Kevin Roose's Blog, page 4

TUD hits Oberlin College

I just got back to Providence after a pair of events in Oberlin, my lovably liberal Ohio hometown.

Big ups to the Oberlin Bookstore, Mindfair Books, Rev. Greg McGonigle (my new favorite Unitarian Universalist minister), and the OC Office of Religious Life for hosting me, setting up the event, and getting folks out to see it.  The reading was well-attended (around 200 people, only 10 of whom were directly related to me), and my new multimedia presentation went off without a hitch.

After the present

The Liberty Situation, continued.

As I’ve mentioned before, getting The Unlikely Disciple stocked in the Liberty campus bookstore has been harder than passing a camel through the eye of a needle.  First, Chancellor Jerry Falwell, Jr. pulled it from the shelves.  Then, after being reviewed (and approved) by a faculty committee, the book returned to the shelves, accompanied by a three-paragraph disclaimer, which you can see hovering above the books in the photo below.

The full text of the disclaimer reads:

Readers of the Unlikely Di

TUD on Esquire.com!

Esquire.com is now running an excerpt of my book, a section about Liberty’s GNED and GNED II classes and the interesting, controversial things I found being taught in them.  Check it out here.

(Liberty students: I’ve heard that LU’s internet filter blocks Esquire.com, funnily enough.  I’ll look for a workaround, but in the meantime, try reading it off-campus.)

If you’re counting, that makes four excerpts from The Unlikely Disciple available for free online.  I feel like the freaking Wikipedia ove

Going home (plus, more media!)

As the book tour kicks off, I’ll be speaking about The Unlikely Disciple and my semester at Liberty tomorrow evening, April 2, at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio (my hometown!).  If you’re local and want to stop by, please do — the event will be in the Science Center, West Lecture Hall, at 8 PM, and I’ll be hanging around and signing books after.

Also, a few more press mentions rolled in this week.

The Providence Journal reviewed TUD in the Sunday Lifebeat section.  The whole thing is here, and h

The Unlikely Disciple on TV!

WSET Channel 13, Lynchburg’s ABC affiliate, ran a short segment last night on the reaction to The Unlikely Disciple on Liberty Mountain, including the bookstore advisory committee’s 3-1 vote in favor of stocking the book on campus.  The segment features Liberty professor Karen Swallow Prior (who wrote this review of the book in Christianity Today’s Books & Culture) and Liberty students Joyanna Gilmour and Samuel Loncar saying nice things about the book, as well as a Liberty administrator, VP Mar

The longest week ever is…over.

Hey guys.  Now that the book has launched and I have time to eat, sleep, and maintain basic hygiene levels again, I can share some exciting news from the last week:

This is about a week old, but Books & Culture (the literary arm of Christianity Today) ran a long review of The Unlikely Disciple titled “Surprised by Love,” written by Karen Swallow Prior, a Liberty professor (and English department chair).  I’ve gotten to know Dr. Prior in the last few months — she’s a complete credit to her univers

Jerry Falwell: The Last Interview

Relevant Magazine (which was introduced to me as “the Christian Rolling Stone”) is running an excerpt from THE UNLIKELY DISCIPLE, in which I sit down with Liberty founder Jerry Falwell to talk grandkids, pranks, and Snapple.

An excerpt:

Things get even more bizarre when I bring up his widespread reputation as a prankster.

“Oh, yes,” he says.  “The pranks.”

An admitted no-goodnik in his youth, Dr. Falwell wrote in his autobiography that he still savors a good practical joke “like some people savor ol

Covers That Didn’t Make The Cut

As a special treat for my launch day blog readers, I thought I’d post some truly entertaining content — the failed cover designs for “The Unlikely Disciple.”

Here’s the story behind these images: A year ago, when Grand Central (my publisher) was designing the book cover, they asked me to come down to New York City for a photo shoot in a SoHo studio.  The cover, they said, would have a classroom theme, and they’d be shooting me in a variety of settings designed to highlight the academic aspects o

The Day of Reckoning

Well, the day has arrived.  After two and a half years of wheeling, dealing, writing, laughing, begging, talking, hoping, and praying, The Unlikely Disciple has been officially released.

If you haven’t bought your copy yet , today is the day.

Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Unlikely-Disciple-Semester-Americas-University/dp/044617842X

B&N: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Unlikely-Disciple/Kevin-Roose/e/9780446178426/?itm=4

Other sellers: http://www.kevinroose.com/order

If you’d rather chance i

Honorary Blue Jay

My friend Laura sends this photo from her school, Johns Hopkins University.  (For those of you who have read the book, Laura is my friend from high school who prepared me for Liberty by making me read Left Behind and lending me her childhood collection of VeggieTales.)

Got a sighting?  E-mail me at kevin@kevinroose.com and I’ll put it up on the blog.