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As we greet the hectic swirl of December, may we all pause often to enjoy the gift of elegant writing, lucid communication, sparkling insight. If you plan to give gifts during this season, don't forget the venerable book. Need some ideas? We invite you to browse our new titles.

OSU Press authors have an eventful week ahead. This Friday, former Oregon Governor Barbara Roberts will speak at Oregon State University (4 p.m., MU Journey Room) about the role of women in Oregon politics and her new autobiography.

Happy Thankgiving!

Reflections from a character in Brian Doyle's novel Mink River…

"Hawks huddled disgruntled against hissing snow. Wrens in winter thickets. Swallows carving and swimming and slicing fat grinning summer air. Frozen dew outlining every single blade of grass. Salmonberries blackberries thimbleberries raspberries cloudberries snowberries strawberries blueberries gooseberries. My children learning to read. The sinuous liquid flow of rivers and minks and cats. Fresh bread with waaaaaaay too much butter. My children’s hands when they cup my ancient grizzled face in their hands. Exuberance and ebullience. Tears of sorrow which are the salt sea of the heart. Sleep in every form from doze to bone-weary. The shivering ache of a saxophone and the yearning of an oboe. Folding laundry hot from the dryer. Cobblers and tailors. A spotless kitchen floor. The way horses smell in spring. Postcards on which the sender has written so much that he or she can barely squeeze in a signature. Opera on the radio. Toothbrushes. The postman’s grin. The green sifting powdery snow of cedar pollen on my porch every year. The way a heron labors through the sky with such vast elderly dignity. People who care about hubcaps. The cheerful ears of dogs. All photographs of every sort. Tip-jars. Wineglasses. The way barbers sweep up circles of hair after haircuts. Handkerchiefs. Libraries. Poems read aloud by older poets. Fedoras. Excellent knives. The very idea of albatrosses. Thesaurii. The tiny screws that hold spectacles together. Book marginalia done with the lightest possible pencil. People who keep dead languages alive. Wooden rulers. Fresh-mown lawns. First-basemen’s mitts. Dishracks. The way my sons smell after their baths. The moons of Jupiter, especially Io. All manner of boats. The fact that our species produced Edmund Burke. Naps of every size. Junior Policemen badges. Walrussssses. Cassocks and surplices. The orphaned caps of long-lost pens. Welcome-mats and ice-cream trucks. All manner of bees. Cabbages and kings. Eulogy and elegy and puppetry. Fingernail-clippers. The rigging of sailing ships. Ironing-boards. Hoes and scythes. The mysterious clips that girls wear in their hair. Boddhisatvas and beauticians. Porters and portmanteaus. Camas and canvas. Bass and bluefish. Furriers and farriers. Trout and grout. Peach pies of any size. The sprawling porches of old hotels and the old men who sprawl upon them. The snoring of children. The burble of owls. The sound of my daughter typing her papers for school in the other room. The sound of my sons wrangling and wrestling and howling and yowling. All sounds of whatever tone and tenor issuing from my children. My children, and all other forms of coupled pain and joy; which is to say everything alive; which is to say all prayers; which is what I just did."

Every year, two longstanding Portland festivals shine a bright light on two subjects that are well-loved at OSU Press—natural history and Northwest history. This year, as always, OSU Press authors will be in good supply at the Wild Arts FestivalandOHS's Holiday Cheer.

At the 31st Wild Arts Festival, which takes place Saturday, November 19  and Sunday, November 20, attendees can meet regionally and nationally known artists and writers, including OSU Press authors Robin Cody, Mike Houck and M.J. Cody, Brian Doyle, Marcy Houle, Bart King, Robert Michael Pyle, Barbara Roberts, Noah Strycker, William L. Sullivan, and Ellen Waterston. Of special note: the official launch of the new edition of Wild in the City!

This week Portland Parks & Recreation learned that it won the National Gold Medal Award, the highest honor a park system can attain. By coincidence, this week also sees the release of Wild in the City, a new edition of the definitive guide to the Portland-Vancouver region’s gold medal parks, trails, and greenspaces.

In an editorial marking the two accomplishments, The Oregonian notes that the original edition of Wild in the City, published in 2000, was “groundbreaking in its chronicle of wildlife in the region.

We're marking a big birthday this year—have you heard? Oregon State University Press is 50! We've published close to five hundred books—books that "celebrate, evaluate, invent, and illuminate the Oregon condition."

To say thank you, we want to share a gift with you, our readers and friends.

We've created a sampler, a reflection of the inspiring and noteworthy books that OSU Press has been privileged to publish over the years. And we're making it freely available on our website and through our collection on the ScholarsArchive@OSU open access digital repository.

Congratulations to OSU Press authors Evelyn Searle Hess and Kimberley Mangun, 2011 WILLA Award Winners!

In To the Woods: Sinking Roots, Living Lightly, and Finding True Home—the winner of the Creative Nonfiction Award—Hess tells the story of building a new life on twenty acres of wild land in the foothills of Oregon's coast range.

A Force for Change: Beatrice Morrow Cannady and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Oregon, 1912–1936, the Scholarly Nonfiction Award winner, illuminates the life and work of one of Oregon's most dynamic civil rights leaders.

We are proud to announce the publication of Up the Capitol Steps: A Woman's March to the Governorship, a personal and political memoir by Oregon's first (and only) woman governor, Barbara Roberts.

"Roberts shows what it takes to make history—the guts to challenge the past and the passion to make a difference. Her book clearly shows why Barbara Roberts is a winner." —Ellen Malcolm, Founder of Emily's List

Join Sonny Montes and Glenn Anthony May—plus special guests John Little and Jose Romero—for a conversation about the past, present, and future of Mexican American activism in Oregon.

Thursday, Sept. 29, 4 pm, Oregon State University, MU Journey RoomFriday, Sept. 30, 3:30 pm, University of Oregon, 110 Law School

Sonny Montes was at the center of the birth of Oregon’s Chicano movement, focused on the struggle for survival of the Colegio Cesar Chavez, a small college in Mt. Angel, Oregon, with a largely Mexican American student body.

On Saturday, September 17, 2011, the demolition of Washington's Elwha River dams begins. This ambitious dam removal—mandated by a landmark federal case in 1992—marks a new phase in the history of the Elwha River—and in the history of rivers in the United States. Read more about the removal here and here.

We're pleased to announce the publication, later this fall, of a long-term environmental and human history of the river by Jeff Crane. Finding the River: An Environmental History of the Elwha describes the long struggle to remove the dams and explores the rise of a river restoration movement. Jeff had a few comments to share at this historic moment: