Whether you’re reading at the beach or in your own backyard, staff and faculty from across the School of Arts and Sciences have suggestions worth bringing along this summer, from mysteries and memoirs to poetry and philosophy.
For even more recommendations, browse our Faculty Bookshelf, with new releases like A Bite-Sized History of Italy, by Danielle Callegari, associate professor of Italian, and Data Empire, by Roopika Risam, professor of film and media studies and comparative literature.
Recommended by Stacey Bridges, Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Students in the Undergraduate Deans Office
The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Don Miguel Ruiz
“This book offers a concise and accessible take on Toltec wisdom, centered on four practical living principles: be impeccable with your word, don’t take anything personally, don’t make assumptions, and always do your best. It strikes a thoughtful balance between philosophy and self-help, with insights that are easy to apply in everyday life, and that you will continue to think about long after reading the book.”
Think Again by Adam Grant
“Think Again explores the importance of mental flexibility, the ability to rethink and revise our beliefs in light of new information. Drawing on research and engaging real-world examples, the book makes a compelling case for approaching ideas with curiosity rather than certainty, ultimately improving how we make decisions and engage with others.”
Recommended by Allison Ebner, Arts and Sciences Communications Manager
The Killer Question by Janice Hallett
“If you love epistolary novels, let me introduce you to my go-to author: Janice Hallett. In her latest murder mystery, the landlords of an English pub have vanished, a body has turned up in a nearby river, and a mysteriously unbeatable new team has taken over the pub’s weekly quiz night. Told through emails, WhatsApp messages, and pub quiz answer sheets, it’s a fun, fast, and light read that immerses you in the mystery. As someone who loves a good trivia night, it was a familiar world to fall into while still feeling distinctly quirky and British.”
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby van Pelt
“This is a warm, beautifully written story about family, the ones we’re born into and the ones we find along the way. Told through alternating perspectives, including a wonderfully curmudgeonly giant Pacific octopus living in a small-town aquarium, the novel follows a lonely widow whose late-night cleaning shifts lead her into an unlikely friendship and a decades-old mystery she never expected to unravel. It’s funny, tender, and will earn some happy tears by the end. It was recently adapted into a Netflix movie but do yourself a favor and read the book first!”
Recommended by Laura Jean (“LJ”) Gilloux, Guarini, MALS ’17, Literary Arts Bridge Program Manager
Play It Again by Georgia Clark
“Georgia is an Australian-born writer whose queer rom-coms could easily be turned into feature-length films—think Love Actually with more queer main character energy. The premise: four friends, cast in high school in 'a gender-swapped version of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead’, return home for a one-night-only revival to save the theater and the town. As someone who’s been involved in several community theater productions over the years, I’m looking forward to reading something that feels as familiar and satisfying as an ice-cream cone on a hot summer day.”
Smother by Rachel Richardson ’01
“Richardson is a brilliant poet, and I love that the slow pace of summer affords time to study and learn from her work. The title is what Richardson describes as ‘a playful portmanteau’ joining two dominant realities in the book, the wildfire smoke that has become a constant feature of her life in California and the experience of mothering. But that really doesn’t do it justice. The poems in this book make me especially mindful of our environment and ecological concerns, including grief and loss. It’s cathartic, and Richardson’s writing is so sharp and funny. I love how Richardson uses humor to draw out serious and resonating questions.”
Recommended by Eng-Beng Lim, Chair and Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Names Have Been Changed by Yu-Mei Balasingamchow
“Written by an Anglophone writer based in Boston, the stylish novel is about Ophir as she makes a run across the world in several guises after committing a crime in the city-state. Those guises hid her Singlish accent—a creole that was featured in the Crazy Rich Asians franchise—which sparked an identity crisis and broader questions about the Singaporean diaspora. In an NPR podcast interview, Balasingamchow, who also co-wrote Singapore: A Biography, said the novel is about diaspora more than immigration, and how Singaporeans who left the island relate to each other in an uncanny structure of feeling about their denationalized identities.”
Recommended by Phoenix Kenney Shrestha, Assistant Director of the Dartmouth Center for Social Impact
All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot
“As the daughter of a small animal veterinarian, I have been enthralled by Herriot’s storytelling for as long as I can remember. When I introduced my husband, someone who is not quite yet an avid reader, to this book last summer, he happily joined me for afternoon reading sessions, often laughing out loud at the antics of life in the Yorkshire Dales. Each chapter acts as its own story, so it can easily be picked up and put down.”
The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke
“Imagine running away to Venice, living in an abandoned movie theater, and breaking into mansions with your friends at night. As a young adult option, it is fun, adventurous, and easy to enjoy, yet it raises questions about what it means to be an adult and why we may not want to get there too fast. One of my all-time favorite books!”
Recommended by Alison May, Assistant Dean and Senior Director of Student Accessibility Services
Where the Wildflowers Grow by Terah Shelton Harris
“Where the Wildflowers Grow is about a flower farm and some really interesting characters who are all dealing with trauma and being healed by one another and the environment. Terah Shelton Harris’ beautiful writing reminds me of Zora Neale Hurston, my favorite author. It’s not a light, breezy read, but it’s literally and figuratively flowery with beautiful prose and complex and lovely characters.”
Recommended by Michael McGillen, Assistant Professor of German Studies
Grand Hotel by Vicki Baum
“Set in Berlin in the heyday of the Weimar Republic, Grand Hotel follows the stories of a cast of characters who cross paths in a hotel lobby. It is both a page-turner and a book with philosophical depth and brilliant writing.”
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
“In a time in which global tourism is increasingly homogenized, the book brings us back to a time in which the traveler could still encounter the unknown and fantastical. The human follies that the book exposes to witty satire are as timely today as they were 300 years ago.”
Recommended by Bethany Moreton, Professor of History
Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia by Peter Pomerantsev
“In this memoir of working in Russian television in the early 2000s, the Soviet-born, British-reared journalist Pomerantsev introduces us to the people improvising their way through disorientation as Putin develops 21st-century modes of manipulating perception in service to authoritarian power. It is an early study in what he calls the ‘post-modern dictatorship’ or what fellow Soviet émigré M. Gessen calls the ‘bully lie’—lying to assert power rather than to convince, blatantly contradicting what everyone can see with their own eyes in order to discredit the whole enterprise of truth-seeking, to force us to choose between what we know through experience and what the bully wants to conjure in its place. His incredible cast of characters now look like early explorers in this new terrain of performative, algorithmic politics, reporting back for the rest of us.”
The Topeka School by Ben Lerner
“Like a lot of people, I rely on novelists to make sense of history as it is happening, and by the time this book appeared I had been waiting for it for at least a decade. The central protagonist—a version of the author himself—is a champion high school debater who comes to understand the ways that individual, competitive ‘debate’ has been engineered to evacuate meaning rather than create it—a way to bulldoze coherence and the structures that support it in pursuit of a winner-take-all politics of obliteration and dominance masquerading as deliberation. The struggle to find a voice that can speak into an avalanche of bitter, combative slop is a collective one that the novel’s characters make graspable.”
Recommended by Rhi Suarez, Assistant Director for Student Transitions and Persistence in the Academic Skills Center
The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World by Christine Rosen
“A Still North book pick, it encourages us all to choose to experience the things technology no longer requires us to experience, like waiting in a grocery store line, sitting down at a restaurant we are uncertain will be worthwhile, or navigating without a GPS. It asks us to embrace stumbling, getting lost, and making wrong decisions, because that entire messiness is exactly what makes the human experience so memorable.”
Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman
“True crime fans, this one is for you. I listened to this thriller on audiobook while traveling for work, and it made waiting in airport lines and planes 100% more bearable. The premise: A couple on their tropical honeymoon discovers a duffle bag out at sea, full of money and gems, and they decide to keep it. There are lots of fun twists and turns in this one, folks!”