If you’re like me, you’re looking forward to a few days with good books over the next few weeks. This feels like as good an excuse as any to draw attention to some of the recent releases from The Digital Press at the University of North Dakota.

All these books are available as free downloads (with no sign up or email or as a low cost paperback (and many are listed on bookshop.org if you’d prefer not to buy from Amazon).  

Do check out our latest release, Jack Russell Weinstein’s Israel, Palestine, and the Trolley Problem: On the Futility of the Search for the Moral High Ground. If you’re curious about the title, see this nice interview with the author.

The year also saw the release of Ismail Gaspirali, The Muslims of Darürrahat translated by Çiğdem Pala Mull in a volume edited by Sharon Carson. This is the third volume in North Dakota Quarterly’s supplement series and is an absolutely brilliant utopian novella that defies social, cultural, and historical expectations. Check out this nice treatment of the book.

If you’re UND faculty or alumni, any mention of Sharon Carson or Jack Weinstein is likely to bring back memories of Merrifield Hall. While this venerable building is scheduled to reopen at the start of the spring semester, many of us will remember Old Merrifield. Check out Shilo Viginia Previti, Grant McMillan, and Samuel Amendolar (eds), Campus Building for a grand sendoff for the old building and an engaging

If you’re a history lover, you might love Chris Price’s The Big Pandemic on the Prairie: Spanish Flu in North Dakota. It looks back a century to the influenza epidemic of 1918 and traces its distinct course in North Dakota and its uncanny parallels with the early 21st century COVID pandemic. For some thoughts on this title from its author, go here. 

For the music lover, I’d recommend Rodger Coleman, Sun Ra Sundays, edited by Sam Byrd. 

For the lover of thoughtful travel essays, check out Rebecca Romsdahl’s Mindful Wandering.

If you love archaeology, grab a copy of David Pettegrew’s Corinthian Countrysides, Tuna Kalaycı’s Archaeologies of Roads or Michael G. Michlovic and George R. Holley’s, Archaeological Cultures of the Sheyenne Bend.