In case you haven’t heard, Penn Press’s 2023 Summer Reading Sale is happening right now! Through June 9, all books here on pennpress.org are available 40% off, with free shipping to addresses in the U.S.!
In today’s post, we’ve rounded up some great titles for your summer reading list—whether because they’re appropriate for the spring or summer season, or simply because they’re great reads! Browse the selection below, and don’t forget to use discount code SUMMER23-FM at checkout to take advantage of the sale!
Philadelphia Trees
Paul Meyer and Edward Barnard
Contributions by Catriona Bull Briger and William Cullina
Featuring more than one hundred entries and highlighting historic trees and the best places to view them, Philadelphia Trees is a pocket-sized resource for identifying the native trees, commonly encountered exotics, and popular ornamentals of the Philadelphia metropolitan area and adjacent counties in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware.
The Sabermetric Revolution
Benjamin Baumer and Andrew Zimbalist
The Sabermetric Revolution examines the increasingly widespread use of sabermetrics to evaluate baseball player performance. Along the way, the book corrects common misconceptions about “moneyball” and evaluates the success of analytics in baseball front offices.
The Marvels of the World
Edited by Rebecca Bushnell
With its peerless selection of ninety-eight original sources dating from antiquity to the dawn of the Enlightenment and concerned with the natural world and humankind’s place within it, The Marvels of the World offers a corrective to the still-prevalent tendency to dismiss premodern attitudes toward nature as simple or univocal.
Race, Riots, and Roller Coasters
Victoria W. Wolcott
Race, Riots, and Roller Coasters tells the story of the battle for access to leisure space in cities across the United States. This detailed and eloquent history shows how African Americans fought to enter segregated amusement areas not only in pursuit of happiness but in connection to a wider movement for racial equality.
Reversing the Rivers
William F. Schulz
Presenting poignant stories combined with amusing anecdotes and philosophical reflection, Reversing the Rivers is an engaging account of how one human rights activist faced the day-to-day realities of struggling with human rights crises while answering the question, “How do you retain any hope at all in humanity?”
Black Walden
Elise Lemire
Charting the rise and fall of a community of former slaves struggling to survive on the fringes of Concord, Massachusetts, Black Walden reveals the role that slavery and its aftermath played in forming Thoreau’s beloved Walden landscape.
Islamic Gardens and Landscapes
D. Fairchild Ruggles
A comprehensive survey of Islamic gardens, from antiquity through to the present.
I’ve Been Here All the While
Alaina E. Roberts
Perhaps no other symbol has more resonance in African American history than that of “40 acres and a mule”—the lost promise of Black reparations for slavery after the Civil War. In I’ve Been Here All the While, Alaina E. Roberts draws on archival research and family history to upend the traditional story of Reconstruction.
Becoming Jane Jacobs
Peter L. Laurence
In Becoming Jane Jacobs, an intellectual biography of the great urbanist, Peter L. Laurence asserts that The Death and Life of Great American Cities was not the spontaneous epiphany of an amateur activist but the product of a professional writer with deep knowledge about the renewal and dynamics of American cities.
Negro League Baseball
Neil Lanctot
Negro League Baseball presents the extraordinary history of a great African American achievement, from its lowest ebb during the Depression, through its golden age and World War II, until its gradual disappearance during the early years of the civil rights era.
Let the Wind Speak
Carol Shloss
Carol Loeb Shloss creates a compelling portrait of a complex relationship between a daughter, Mary de Rachewiltz, and her literary-giant father, Ezra Pound. It is a masterful biography that asks us to consider cultures of secrecy, frayed allegiances, and the boundaries that define nations, families, and politics.
Of Gardens
Paula Deitz
Of Gardens records a great adventure of continual discovery not only of the artful beauty of individual gardens and landscapes but also of the intellectual and historical threads that weave them into patterns of civilization. Deitz’s vivid descriptions and recollections allow readers to share in the experience of her extensive travels.
Force and Freedom
Kellie Carter Jackson
In Force and Freedom, Kellie Carter Jackson provides the first historical analysis exclusively focused on the tactical use of violence among antebellum black activists. Through tactical violence, argues Carter Jackson, abolitionist leaders created the conditions that necessitated the Civil War.
John James Audubon
Gregory Nobles
John James Audubon’s The Birds of America turned its author into both one of the most adulated artists of his time and America’s first celebrity scientist. In this biography, now available in paperback, Gregory Nobles explores the central irony of Audubon’s true nature: the man who took so much time and trouble to depict birds so carefully left us a bold but deceptive picture of himself.
Women at the Wheel
Katherine J. Parkin
Women at the Wheel explores women’s historical experience with automobiles. Katherine Parkin argues that in every regard, from learning to drive to repairing cars, from being a passenger to taking the wheel, women had a distinct experience with cars in American culture.
