How to use this Page

Peter Gilliver has been an editor of the Oxford English Dictionary since 1987, and is now one of the Dictionary's most experienced lexicographers; he has also contributed to several other dictionaries published by OUP. In addition to his lexicographical work, he has been writing and speaking about the history of the OED for over fifteen years. In this two part Q&A, we learn more about how his passion for lexicography inspired him.

The post Learning about lexicography: A Q&A with Peter Gilliver part 1 appeared first on OUPblog.

What was it like as one of the few female performers in the New York Philharmonic in the 1960s? We sat down with cellist and author Evangeline Benedetti to hear the answer to this and other questions about performance and teaching careers, favorite composers, and life behind the doors of Lincoln Center.

The post In conversation with cellist Evangeline Benedetti appeared first on OUPblog.

From time to time, we try to give you a glimpse into our offices around the globe. Kate Farquhar-Thomson came to Oxford University Press in 1999 in search of a country life – and found it! Today finds her heading up an almost (apart from the Americas) global PR team for the Oxford University Press's academic division. We sat down with Kate to talk about her publishing career and what it's like to work for OUP.

The post A Q&A with Kate Farquhar-Thomson, Head of publicity appeared first on OUPblog.

Ariana Milligan recently started working with Oxford University Press’s Global Digital Products Marketing team in New York. She tells us about how working on products such as Grove Art Online and Oxford Music Online creates an inspiring day-to-day life.

The post Sype meetings, coffee, and collaboration: a Q&A with Ariana Milligan appeared first on OUPblog.

We sat down with Lauren Jackson, an Assistant Marketing Manager based in our New York office, to quiz her on her favourite words, her favourite books, and her favourite UFC fighter. We are delighted to welcome Lauren to the marketing team and are jealous of what she keeps in her desk drawer... You can find out more about Lauren below.

The post A Q&A with Lauren Jackson: Morrissey, MMA, and Megan Abbott appeared first on OUPblog.

Please welcome another newbie to the Social Media team at Oxford University Press, Estefania Ospina, who joined the gang in August 2015, just two weeks ago, as an OUPblog Deputy Editor and Social Media Manager! You can learn more about Estefania below. When did you start working at OUP? 6 June 2016. What was your first job in publishing? Oxford University Press is my first publishing job;

The post Hey everybody! Meet Estefania! appeared first on OUPblog.

Katie Stileman works as the UK Publicist for Oxford University Press's Very Short Introductions series (VSIs). She tells us a bit about what working for OUP looks like. If she wasn't working on publicity at OUP, she would be doing publicity for Taylor Swift.

The post A Q&A with Katie Stileman, Publicist for the VSI series appeared first on OUPblog.

In September 2013, during a visit to Central and Southeast Asia, Chinese President Xi Jinping first proposed the initiative of jointly building the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road. Consequently, the Collaborative Innovation Centre of Silk Road Economic Belt Studies has been established in Xi’an, China, which was the eastern starting point of the ancient road.

The post The “Silk Road Spirit” in a time of globalization appeared first on OUPblog.

The field of "legal history" studies the relationship that “law” and legal institutions have to the society that surrounds them. "Law” means everything from local regulations and rules promulgated by administrative agencies, to statutes and court decisions. Legal history is interested in how “law” and legal institutions operate, and how they change over time in reaction to changing economic, social, and political conditions.

The post How legal history shapes the present appeared first on OUPblog.

Publishing music books would be much harder without our stellar editorial team. We sat down with three editorial assistants from the New York office - Lauralee, Eden, and Andrew - to talk about Oxford University Press, their music lives inside and out of the office, and current literary addictions.

The post Getting to know Lauralee, Eden, and Andrew in music editorial appeared first on OUPblog.

Oxford University Press is pleased to welcome Matthias Siepe as the new Editor-in-Chief of Interactive CardioVascular and Thoracic Surgery (ICVTS). We got to know Matthais during an interview and discovered how he came to specialise in cardiovascular surgery, how he sees this field in the future, and what he has in store for ICTVS.

The post Q&A with Matthias Siepe appeared first on OUPblog.

Oxford University Press is pleased to welcome René Prêtre as one of the the new Editors-in-Chief of Multimedia Manual of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (MMCTS). We got to know Dr. Prêtre during an interview and discovered how he came to specialise in cardio-thoracic surgery, how he sees this field in the future, and what he has in store for the Manual.

The post Q&A with René Prêtre appeared first on OUPblog.

Oxford University Press is pleased to welcome the new Editor-in-Chief of Multimedia Manual of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (MMCTS), Roberto Lorusso. We got to know Dr. Lorusso during an interview and discovered how he came to specialise in cardio-thoracic surgery, how he sees this field in the future, and what he has in store for the Manual.

The post A Q&A with Roberto Lorusso appeared first on OUPblog.

Long excluded from serious consideration within psychology and the neurosciences, consciousness is back in business. A new journal Neuroscience of Consciousness will catalyse this new understanding by publishing the best new research, review, and opinion on how our "inner universe" comes to be.

The post Can neuroscience explain consciousness? appeared first on OUPblog.

Describe your latest book. I recently edited and illustrated a collection of ghost stories, Ghostly. It features stories by E. A. Poe, Neil Gaiman, Saki, Kelly Link, and M. R. James, and also some stories by writers who one might not associate with ghost stories, including A. S. Byatt, P. G. Wodehouse, and Edith Wharton. [...]

Describe your latest book. My new book, Thunder and Lightning, is about weather and humankind through the ages. How did the last good book you read end up in your hands, and why did you read it? I'm reading Ian Frazier's On the Rez, which was given to me by a friend. Fantastic book. Aside [...]

Please welcome another newbie to the Social Media team at Oxford University Press, Priscilla Yu, who joined the gang in September 2015, just a month ago, as an OUPblog Deputy Editor and Social Media Marketing Assistant! You can learn more about Priscilla below.

The post Hey everybody! Meet Priscilla! appeared first on OUPblog.

I was going to make this a Monday thing, but the week ran away from me. So let’s try Thursday. I’ve enjoyed having a regular day for posting my weekly booklists—it helps keep me on track, knowing I’ve slotted the roundup for Sundays. I thought it might be nice to set aside time to answer questions from the comments on another dedicated day. Maybe not every week—every other, perhaps? When I answer questions in the comment box, I’m never sure if the original poster sees the answer (since sometimes it takes me a while to reply). So I’m going to start pulling questions into these Q&A posts. You can leave more questions (or discussion topics in general) in the comments here and I’ll tackle them in the next Q&A.

On my High Tide for Huck and Rilla post, Jen asked,

I’ve just got to jump in and ask, do your kids read a lot in their free time?  Your philosophy is very much like what I’ve done with my kids and I also have olders and youngers.  It just doesn’t seem like mine are not like I once was and couldn’t wait to have some free time to read.  I wonder if it is all of the technology available (which I greatly limited with the older kids and have, admittedly, given too much slack with the younger ones).  I am comforted that there are still really great books going into their little ears and they have book jags every once in awhile, but…am I being idealistic in our present society or simply expecting too much of a picture book image in our homeschool?

With this many kids, my answer’s going to be all over the place. Some of them read constantly, incessantly. One of my teens was an obsessive reader when she was younger, but now she goes in spurts—she’ll be up late many nights in a row, devouring a stack of books, and then weeks will pass where she feels sort of meh about reading and pretty much only reads things necessary for her studies. I think she gets more sleep during the meh times, so it’s probably a healthy balance.

My younger children are less book-obsessed than my older three, and I do think that has something to do with the presence of gaming devices in their world—increased options, perhaps? We have limits on game time (two hours a day), so my younger kids’ day divides roughly into morning lesson time, after-lunch gaming time, and the rest of the day is free time until evening chores. There’s a good chunk of free time in the mornings, too, most days. Whereas Jane, Rose, and Beanie were apt to spend a large portion of their free time buried in a book, my younger trio choose other activities more often—drawing, crafting, Snap Circuits, outdoor play, etc. A lot of hands-on activities. If I find them sprawled on the sofa with a book, it is probably a graphic novel or picture book. Rilla hasn’t sparked to a prose fiction series yet the way her older sisters did with Redwall, the Warriors books, Boxcar Children, and other series. She is more drawn to art books and nonfiction—specifically books about bugs, birds, and animals.

So my younger kids aren’t as bookwormish, but I don’t worry about it. I figure they are getting plenty of reading in their day through readalouds and audiobooks—as you say, “really great books going into their little ears and book jags every once in a while.” That’s a dead-on depiction of what I’m seeing here these days! Since our homeschooling style is literature-centric, I feel confident they are absorbing a wide range of excellent books, stories, and poems.

One more thought: I do make a habit of combing the shelves for good picture books every couple of weeks. I’ll swap out a batch in an easily accessible basket—or leave a pile on my dresser, which seems even more effective at catching their eye. For some reason everyone likes reading on my bed best. I display books face out so the covers jump out at the kids. Huck is especially attracted to these casual displays and I will often him lolling on my bed, surrounded by these little curated collections. They also jump on any library or review copy that comes through the door—it seems the novelty makes a book extra attractive. I’ve known them to check out library copies of books they’ve walked past on our own shelves a thousand times. And the review copies—oh boy. Anything that arrives in a box is a hot commodity. The magic of the brown truck?

A con tradition, ReedPOP schedules a final panel at New York Comic Con where the main staff gathers to listen to concerns from attendees. This year, the panel consisted of Lance Fensterman (Senior Global Vice President), Mike Armstrong (Event Director), MK Goodwin (Content Manager), Jackie  Williams (Marketing Director), and Kristina Rogers (Event Manager). (Shown, right to left, above.) […]

Describe your book. As a YouTuber, my occupation is to share my life with anyone who wants to listen. It's a dream job that I've had for almost eight years, and my audience has grown to 7,500,000 people — with half a billion total video views. I can barely wrap my mind around it and [...]

Amy Stewart is the author of the novel Girl Waits with Gun and six other books, including The Drunken Botanist and Wicked Plants. Some of her earliest research for the novel happened right here in Portland, and Tin House editor Masie Cochran was there to witness it all. We've brought them back together to reminisce [...]

Describe your latest book. Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights is a fairy-tale of New York (well, mostly New York). New York with added genies (jinn). It's about a jinnia princess, Dunia, who acquires a large number of human offspring, and uses them to help her battle an invasion of our world by the [...]

Note: Join us this Thursday, August 27, at Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing for an author event with Christopher Moore. Describe your latest book. Secondhand Souls is the sequel to my bestselling novel A Dirty Job, which was about a single dad in San Francisco who gets the job of being Death and runs [...]

Describe your latest book. I woke up one day from a sort of daydream with an idea for a book's structure, and for the thread of that book, one predicated upon the protagonist's loss of memory. In many cases, such memory losses are accidental or undesired, but in this case, it is an asked-for amnesia. [...]

How The Light Gets In (named, aptly, in honour of a Leonard Cohen song) has taken the festival world by storm with its yearly celebration of philosophy and music. We spoke to founder and festival organiser Hilary Lawson, who is a full-time philosopher, Director of the Institute of Art and Ideas, and someone with lots to say about keepings things equal and organising a great party.

The post Music and metaphysics: HowTheLightGetsIn 2015 appeared first on OUPblog.