Nissa Ren Cannon
I just read a curious little book called Spread Me, by Sarah Gailey. Shoutout to the Green Apple Books employee who wrote such a compelling little blurb for it I picked it up without knowing anything else. Every chapter surprised me, and the book was so short it was over almost as soon as it started.
Roberta Wolfson
I am currently reading (for the second time) Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart in preparation for a presentation I’ll be delivering on the book at the 2026 Critical Mixed Race Studies Association Conference. I’m at the part where I’m tearing up almost every page. It’s a beautiful tribute to Zauner’s deceased mother, and very moving.
Next up I plan to read Ingrid Hu Dahl’s recently published memoir Sun Shining on Morning Snow. I am very excited to read it after meeting Dahl recently at an author panel.
Kathleen Tarr
I am currently reading (almost finished) Knife by Salman Rushdie. Such good writing, of course, but Salman's exploration of the assassination attempt against him is deeply moving and offers community for the type of enduring sadness that comes with seeing that aspect of human nature up close and personal. An important book.
Shay Brawn
I'm reading (okay, listening to) The Secret History by Donna Tartt. I was inspired to pick it up (er, download it) by an article on Dark Academia in the NYT. I'm enjoying it so far (only about half way through).
Kevin Dipirro
So I’ve just started reading V. - Pynchon’s first work—because I had to wait for a hold on Vineland to come in which I initiated after watching PT Anderson’s One Battle After Another and feeling quite disappointed in the film. But knowing it was inspired by Vineland and wondering just how badly Anderson may have missed the boat. (John Peterson is re-reading Vineland for that very reason right now.)
I also have on the coffee table North Sun by Rutherford because it was a National Book Finalist and appears to be about a whaling trip and for a while there I was really hooked on Melville and Moby Dick and the humpbacks that were plunge feeding 20 feet from me in the surf lineup at Pacifica’s Linda Mar beach.
Lisa Swan
In preparing for my Writing about Comics theme, I’ve been catching up on recent graphic memoirs. Feeding Ghosts by Tessa Hull and The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui chronicle their families’ escape from communist governments (in China and Vietnam) and their eventual immigration to California. Their drawings capture the magic of comic storytelling, showing the past while a present-day narrator interprets the meaning. Just look at Hull’s art below! I’d recommend these books for lecturers who want to better understand Asian American immigration stories or who just love comics!
Lisa Ramee
I just finished Colored Television by Danzy Senna and I really liked it—although it stressed me out at times. It's the story of Jane, an English Lit professor on sabbatical working on finishing her novel. (Ten years in the making, a massive tome on mulattos.) I was taught mulatto was a bad word so it was startling at first to hear it again and again but Jane is making it clear she is writing specifically about half white and half Black folks--like herself, rather than mixed raced people in general. How Senna handles the agony of writing and the desires of a better life really pulled me in. When Jane's editor HATES her book, I felt that in my bones, and once Jane goes down a path of writing for Hollywood and lying about it, I was fully on that anxiety filled ride. Highly recommend!
Christine Alfano
I've been on a supernatural/horror streak lately (I tend to theme-read, and these books all came out of the Halloween season). I recently read Stephen Graham Jones's The Buffalo Hunter Hunter - native Americans, vampires, history ... what's not to like? Keeping on the same literary-horror theme, I also enjoyed Xenobe Purvis's The Hounding; set in 18th Century England, it touches on the marginalization (and houndification) of non-conventional women, wrapped up in a story of a village who decides through rumor and malice that five sisters are turning into literal dogs and terrorizing local livestock. What's fascinating about this book is that it keeps the reader at a remove, so never once are we invited into the sisters' POV. Lastly, my husband gave me Olivia Blake's Girl Dinner for my birthday, which I just finished. There is a dark academia element to it (Shay!), and it's about an adjunct prof and a sorority pledge (who never meet) grappling with what it means to be a woman and a feminist in current times - all set against the mysterious dark rituals of a sorority. For me, the most fascinating part was the way it wrestles with questions of feminism and female identity, though the sorority mystery/intrigue definitely was an added enticement (if a little over the top at times).
