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Kingston-based Ian Randle Publishers (IRP) has entered into a partnership agreement with the renowned Johns Hopkins University in the United States that will see the publication of two new books each year on an open range of subjects.
The first two books to be published under the deal are The History and Connoisseurship of Rum by Prof. Franklin Knight, a Jamaican, and Herself and Others: A Memoir by Professor Jean McGarry. Both books are to be officially released on December 17.
In The History and Connoisseurship of Rum, author Knight, a Hopkins emeritus professor and University of the West Indies, Mona graduate, introduces readers to the world of the best rums, featuring all the major Caribbean brands of Jamaica, Cuba, Barbados, Guyana, Trinidad, Haiti, and Martinique, as well as some Latin American countries. The book also looks at the master blenders of rum, which include seven women led by the doyen of female master blenders, Dr. Joy Spence.
In the book, Prof. Knight combines world and Caribbean history with the origin of fermentation, distillation, and blending processes, along with the basic chemistry of rum itself. The publication will be welcomed by the major producers of the world in their marketing thrust to elevate rum as a spirit of choice to be savoured alongside the finest Scotch whisky or cognac.
In Herself and Others: A Memoir, McGarry, a Johns Hopkins University emerita professor of writing, tells of her life originally grounded in Catholicism, and how she survived, intact if not unscathed. Prof. McGarry’s tale of her career as a fiction writer will be of interest to budding writers, revealing how tortuous the journey can be to arrive at the summit of a successful writing career.
IRP executive chairman and publisher Ian Randle highlighted the significance of the McGarry memoir as the first from its more than 400 publications that is not specifically rooted in the Caribbean. He said this was likely to be the case for most, if not all, new titles to be published out of the partnership.
The partnership agreement between IRP and Johns Hopkins University is through its Academy of Retired Professors, and the books to be published will be selected by an editorial committee of the Academy. The agreement provides for active promotion of the books to the worldwide Johns Hopkins alumni, which number in the tens of thousands.
Randle sees the agreement as providing a strong position for the expansion of its full range of books to an even wider international readership. Established in 1991, IRP is the English-speaking Caribbean’s first independent scholarly press and the leading commercial publisher of academic and general interest books.
Johns Hopkins University was founded in 1876 and is considered to be the first research university in the US. The academic book industry is a significant sector within the broader book market, with the global academic publishing market estimated at nearly US$30 billion in 2024.
English (US) ·