Yale Press Log

MotherTalk calls The Working Woman's Pregnancy Book "an invaluable resource"

In the wake of Mother's Day last Sunday, women who plan to continue working during pregnancy will benefit from reading Marjorie Greenfield's The Working Woman's Pregnancy Book, writes MotherTalk.com. The website quotes one of its reviewers as saying: "until now I have not found a comprehensive, easy to read, enjoyable book on the subject....There are more questions answered on this subject in the book than I honestly thought possible." And Mindy Rhiger, reviewing the book for Library Journal, calls the book a "unique, practical resource for working women during their pregnancy." You can read the full review here.

And The Wall Street Journal's blog The Juggle quotes the The Working Woman's Pregnancy Book on the issue of getting parental leave from a company and the different policies various companies adopt concerning leave. You can read the post here. But it is not just for future moms that this book will be useful. Newsweek magazine's Tip Sheet section recently covered the challenge women face when they want to hold a part-time job after having a baby. Dr. Greenfield, an authority on life and work balance for pregnant women and mothers, advises "working whole days—but fewer of them. With half days, “the work drags into the afternoon, and you never get out,” she says." The article is available on this link.

Recently Dr. Greenfield appeared on Cleveland's WCPO (ABC) News, where she was interviewed by Alicia Booth on her book. ABC News Now’s Tim Johnson also did a live interview with Dr. Greenfield, which you can watch here.

The only authoritative guide specifically for pregnant working women, The Working Woman's Pregnancy Book addresses all the subjects one expects to find in a comprehensive book on pregnancy plus issues of special concern to wage-earning women. Is my workplace safe for my developing baby? When should I tell my employer that I am expecting? What laws protect me if I must take medical leave? Answers to all these and more. Make sure you also visit Dr. Greenfield's blog, which was ranked among the top academic medical and health blogs by Online Nursing Degree Directory.

New York Magazine calls Superheroes a "genuinely cool book"

New York Magazine got their hands on an advance copy of Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy by Harold Koda and Andrew Bolton. They decided to do an early preview of the exhibition, which premiered at the Met this past Wednesday.

New York Magazine called Superheroes a "genuinely cool book," and found it an eye-opening companion to the opening gala gossip: "For all the jokes one can make about the gala's red carpet being graced with celebrities awkwardly decked out in Catwoman leather or Captain America capes (per hostess Anna Wintour's request that attendees take the theme seriously), a look at what's actually being shown at the exhibit is rather illuminating." Read the entire preview here.

And the blog mblankier.com reviewed Superheroes, noting the "very provocative and interesting parallel" between superheroes and fashion. "All the essays, costumes, and clothing in the book," the blogger writes, "are really fantastic and really inspiring." Read the full review here.

Featuring designers including John Galliano, Alexander McQueen, Jean Paul Gaultier, and many more, this innovative book examines how the style of superheroes’ dress has influenced street wear and high fashion.

Israel's Independence and Churchill's Zionism

As Israel, and its millions of supporters world-wide, celebrate its 60th birthday, few realize the important role that Winston Churchill played in the establishment of the State of Israel and the shaping of the modern Middle East.

Michael Makovsky’s groundbreaking Churchill’s Promised Land, brings this and much more to light in his careful and nuanced examination of Churchill’s complex relationship with Zionism.

In exploring Churchill’s evolving and ultimately romantic interest in Zionism, Makovsky offers a fresh, more complete and revealing understanding of this great statesman’s worldview. 

Churchill’s Promised Land won the National Jewish Book Award for History (2007) and was a finalist for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature (2008).

Read an excerpt, or view the table of contents. Click here to listen to an interview with Michael Makovsky on the Yale Press Podcast.

Stall Points is a "must-read" according to big name corporations

IBM Corporation. The Clorox Company. Charles Schwab Corporation. Reliance Industries. JPMorgan Chase.

What do all of these successful corporations all have in common? They--and many others--all have executives who read and praised Matthew S. Olson and Derek van Bever's Stall Points: Most Companies Stop Growing--Yours Doesn't Have To.

Clayton M. Christensen, professor at the Harvard Business School says, “Stall Points is grounded in competent and compelling research.  There is no fluff here.  It is a cogent, practical guide to the most pressing problem today’s managers face: How to sustain growth.” Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer for Facebook says, "This book should be required reading for leadership teams that want to stay relevant to their customers over the long run." You can see what more top execs have to say about the book here.

After the jump, read more about Stall Points, and learn how your company can sustain growth.

Morris's 1948 is a critics' favorite

Under the spotlight of the 60th anniversary of Israeli independence, Benny Morris's recent book, 1948, is a praised as a shining example.

Last Sunday’s New York Times Book Review features David Margolick's review, saying: "Morris relates the story of his new book soberly and somberly, evenhandedly and exhaustively."

The May 5th issue of The New Yorker hit newsstands on Monday with a feature piece by David Remnick. This piece on Israeli history centers around Morris and the publication of 1948, calling it "a commanding, superbly documented, and fair-minded study of the events that, in the wake of the Holocaust, gave a sovereign home to one people and dispossessed another."

Last Monday, David Holahan reviewed the book for the Hartford Courant. 1948, he said, is "a richly detailed and thoroughly researched primer.... A compelling 'aha' book, 1948 brings order to complex, little-understood subjects." He went on to compliment Morris on his "vivid narrative prose and masterly analysis."

Canada's National Post began running excerpts from 1948 on May 5, and will run a total of 5 installments. Read the second and third installments.

Solove interview on NYT Freakonomics blog

Annika Mengisen of the New York Times' Freakonomics blog sat down with another Yale Press author, Daniel Solove. They talked about Solove's new book, The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet, and why even those with "virtually no online footprint" should be concerned about their internet reputation. Read the entire interview here.

Other bloggers have picked up this interview. The Tree of Knowledge said that internet reputation is "going to be an interesting area in coming years." And at the Nudges blog, authors Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein emphasized Solove's point about nudges and choice architecture in social networking sites. Thaler and Sunstein themselves have written about this issue in their book, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness.

Click here to listen to another interview with Solove on the Yale Press Podcast. Visit Solove's website or read his blog Concurring Opinions. And click here to see Daniel Solove discuss his book as part of Google's Authors@Google speaker series.

Yale Press Podcast, Episode 15

Episode 15 of the Yale Press Podcast is now available. Download Episode 15.

You won't want to miss this one—especially if you like White Castle.

In Episode 15, Chris Gondek speaks with (1) Josh Ozersky , about the history of the American hamburger, and with (2) Richard Thaler, co-author with Cass Sunstein of Nudge, about the importance of structuring choices.

Download it for free here, on iTunes, and everywhere else that podcasts can be found.

Comments are welcome.

You won't want to miss this one—especially if you like White Castle.

In Episode 15, Chris Gondek speaks with (1) Josh Ozersky , about the history of the American hamburger, and with (2) Richard Thaler, co-author with Cass Sunstein of Nudge, about the importance of structuring choices.

Download it for free here, on iTunes, and everywhere else that podcasts can be found.

May Day and National Hamburger Month

In honor of May Day, Slate ran an article on the best recent books about Communism. After reviewing some basics like the Communist Manifesto, they recommend the Annals of Communism series:

...Once you've got the surveys under your belt, you can turn to Yale University Press' Annals of Communism series, a unique publishing venture designed to make use of Soviet archives. Whether you want Andrei Sakharov's personal files, Stalin's correspondence with Molotov, or documents explaining the Katyn massacre, they're all available in beautifully edited and annotated translations. Don't miss John Haynes and Harvey Klehr's history of the American Communist Party (also a Yale book, also based on Soviet archives), either.

Read the entire article here.

May 1 is also the beginning of National Hamburger Month. Hamburger expert and Yale Press author Josh Ozersky reviewed New York's best burgers for the Daily News. Here is what the Daily News had to say in return about Ozersky and his new book, The Hamburger: A History:

If the city has a professor of patties, it's probably Josh Ozersky, the online food editor for New York magazine.

Not only does he test out several specimens a week, but he has just written a sexy little volume on the history of the patty from its 18th-century beginnings to its postwar boom thanks to White Castle.

Read the entire article here.

Yale Press wraps up Nat'l Poetry Month with awards and readings

At their annual awards ceremony last night, The Publishing Triangle announced Janet Malcolm, author of the critically acclaimed Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice, as winner of the Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction. View the complete list of award winners here.

This remarkable work of literary biography and investigative journalism, turns on the mysterious survival of Stein and Toklas, as Jewish lesbians in Occupied France. Also a fascinating illumination of the world of Stein scholarship, and a stunningly perceptive work of criticism.

For those poety lovers in the New Haven area, the five most recent winners of the prestigious Yale Series of Younger Poets competition will read from their work on Friday, May 2nd.  Free and open to the public, the event will take place at the Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall Street, Room 208, at 4:00 p.m.

Awarded since 1919, the Yale Series of Younger Poets prize celebrates the most prominent new American poets by bringing the work of previously unpublished artists to the attention of the larger public.  Previous winners of the prize include such talents as Adrienne Rich, John Ashberry, and Robert Hass.  It is the longest-running poetry prize in the United States. More information on the event after the jump.

Yale Press authors on nuclear war and black holes

Foreign Affairs, published by the Council of Foreign Relations, asked Lawrence Freedman to choose his five favorite books of the past year about military, science, and technology. He chose Foxbats over Dimona: The Soviets' Nuclear Gamble in the Six-Day War, by Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez as one of the year's best books. Read the entire list here.

This groundbreaking history shatters many assumptions about the Six-Day War of 1967. New research in Soviet archives and testimonies from participants in the Israeli/Egyptian conflict reveal the extent of the Kremlin’s involvement, plans for the use of nuclear weapons in the Mid-East, and willingness to precipitate a global crisis.

Click here to listen to an interview with Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez on the Yale Press Podcast.

And Fred R. Shapiro, editor of The Yale Book of Quotations, corrected the Times on the history of the term "black hole." Read his explanation on the Times Online.

Click here to listen to an interview with Fred Shapiro on the Yale Press Podcast.