This summer, follow along here and on our social media pages as we bring you new book recommendations from our very own Countway staff!
A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
Recommended by: Matthew Noe, Lead Collection and Knowledge Management Librarian
Why they liked it: Set in a world where everyone has what they need, the planet is safe, and people are generally happy, we find ourselves traveling with a wandering tea monk, who while seeking fulfilment encounters a robot - a rarity in a world where these sentient beings separated themselves from humanity centuries ago. This book is cozy and hopeful and also a little bit sad; quite like sitting with tea and reaching the end of the cup. If you can finish it without also wanting to become a wandering tea monk, I'd be surprised!
Where to find it: A Psalm for the Wild-Built is available via HOLLIS
Look Again: A Memoir by Elizabeth Trembley
Recommended by: Matthew Noe, Lead Collection and Knowledge Management Librarian
Why they liked it: Do you really know what happened to you in that core memory of yours? What would you do, what would you realize if you found out that things didn't transpire exactly as you remember them? These questions are central to Trembley's traumatic and hilarious comic exploring memory formation and the (un)reliability of human memory.
Where to find it: Look Again is available via HOLLIS
The Door by Magda Szabó
Recommended by: Charlotte Lellman, Collections Services Archivist
Why they liked it: My sister recommended this 1987 Hungarian classic to me when she was living in Budapest. It's amusing, bizarre, and tragic, with an intense and unusual relationship at its core. The main character is unforgettable. A sense of mystery and the fantastical loom until the story reaches its dramatic conclusion.
Where to find it: The Door is available at Widener Library, or your local public library
Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond
Recommended by: Charlotte Lellman, Collections Services Archivist
Why they liked it: Like Desmond's first book, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, this one opened my eyes to some of the ways American systems entrench poverty, while giving the appearance of alleviating it. I was stunned to learn about the ways in which people like me, who aren't receiving government assistance in a visible way, benefit from tax policies and bank policies that reinforce the wealth gap, making us complicit in systems that may work against our ideals. It's a fairly short and easy read that nonetheless packs a powerful punch.
Where to find it: Poverty, by America is available as an ebook via HOLLIS, or your local public library
The Body Has a Head by Gustav Eckstein
Recommended by: Corey Purcell, Information Desk Coordinator
Why they liked it: An anatomy text unlike any other, The Body Has a Head was an unexpected bestseller when published in 1969 by the doctor, teacher, philosopher, novelist, and playwright, Gustav Eckstein. A National Book Award finalist, the book seeks to “make the human body more familiar to anyone who owns one”, eschewing jargon to present the wonders of human anatomy in a way exciting and enchanting to both laymen and health professionals alike. Beautifully and engagingly written, the book turns physiology into poetry and has the deserved reputation of inspiring a generation of doctors.
Where to find it: The Body Has a Head is available at Countway Library
The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel
Recommended by: Corey Purcell, Information Desk Coordinator
Why they liked it: Bechdel’s third graphic memoir is her best yet. Ostensibly about the author’s relationship to exercise, physical fitness, and her own body, the book also seamlessly addresses topics such as romance, mental health, and even transcendentalist philosophy. Beautifully drawn and exquisitely painted in watercolors, The Secret to Superhuman Strength examines how true “wellness” is a lifelong physical, mental, and spiritual pursuit, even for those who love to try out every new exercise fad.
Where to find it: The Secret to Superhuman Strength is available at Countway Library (Currently on our Pride Month display on L1!)
The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard
Recommended by: Paul Bain, Manager of Research & Instruction
Why they liked it: What could be better than cooling off on a hot summers day with a tales of starvation, scurvy, and frostbite? In 1910 Apsley Cherry-Garrard set of with Robert Falcon Scott on his fateful and ultimately fatal journal to Antarctica. Cherry-Garrard didn't accompany Scott on the trek to the pole, and therefore survived, but he did nearly die trying to fetch some Emperor Penguin eggs. The Worst Journey in the World is among the best travel books ever written.
Where to find it: The Worst Journey in the World is available through Interlibrary Loan
The Endeavour Journal of Joseph Banks, 1768-1771 edited by J. C. Beaglehole
Recommended by: Paul Bain, Manager of Research & Instruction
Why they liked it: If the thought of freezing to death is no comfort when the heat index climbs? How about a sailing voyage to the great Southern Ocean. Joseph Banks was a young, wealthy naturalist who bought passage aboard James Cook's first voyage to the Pacific and around the globe (from 1768 to 1771). His journal of that great adventure is extraordinary: evocative and well written, it puts the reader right on the ship with the future Sir Joseph. Here you are in a most remote, forested cove on the far Western shore of New Zealand's south island:
"This morn I was awakd by the singing of the birds ashore from whence we are distant not a quarter of a mile, the numbers of them were certainly very great who seemd to strain their throats with emulation perhaps; their voices were certainly the most melodious wild musick I have ever heard, almost imitating small bells but with the most tuneable silver sound imaginable to which maybe the distance was no small addition."
Stirring stuff. I stumbled on the volume in the Countway stacks many years ago.
Where to find it: The Endeavour Journal of Joseph Banks, 1768-1771 is available through Interlibrary Loan
Hot or cold, you can't lose!
Farthing by Jo Walton
Recommended by: Anne Moore, Part-time Employee
Why they liked it: This is an alternative history, taking place in a post-WWII England after Hitler won the war. "The Farthing set," a group of a Downton Abbey-type of privileged people is at a house party where a man is murdered. The daughter of the hosts, who married a Jewish man and lost her position of privilege, finds that her husband has been set up to take the fall for it.
Where to find it: Farthing is available at Widener Library
The Fresco by Sheri Tepper
Recommended by: Anne Moore, Part-time Employee
Why they liked it: Aliens from a peaceful planet reach out to an unimportant woman with low self-esteem to deliver their message to the US government.
Where to find it: The Fresco is available through Interlibrary Loan
River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey
Recommended by: Anne Moore, Part-time Employee
Why they liked it: The U.S. once had the idea of importing hippos as a beef alternative, never mind that hippos are aggressive, fast, and whose jaws can snap a man in two. This alternative history takes place in an 1890s America where hippos were introduced to the Mississippi to be raised as meat and Winslow Houston, a crack hippo wrangler, has been assigned the task of dealing with escaped hippos that have turned into feral man-eaters.
Where to find it: River of Teeth is available through Goodreads, or your local public library
This Poison Will Remain by Fred Vargas
Recommended by: Anne Moore, Part-time Employee
Why they liked it: Part of the Commissaire Adamsberg series, this outing involves a series of deaths seemingly caused by spider bites.
Where to find it: This Poison Will Remain is available through Interlibrary Loan
Proud Shoes by Pauli Murray
Recommended by: Anne Moore, Part-time Employee
Why they liked it: A black woman lawyer, civil-rights activist, and Episcopal priest comes to terms with her origins as she tells of the miscegenation, slavery, and struggles that are integral parts of her family's past.
Where to find it: Proud Shoes is available at Lamont Library
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Jane Crow by Rosalind Rosenberg
Recommended by: Anne Moore, Part-time Employee
Why they liked it: Pauli Murray was a lifelong civil rights activist, lawyer, poet, and priest. Her book, States Laws on Race and Color was used by Thurgood Marshall in Brown v. Board of Education. Later, Ruth Bader Ginsburg would use a law review article co-wrote by Murray to argue the Equal Protection clause applied to women. Proud Shoes is Murray's memoir of her family, particularly her maternal grandparents, a formerly enslaved woman and a Civil War vet and Jane Crow is the definitive biography using Murray's papers deposited at the Schlesinger Library.
Where to find it: Jane Crow is available through Interlibrary Loan