“Carol Joffe has given us a rare and privileged look into the beleaguered world of abortion providers. I found their determination inspiring—and Joffe's level-headed perspective deeply clarifying.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed
A Note From Tom on Mary Oliver:
Bookscan Sales of Mary Oliver titles increased dramatically after the NY Times Travel section article about her. They continue to be 60% above the rate of sales from the week prior to the piece. Her most recent books are selling best, but the biggest jump came on titles mentioned in the piece: At Blackwater Pond ($19.95 audio 9-0-8070-70070-6) and Why I Wake Early. ($14 Paper 9-0-8070-6879-3)
We’ve made some changes to the jacket of Our World for paperback release, adding French Flaps and a picture of Mary and Molly to the back cover. We’ve also given a stronger spine treatment and added a sticker to New and Selected Poems Volumes 1 and 2. The sticker reads: “Far and away America’s best-selling poet—Dwight Garner, New York Times Book Review”).
Publicity Reviews, and Praise:
Family Sentence, Jeanine Cornillot, October 2009, cloth, $24.95, 978-0-8070-0038-0
Kirkus Review; review in the August 1st issue; they call the book:
“A charming, often sorrowful study of learning to let go of a myth and love a person.”
Holy Hullabaloos, Jay Wexler, June 2009, paperback original, $16.00, 978-0-8070-0044-1
Library Journal; review in the July issue
“Irreverent and often funny . . . Should find many general readers.”
McSweeney’s; click to read Wexler’s humorous piece on Sonia Sotomayer and the Kansas City Royals
I Told You So, Kate Clinton, May 2009, cloth, $22.00, 978-0-8070-4442-1
The Gay and Lesbian Times; review in the July 2009 issue
“Hot-button topics such as same-sex . . . gays in the military and religious hypocrisy are fertile fodder for the author’s intelligently caustic ridicule. But Clinton also has the knack of spinning even the small moments of everyday life into comic gold.”
Publisher’s Weekly; nice review in the July 13th issue
“The book has a remarkably balanced tone, with Kunzman heralding homeschooling's inherent flexibility—in a ranching family, children have anatomy lessons by butchering livestock… Conversely, the lack of governmental oversight can be detrimental, as when Kunzman meets a 12-year-old who doesn't know what three times three is . . . This engrossing ethnography puts a human face on Christian homeschooling.”
The Student Loan Scam, Alan Michael Collinge, February 2009, cloth, $22.95, 978-0-8070-4229-8
The Daily Kos; piece by Collinge on Sunday, July 12th
“I recently published a book: The Student Loan Scam: The most oppressive debt in U.S. History, and how we can fight back (Beacon Press), and it turns out my timing was excellent. While President Obama's new plan claims to cut out the middlemen banks, they are still wedged firmly in between.”
Illegal People, David Bacon, September 2008, cloth, $25.95, 978-0-8070-4226-7
“Bacon's solid journalistic skills seamlessly depict the human face of pain, sweat, work and death of migrants behind his serious analyses and theories . . . the independent work of David Bacon and his book Illegal People represents an island of rationality in a sea of tumult.”
“Linda Nathan has written a remarkable book. Boston Arts Academy is an urban public high school just across the street from Fenway Park. So, I get to see, first hand, young people from every neighborhood in the city who greatly benefit from the approaches so clearly espoused by this innovative educator. With over 90% of graduates consistently going on to college (many the first in their families to do so), the results speak for themselves.”
—Larry Lucchino, owner of the Boston Red Sox, public school graduate
American Privacy, Frederick S. Lane, November 2009, cloth, 978-0-8070-4441-4
“Is there anything more fundamental to human freedom than the right to privacy, to be able to live your life as you wish without the scrutiny or the interference of bullying authority? Frederick Lane's book confronts us with this largely invisible threat, magnified by modern technology, and challenges us to defend our most basic rights.”
—Howard Zinn
“This book should be read by everyone concerned about preserving our civil liberties in the Internet era. Written with grace and probing insight, Frederick Lane’s book is a ‘tour de force’ guide that illuminates our country’s intense relationship with the concept of privacy. Covering the colonial period to today’s digitally-driven online society, American Privacy explains how much Americans—and citizens around the world—have at stake if we allow governments and market forces to erode our privacy rights. As citizens and consumers increasingly become the targets of sophisticated interactive data collection and tracking techniques, Lane’s book is a timely call to ‘digital arms’ that we must protect our country’s privacy legacy.”
—Jeffrey Chester, author of Digital Destiny, and director, Center for Digital Democracy
Beacon Acquisition:
Beacon is pleased to announce the acquisition of Too Early for the Stork: The Triumphant Story of One of the Tiniest People on Earth by Dr. Adam Wolfberg. Wolfberg is a specialist in high-risk obstetrics, an instructor at Tufts University School of Medicine, and a fellow at Harvard Medical School, where he conducts research on fetal brain injury. Too Early for the Stork brings readers into the complicated world of newborn intensive care, where doctors grapple daily with unsettling bioethical questions. Who should be saved? How aggressively should they try to salvage the life of a premature baby? And what will that child's life be like after millions of dollars are spent saving him or her? As technology advances, allowing doctors to save the lives of younger and younger preemies, these questions will become more pressing even as they become increasingly complex.
Beacon Press is a department of the