Roberta Wolfson
I’m currently reading Arundhati Roy’s memoir, Mother Mary Comes to Me, which is beautifully written and thought-provoking. I’ve long admired Roy as a novelist and political essayist, and it has been rewarding to learn more about her personal history and the experiences that have shaped her journey as a writer.
Kathleen Tarr
I am reading Black Sparkles: One Black Artist, Three Lines, No Rules by Gloria J. Haynie-Mitchell. This collection of contemporary haiku reflects the life of Haynie-Mitchell, a Black woman born in the United States in the 1940s. The author really rather subversively (in the best way possible) inspired me to start thinking in haiku! I casually turned one of my favorite Ogden Nash poems into haiku—😆The cow is of the bovine ilk. One end is moo, the other is milk.😆—fully aware of how I was revising, the form that is now calling to me. For similar reasons, I altered the English version of the Hawaiian Just Right prayer Ho'oponopono to “Aloha. I'm Sorry. Please Forgive Me. Mahalo iā 'oe.” You don't have to love haiku to love this journey. Ease on down the road. (see what I did there? #haiku)
Kath Rothschild
I am a huge Laura Dave fan, and adored her mystery, The Last Thing He Told Me, and recently discovered she has other books that are not mysteries, but rather what I genre "up market women's fiction." Two of these are The First Husband, a love story and a mystery, and 800 Grapes, for those who fantasize about owning a winery someday. If you're looking for a mystery that is compulsively page turning, try First Lie Wins, and if you're looking for a romantic, but clean beach read, try either of Sangu Mandana's country witch-core books: The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches and A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping. And if you're looking for a beach read that is a little spicy, I recommend Birding with Benefits by Sarah Dubb, and if you want a beach read that is extremely spicy, try A Little Buzzed, by Alys Murray. And if you haven't read The Change by Kristen Miller, I can't recommend it highly enough--part mystery part primal scream at the patriarchy; it's excellent all around.
Kevin Moore
I’ve been reading Ariel Dorfman’s very long The Suicide Museum for a writing project about emergency archives and the US-backed 1973 Chile coup d’état. The premise is quite brilliant: a billionaire is obsessed with the death of the socialist, democratically elected Chilean president Salvador Allende, who was violently overthrown by Pinochet in 1973, and hires the narrator to determine whether Allende's death on the day of the coup was murder or suicide. The book becomes a little overcommitted to historical detail. Then again, I’m also finishing it for the historical detail.
I would just add that I consider Dorfman a better playwright than novelist, specifically Death and the Maiden.
Lisa Ramée
After hearing an interview with Chuck Wendig, I was intrigued to read The Wanderers. The general description was up my alley: a group of people start walking without anyone able to stop them, communicate with them, or pierce their skin (to try and take blood samples). These "wanderers" also have the unfortunate habit of exploding if anyone tries to stop them from walking. What I wasn't expecting was an often uncomfortable correlation to the world today. With an egotistical, mean-spirited presidential candidate who gives foul nicknames to his opponents, an AI personality that's guiding more than they should, research funding being cut and the results of that, a pastor that starts spreading evil, and a global sickness wiping out the majority of humanity, it was like reading our own history—but The Wanderers came out in 2019. As much as the world Wendig created felt claustrophobically close to our own, what kept me enthralled were the characters. The book was a master class in developing character arcs, so much so that I had to read Wayward, the second book in this apocalyptic duology. It's very clear that Wayward was written after some real life events and sometimes the weight of that overpowered the story, but I was glad to have read them both and if anyone else picks them up, it would be fun to discuss!
Christine Alfano
I've been working my way through Honorée Fanonne Jeffers' The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois. At ~800 pages, it's not for the faint of heart, but I'm finding it well worth the time and persistence. Jeffers interweaves narratives of a Black family from colonial America, to the post-Civil war era, and into the 20th century, with the main narrative anchor point being their young female descendant. It's a massive and ambitious work, and it's going to stay with me for quite a while. The depiction of the experiences of Native Americans and enslaved people is complicated, nuanced, and often harrowing. Toward the end, the more modern character immerses herself in grad school and archival work, and her process of exploration and discovery is extremely moving, especially as she emotionally and intellectually confronts her family experience and legacy.
In terms of non-fiction, I recently finished Replaceable You (more than I ever wanted to know about replacement tissues and organs) and Doppleganger (which I liked much less than I thought I would). After this, I'll be kicking off the summer with Dungeon Crawler Carl because why not?
Hayden Kantor
I'm in the middle of Eleanor Catton's Birnam Wood, and I'm enjoying it so far! It's a novel about an anarchist gardening collective in New Zealand.
Emily Polk
I'm reading Liz Carlisle's book right now, Living Roots, which is such a beautiful collection of essays about different efforts to repair and heal our food systems. The other books I am so excited TO READ AS SOON AS ALL MY GRADES ARE IN are:Traversal by Maria Popova and Things in Nature Merely Grow by YiYun Li.
Jenne Stonaker
I just finished Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke. It’s a satire about a tradwife influencer who wakes up in 1855 and has to actually live a traditional lifestyle without any modern conveniences. I’d seen a review, was curious about the premise, and managed to get it as a “skip-the-line” book in Libby. I ended up plowing through it in about a day — the plot was engaging enough that I wanted to know what happened — but I’m not sure I really liked it. Would love to talk about it with anyone who has read it!
And more reading recommendations
Several of you who attended the Lunsford ceremony asked for a list of the excellent books that our colleagues selected to give to their Lunsford-winning students. Here it is:
- Mohsin Hamid - Exit West
- Benjamin Labatut - When We Cease to Understand the World
- Laila Lalami - The Other Americans
- China Mieville - The City and the City
- Scott Weidensaul - A World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds
- Rebecca Heisman - Flight Paths: How a Passionate and Quirky Group of Pioneering Scientists Solved the Mystery of Bird Migration
- Kara Walker - Book of Hours
- Deborah Cohen - Last Call at the Hotel Imperial: The Reporters Who Took On a World at War
- Clare Mulley - Agent Zo: The Untold Story of a Fearless World War II Resistance Fighter
- Matthew Desmond - Evicted
- Kelly Lytle Hernandez - City of Inmates
- Ha Jin - Looking for Tank Man
- Tania Branigan - Red Memory
- Adam Gopnik - All that Happiness Is
Lastly, is anyone up for a Summer Book Club?
We'd aim for three in-person meet-ups on or near campus, one at the end of June, one at the end of July, and one at the end of August. Write Christine if you're interested in one or more of the meetings!
