Valerie Kinsey
I want to give a shout to whomever suggested S.A. Cosby's All the Sinners Bleed as a PWR gift. Nothing like a good serial killer yarn to help quiet the mind before bed. Currently enjoying Cleopatra and Frankenstein, a tragicomic exploration of art and love in New York City. Over break, I read Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and Michel Tournier's provocative retelling, Friday. Both storytellers somehow make a man stranded on an island a captivating psychological study.
Hayden Kantor
I just completed Patrick Radden Keefe's Say Nothing. It's a nonfiction account of The Troubles in Northern Ireland. One of the central mysteries of the book is the abduction and murder of a woman named Jean McConville, a widow and a mother of ten, at the hands of the IRA in 1972. In assembling this narrative about the intersecting lives of partisans in Belfast, Keefe relies on interviews and testimonials from a once-secret archive of oral histories that were housed at Boston College. The oral history project was initially conceived as a way for combatants to unburden themselves after the Good Friday Agreement. But then the authorities in Northern Ireland subpoenaed the recordings and transcripts as evidence in open investigation into the fate of the disappeared like McConville. In its exploration of stories, silence, and the search for truth from the most anguished moments of this period, the book raises thorny questions about the possibility of (and conditions for) reconciliation in post-conflict societies. There is nothing politically or epistemologically simple here.
Kathleen Tarr
I am reading RIBYORN:RI-TAL:Root, Drift, Pulse - Reflections of a Wandering Heart by X (Zhrrr.) The writing invites you through wonderfully poetic and vivid language to wrap the main character's story around you. I suspect I am not the only reader motivated to reflect upon my own "coming of age" and prior innocence as well the journey I took that has created who I am now. The author does not demand it and the writing is not heavy handed. This book simply offers such an honest and self-reflective main character that readers feel drawn to be the same. Highly recommend!
Becky Richardson
After recently re-reading some Mary Shelley for a project, I'm finally reading her Mathilda for the first time (which wasn't published during her lifetime, in large part because her father declined to pursue publication after she sent him the manuscript for that purpose, and then he didn't return it to her). It's an especially interesting read after Frankenstein, because not only was it the next longer work of fiction she took on after completing that most famous of her titles, but also because it carries over many themes. As Michelle Faubert points out in her excellent introduction to the Broadview edition (which she edited), Mathilda similarly explores themes of guilt and isolation, from both family and society. Continuing the Gothic theme, I've also just started Mexican Gothic, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, on audiobook. Enjoying it already -- mysteries are already developing from these first chapters!
Roberta Wolfson
I just finished reading Colleen Murphy’s play The Breathing Hole. Admittedly, I was reading it for my advanced course, so it wasn’t exactly personal reading, but I found it really powerful and moving (particularly when I got to the dramatic ending).
Nissa Cannon
I just finished reading a book called The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova. I can’t remember how I found my way to it 20+ years after its publication, but it was an engaging “before bed” book. It is ostensibly about several generations of historians who are researching the historical Count Dracula, but is really (I’d argue) about scholars’ use of primary sources (the narrative is a seemingly endless nesting-doll of narratives).
Christine Alfano
I recently finished Amal El-Mohtar's This is How You Lose the Time War. I love a book that makes you think and challenges you; science fiction is good for that because the normal laws of physics (and whatever rules govern the space-time continuum) don't always apply. And who would have imagined that this story of time-traveling assassins is also a love story? Along the same lines, Nnedi Okorafor's Death of the Author takes you places you weren't expecting. The story of an adjunct creative writing instructor turned best-selling author evolves unexpectedly page by page: exoskeletons! robots! space travel! Spoiler alert: the author tries to do a gotcha at the end, but I'm not sure it was needed. It was a really interesting read even without that.
Norah Fahim
Babel by Rebecca Kuang is a fantasy read that has just the right touch of nuanced academic references, and I’m very much hooked so far. This story looks at the progression of Robin Swift, an orphan from Canton, China, who gets untethered from his homeland to study in Victorian England, at Oxford University of all places. It’s hard to not give away the plot line, but I will just say, as someone who studied translation as an undergrad, in Cairo, Egypt, where English always reigned supreme, the storyline has some jolting moments of realization for me. Back home, anyone who had the slightest advantage in English was coveted and much admired. These novel highlights the soft power of translation and how it feeds into the rarely acknowledged connection between Translation Studies and Colonialism. There are some sentences where I stop pause, reread, and even want to highlight (with a small post-it don’t worry, as my copy is a library book!). While I am not done yet, I very much recommend reading R. F. Kuang’s works as she is also a fellow academic; I believe several of us in PWR will nod knowingly at some of her references to how academic institutions can enable certain power structures to the detriment of others with less agency. The fact that she infuses magic in her storytelling, makes this a highly enjoyable and enriching read.
A final note ...
Check out our book swap table next time you're in Sweet Hall. Our library is growing, including some of the books mentioned above.
