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Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Last modified: Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Nonfiction books by two IU professors selected for 2010 Magill's Literary Annual

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 14, 2010

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Books by two Indiana University professors of English were selected for the 56th Magill's Literary Annual by Salem Press, a review of significant fiction and nonfiction published in 2009.

Judas: A Biography, by Ruth Halls Professor and Distinguished Professor Susan Gubar, and Slang: The People's Poetry, by Associate Professor Michael Adams, were among the 200 titles deemed the best in fiction, non-fiction and poetry for a general readership.

In Judas, Gubar analyzes how Judas personifies a composite Judeo-Christianity that illuminates ambivalent relationships between Christians and Jews -- as well as changing attitudes toward the body, blood and money; greed and hypocrisy; suicide and repentance; and homosexuality and divinity.

Gubar is also the subject of a one-day symposium this Friday (April 16), at which her former students and colleagues are invited to celebrate the impact of her books, articles, essays and teaching. For more information, see https://www.indiana.edu/~engweb/gubarSymposium.shtml.

In Adams' Slang, he describes slang as the creative expression of the every day, also delving into how people use language to form identity and how our brains actually process language.

Some of the authors included in this year's Magill's Literary Annual are Buzz Aldrin, Margaret Atwood, Dan Brown, Ha Jin, Edward Kennedy, Michael Connelly, Alice Munro, Dave Eggers and John Updike.

The essay-reviews in Magill's Literary Annual 2010 are about four pages long and are arranged alphabetically by title; each volume begins with a list of all covered books that provides readers with the title, author, a brief description of each work and a brief biography of the author or authors.

The text of each essay analyzes and presents the focus, intent and relative success of the author, as well as the makeup and point of view of the work under discussion. Essays are supplemented by a list of additional review sources for further study in a bibliographic format.

Salem Press was founded by Frank N. Magill in 1949; he remained its publisher and editor-in-chief until 1997.

For more information about Judas, named to the New York Times Editors' Choice list last spring, see https://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/10535.html. For more information on Slang, named an Outstanding Academic Title for 2009 by Choice Magazine, see https://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/11204.html.


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