McGill-Queen's University Press

 More Sources For Books - University Presses
   Here is another CANADIAN source for books, provided at a time when we are paying more attention to where things are produced. My last post in this series about "University Presses"  was done just over a year ago and it was also about a CANADIAN publisher - Wilfred Laurier Press. This one is a joint venture between McGill and Queen's. For additional information see the website for MQUP. 

A Topical Tome
  As this is being typed, tariffs are being imposed on Canadian goods by our southern neighbour, so this book could provide useful background information, although the title of a new edition will need to be revised: Natural Allies: Environment, Energy, and the History of US-Canada Relations, by Daniel Macfarlane:
"No two nations have exchanged natural resources, produced transborder environmental agreements, or cooperatively altered ecosystems on the same scale as Canada and the United States. Environmental and energy diplomacy have profoundly shaped both countries’ economies, politics, and landscapes for over 150 years."

"Intoxicating Histories"

   MQUP publishes books in a series and this one could help us forget about our current concerns:
"Whether on the street, off the shelf, or over the pharmacy counter, interactions with drugs and alcohol are shaped by contested ideas about addiction, healing, pleasure, and vice and their social dimensions. Books in this series explore how people around the world have consumed, created, traded, and regulated psychoactive substances throughout history."

Local Authors
   

There are books available from MQUP that are by scholars from the London area. Here is one by Professor Emeritus, Ian K. Steele. 

    English Atlantics is dedicated to Professor Steele:

"Ian K. Steele's pioneering work in imperial and early North American history was a pivotal contribution to the establishment of Atlantic history as a field. His study of a unified English - and later British - Atlantic challenged American exceptionalism and encouraged the current wave of interest in Atlantic studies."
   

   Professor Peter Neary, who passed away last year, authored the ones above and these below:

   His wife Hilary Bates Neary has also published with MQUP and is well-known to those interested in the local history of London and Middlesex County. 

   Once again, this series about University Presses demonstrates that books produced by them often appeal to readers far beyond the campuses. A list of all the "University Presses" covered in Mulcahy's Miscellany, is found at the bottom of this post about WLU Press. 

Two Lists of Single Author Journals

They Are Difficult to Find

I have rambled on about single author periodicals in many posts and this will be the fourth in a row about that subject. It will be the last one. My few readers will be relieved, but should any accidental visitor stumble upon them, I am sure they will be useful. I say "sure" because finding them is difficult.

To demonstrate the difficulty in finding single author journals as a category (i.e. all of them) I will present first, the result I found after conducting another search for them. Given that the words "author(s)" and "journal(s)" yield a large number of unrelated "hits" one might find the following single author journals listed in Wikipedia, under: "List of Academic Journals About Specific Authors." I will say right away that not all such journals are "academic" and, to indicate that the list is hundreds of titles short of being complete, I provide a list of single author journals published currently by just one university press. It is still the case that the best reference source is an old one and it remains the starting point for any future researcher: Author Newsletters and Journals : An International Annotated Bibliography of Serial Publications Concerned With the Life and Works of Individual Authors, by Margaret C. Patterson.

Before the lists, here are some brief remarks which, along with my other posts, may be useful for anyone who chooses to work on this subject or look for these periodicals.

-That there is an academic industry devoted to single intellectuals/authors should not be surprising. There are also many periodicals devoted to popular authors.

- There are entire courses dedicated to one author and there are conferences held on their behalf, but some writers are seen to merit more attention and given it in serial publications.

- Retiring academics are sometimes honoured by a Festschrift so single author journals can be regarded as simply continually published Festschriften. - Not all single author journals are about single authors. Some include others who are in some way closely related. - One is likely find them mentioned only in bibliographies or when a new one comes along and an advertisement is produced in a publication such as the TLS. I spotted one a while back about The Journal of the Sylvia Townsend Warner Society and I learned recently that the Arnold Bennett Society publishes a 40+ page newsletter three times a year. They often appear on lists when they die.

- The market for such serials is small and even university libraries will usually have only those devoted to major figures (Shakespeare) or those demanded by a zealous faculty member.

- And again to demonstrate how hard they are to locate, there is no way to find out how many of these journals your favourite university library has.

The Internet is likely to result in a decline in the number of single author journals in printed form. There is, however, unlikely to be a decrease in the number of individuals who remain dedicated to their own favourite author.

         LIST OF ACADEMIC JOURNALS ABOUT SPECIFIC AUTHORS
   This list is found in Wikipedia along with this brief statement: "The following is a list of notable academic journals and magazines that are devoted to the study of specific authors and philosophers. Some of the journals are not currently active."
   Links are provided in some cases and some go to an entry for the journal in Wikipedia. There are more than 66 since some authors rate more than one journal, e.g., Dickens(3) Hegel(3), Shakespeare(3). The subjects range from, fiction, politics (Lincoln), and religion to philosophy and the geographic coverage is broad, e.g. C.L.R. James (Trinidad). Women are included: Cather, Dickinson, Rand, and some journals are about more than one author, e..g the Brontes and The Inklings. The Acorn, is listed next to Gandhi and King "since it explores philosophical issues related to non-violence in theory and practice, with a focus on the work of M. K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr." Fitzgerald and Hemingway also share a journal. Although these people have their own journal, I am willing to bet there are names you will not recognize. That the list is only a partial one is illustrated by the next list which is from just one press.

1. Hannah Arendt. Arendt Studies

2. Aristotle. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society

3. Augustine of Hippo. Augustinian Studies; Augustinianum

4. Jane Austen. Persuasions; Jane Austen Annual

5. Samuel Beckett. Journal of Beckett Studies; Samuel Beckett Today

6. George Berkeley. Berkeley Studies

7. Brontë family. Brontë Studies

8. Willa Cather. Willa Cather Newsletter & Review

9. Gilbert Keith Chesterton. The Chesterton Review

10. Joseph Conrad. The Conradian

11. Gilles Deleuze. Deleuze and Guattari Studies

12. Jacques Derrida. Derrida Today

13. Charles Dickens. Dickens Quarterly; Dickens Studies Annual; The Dickensian

14. James Dickey. James Dickey Review

15. Emily Dickinson. The Emily Dickinson Journal

16. Arthur Conan Doyle. The Baker Street Journal

17. T. S. Eliot. T. S. Eliot Studies Annual

18. Philip José Farmer. Farmerphile: The Magazine of Philip José Farmer

19. William Faulkner. The Faulkner Journal

20. F. Scott Fitzgerald. The F. Scott Fitzgerald Review; Fitzgerald/Hemingway Annual

21. Theodor Fontane. Fontane Blätter

22. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. The Acorn

23. Robert Graves. Gravesiana

24. Graham Greene.Graham Greene Studies

25. Félix Guattari. Deleuze and Guattari Studies

26. H. Rider Haggard. Haggard Journal

27. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel Bulletin; Hegel-Jahrbuch; The Owl of Minerva

28. Martin Heidegger. Heidegger Studies

29. Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway Review; Fitzgerald/Hemingway Annual

30. David Hume. Hume Studies

31. Edmund Husserl. Husserl Studies

32. The Inklings. Journal of Inklings Studies; VII: Journal of the Marion E. Wade Center; Mythlore [not about an individual, but an Oxford discussion group.]

33. C. L. R. James. The CLR James Journal

34. Henry James. The Henry James Review

35. Ben Jonson Ben. Jonson Journal

36. James Joyce. James Joyce Quarterly

37. Franz Kafka. Journal of the Kafka Society of America

38. Immanuel Kant. Kant Yearbook; Kant-Studien; Kantian Review

39. Søren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook; Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series

40. D. H. Lawrence. D. H. Lawrence Review

41. Martin Luther King Jr. The Acorn

42. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. The Leibniz Review; Studia Leibnitiana

43. Emmanuel Levinas. Levinas Studies

44. C. S. Lewis. Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal; VII: Journal of the Marion E. Wade Center.

45. Abraham Lincoln. The Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association

46. Bernard Lonergan. The Lonergan Review

47. Pierre Loti. Bulletin de l'Association internationale des amis de Pierre Loti

48. Thomas Mann. Thomas Mann Jahrbuch (in German)

49. Cormac McCarthy. The Cormac McCarthy Journal

50. Herman Melville. Leviathan

51. Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Chiasmi International

52. Vladimir Nabokov. Nabokov Studies

53. Friedrich Nietzsche. New Nietzsche Studies; The Journal of Nietzsche Studies

54. Paul the Apostle. Pauline Studies; Journal for the Study of Paul and His Letters

55. Edgar Allan Poe. Poe Studies: History, Theory, Interpretation

56. Marcel Proust. Marcel Proust Bulletin

57. Ayn Rand. The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies

58. Philip Roth. Philip Roth Studies

59. Jean-Paul Sartre. Sartre Studies International

60. William Shakespeare. Shakespeare Bulletin; Shakespeare Quarterly; The Shakespeare Yearbook

61. George Bernard Shaw. SHAW: The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies

62. Wallace Stevens. The Wallace Stevens Journal

63. J. R. R. Tolkien. Tolkien Studies; Journal of Tolkien Research; Mallorn; VII: Journal of the Marion E. Wade Center; Quettar

64. Giambattista Vico. New Vico Studies

65. Virginia Woolf. Virginia Woolf Bulletin

66. Slavoj Žižek. International Journal of Žižek Studies

LIST OF SINGLE AUTHOR JOURNALS FROM PENN STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS This list was constructed from the journals listed at PSU Press in 2025. There is no category for these single author journals. I simply took the ones I identified on the list of PSU journals. Other journals in this category would be found at other university press websites. For example, the University of Chicago Press publishes, Spencer Studies and The Wordsworth Circle.

1. The Arthur Miller Journal
2. Bishop–Lowell Studies
3. The Chaucer Review: A Journal of Medieval Studies and Literary Criticism
4. The Cormac McCarthy Journal
5. Dickens Studies Annual: Essays on Victorian Fiction
6. The Edgar Allan Poe Review
7. Edith Wharton Review
8. The Eugene O'Neill Review
9. The F. Scott Fitzgerald Review
10. George Eliot—George Henry Lewes Studies
11. The Harold Pinter Review: Essays on Contemporary Drama
12. The Langston Hughes Review
13. The Mark Twain Annual
14. Milton Studies
15. Nathaniel Hawthorne Review
16. SHAW: The Journal of Bernard Shaw Studies
17. Steinbeck Review
18. The Scriblerian and the Kit-Cats [about more than one author.]
19. Thornton Wilder Journal
20. Wesley and Methodist Studies
21. William Carlos Williams Review     

   If you are interested in the class of single author journals, Patterson's

Author Newsletters and Journals : An International Annotated Bibliography of Serial Publications Concerned With the Life and Works of Individual Authors, is still the place to begin. If you want to take on a large research project to update that work, you will have a lot of work to do. Some of the other related posts in MM will be useful and since this is my last mention of this subject, here is one short piece I was unable to examine: "One Man's Meat: Societies and Journals Devoted to a Single Author," William White, American Book Collector, 1957, 8(3), p.22. 
  To use a word that may be found in one of Zane Grey's books, or journals about him, I will now say adios to this subject. 

Wilfrid Laurier University Press

 

The 50th Anniversary of WLU Press - 1974-2024

   University presses are often overlooked by book lovers. They shouldn't be as I have illustrated in this series of posts about "University Presses." My tenth one will be about WLU Press which has been around since 1974.

   WLU Press publishes a few dozen titles annually and there about 700 in print. A variety of subjects are covered, ranging from environmental humanities to international politics and the books are available in print, electronic or audio versions. Some of the audible ones are pictured above. If you go to the Wilfrid Laurier University Press website you can search by subject, read their blog or listen to some podcasts. 

   This Cohen cover can serve as a sample indicating the wide variety of titles available. Here, however, I will focus on the ones about the "Waterloo Region." In the nine other university presses I have written about (all American), you can see that, among a number of academic and arcane titles, there usually will be some about the area in which the university is located. Broader in scope than local histories, regional ones often cover large areas and a variety of subjects within them. For example, Penn State's "Keystone Books" and Wayne State's "Great Lakes Book Series" will be of interest to many living in Ontario. The same is true for WLU.

   There are some about cities, The Battle for Berlin, Ontario: An Historical Drama; Kitchener: An Illustrated History and A History of Kitchener, Ontario and there is even one for Elora, The Early History of Elora and Vicinity. There are also a few about higher education in the area: I Remember Laurier, Recollections of Waterloo College, and Recollections of Waterloo Lutheran University, 1960 - 1973.

    This book about Mennonite cooking is probably one of the best selling books published by a Canadian university press:

   "An updated edition of a bestselling book in the food writing genre from award-winning author and journalist Edna Staebler. In the 1960s, Edna Staebler moved in with an Old Order Mennonite family to absorb their oral history and learn about Mennonite culture and cooking. From this fieldwork came the cookbook Food That Really Schmecks.

   Originally published in 1968, Food That Really Schmecks instantly became a classic, selling tens of thousands of copies. Interspersed with practical and memorable recipes are Staebler’s stories and anecdotes about cooking, life with the Mennonites, family, and the Waterloo Region. Described by Edith Fowke as folklore literature, Staebler’s cookbooks have earned her national acclaim. Back in print as part of Wilfrid Laurier University Press’s Life Writing series, a series devoted celebrating life writing as both genre and critical practice, the updated edition of this groundbreaking book includes a foreword by award-winning author Wayson Choy and a new introduction by well-known food writer Rose Murray."

   Readers of MM  will remember that Guelph University close by, has a great culinary collection - see "Food History" for examples of regional cuisine and other food-related collections.

   Sports lovers will even find reading material. This book demonstrates that university presses often produce interesting books for people beyond the shadows of the ivory towers: The Chatham Coloured All-Stars and Black Baseball in Southwestern Ontario, 1915–1958. 

"Although many know about Jackie Robinson’s experiences breaking major league baseball’s colour barrier in 1947, few are familiar with the Chatham Coloured All-Stars, a Black Canadian team from 1930s Ontario who broke racial barriers in baseball even earlier. In 1933, the All-Stars began playing in the primarily white world of organized amateur baseball. The following year, the All-Stars became the first Black team to win a provincial championship.

While exploring the history of Black baseball in one southwestern Ontario community, this book also provides insights into larger themes in Canadian Black history and sport history including gender, class, social justice, and memory and remembrance.

University Presses:
  For your convenience, I will gather here all the posts in MM about this subject in chronological order:

1. Environmental Books - University of Washington - May 13, 2018

2. University Presses - Penn State - Sept. 1, 2018

3. Wayne State -  Sept 21, 2019

4. University of Minnesota Press March 28, 2020

5. Northwestern University Press - Oct. 16, 2021

6. Wolverines, Spartans and Books, (Michigan State) June 10, 2022

7. MIT PRESS - Aug. 10, 2022

8. Princeton University Press - see "Ancient Wisdom..." Dec. 18, 2022.

9. Ohio State University Press - Feb. 20, 2023

10. Wilfrid Laurier Press - Jan. 10, 2024

Ohio State University Press

    As the dreary weather continues, so does the search for good reading material. It is not usually found on the New York Times Best Seller List which, we have come to learn, does not contain books recommended by the NYT, but only those found in the various tabulations gathered by someone who works for the NYT. The best sellers are often not good, but they are popular, which also does not necessarily mean "good". As I type this on "Family Day", a holiday throughout much of Canada, it is interesting to note that Jennette McCurdy's, I'm Glad My Mom Died, is #4 on the "Non-Fiction" list. It may, or may not, be good, but apparently it is selling well. 

  About 12,000 books are published annually by University Presses, but they rarely appear on the lists in the NYT. An exception might have been, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories, which was published by the University of Chicago Press and was at least somewhat popular and made into a film directed by Robert Redford and starring Brad Pitt. Given that you may not come across many university press catalogues, or pay much attention to the book ads in some high brow magazines, there may be 12,000 new books of which you are unaware. 

  It is to make you aware of potential sources for good books that I have provided short profiles of university presses over the past couple of years. I began way out on the west coast with the University of Washington and lately have focused on ones near by, ranging from the University of Minnesota to those even closer to Ontario: Penn State, Wayne State, Michigan State and the University of Michigan. I must soon begin including Canadian ones. 

  Today, the choice is from Columbus, Ohio. I should have mentioned earlier, and have done so in earlier posts, that not all university press books are unreadable and full of the jargon we civilians associate with those who reside on campuses. While many current university press publications deal with things like intersectionality and hyphenated identities, the older entries in the catalogues can be of interest and many of them can be read and enjoyed by people like us. 

   At the website of The Ohio State University Press, you can quickly learn about their publishing priorities. When I have posted about the university presses close by, I have indicated that there is often a regional focus which encompasses our area, where books of "local" interest are found. See, for example, Penn State's "Keystone Books" and Wayne State's, "Great Lakes Book Series." Books with a midwestern focus produced at Ohio State are found under the "Trillium" imprint, a floral emblem Ontarians will recognize.

   If you are especially interested in nature and the birds and fishes found close by Ontario, be sure to check the works of Milton Trautman. Although he didn't make it beyond Grade 8, he is renowned as an ornithologist and ichthyologist and wrote many articles of interest about the Bass Islands a little bit south of Pelee Island. His very big book about The Birds of Buckeye Lake can be downloaded for free, but his Birds of Western Lake Erie could cost you almost $300. For a long and interesting article about Trautman see: "The Last Naturalist: A Zoologist Happiest in the Fields and Streams of Ohio, Wrote Major Works About the State's Birds and Fishes," Parker Bauer, The American Scholar, April 21, 2022. 

OSU PRESS

"The Trillium imprint publishes books about Ohio and the Midwest in an effort to help the citizens of the state learn more about the unique history, the diverse culture, and the natural environment of the state of Ohio. Books published under this imprint will also help to fund our scholarly publishing program, and will aid in lowering the cost of the student textbooks we publish." 

The entire book can be read by clicking on this link. 

A Few More Buckeye Books

The United States of Ohio covers little-known facts about Ohio, such as how the state was the birthplace of both the National Football League and Major League Baseball and how it was Ohioans who led efforts toward racial integration in both sports. Readers will learn what makes the state a manufacturing and agricultural powerhouse—with both the largest tire company, Akron’s Goodyear, and the largest consumer products company, Cincinnati’s Procter & Gamble, based there. The state grows, processes, and builds on a level that far outpaces the size of its population or expanse of its borders. And it is the birthplace of many prominent US figures—from Thomas Edison to John Glenn to Neil Armstrong. From sports to a century’s worth of entertainment superstars to aviation and space exploration, Ohio’s best have made for America’s greatest stories—all captured here in a look at the Buckeye State and its impact on the other forty-nine.

“An exceptionally thorough history of white supremacy focused on Ohio but relevant nationwide. By analyzing supremacist influences on American history, from conquests of Native Americans to today’s alt right, the authors have created an eye-opening resource. Its accessible style will engage a broad readership.”—Deborah Levine, editor of American Diversity Report

“Falconry in Hawking Women touches on so many topics: the strange intimacies of memory training that bonded a bird with its handler, gender hierarchies, and especially the entangled freedom and constraint of poetics. Petrosillo’s rich practical knowledge of the sport illuminates a key component of medieval literature.” —Karl Steel, author of How to Make a Human: Animals and Violence in the Middle Ages.

The Bonus:

  

   University presses also often publish journals and one produced by OSU is: Inks: The Journal of the Comic Studies Society. 

For an article of local interest in this journal see: "Comics and Public History: The True Story of the 1934 Chatham Coloured All-Stars, " Dale Jacobs and Heidi LM Jacobs, in Vol.4, No.1, Spring 2020, p.101.

Christmas Book Shopping

 The main reason I am doing this is to avoid shopping and to keep cobwebs from gathering in my brain and on this blog. There is also a public service component involved, in that you may have discovered that it is difficult to find a list of good books for which to shop. I plan to help. Plus, reading even whatever I am about to write is better than going to the mall and it is warmer here. 

Blind Reviewing

   I realize that you have probably seen many, many "Good Books For Christmas" lists, but typically they include only books that are "topical" and the approved topics these days are very limited. The lists are also somewhat restricted in that it appears that they are carefully curated to include only certain types of authors and their inclusion is not necessarily related to the ability to write. I am offering here, a book list for readers who are interested in a variety of subjects, not just the popular or designated ones. I think there would be more of them (lists not readers) if there was more "blind reviewing", particularly of the "double-blind" type, where the reviewers don't know who the authors are. The appearance of such lists would likely change if the reviewer did not see the name of the author or what they looked like. 

Books For Those Interested in History

   I have done this before. In 2017, I offered "Christmas Shopping For Historians," and that was followed in 2019 by "The Cundill History Prize," and after that I discussed "F. Peter Cundill" last year. I know that you think these self-citations are simply a way for me to promote my work. That is not the case. Those posts and the lists within them are a way for you to locate older works which are cheaper. If you don't wish to appear cheap, the latest, more expensive hardbacks will be found at McGill on The Cundill History Prize website. 

   The book pictured was not the winner of the Cundill Prize, but it was one of the finalists for which the author received $10,000. The winning book was not shown because the winner won $75,000 and was also a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, which is worth even more. She does not need my help. It is also the case that you will likely have already seen the book on one of those other lists because it is covers one of the preferred topics and the author passes muster. 

Books For Serious Readers

   You are now introduced to a series that will appeal to those who appreciate heavier tomes, or perhaps to those who are looking for a book that could be safely given to the grandchildren if they are of indeterminate gender, which they likely are. Although the books are ancient, they are not necessarily useless and this one has a recognizable utility for our times:

 

There are some titles that should not be considered for those who are university bound. 

 

All of these books and more are to be found in the series, "Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers," presented by the Princeton University Press. 

  Readers of MM will have seen many posts about "University Presses" and all of them will have links to books bearing the imprimatur of a university, which will impress the recipient of such a book, even if the book itself does not. If this PUP series appeals, see also the one about "MIT Press - Additional Aids for Autodidacts."  If you are interested in the environment see the University of Washington Press.  Shop around. 

Some Books For the Rest of Us

   I think at the beginning of this post I suggested that book recommendations these days seemed to be based more on the identity of the authors than the content of the books produced. Now, to contradict myself, I will promote some books because of the author, not the books, none of which I have read - nor do I know much about the author. He has been chosen, not because of his identity, however, but because of the effort he has expended to produce the books he has written. He apparently does not sit alone in a loft gnawing on his pencil. 

   The author is Ted Conover and I learned of him when I read a review of his new book, Cheap Land Colorado: Off-Gridders at America's Edge. He went off the grid himself and joined the outcasts who live in the remote San Luis Valley. He practices "immersion journalism" and this is not the first time he has done so, as the reviewer noted:

"For a book about modern-day hoboes (Rolling Nowhere), he learned to hop freight trains and spent months riding the rails; for a book about undocumented immigrants (Coyotes), he lived with Mexicans on both sides of the border, picking fruit in citrus orchards and travelling across the Sonoran Desert and the Rio Grande; for a book about the New York State prison system (Newjack), he got a job as a corrections officer and worked for a year inside Sing Sing.

She does not mention there, The Routes of Man... where, 

"In Peru, he traces the journey of a load of rare mahogany over the Andes to its origin, an untracked part of the Amazon basin soon to be traversed by a new east-west route across South America. In East Africa, he visits truckers whose travels have been linked to the worldwide spread of AIDS. In the West Bank, he monitors highway checkpoints with Israeli soldiers and then passes through them with Palestinians, witnessing the injustices and danger borne by both sides. He shuffles down a frozen riverbed with teenagers escaping their Himalayan valley to see how a new road will affect the now-isolated Indian region of Ladakh. From the passenger seat of a new Hyundai piling up the miles, he describes the exuberant upsurge in car culture as highways proliferate across China. And from inside an ambulance, he offers an apocalyptic but precise vision of Lagos, Nigeria, where congestion and chaos on freeways signal the rise of the global megacity."

A lot of subjects are covered in that one book and I think it is highly likely to be an interesting one. Even if it and the others are not, such dedication and hard work deserves our attention and that is why he has been chosen, not because of his identity.

Source: 

  The very interesting review of Conover's latest book is found here: "The Pitfalls of Immersive Journalism," Kathryn Schulz, The New Yorker, Nov. 28, 2022. 

   For more about Conover and his books see: Penguin Random House. For more about him and "immersion journalism", just see the Wikipedia entry. Or, go directly to his website.

The Bonus:

   If you are not satisfied with the selection so far, you will be glad to know that there is a new history of the ass out: Butts: A Backstory, by Heather Radke. I may have to do a new "History of Everything", which contains a 28 pp list of books about, well everything. You will find some more book shopping ideas there.