Prickly Paradigm Press is proud to announce that Ode Books author Paul Yamazaki has received the Association of University Presses’ 2026 Stand UP award. The award honors “those who have supported, championed, and celebrated the university press community and mission.”
The Association of University Presses is an organization of more than 165 international nonprofit scholarly publishers.
Paul Yamazaki, a leading light in the book industry, has been a bookseller at City Lights since 1970 and the store’s principal buyer for more than 40 years. He is the author of Reading the Room: A Bookseller’s Tale (2024), which appeared in Ode Books, a collaborative publishing venture by Prickly Paradigm Press and Chicago Seminary Co-Op. Ode Books is dedicated to celebrating the cultural, intellectual, and emotional value of books, bookselling, and physical book spaces.
Reading the Room recounts a day in the life of an independent bookstore. Cultural critic Hua Hsu called it “a wry, stirring, profoundly uplifting ode to bookselling — complete with riffs on capitalism, San Francisco, jazz, even the meaning of life — from one of the underappreciated literary titans of our time.”
You can purchase Paul Yamazaki’s ode to the book community, along with other titles of Ode Books, on the website of Prickly Paradigm Press.
This year’s award announcement coincides with University Press Week (November 9-13), an annual event that celebrates the character, contributions, and collective vigor of university presses around the world.
Contact: Samantha Weil
Prickly Paradigm Press
editor@pricklyparadigm.com
(510) 292-3667
