainstream media. Check out this piece in the Washington Post and this DailyKos diary responding to it, and this video posted at Talking Points Memo where John Judis concedes that this campaign is even dirtier than the Bush-Dukakis campaign.

Bill Ayers recently spoke on education in New York.

Rev. Forrest Church discussed his memoir Love & Death and his diagnosis of terminal esophageal cancer on NPR's Fresh Air.

Kate Clinton proposes action for Nov. 5th, whether or not Prop. 8 is defeated in California.

Looking for some good reading? Five librarians got together to compile this list of the Best of the Best of University Presses. Watch their presentation on BookTV. Two Beacon Press books, Once in a Promised Land and Without a Map, made the list.

A quick look at some reviews of recent Beacon Press releases:

PopMatters on The Porning of America

New Orleans Times-Picayune on Confessions of an Eco-Sinner

Cape Cod Times on The Muse of the Revolution

Winston-Salem Journal on Saving Paradise

And recently on Beacon Broadside:

Greenspan Passes the Buck by Marilyn Sewell

Zombie Jamboree in Texas by Glenn Branch

Factory Farms, Dirty Water, and the Bible: Part One and Part Two by Mark Winne

Nobel Prize – Is There an American Eligible?

Today's post is from Rick Ayers, co-author (with Amy Crawford) of Great Books for High School Kids: A Teacher's Guide to Books That Can Change Teens' Lives, author of Studs Terkel's Working, a Teaching Guide and co-creator (with students) of the Berkeley High Slang Dictionary. Ayers blogs about politics at the Huffington Post.

The American literary establishment is crying foul. The comments of Swedish Academy permanent secretary Horace Engdahl suggesting that an American is unlikely to win the Nobel Prize in Literature this week have provoked great patriotic upswellings. Engdahl suggested that the U.S. literary establishment is "too isolated, too insular. They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature. That ignorance is restraining."

Did this observation give us pause, make us hesitate, push us to ask for clarification? Indeed not. Americans don't take insults like this easily and the media took a quick break from following Sarah Palin's every utterance to chatter about the dis from these upstart Europeans. But, you know, Horace Engdahl might just have something there. We do translate too little of world literature – complaining, apparently, that such works would not sit well with the American literary sensibility. We do not really, as a culture, betray much curiosity about the world.

Books Still Burn Here

Today's post, by Christopher M. Finan, honors Banned Books Week. Finan is president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the bookseller's voice in the fight against censorship. He is the author of From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America, which recently received the American Library Association's Eli Oboler Award for the best book on intellectual freedom in 2006 and 2007.

Some people will yawn at hearing that Saturday was the beginning of the 27th Annual Banned Books Week.

The story is the same every year, isn't it? Hundreds of titles are challenged in schools and libraries around the country. In 2007, the number was 420. This is fewer than the year before, but the number has fluctuated widely since the launch of Banned Books Week in 1982. The average is around 500.

Even the book at the top of the hit list is the same as last year–And Tango Makes Three, a childrens book that has been condemned as "pro-homosexual" and "anti-family" because it tells the story of two male penguins caring for an egg.

But this apparent sameness masks what is really going on. Behind the numbers are a lot of angry people–censors demanding the removal of books that offend them; teachers and librarians upset at finding themselves accused of trying to hurt kids, and the kids themselves caught in the crossfire.

Book banning is an old story, but it is new and often intensely painful for the people who experience it for the first time.

Link Roundup: Teaching and Writing, SCOTUS Can't Get No Respect, and Beacon Broadside at One Year

In the New York Times Magazine last weekend, David Gessner, author of Soaring With Fidel, weighed the pros and cons of teaching and writing, and teaching writing.

Salon talks with Carmine Sarracino about our porn-saturated culture. Sarracino is co-author of The Porning of America.

David Moore (The Opinion Makers) was on Greater Boston this Monday (Sept. 22nd) talking about why pre-election polling is suspect. 

On BlackProf, Sherrilyn Ifill analyzes the loss of prestige suffered by an isolationist, ideological Supreme Court.

This Sunday, a handful of politically conservative pastors intend to flout their churches' non-profit status by openly endorsing John McCain from the pulpit. The Interfaith Alliance has countered their action, urging pastors of all political stripes to pledge to refrain from direct political endorsement.

Beacon Broadside is One Year Old

That first year goes so fast! To commemorate our first anniversary, here are the most popular posts of the past year based on page hits. They represent a good cross-section of the topics and voices we've featured here on the blog. If you've enjoyed the blog during this past year, join our Facebook Blog Network or Fan Page. Thanks for reading! 

The Summer Games: Raising an Olympian by Mark Hyman

The Email That Ended a Career: Intelligent Design and Texas Education by Glenn Branch

Sarah Palin: No Friend to Children and Adults with Disabilities by Jane Bernstein

Redefining the Pill: Bush Administration Calls Contraception "Abortion" by Carole Joffe

Obama's Mixed Heritage: A Mother's Perspective by Barbara Katz Rothman

The Porning of Miley Cyrus by Kevin Scott

Wal-Mart Takes Greenwashing to a New Level by Stacy Mitchell

Read This! Instilling a Love of Reading in Kids by Chris Mercogliano

Edna St. Vincent Millay by Mary Oliver

On the Road with Mary Oliver by Helene Atwan

From the Director: Remembering Robert Giroux

Helene Atwan began her career in publishing at Random House in 1976; she worked at A.A.Knopf, Viking Press, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and Simon and Schuster, before being named director of Beacon Press in 1995. She served for eight years on the board of PEN-New England and is the Administrator of the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award.

I'm proud to note that Beacon Broadside is celebrating its first birthday this week—what a milestone. All our metrics are strong—measures I didn't even know existed a year ago but which I now follow avidly. Thanks to a dedicated and very talented blog editor, Jessie Bennett, and especially to a tremendously creative and generous list of house authors and friends, we have a very deep archive of posts on almost any subject of interest to Americans who are drawing breath in the 21st century. This fall also happens to mark my 32nd year in book publishing, and my 13th as director of Beacon. I think I value the blog so much because it is so radically different from anything I could imagine back when I was banging out letters to authors on a Selectric, with white-out smudges betraying my all-too-frequent typos.

When I first started in publishing, dinosaurs roamed the industry. Actually, they were giants. Among them, in my second job, was Alfred A. Knopf, who greeted one of my banal pleasantries about the weather one fine morning by styling it "a stinker," but who was otherwise quite civil, especially to his heir apparent, Bob Gottlieb, a giant-in-training. Random House already owned Knopf, and was owned itself at the time by RCA, but RH was still very much run by "gentleman publishers" with Bob Bernstein at the helm. I also had the opportunity to work at The Viking Press when Tom Guinzburg was still president. As good as they were, all were warm up acts for the men I was about to encounter when I went to work at Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 1983.

Pat Strachan, currently of Little, Brown, and one of Bob Giroux's most illustrious mentees, Bob, and Helene Atwan, 2004

A great deal has been written about Roger Straus by some very fine writers. He was far more outrageous and colorful than they let on. (His wonderful wife, Dorothea Straus, has never received the press she deserves, and her death last month passed without enough comment. No one who knew them will ever forget them.) But of all the giant figures in the industry, the most impressive to me was Bob Giroux, whose death this month leaves a gaping hole in the industry. His obituaries (in the New York Times, Washington Post, Huffington Post, and elsewhere) deserve to be studied, but they don't tell the whole story. I don't think I know anyone who worked with Mr. Giroux who didn't love him as much as they admired him. In addition to his considerable achievements as an editor, he was also a great mentor, an avid amateur Shakespeare scholar, and wonderful company. In my first weeks at Farrar, Straus and Giroux (and once I knew him I would never again abbreviate the firm's name by omitting his!), he invited me to lunch at his beloved Player's Club, where he took obvious relish in showing me around. The Booth room—the assassin's brother, of course—preserved lovingly, was a point of particular pride and pleasure. He enjoyed ordering our lunch—invariably awful in those days, watery soups and limp vegetables; pale, beaten down slabs of meat swimming in gray gravy—which he cheerfully consumed. He had a way of laughing—and he laughed a lot in good company—which made his distinguished face suddenly round and positively babyish. He took delight in things, and loved springing a surprise. One afternoon, he came striding down the hall out of his small, darkish office at the extreme end of the back hall to announce that he'd just received a new ms. from Walker Percy so we'd better add it to the next list. The catalogue, if memory serves, had to be called back from the printer. He loved good collections of letters—Flannery O'Connor's were often to him—and biographies. I hope to high heaven that someone will collect his letters and write a very long, detailed and juicy biography of Bob. Until then, we are very lucky to have the books he brought into the world, so many of them classics already, and for those lucky enough to have shared an overcooked meal or two with him, our fond memories.

Link Roundup: Rabbinic Counsel, Cheating Athletes and Memorials

The literary world lost two vital voices last week: author David Foster Wallace and poet/poetry blogger Reginald Shepherd. Kottke has assembled a comprehensive links list for DFW memorials, although you could spend the day trolling through the thousands of blog posts reacting to his death. You can read Reginald Shepherd's final poem, "God-With-Us," on his blog, and remembrances on The Valve, Samizdat and elsewhere. Emily Warn at the Poetry Foundation (where he wrote for the Harriet blog this past year) shared his poem "You, Therefore," which begins, "You are like me, you will die too, but not today."

Good Reading Elsewhere:

Earlier this week, Danya Ruttenberg, author of Surprised by God, liveblogged a rabbinic conference call with Barack Obama. Read more about the call at the Jewish Journal.

At YouthSportsParents, Mark Hyman posted some disturbing findings on the ethics of high school sports.

Baggy pants are no longer illegal in Florida.

A Kentucky court dealt a blow to gay families last week in ruling that second-parent adoptions are not permitted under state statutes. Read Nancy Polikoff's reaction on her Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage blog.

Recent Beacon Broadside Posts:

Contraception Foes With Friends in High Places

Sister Pact: A Bostonian Living in Europe Goes to Padua

A Dad's View of the Mommy Wars and Sarah Palin

Professor's Perspective: the Red Sox and the History of Racial Inequality

Sarah Palin: No Friend to Children and Adults with Disabilities

 

Professor’s Perspective: the Red Sox and the History of Racial Inequality

Although Beacon Press is not strictly speaking an "academic publisher," Beacon's books are frequently used in college and high school classrooms around the country. Today we share the perspective of one professor about why she chose Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston as a text for her students. Amy Bass, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of History at the College of New Rochelle and is the author of Not the Triumph but the Struggle: the 1968 Olympic Games and the Making of the Black Athlete (University of Minnesota Press, 2002) and In the Game: Race, Identity, and Sports in the 20th Century (MacMillan, 2005).

So here's my problem teaching cultural history: I am a devout and devoted, dedicated and dutiful, fan of the Boston Red Sox.

There are many, many, many well known burdens in being a fan of Boston. Until recently, there was the whole "curse" thing. The year 1918, which could be mentioned for many historically important reasons (the flu epidemic, Exterminator's unlikely win at the Kentucky Derby, the creation of Wilson's Fourteen Points, etc.), haunted Boston fans until 2004. I was one of them. I endured.

But perhaps the greatest burden is when I come to the story of Jackie Robinson on my syllabus. It's a topic I address not just when I'm teaching my upper-division seminar entitled "Race, Sport, and Society." I also talk about Robinson at length in my U.S. history survey, "Reconstruction to Present," using his minor and major league debuts, and Branch Rickey's push to make the Dodgers the team that would transform baseball's color line, to describe what was going on in early postwar America to spur on the major civil rights movements that emerge in the 1950s and 1960s. It's not sports history, I tell students; it's history.

But then comes that question. That terrible, terrible question. That question that is part of my burden: which team was the last to integrate?

And here's where Howard Bryant and his wonderful Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston come in.

I used to answer that while the Red Sox were technically the last team to integrate, they had tried to integrate first by getting Robinson board, along with Marvin Williams and Sam Jethroe, as early as 1945. But then I read Bryant's tremendously readable book, and I realized that the word tried was really the wrong one. Bryant's startling telling of the tryout shut down my defense of Boston, and only heightened my understanding of why it wasn't until 1959 that the Red Sox became the last – yes the absolute last – team to integrate, bringing up Elijah "Pumpsie" Green in 1959. By the time Green came on board, Robinson was retired, a fact that makes the "Curse of the Bambino" seem like a story used, as so many are in American history, to overshadow the very real and devastating effects of racism.

Howard Bryant's book isn't just about baseball. And it isn't just about sports. It's about history – American history – and should be read by anyone interested in it.

If you are a professor and are interested in learning more about Beacon Press titles, visit the "For Educators" links on the Beacon Press website. If you have used a Beacon title in your course, Beacon Broadside would like to hear your story, either in the comments stream below or in an email to the editor.

 

Work-in-Progress: Dylan Edwards on Creating Beacon’s first Graphic Book

Dylan Edwards is an artist and writer currently working on Beacon's first-ever graphic book: comics about a community of queer transsexual men. His comics include his ongoing series Politically InQueerect and The Outfield (published monthly at Outsports.com).

Click on the image above for a larger version.

Some eight or so years ago when I first showed my cartooning efforts to Alison Bechdel I didn't expect she'd be instrumental in helping me land a book deal. I was mostly just looking for validation from one of my longtime favorite cartoonists. She was very enthusiastic and encouraging about my work, so I kept her apprised of my latest creations over the years, occasionally sending her my minicomics, or asking for advice on how to deal with promotion and self-syndication. When Beacon asked her to recommend cartoonists to approach for their foray into the world of non-fiction graphic book publishing, she suggested me. Talk about validation.

It helped that my editor, Allison Trzop, was already familiar with my work from my monthly sports cartoon, The Outfield, which has been running on Outsports.com for about six years now. She asked if I was interested in the possibility doing a nonfiction book-length project, to which I said, "Nah." No, wait, that's not right. I believe I managed to reply with some shred of dignity, but the gist was something to the effect of, "Yes? Now? O please O please O please!!"

Graphic Nonfiction Coming to Beacon Press

Today's post is from Allison Trzop, an Assistant Editor at Beacon Press.

As someone who grew up a comic book fan—and who grew into graphic books—I'm thrilled to be the acquiring editor of graphic nonfiction for Beacon Press. This is a new field for us as a publishing house, but it's certainly not a new field. Stories told in a book-length graphic format have their own deep history, pieces of which are deftly told in two books I have sitting on my desk: David Beronä's Wordless Books and Douglas Wolk's Reading Comics.

For those at all unfamiliar with, or perhaps unconvinced of, the power this form of storytelling holds, I'd encourage you to begin with Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus or perhaps with Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, which was an outstanding book before it was an outstanding movie. And if you haven't already read Alison Bechdel's Fun Home, nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award, you're missing one of the best representatives of its genre, and one of the best books published in the last five years.

Given the number of Alison Bechdel fans at Beacon Press, it's a great privilege to note that Beacon found its first graphic book through her thoughtful recommendation. Our search for someone who could take Beacon's reputation for publishing LGBT-themed books into a new field led us to cartoonist Dylan Edwards, and we asked him to focus on the "T." As he developed a proposal for Beacon, Dylan narrowed the focus of his book to a community of gay transsexual men—their extraordinary individual stories and their linked outward experiences. In his long-running comic strips, "The Outfield" and "Politically InQueerect," as well as in his other work, Dylan excels at representing queer characters, and offering queer takes on current events. Among other publications, his work has appeared in Sojourner: The Women's Forum, The Antioch Record, FTM International, and Transhealth.

As you can see from the sample included here, Dylan will be writing about those whose lives lend themselves so easily to visual representation, but who are incredibly underrepresented in mainstream media, as well as in the LGBT rights movement. In his hallmark style, Dylan will be capturing these lives with a sense of integrity, nuance, and humor. I'm greatly looking forward to working with him, and hope that everyone reading this—longtime fans and newcomers to graphic books alike—will offer their support not only to Dylan's forthcoming book, but to future Beacon acquisitions in this field!

Dylan Edwards was kind enough to share a sample of the book-in-progress, and will contribute future posts on Beacon Broadside about the process of developing the book. (Click on the image to see a it at a higher resolution.)

Searching for Empathy in the Written Word

Today's post is from Suzanne Kamata, editor of Love You to Pieces: Creative Writers on Raising a Child with Special Needs. Kamata is fiction editor at the online magazine Literary Mama, and her work has appeared in Utne Reader; Brain, Child; Literary Mama; and It's a Girl: Women Writers on Raising Daughters. Her novel Losing Kei was published earlier this year by Leapfrog Press.

I'm the kind of person who looks to literature to make sense of life, so when I learned that my daughter was deaf and had cerebral palsy, I sobbed for a while and then I logged onto Amazon.com. I was looking for deep and sustaining stories to guide me on the long path ahead, and while I found many cheery volumes offering hope and inspiration, that wasn't exactly what I wanted. I needed to know that others had felt the same kind of pain, fear, and anger that I was feeling, and I wanted a better idea of how my daughter's disability would affect my marriage, my son, my work, and other aspects of our lives. The best novels, short stories, and memoirs can pull us into the lives of their characters and provide a deeper understanding of others, while poetry can distill and illuminate moments that longer essays gloss over.

I didn't find as many books as I'd hoped, and I wondered why. According to the March of Dimes Global Report on Birth Defects, every year 8 million babies worldwide are born with genetic birth defects. Hundreds of thousands more are born with serious birth defects of post-conception origin. So where were all the novels about parenting a child with cerebral palsy? Or a deaf child? Or one with muscular dystrophy or Down syndrome? Could it be that those in the trenches were too busy to write? After all, parenting a child with disabilities takes a lot of time - a lifetime. Some of us have to help our children move from room to room, from wheelchair to toilet, from house to hospital or therapy center. Some of our children cannot be left alone, or cannot live unsupervised even as adults.

Monday Link Roundup: Fresh Food, Seeds, Bulbs and more

The Seattle-Post Intelligencer ran a feature last week about poor access to fresh, healthy food in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. The article quotes Mark Winne, author of Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty: "Unless cities begin to realize they have a role to play in ensuring access to healthy food, then we're going to keep stumbling along." Parke Wilde at the U.S. Food Policy blog posted a more personal take on the issue, focusing on the definition of "food desert" and the focus on chain supermarket stores as a marker of access to food. (Parke also recently interviewed Mark Winne for USFPB.)

In the wake of the leaked email showing that the VA tried to downplay the suicide epidemic, Penny Coleman wrote this analysis of the DoD's annual suicide prevention conference at Alternet.

Gristmill posted an excellent review of Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds by Claire Hope Cummings. You can also read an excerpt of Uncertain Peril at Alternet.

Last Tuesday, USA Today columnist Laura Vanderkam discussed Seattle's novel approach to homelessness: give people a place to live. The piece features Rev. Craig Rennebohm, author of Souls in the Hands of a Tender God: Stories of the Search for Home and Healing on the Street.

The other "L" word: Stephen Ducat, author of The Wimp Factor: Gender Gaps, Holy Wars, and the Politics of Anxious Masculinity, offers Obama some advice on how to take back the liberal label. (Once he does that, can he take back arugula?)

There's some fantastic coverage of the PEN World Voices Festival over at MetaxuCafe. Nice redesign of that site!

Bookseller David Unowsky offers some advice on how to get your book on the shelves. The piece is aimed at self-pubbed authors, but has some good insights for any author.

And here's a great springtime parable from our friends at UUWorld.