Happy February 1st! If you haven’t guessed the theme yet to this month’s Free Book of the Month, here’s a blind item: sign up using the form below, or clicking the link and we’ll send your FREE copy of this great book!

At the age of 99, Maas published her autobiography, The Shocking Miss Pilgrim: A Writer in Early Hollywood (1999.) Maas’ memoir offers a unique perspective on the film industry and Hollywood culture in their early days and illuminates the plight of Hollywood writers working within the studio system. From salon.com:

“A bittersweet, extraordinarily detailed recollection of Maas’s 30-year career in the motion picture industry. . . . Chockablock with anecdotes, and a blinding amount of star-wattage to boot.”

Read her obituary in The New York Times.

As a man named Life and a woman named Grace met, married, raised a family, and embarked on fifty-eight years of married life, they wrote the notes of a song that would resonate years after their passing. Linda Scott DeRosier tells the story of this unique pair, her parents, drawing from letters, family lore, interviews of relatives, and her own recollections. The result is Songs of Life and Grace, a stirring, honest tribute to Appalachian family life, a touching ode to the radiance and vitality her parents’ love of living gave to every person whose life they touched.

Linda Scott DeRosier, a native of eastern Kentucky, is professor of psychology at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Montana. She is also the author of Creeker: A Woman’s Journey.

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About the Book:

A celebration of holiday poetry, fiction, essays, recipes, and songs by more than sixty of the Bluegrass state’s finest writers. Gathered here are writings from some of the legendary voices of Kentucky—and the nation—as well as original Christmas stories and poetry from some of the state’s emerging talents. Among the contributors to this handsome collection are Kentucky’s visionaries, storytellers, historians, singers, cooks, children’s authors, and poets, including all five Kentucky Poet Laureates. A delight for anyone interested in Kentucky literature, history, or traditions, A Kentucky Christmas promises to be a wonderful holiday gift, a treasured family keepsake, and a necessary addition for libraries and for personal collections.

“Readers get a gigantic gift full of literary goodies—some 337 pages—under the tree. With appearances by more than 60 of the state’s finest writers who share holiday stories poems, songs and essays, there should be something for anyone who opens this package.” — Kentucky Monthly

“This cornucopia of a book will appeal to all who count the season as the best time of the year” — Southern Living

Missed all the Black Friday shopping action? There are still Cyber Monday deals to be had! UPK is giving you 20% off ALL our titles AND the FREE EBOOK file to start filling that new Kindle Fire, Nook tablet, or iPad- subject to ebook availability. See the list of all available ebooks here (more than 300 titles available!)

The fine print: To order, use promotional code FCBM and your email address at checkout to receive 20% off your purchase and register for your free ebooks. Ebooks will be delivered via email no later than a week after your order is processed.

Maybe you’ve already been shopping since 12 am, or 4 am, or 6 am, maybe you’re more the wait until Christmas Eve type. Either way, we’re happy to help with your holiday shopping list. In honor of Black Friday, we’re offering 30% TODAY ONLY on ALL UPK books! That’s 10% more than our regular holiday sale!

Use discount code FBFR at checkout to receive this special Black Friday deal.

And we mean ALL BOOKS including these great gift ideas:

Happy Thanksgiving from the University Press of Kentucky! We’re so thankful you’re our fan- stay tuned for special deals and promotions throughout the holiday season!

About the Book:

The present era of staggering scientific and technological innovations, with major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, commerce, and communications, seems to document unparalleled human achievement. Yet when we examine the long-term implications, it becomes clear that an ever-growing number of humans have threatened the delicate environmental balance that sustains life on this planet. The past century may be remembered not as a period of great progress but as one marked by unrestrained consumption and failure to come close to a sustainable use of the earth’s limited natural resources.

In The State of the Earth, noted historian Paul K. Conkin provides a comprehensive analysis of the many environmental hazards that humans must face in this still-young century. Our activities have threatened the survival of many plants and animals, created scarcities in cultivatable soils and water needed for irrigation, used up a large share of fossil fuels, polluted air and water, and most likely created the conditions that will lead to major climate changes. Conkin not only evaluates the challenges but recognizes the successes of concerned individuals and organizations in creating awareness and in supporting policies that will best preserve a healthy earth.

The State of the Earth is an invaluable resource for those who desire a broad yet thorough and scientifically informed introduction to present environmental challenges. Even when humans possess the knowledge and the tools to cope with mounting environmental problems, they may not be willing to make the needed sacrifices. Conkin demonstrates that the issues are as much moral and political as technological.

About the Author:

Paul K. Conkin, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at Vanderbilt University, is the author of numerous books, including The Southern Agrarians, When All the Gods Trembled: Darwinism, Scopes, and American Intellectuals, and A Revolution Down on the Farm: The Transformation of American Agriculture since 1929.

“Conkin’s somber account of the ecological dangers facing humanity today raises deep and painful moral questions. Can the two-centuries-long banquet of the affluent nations continue without damaging the biosphere and ruining the prospects of our children’s children? A distinguished American historian, Conkin shows that we live at a critical turning point in human and planetary history. This is a powerful and timely introduction to global ecological issues. It deserves to be read alongside other recent ecological classics such as J. R. McNeill’s Something New Under the Sun or Jared Diamond’s Collapse.”–David Christian, author of Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History

The Telltale Lilac Bush

A Head and A Body

Doug Boyd, author of the recently published Crawfish Bottom, made news this week for his commitment to finding new and engaging ways to work with oral histories. Boyd, the director of the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, teamed up with Eric Weig, the director of Digital Library services to create an Oral History Metadata Synchronizer (OHMS). OHMS is a technological program that enables individuals to search oral histories for specific keywords, saving precious time for both experienced researchers and students. Recently, the University of Kentucky libraries were awarded a $195,000 grant in order to expand OHMS. The grant was presented in the Advancing Digital Resources category which supports the creation and preservation of important digital resources as well as the development of alternative ways to improve access and use of digital assets.

Doug Boyd’s interest in digital resources is reflected in his new book Crawfish Bottom, which traces the history of the community of Craw. Initially depicted as hoodlums with a passion for crime and unsanitary living conditions, the area became a target for urban renewal projects and was eventually demolished in the mid 1960s in order to build the city’s Capital Plaza. Boyd offers an important history of the 400 families that were displaced and the culture of the community they were forced to leave behind. Blending together firsthand accounts from residents of Craw and those from neighboring towns, Crawfish Bottom relies on oral histories to introduce the popular misconceptions of the area and subsequently refute them with a more balanced and accurate account.

Boyd will be involved in numerous upcoming events in the Kentucky area, further promoting Crawfish Bottom and his fascinating approach to oral history. On October 25, Boyd will participate in the Community, Race, and Memory Symposium at the Grand Theatre in Frankfort focused on exploring the lives and culture of African Americans in Frankfort. He will be joined by Sheila Mason Burton and filmmaker Joanna Hay. Audio clips from interviews for Crawfish Bottom will be played and there will be a roundtable discussion followed by a question and answer session with the audience. Boyd will also be at the Kentucky Book Fair November 12 at the Frankfort Convention Center.

A small neighborhood in northern Frankfort, Kentucky, Crawfish Bottom was located on fifty acres of swampy land along the Kentucky River. “Craw’s” reputation for vice, violence, moral corruption, and unsanitary conditions made it a target for urban renewal projects that replaced the neighborhood with the city’s Capital Plaza in the mid-1960s.

Douglas A. Boyd’s Crawfish Bottom: Recovering a Lost Kentucky Community traces the evolution of the controversial community that ultimately saw four-hundred families displaced. Using oral histories and firsthand memories, Boyd not only provides a record of a vanished neighborhood and its culture but also demonstrates how this type of study enhances the historical record. A former Frankfort police officer describes Craw’s residents as a “rough class of people, who didn’t mind killing or being killed.” In Crawfish Bottom, the former residents of Craw acknowledge the popular misconceptions about their community but offer a richer and more balanced view of the past.

Douglas A. Boyd, director of the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky, is a coeditor of Community Memories: A Glimpse of African American Life in Frankfort, Kentucky. He lives in Lexington, Kentucky.

“Eloquently traces the ways that the residents of a community define their place and their relationship to it. Crawfish Bottom seamlessly weaves together history, follkore, and geography into an engaging, trenchant, and substantive whole.”–Fitzhugh Brundage, author of The Southern Past: A Clash of Race and Memory