PublicAffairs Books

Junius and Albert’s Adventures in the Confederacy gets a...

Wed, 29 May 2013 18:25:23 -0400

Junius and Albert’s Adventures in the Confederacy gets a rave in the Washington Post AND reviewer Tony Horowitz compares Junius and Albert to Bill & Ted. Excellent.

We are pleased to announce that we will be publishing The...

Wed, 29 May 2013 11:11:00 -0400

We are pleased to announce that we will be publishing The Economist’s line of original books in North and South America beginning in January 2014. The publishing program will cover a broad range of subjects related to business, finance, economics, and the world in which we live. The Economist books include essential guides to markets, management, strategies and skills; data-rich analyses of trends and changes; professional books for specialists; and entertaining, gift-quality reference
guides for anyone at any level of the business.

Stay tuned to our Tumblr, Facebook, or Twitter to learn more this Fall.

We’re loving this re-imagining of what historical figures...

Fri, 24 May 2013 10:58:35 -0400

We’re loving this re-imagining of what historical figures would look like in today’s society. Of course Shakespeare would be a hipster. Of course. Via Telegraph

The book publishing industry is having their first hackathon...

Fri, 17 May 2013 12:25:00 -0400

The book publishing industry is having their first hackathon this weekend, to address the issue of book discoverability. The grand prize is $10,000, but PublicAffairs is throwing our proverbial hat in the ring, and offering a “Manuscript to Metadata” prize, for the team that develops a tool to better help publishers create metadata. We’re excited, in a super geeky kind of way!

Nazis! Secret Banks! Megalomaniac first ladies! We’re...

Fri, 17 May 2013 11:46:06 -0400

Finding the Dragon Lady

The Nazi and the Psychiatrist

Tower of Basel

Nazis! Secret Banks! Megalomaniac first ladies! We’re bringing the intrigue for our galley giveaways at BookExpo this year. Visit us at Booth 1403!

A Workout For Book Nerds

Thu, 16 May 2013 12:22:39 -0400

epicreads:

All you need for this workout is a stack of hardcovers and some yarn or rope to tie them together!

Workout #1: The Book Curl

Workout #2: The Book Up

Workout #3: The Brunch (Book Crunch) - Just like brunch this can be done alone or with a friend!

Cool Down

Pre-BEA workout!

oldtimefamilybaseball: THE SUMMER OF BEER AND WHISKEY GIVEAWAY...

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 14:15:45 -0400

oldtimefamilybaseball:

THE SUMMER OF BEER AND WHISKEY GIVEAWAY CONTEST

While we all like to believe that baseball was handed down to us from the powers above, pre-packaged and ready to become the National Pastime, the fact is baseball was fighting for its survival by the early 1880s. But thanks to a band of mustachioed warriors lead by Chris Van Der Ahe who was willing to take on the National League by slashing ticket prices, playing on Sunday, and most importantly, selling beer, baseball was able to catch on and thrive with a whole new demographic of fans.

And thanks to the good folks at PublicAffairs, I have a copy of Edward Achorn’s new book, The Summer of Beer and Whiskey, to give away to one of you lucky so-and-so’s.

To enter, either reblog or leave a comment with your favorite food or drink you like to consume while watching a ballgame. All entries must be entered by Thursday, May 2nd at 12 pm PST*. The winner will be chosen randomly. Don’t be a sad sack, enter and get to read something great this summer.

*Please make sure when leaving a comment or reblogging to your own site, that there is an easy way for me to contact you. Otherwise, I’ll have to select another winner.

Enter to win! Now, off to find a hot dog and a cold brew….

uncrate: The Summer of Beer and Whiskey Anyone (of age)...

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 16:37:07 -0400

uncrate:

The Summer of Beer and Whiskey

Anyone (of age) who’s ever gone to watch a big-league game knows the joy a cold one can add to the game of baseball — but did you know that beer itself may have changed the game? The Summer of Beer and Whiskey: How Brewers, Barkeeps, Rowdies, Immigrants, and a Wild Pennant Fight Made Baseball America’s Game ($17) takes a look at Chris Von der Ahe’s gambit to found the St. Louis Browns in the hopes of selling more beer, establishing the American Association (later to become the American League) along the way, and revitalizing the sport with a new group of teams that featured rowdy, reckless, and, yes, drunk players.

Never know what to say around a sick friend? Here are 10 rules...

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 11:59:48 -0400

Never know what to say around a sick friend? Here are 10 rules to live by.

Lookee what just arrived at the PublicAffairs office! Hot off...

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 11:35:14 -0400

Lookee what just arrived at the PublicAffairs office! Hot off the press!

“My goal is to change the norms of illness etiquette so...

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 16:58:55 -0400

“My goal is to change the norms of illness etiquette so that, from the moment your friend confides her or his diagnosis, the two of you establish a policy of complete candor — that you articulate, ‘I want to be useful and supportive to you throughout this ordeal but I’m not always going to know the right thing to say or do. I won’t always be able to anticipate your needs or read your mood, so I hope you’ll give me a heads up on what’s helpful and what’s not. Would you promise to be honest with me?’”—Letty Cottin Pogrebin

"[T]he Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest Christian denomination save the Catholic..."

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 13:57:34 -0400

“

[T]he Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest Christian denomination save the Catholic Church, passed a resolution calling on its 16 million members to get involved, whether that meant taking in children themselves, donating to adoptive families, or supporting the hundreds of adoption ministries that were springing up around the country to raise money and spread the word. Neo-Pentecostal leader Lou Engle also called for mega-churches to take on the cause, which would give them “moral authority in this nation.”

The movement spawned numerous conferences and books built around the idea that adopting a needy child is a form of missionary work. “The ultimate purpose of human adoption by Christians,” author Dan Cruver wrote in his 2011 book, Reclaiming Adoption, “is not to give orphans parents, as important as that is. It is to place them in a Christian home that they might be positioned to receive the gospel.” At an adoption summit hosted by the Christian Alliance for Orphans at Southern California’s Saddleback Church, pastor Rick Warren told followers, “What God does to us spiritually, he expects us to do to orphans physically: be born again and adopted.”

”

- from “Orphan Fever” by Kathryn Joyce in the May/June 2013 issue of Mother Jones. Joyce will be on the show today talking about the outsized role of evangelical Christians on the adoption industry. Her new book is The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking and the New Gospel of Adoption. (via nprfreshair)

David Stockman earns a “Highbrow/Despicable” ranking...

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 15:47:48 -0400

David Stockman earns a “Highbrow/Despicable” ranking on New York Magazine’s Approval Matrix, and we are jealous.

The Summer of Beer and Whiskey: enter to win!

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 15:39:23 -0500

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Summer of Beer and Whiskey

by Edward Achorn

Giveaway ends March 31, 2013.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

participantmedia: The film “A Place at the Table” opens our...

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 09:33:24 -0500

participantmedia:

The film “A Place at the Table” opens our eyes to the crisis of food insecurity and malnutition in America. It releases on March 1st in theaters, on iTunes and On Demand everywhere.

Inspired by the film, Plum Organics, the leading provider of organic baby foods and toddler snacks, has developed a “Super Smoothie” product, created exclusively for donation to babies and toddlers across the US. It is an organic and nutritionally dense fruit, veggie, and grain blend, designed specifically to fulfill the nutritional deficits of babies and toddlers suffering from food insecurity.

Plum Organics will donate a “Super Smoothie” for every book or movie ticket purchased, or film downloaded over the film’s opening weekend.

Army of God by David Axe and Tim Hamilton. Coming March 12th....

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 12:18:20 -0500

Army of God by David Axe and Tim Hamilton. Coming March 12th. Design by Dre Lopez

The film “A Place at the Table” opens next weekend....

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 10:12:32 -0500

The film “A Place at the Table” opens next weekend. If you buy a movie ticket, download the film, or buy the companion book during March 1-3, Plum Organics will donate a “Super Smoothie” nutritional pouch to a child in need. Do you part to end hunger in America!

“The Age of Valentines” Then there’s the US Postal...

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 10:36:22 -0500

“The Age of Valentines”

Then there’s the US Postal System. For the first half century after its founding, its main function was to circulate newspapers to a national audience. Not that you couldn’t send letters, too, but the rates were much higher than for periodicals. In 1840, sending a letter from Boston to Richmond cost 25 cents a sheet, at a time when the average laborer made 75 cents a day…. That all changed in 1845, when Congress enacted the first in a series of laws that sharply reduced the cost of sending letters…. One dramatic effect of the cheaper postage was to allow Americans to keep in touch with one another in what was becoming the most mobile society on earth…. And, oh yes, they also sent valentines.

St. Valentine’s Day was an ancient European holiday. Back in England, people drew lots to divine their future mates and exchanged love poems and intricately folded pieces of paper called “puzzle purses,” the ancestors of the fortune-telling cootie-catchers that children still make today. But before the 1840s, puritan Americans almost completely disregarded the holiday, like the other saints’ days of the Old World. The drop in postal rates set off what contemporaries described as “Valentine mania.” By the late 1850s, Americans were buying 3 million ready-made valentines every year, paying anything from a penny to several hundred dollars for elaborate affairs adorned with gold rings or precious stones. People sent cards to numerous objects of their affection, often taking advantage of the possibilities for anonymity that the mail provided.

That was alarming to moralists who complained that the postal system in general promoted promiscuity, illicit assignations, and the distribution of pornography—and actually, they weren’t entirely wrong about any of that. But fully half of the valentine traffic consisted of comic or insulting cards that people sent anonymously to annoying neighbors or unpopular schoolmasters. By the time the craze tapered off a few decades later, people were sending each other cards for Christmas, Easter, and birthdays, as the greeting card became a fixture of American life.

From The Years of Talking Dangerously, by Geoffrey Nunberg

Lynn Povich is a true pioneer. That is all.

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 14:22:43 -0500

Lynn Povich is a true pioneer. That is all.

Book trailer for Bringing Mulligan Home: The Other Side of the...

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 11:31:11 -0500

Book trailer for Bringing Mulligan Home: The Other Side of the Good War