Our books make great holiday gifts, and Dusty Rhodes at the University of Illinois News Bureau agrees. She’s included John A. Jakle and Keith A. Sculle’s Picturing Illinois: Twentieth-Century Postcard Art from Chicago to Cairo in the annual campus holiday gift guide from Inside Illinois.

For more gift-worthy books on Illinois topics and from local authors, check out Christmas in Illinois edited by James Ballowe; Illini Loyalty: The University of Illinois by Larry and Alaina Kanfer; Edible Wild Mushrooms of Illinois and Surrounding States: A Field-to-Kitchen Guide by Joe McFarland and Gregory M. Mueller; Honey, I’m Homemade: Sweet Treats from the Beehive across the Centuries and around the World by May Berenbaum; and our many books on Abraham Lincoln.

The publications of the Beethoven Sketchbook Series from the University of Illinois Press have advanced into this unknown territory. Each of these editions of major sketchbooks contains a color facsimile of the original source reproduced at full size, together with an interpretative transcription and extensive commentary. Since the facsimiles provide access to the visually fascinating but cluttered and highly revised manuscripts, the transcriptions can inquire into the meaning and not just the letter of Beethoven’s inspiring brainstorms of activity. The accompanying commentaries place this new material into the context of parallel sources and biographical issues, recreating for the reader the composer’s creative struggles.

These new editions can be compared to the first probes of Venus or Mars, since instead of isolated glimpses, the entire surface of the object of investigation is revealed for the first time. The first such edition targeted Beethoven’s major sketchbook of 1820, Artaria 195: Beethoven’s Sketchbook for the Missa solemnis and the Piano Sonata in E Major, Opus 109. The editor, transcriber, and author of the commentary is William Kinderman, general editor of the Beethoven Sketchbook Series.

The second edition of the Beethoven Sketchbook Series makes available the most famous of the composer’s sketchbooks, the “Eroica” Sketchbook used by Beethoven between 1802 and 1804. Startling new insights are revealed in this edition, which was completed jointly by Lewis Lockwood and Alan Gosman. Fresh insight is offered into the genesis of not only the “Eroica” Symphony, but the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, the Fourth Piano Concerto, the composer’s sole opera Fidelio, and various fascinating unknown and fragmentary projects. Lockwood and Gosman’s edition, Beethoven’s “Eroica” Sketchbook: A Critical Edition, will be published in early 2013.

Recent research has moved beyond Beethoven and beyond music. Kinderman’s new book from the University of Illinois Press, The Creative Process in Music from Mozart to Kurtág, explores the creativity of major composers from the eighteenth century to the present. He shows that a view of the arts confined to isolated canonic masterpieces is seriously impoverished. At the same time, many secrets about and fresh perspectives on deceptively familiar canonic works can be gained through research that sees cultural products as a struggle emerging out of history. This approach, dubbed “genetic criticism” in France, is a fruitful alternative to the rigid structuralism that so easily blinds commentators to the important spontaneous aspects of artistic activity. A recent interdisciplinary exploration of this approach is Kinderman’s edited book with Joseph E. Jones, Genetic Criticism and the Creative Process: Essays from Music, Literature, and Theater from the University of Rochester Press.

Kinderman has recorded as pianist Beethoven’s major keyboard works from the period of the Artaria 195 sketchbook: the final trilogy of Sonatas in E major, A-flat major, and C minor, opp. 109-111 (available on Arietta Records).  For the second movement of the Sonata in E major, op. 109, an innovative website allows the user to explore all stages in Beethoven’s creation of the music, tracing the process from initial sketch to finished work, acorn to oak. The facsimiles of the sketches, transcriptions of their content, and realization in sound of the music are coordinated, drawing on the material from the three-volume edition of Artaria 195.

Another much-praised recording by Kinderman of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations is also available on Arietta Records. Kinderman’s book Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations from Oxford University Press and his CD recording of this work were a major influence on Moises Kaufman’s much-performed play, 33 Variations.

Lincoln the Lawyer
Brian Dirck
Lincoln lived most of his adult life as a practicing lawyer, and this book explores the origins of the “Prairie Lawyer” and his legal education, his partnerships with John Stuart, Stephen Logan, and William Herndon, and how his legal work influenced his political career.

Lincoln’s Political Generals
David Work
The film Lincoln focuses on the legislative maneuvering to pass the 13th Amendment, but Lincoln also made strategic military appointments. In this book, David Work examines Lincoln’s policy of appointing political generals to build a national coalition to fight and win the Civil War.

Mary Lincoln’s Insanity Case: A Documentary History
Jason Emerson
Sally Field will probably snag awards for her portrayal of the unstable Mary Todd Lincoln, but was the President’s wife and widow truly insane? Emerson provides a documentary history of Mary Lincoln’s mental illness and insanity case, evenhandedly presenting every relevant primary source on the subject to enable a clearer view of the facts.

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates: The Lincoln Studies Center Edition
Edited by Rodney O. Davis and Douglas L. Wilson
The most complete record ever assembled of the landmark Lincoln-Douglas debates, this edition brings readers as close as possible to the original words of these two remarkable men. Meticulously edited and annotated, it provides numerous aids to help the modern reader understand the debates, including extensive introductory material, commentary, and a glossary.

Herndon’s Lincoln
William H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik
Edited by Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis
William H. Herndon was Lincoln’s law partner, a personal friend, and his first biographer. His portrait of Lincoln established itself as a classic, and this recent edition restores the original text and is updated with extensive notes.

“Lincoln’s Humor” and Other Essays
Benjamin P. Thomas
Edited by Michael Burlingame
From colorful tall tales to clever barbs aimed at political opponents, Lincoln used humor to defuse tension, illuminate a point, put others at ease–and sometimes for sheer fun. This collection of essays explores Lincoln’s qualities as a humorist, lawyer, and politician.

Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association
Bryon Andreasen, Editor
The only journal dedicated exclusively to Lincoln scholarship and the official journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association.

Other UIP titles in Lincoln studies

Apparently, after numerous users had already purchased the ebooks, the publisher decided to pull the ebooks off the market. Not only did Amazon remove the ebooks from their website, but they also filched them from the Kindles themselves. Users did get refunded for the plundered products. Per Pogue:

As one of my readers noted, it’s like Barnes & Noble sneaking into our homes in the middle of the night, taking some books that we’ve been reading off our nightstands, and leaving us a check on the coffee table.

Naturally, this situation does present some drawbacks:

DRM could become a problem if the Kindle goes bust — then all those people who bought Kindle eBooks with DRM will have no way to read them because no other device can open the files.

Anyone still have their old Betamax tapes and HD DVD discs?

“Book” also performs extremely well in drop tests and simulated coffee spills.