Parallel Press Books

Parallel Press publishes important, and in many cases out-of-print, research in print and digital format. Many of these works continue to be cited by current researchers and scholars making them valuable references. In keeping with the Wisconsin Idea and promoting scholarly communication Parallel Press also makes many of these works available in digital format.

For a current list of the UW-Madison Libraries' online titles, visit our digital collections page.

Below are titles currently available from Parallel Press. To order any of the following books please complete an order form.

Akademia Cartonera: A Primer of Latin American Cartonera Publishers
Edited by Ksenija Bilbija and Paloma Celis Carbajal
$40

First in Buenos Aires, spilling over later into Peru, Bolivia, Mexico and Brazil, there emerged the cartonera publishers who, salvaging old corrugated cardboard from packaging to make their covers, set in motion an important series of books of good literary quality. Cartonera books speak to the survival of reading, and the finding and fostering of new readers on the margins of society; a whole, born of necessity. In this important volume we find gathered the prodigal sons and daughters of this movement.

Included with this book is a CD featuring academic articles, cartonera publications catalog, and bibliography.

Shadows: Deeper into Story
By Harold Scheub
$25

Building on his previous work, Story, Harold Scheub proves that he is one of the most knowledgeable specialists in the area of the story and story analysis. In Shadows, Scheub broadens his analysis outside the realm of the African stories in Story. Scheub’s extraordinary analysis brings to the surface the layers, the deeper meanings that he calls shadows of stories, originating in Europe, North America, and Asia—from the early African oral story to the more contemporary stories of Eudora Welty.

A review of Shadows appeared in the December 2009 issue of CHOICE magazine stating, "Shadows roams well beyond tales from southern Africa...providing an erudite, lyrical, and illuminating excursion into the world of storytelling."

Nation and Conflict in Modern Spain: Essays in Honor of Stanley G. Payne
Edited by Brian D. Bunk, Sasha D. Pack and Carl-Gustaf Scott
$25

Nation and Conflict in Modern Spain: Essays in Honor of Stanley G. Payne is a collection of original scholarship and reflective essays written by students and colleagues of the distinguished Hispanist. In keeping with Payne’s long and varied career, the chapter topics range broadly and cover subjects from anarchism and anticlericalism to counterinsurgency and tourism. Despite the diversity of subject matter, all of the contributors strive to integrate political, material and cultural factors and to interpret received wisdom with skepticism. The result is a collection bound together by a rich and balanced appreciation for the major events, attitudes, and conflicts that have shaped modern Spanish history.

The Healing Landscape: Therapeutic Outdoor Environments
Martha M. Tyson
$25

Historically, healing gardens were places designed for the restoration of the mind, soul, and body. Martha Tyson, a nationally recognized professional, merges classic design theory with the study of human behavior and guides the reader through the process of creating restorative outdoor environments. As she points out, good design seamlessly merges function, usability, comfort and beauty. Tyson’s elegant, thoughtful descriptions of how gardens can bring hope into the lives of many people in need of healing are as restorative as the gardens she describes.

Tyson presents a process for creating bridges between people through common experiences in the garden. She writes, “The familiar smell and sight of lilacs or roses, the taste of a fresh tomato from the vine, or the feel of smooth leaves from an oak tree or soil warmed from the sun are experiences that only the garden can provide . . . Here we will find the path to restoring the soul, capturing the imagination, clearing the mind, illuminating the senses, and healing the body.”

The Tiger's Child
John Neu
$15 paperback

John Neu's psychological mystery The Tiger's Child follows a police chief and his sidekick, a local writer, as they attempt to solve the mysterious, violent deaths that occur after a boy releases wild animals from a private zoo. Neu begins building suspense in the opening scene set near the Wisconsin River and the fictional town of Fox Prairie, Wisconsin. When the boy comes to the tiger cage, Neu writes, "He had never been in a cage with a tiger before. His heart was pounding so hard his chest hurt. He opened the door and stepped inside, and the tiger rose immediately and moved quickly in a crouch to him."

John Neu received his master’s in library science from UW-Madison in 1959 and was hired as a bibliographer in 1963, a position he held until his retirement in 1999. While working for the libraries, Neu wrote habitually in early mornings for his own pleasure. The Tiger’s Child is the first book Neu has published.

South African Voices is a three-volume set that contains performances by the extraordinary Xhosa storyteller, Nogenile Masithathu Zenani, and other Xhosa and Zulu oral historians and poets. The materials were taped and filmed by Harold Scheub in the late 1960s and in the 1970s, as he walked along the southeastern coastal areas of Africa, collecting and documenting the stories and poems of Xhosa and Zulu peoples. Each story is annotated in English.

Harold Scheub is the Evjue-Bascom Professor of the Humanities in the Department of African Languages and Literature at the UW–Madison. He specializes in African oral traditions and written literatures.

Also see the UW-Madison Web site dedicated to Harold Scheub and his work: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/SouAfrVc.

Vol 1 — South African Voices: A Long Time Passed
Harold Scheub
$105 hardcover / $55 paperback

South African Voices: A Long Time Passed contains a preface by Ken Frazier, UW–Madison Libraries director, and a foreword by Isidore Okpewho, professor of humanities, SUNY.

Vol 2 — South African Voices: Created in Olden Times
Harold Scheub
$120 hardcover / $60 paperback

South African Voices: Created in Olden Times presents an introduction on the art of a storyteller by Nogenile Masithathu Zenani, translated by Harold Scheub.

Vol 3 — South African Voices: The Way We Travelled; Oral History and Poetry
Harold Scheub
$40 hardcover / $20 paperback

South African Voices: The Way We Travelled; Oral History and Poetry contains conversations between Scheub and two poets in addition to stories and poems.

A First-Draft Version of Finnegans Wake
David Hayman
$35 hardcover / $20 paperback

A First-Draft Version of Finnegans Wake is the earliest and remains arguably the most ambitious attempt to map the development of James Joyce's last and most demanding work. Since the passages it presents in transcription are among the most complex in the manuscript record and because we now have available facsimiles of the remainder, it has become, if anything, more useful than ever as a point of access to Joyce's creative process.

Root Nodule Bacteria and Leguminous Plants
Edwin Broun Fred, Ira Lawrence Baldwin, & Elizabeth McCoy
$20 paperback

This classic monograph, first published in 1932, presented a thorough and critical examination of early research in biological nitrogen fixation. Seventy years later this publication continues to be an influential work and a valuable reference for those in the field.

The Book of Beasts
Terence Hanbury White
$20 paperback

Bestiaries, a bestseller of the Middle Ages second only to the Bible in popularity, are richly illustrated stories offering a fascinating glimpse into pre-scientific man's perception of the earth's creatures. Terence Hanbury White (1906-1964), translator of this twelfth century bestiary, The Book of Beasts, was an accomplished novelist and medieval scholar. White's translation includes copious footnotes and a comprehensive Appendix detailing the history of bestiary.

Women in Print
Edited by James P. Danky and Wayne A. Wiegand
Foreword by Elizabeth Long

Published by the University of Wisconsin Press in collaboration with The Center for the History of Print Culture in Modern America.

The Experimental College
Alexander Meiklejohn

Noted philosopher and educator Alexander Meiklejohn was, among other things, the founder and director of the Experimental College at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he pursued his vision of exploring innovative (and sometimes radical) approaches to teaching and learning. The Experimental College, first published in 1932, is an account of his early experiments with communal education and social learning at UW-Madison.

The Academic Library in the American University
Stephen E. Atkins
$20 paperback

First published by the American Library Association in 1991, this book is a critical examination of the emergence and evolution of the academic library as a special purpose institution supporting higher education. This reprint with a new introduction by Charles Lowry, dean of the University of Maryland Libraries, continues to be an important resource for academic librarians and library educators.