Faculty - Literature
The Rabbit Hutch by This year's National Book Award winner in the fiction category.
Seven Empty Houses by
The seven houses in these seven stories are empty. Some are devoid of love or life or furniture, of people or the truth or of memories. But in Samanta Schweblin's tense, visionary tales, something always creeps back in: a ghost, a fight, trespassers, a list of things to do before you die, a child's first encounter with a dark choice or the fallibility of parents. This was the collection that established Samanta Schweblin at the forefront of a new generation of Latin American writers.
This year's National Book Award winner in the literature in translation category.
Faculty - Visual Arts
Japanese Science Fiction: The eponymous heroine of Tsutsui's novel is the alter ego of brilliant and beautiful psychotherapist Atsuko Chiba, one of the leading brains in the Institute for Psychiatric Research. When treating private patients, Atsuko transforms herself into the guise of Paprika to mask her true identity. Components in the academic field of Psychology in this novel is fantastic, which is not captured in its Anime version.
Paprika パプリカ by
Centers on a revolutionary machine that allows scientists to enter and record a subject's dream. After it is stolen, a fearless detective and a brilliant therapist join forces to recover the device before it falls into the hands of a 'dream terrorist'.
The DVD to go with the novel recommended.
Piranesi by
Piranesi's house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house.
This book made me feel like a child engrossed in a fantasy novel.
Gideon the Ninth by
Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse. She packs up her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and prepares to launch her daring escape. But her childhood nemesis won’t set her free without a service.
This book has everything! Necromancers, lesbians, comedic narration, swordfighting, and more!
Annihilation by
Area X has claimed the lives of members of eleven expeditions. The twelfth expedition consisting of four women hopes to map the terrain and collect specimens; to record all their observations, scientific and otherwise, of their surroundings and of one another; and, above all, to avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.
This and the other two books in the Southern Reach trilogy are really amazing works of weird ecofiction. Come for things like the dolphin with human eyes and stay for the rather beautiful commentary on being human in a rapidly changing environment.
Faculty - Music
Dead-End Memories: Stories by
Dead-End Memories collects the stories of five women who, following sudden and painful events, quietly discover their ways back to recovery.
Reading these spare, unexpected stories you start to forget you are reading at all. You simply start to experience the things Banana Yoshimoto's characters experience, and become one with her exceptionally subtle outlook on life. You close the last page with regret, realizing you were very lucky to have found this book.
Registrar's Office Assistant
North by
A novel about the intertwined lives of a Vermont monk, a Somali refugee, and an Afghan war veteran.
The story of a young refugee woman who left Somalia and traveled through South and Central America and the US, eventually reaching a remote monastery in Vermont. She requests sanctuary during a blizzard, before going on to Canada. The intersection of the lives of Sahro, Brother Christopher, and Teddy, an Afghan War veteran, and how each struggles to respond to this situation, makes a fascinating, memorable read. Although fiction, the book relies on extensive personal research conducted by the author into the lives of refugees in Vermont.
Faculty - Writing
Tomb of Sand by
An eighty-year-old woman slips into a deep depression at the death of her husband, then resurfaces to gain a new lease on life. Her determination to fly in the face of convention including striking up a friendship with a hijra (trans) woman confuses her bohemian daughter, who is used to thinking of herself as the more modern of the two.
Winner of the International Booker Prize 2022!
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by
A modern love story about two childhood friends, Sam, raised by an actress mother in LA's Koreatown, and Sadie, from the wealthy Jewish enclave of Beverly Hills, who reunite as adults to create video games, finding an intimacy in digital worlds that eludes them in their real lives.
Half of a Yellow Sun by
Re-creates the 1960s struggle of Biafra to establish an independent republic in Nigeria, following the intertwined lives of the characters through a military coup, the Biafran secession, and the resulting civil war. Adichie weaves together the lives of five characters caught up in the extraordinary tumult of the decade.
The God of Small Things by
A story about the childhood experiences of fraternal twins whose lives are destroyed by the "Love Laws" prevalent in 1960s Kerala, India.
Faculty - Drama and Visual Arts
The Long Song by
The Long Song is a historical novel by Andrea Levy published in 2010 that was the recipient of the Walter Scott Prize.
The Trial by
The Trial is the terrifying tale of Josef K., a respectable bank officer who is suddenly and inexplicably arrested and must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information. Whether read as an existential tale, a parable, or a prophecy of the excesses of modern bureaucracy wedded to the madness of totalitarianism, The Trial has resonated with chilling truth for generations of readers.
Faculty - Visual Arts
Dangerous Laughter: Thirteen Stories by
A collection of darkly comic stories united by their obsession with obsession.
Short Stories, a section titled "Impossible Architectures" especially "The Other Town"
Director of Library Services
Stories from the Tenants Downstairs by
Eight interconnected stories follow the tenants in the Banneker Homes, a low-income high rise in Harlem where gentrification weighs on everyone's mind, as they weave in and out of each other's lives, endeavoring to escape from their pasts and forge new paths forward.
Provost
The Dragon Can't Dance by
This novel, centered on the life of Aldrick Prospect, a man in Port of Spain who spends the entire year recreating his dragon costume for Carnival, lead the reader on a journey through the colonial psyche, and expose the deep-seated problems of a society that still has not reconciled itself with its colonial past and racial divisions.
Faculty - Drama
Bad Actors by
Bad Actors is the eighth book in the Slough House/Jackson Lamb MI5 spy series by British author, Mick Herron.
The latest in the Slow Horses Series which is just plain fabulous and addictive and laugh out loud funny.
Horse by
Despite the simplicity of the title, Geraldine Brooks’ latest novel is a heart-pounding American epic that gallops backward and forward in time to tell a story about race and freedom, horses and art, and the lineage of not just ancestors but actions.
Fascinating historical fiction that is as usual, brilliantly crafted by a true master.
The Marriage Portrait by
Fictional portrait of the captivating young duchess Lucrezia de' Medici as she makes her way in a troubled court in Renaissance Italy.
Great characters, great story- interesting premise and much fun.
The Lying Life of Adults by
Giovanna is searching for her reflection in two kindred cities that fear and detest one another: Naples of the heights, which assumes a mask of refinement, and Naples of the depths, a place of excess and vulgarity. She moves from one to the other in search of the truth, but neither city seems to offer answers or escape.
Well- so beautifully written as always investigating such intimate and internal lives lived.
Associate Registrar
The Penelopiad by
In The Penelopiad, Penelope reminisces on the events of the Odyssey, life in Hades, Odysseus, Helen of Troy, and her relationships with her parents. A Greek chorus of the twelve maids, who Odysseus believed were disloyal and whom Telemachus hanged, interrupt Penelope's narrative to express their view on events. The novella's central themes include the effects of story-telling perspectives, double standards between the sexes and the classes, and the fairness of justice.
This book is so fun and innovative; it takes a look at tale of the Odyssey from the point of view of Penelope, Odysseus' wife. I'm not a huge Atwood fan, but I really enjoyed this - it's a quick and easy read, and very entertaining.
Dean of the Library
The Island of Missing Trees by
A beautifully written story of love, division, transcendence, history, and eco-consciousness.
Cloud Cuckoo Land by
Set in Constantinople in the fifteenth century, in a small town in present-day Idaho, and on an interstellar ship decades from now, Anthony Doerr's third novel is a story about children on the cusp of adulthood in worlds in peril, who find resilience, hope--and a book. Cloud Cuckoo Land is a beautiful and redemptive novel about stewardship--of the book, of the Earth, of the human heart.
