The University of Virginia Press is pleased to announce the new UVA Press Reading Club, which will feature themed books throughout the year at a 40% discounted rate. The 2020 theme, already underway, is Virginia Pathways and People and is geared towards all those interested in the flora, fauna, and people of Virginia. Selected by Press staff, these books are journeys through beautiful landscapes, remarkable and conflicting histories, and engaging ideas and perspectives through fiction, biography, and design.

“UVA Press has a storied sixty-year history in the Commonwealth and around the world with over 1700 titles in print. A number of these include the history and culture of Virginia,” said Suzanne Moomaw, director of the Press. “Books in this annual series are appropriate for book clubs, classrooms, your nearby easy chair and, especially, for the Virginia expat community who find themselves far from home and in need of a touch of the familiar.”

The series is especially geared to this time of social distancing—what can you see and what can you learn from home that might be on your list for future travel. The series features four themes, beginning with Virginia, Places, Plants, and Pets, which includes books on cutting gardens, Virginia fishing, Tidewater wildflowers, and historic markers. A reader favorite is Donald McCaig’s travels with Luke and June, his Border Collies, in Mr. and Mrs. Dog.

The next two themes—Virginians Tell the Stories of Virginia and Virginia History Charts America’s History—introduces the Dooleys of Richmond whose family home, Maymont, is known to many; Josephine J. Turpin, a teacher, journalist on racism in America, and deeds clerk at one point to Frederick Douglass; and Oliver Hill & Spotswood Robinson, the legal team that dismantled Jim Crow. We see the James River up close and personal; we learn about African American cemeteries and the people they honor; and read about Rot, Riot, and Rebellion in the early days of UVA. The final theme, Famous Visitors to Virginia, reminds us that Robert Frost came to Charlottesville and that UVA holds an archive of his papers and poetry in Special Collections; that Lincoln visited the troops in Petersburg; and that Langston Hughes gave his first reading in the South at Virginia Union University in 1926.

The series is designed to complement the Press's new podcast series, “UVA Press Presents,” which allows readers to hear and see authors talk about their books, their writing journeys, and, most important, the pathways and people that are Virginia. For more information about the Podcast, and to order the books, visit the UVA Press website: www.upress.virginia.edu. The book series selections are specially priced at a 40% discount with free shipping using code 10VPP.