The world comes alive again each spring: the bloom of nature and the return of busy outdoor activities. We’re inviting readers of the Yale University Press list to further explore our offering of titles on biology, nature, and biography to help us celebrate the renewal and span of life throughout the month of May.

Graduation is in the air, and here, at YUP we prepare for the final commencement ceremonies with Yale University president Richard Levin presiding, as he will retire from office at the end of this academic year. Following The Work of the University, Levin’s new book, The Worth of the University, captures the essence of university leadership. In addressing topics as varied as his personal sources of inspiration, the development of Asian universities, and the university’s role in promoting innovation and economic growth, Levin challenges the reader to be more engaged, more creative, more innovative, and above all, a better global citizen—a beautiful bookend to Levin’s lifetime of continuing service to universities’ great community of ideas.

It’s Jewish American Heritage Month in the United States, and we have the newly released paperback edition of Mark Kurlansky’s acclaimed biography Hank Greenberg: The Hero Who Didn’t Want to Be One, new from the Jewish Lives series. The newest biography in the series is Saul Friedländer’s Franz Kafka: The Poet of Shame and Guilt, which appraises Kafka’s life and work, tracing his personal anguish as reflected in his writings and showing how earlier censorship efforts concealed crucial aspects of Kafka’s individuality. And we’ll add more to the conversation from another major biography published this year:  Susan Jacoby ’s The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll and American Freethought, with Jacoby’s post titled “The Great Agnostic and First American Male Feminist” already available right here on the Yale Press Log.   

Find out more about James Barilla and his book, My Backyard Jungle: The Adventures of an Urban Wildlife Lover Who Turned His Yard into Habitat and Learned to Live with It, on Facebook or on the My Backyard Jungle website—and we want to hear your stories and experiences of your own backyard adventures! Similarly, we’ll hear from Akiko Busch on the past and present of citizen science in The Incidental Steward: Reflections on Citizen Science, recounting her excursions in the natural world and offers insights into the unexpected rewards of becoming a steward of place, beginning with the story of her own home in New York’s Hudson Valley.

And if you missed the post about our Earth Day giveaways, there’s still time to enter with your Goodreads account to win a copy of these two books, as well as Peter Crane’s Ginkgo: The Tree That Time Forgot, Clive Hamilton’s Earthmasters: The Dawn of the Age of Climate Engineering, and James “Gus” Speth’s America the Possible: Manifesto for a New Economy, all part of our month-long coverage!