FAYETTEVILLE, Ark.- The past few weeks have been a very good time for the University of Arkansas Press and some of its recent books. In Gov. Mike Huckabee’s June 9 radio address, which focused on the state’s public libraries, he talked about the Arkansas Center for the Book and director Jane Thompson’s upcoming announcement of the next book chosen for its popular If All Arkansas Read the Same Book program: “She has given us a hint-the book is written by an author from Hot Springs who now lives in New York.”

The book the Governor referred to is Shirley Abbott’s memoir, The Bookmaker’s Daughter: A Memory Unbound, published in paperback by the press in May, with a new introduction by Abbott. The book is the heartfelt story of a daughter who summons up the ghost of her father in Hot Springs in the 40s and 50s. Abbott will be coming to Arkansas in the fall to tour a number of cities and bookstores, all to be announced later by the Center for the Book.

The Independent Publisher Book Awards for 2006 were just announced and Kathleen Rooney’s Reading With Oprah: The Book Club that Changed America was a finalist in the popular culture category. The awards honor the year’s best independently published titles from independent, university and small presses. Rooney’s book was the first to explore the history of the popular television book club and its impact on Americans’ reading habits and has been one of the press’s best selling titles.

ForeWord Magazine just announced their Book of the Year Awards. Dinarzad’s Children: An Anthology of Contemporary Arab American Fiction, edited by Pauline Kaldas and Khaled Mattawa, has won a Silver Award in the anthologies category. The book was displayed at the magazine’s special display of winners at the annual Book Expo Show in May in Washington, D.C. The magazine wrote that the “award boldly restates the quality of the titles you are publishing.” The book is now in its second printing and continues to sell well.

The Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College has just announced that Gary Fincke’s Standing Around the Heart was a finalist for the 2006 Paterson Poetry Prize. The collection is part of the press’s Poetry Series, edited by Enid Shomer. The Prize is much coveted by poets and publishers. Recent winners and finalists include such outstanding poets as Philip Levine, past Poet Laureates of the United States Rita Dove and Stanley Kunitz, Maxine Kumin (also a University of Arkansas Press author), Tony Hoagland, Marge Piercy and Mohja Kahf, associate professor of English at the University of Arkansas.

Finally, in the past two months Garrison Keillor has chosen two of Jo McDougall’s poems to be read on his popular radio show “The Writer’s Almanac.” Both poems are from McDougall’s collection Towns Facing Railroads published a few years ago by the press.