I’m Daniella Snyder, a second-year graduate student at Villanova University, and your ‘Cat in Falvey Library’s Stacks. I’ll be posting about academics– from research to study habits and everything in between– and how the Falvey Library can play a large role in your success here on campus!

Welcome back to campus, Wildcats!

How was your summer? More importantly, did you read any good books? Which book did you pack in your beach bag and bring home covered in sand and salt water stains? Which book kept you turning pages for hours during a lazy day at home? Was there a book you started but left unfinished when you packed up to return to school?

Thankfully, National Read A Book Day is Friday, Sept. 6, and Falvey Library wants you to spend the day reading for fun. Yes, read for run. Get outside, and pick up a new book, a favorite book, or a book you didn’t finish. Make sure to stop in the library and pick up a button at the Circulation Desk to show your support for the holiday.

I’ll be picking Whisper Network by Chandler Baker back up. I started the novel at the tail end of my summer, and it’s been sitting on my nightstand ever since. For National Read A Book Day, I’m going to bring the book with me to work and spend my lunch break outside, ignoring my phone and academic responsibilities for just a little bit. It’s an engrossing read, set in a modern-day corporate office after the suspicious suicide of the company’s CEO. Every page has enough thrill and intrigue to keep me guessing.

In thinking about National Read A Book Day, I asked some of Falvey’s staff to reflect on their favorite summer reads:

Nate Haeberle-Gosweiler, Communication and Marketing Graduate Assistant, recalls The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty by Benjamin Bratton: “This book was more than just interesting. It was a book that made me change my feelings about the world.”

Shawn Proctor, Communication and Marketing Program Manager, picked a throwback: The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton: “I watched the movie as a kid, but never read the book. It’s cool to read it now, knowing that my kids have read it before me. It’s also really incredible that a book without featured characters that are similar to us is still to relatable.”

Annabelle Humiston, Falvey Library Student Worker, loved Nick Bilton’s American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road: “I’m a huge fan of crime thrillers and this one really kept you on your toes. I want to work in forensics psychology after graduation, so it was both informative and entertaining.”

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin made Chris Hallberg, Library Technology Developer, catch the book bug this summer. “The book was such an unbelievably gripping work of science fiction that I couldn’t put it down, and I went on to read twelve books this summer,” Hallberg says.

After watching the Chernobyl HBO miniseries and listening to the podcast about the show, Kallie Stahl, Communication and Marketing Specialist, picked up Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster by Adam Higginbotham. “After watching the miniseries, I realized I didn’t know a lot about Chernobyl,” Stahl admits. “This book was a great resource for the event itself, because it really delves into history.”

Joanne Quinn, Director of Communications and Marketing, has been talking about Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou for months.”Not only was it intriguing and the author told a good story, it was also fascinating to learns the intricacies of the relationship between entrepreneurs and venture capitalists.”

Tara Westover’s Educated really inspired Regina Duffy, Communication and Marketing Program Manager. She says, “Her success story was moving. She grew up in the mountains, uneducated, and with little guidance, achieved her dreams.”

Allie Reczek, Falvey Library Student Worker, is going to finish Hannibal by Thomas Harris. “I only got about 100 pages into the book this summer, but I really want to finish it. I liked it because I read The Silence of the Lambs and then I watched the movies. I wanted to continue the series,” she says.