October Roundup: News, Events, Reviews

We’ve been in high gear this October at LSU Press! The Fonville Winans Cookbook was named a Fall 2017 Okra Pick by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance. The Writer’s Almanac featured “Defiance” and “The Book of Usable Minutes” by Sally Van Doren as well as “Daughter” by Lisel Mueller. Poems by Kelly Cherry were read on KSFR’s Audio Saucepan. “Mad Money” by Nicole Cooley appeared on Poetry Daily. And Gambit published a short interview with Kathryn Fontenot. Cynthia Lejeune Nobles, Nicole Cooley, and Susannah J. Ural wrote fantastic posts for the LSU Press Blog. And we published new books by Richard Campanella, Brannon Costello, James L. Huston, Terry L. Jones, and Melinda Risch Winans and Cynthia Lejeune Nobles.

Below you’ll find a list of our November titles, upcoming events with our authors, and some selected publicity from October.  And if you want to keep up with LSU Press in real time, follow us on TwitterInstagram, and Facebook.


New in November


We will be at the Louisiana Book Festival tomorrow! Come say hello, attend special panels featuring our authors, and buy some books for your favorite bibliophile. In fact, take 30% off and free shipping* on select Louisiana titles until the end of the month!

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Selected Publicity and Praise

The Humility of the Brutes by Ron Smith

“As a whole, Ron Smith’s “The Humility of the Brutes” is a deft and elegant figuration of the creative mind’s energetic confrontation with the eternal motion of time. Smith’s courageous poems document his tireless interaction with the endless events, places, and moments that make up human history. These are graceful, timeless poems of destiny and rebellion.”—The Journal

Visitations by Lee Upton

 “In Visitations, everyone is haunted by some version of his or her most monstrous self, but this haunting isn’t necessarily bad. Visitations suggests that monstrousness is the purest form of honesty, the bravest kind of intimacy. In a world in which we are all staving off loneliness, maybe admitting our worst impulses isthe best way to begin saving ourselves.”—Fiction Writers Review

Stepdaughters of History: Southern Women and the American Civil War by Catherine Clinton:

“These essays are extraordinarily well written. While theoretically and historiographically sophisticated, they are accessible to a general audience and also worthwhile for readers more familiar with the material.”—Southwestern Historical Quarterly

The Fonville Winans Cookbook: Recipes and Photographs from a Louisiana Artist by Melinda Risch Winans and Cynthia Lejeune Nobles

The Fonville Winans Cookbook: Recipes and Photographs from a Louisiana Artist will appeal to cooks, those who enjoy reading biographies and those interested in photography.”—The Advocate

On to Petersburg: Grant and Lee, June 4-15, 1864 by Gordon Rhea:

“Gordon Rhea’s Overland Campaign series has rightfully earned the praise of professional historians and Civil War enthusiasts alike. It is by far the fullest military treatment of the brutal six-week showdown in Virginia between Union and Confederate heavyweights U.S. Grant and Robert E. Lee during spring 1864. . . .  In On to Petersburg, Gordon Rhea’s research and battle narrative skills are as impressive in their display as they’ve ever been. . . . In every way, On to Petersburg has been well worth the long wait and is a fitting end to a series destined to become an all-time classic.”—Civil War Books and Authors 

 Power and Corruption in the Early Modern Portuguese World by Erik Lars Myrup

“A worthwhile book overall, both for the stories it tells and the questions it provokes. Myrup’s archival work is admirable, stretching from Goiania to Macau by way of metropolitan capitals, and his dominance of both European languages and Chinese strengthens his conclusions.”—The Americas

Extreme Civil War: Guerrilla Warfare, Environment, and Race on the Trans-Mississippi Frontier by Matthew M. Stith

“Among other accomplishments, Stith’s analysis of total war on the trans-Mississippi frontier does much to expand the geography of the Civil War, especially insofar as it incorporates divisions among Native Americans within Indian Territory.”—Reviews in American History

The Confederate Homefront: A History in Documents by Wallace Hettle

“English historian G. M. Trevelyan wrote: ‘Every true history must force us to remember that the past was once as real as the present and as uncertain as the future.’ Nothing does this better than the actual words written by the people who were there. Anthologies like The Confederate Homefront allow us to hear the voices of the past whispering in our ear.”—Civil War Times

Marc-Antoine Caillot and the Company of the Indies in Louisiana: Trade in the French Atlantic World  by Erin M. Greenwald

“In this welcome addition to the historiography of the early modern Atlantic world, Erin Greenwald sheds new light upon a crucial, though under-studied, period in the history of French colonial Louisiana. . .”—Journal of Historical Geography