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New Year’s “Readsolutions”

By Daniella Snyder

I’m Daniella Snyder, a 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!

My favorite part of a new year is asking people about their resolutions. You can learn a lot about a person through their goals: what their passions are, what they’re afraid of, or the kind of person they want to become over the next 365 days.

This year, I made some resolutions I’ve never made before. Since I love to cook and try new things, I promised myself to try one new food every week. My mom and I are happiest when we travel together, and this year I hope to travel to four new states with her. Finally, in an attempt to be a “mature adult,” I will start investing my money this year.

However, each year, I always make a “readsolution:” a resolutionfor books! In 2020, I am committed to reading 50 books. While I do not make a strict list of what those 50 books will be, I always like to begin the new year by researching the best books of the last year as well as the most anticipated books in the year to come, and you’ll find some of those books below.

Do you have any “readsolutions?” Tell us! Message us at @villanovalibrary on Instagram or @falveylibrary on Twitter for a chance to be featured!

 

The Topeka School by Ben Lerner is not only one of Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2019, the novel also made the list of “Top 10 Books of 2019” on the list published by The New York Times and The Washington Post. Lerner writes a tender and expansive family drama set in the American Midwest at the turn of the century: “a tale of adolescence, transgression, and the conditions that have given rise to the trolls and tyrants of the New Right” (Amazon.com).

little women book cover

 

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott isn’t a new book, but there’s been a buzz surrounding the classic book because of the brand new and (already critically acclaimed) movie starring Laura Dern, Timothee Chalamet, Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, and Florence Pugh. If you haven’t read this book since middle school (like me), maybe the book deserves a fresh read.

 

 

 

Literary genius Zora Neale Hurston passed away in 1960, but Genevieve West edited and compiled 21 found short stories of Hurston’s to create the new Hitting A Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance. The book is “an outstanding collection of stories about love and migration, gender and class, racism and sexism that proudly reflect African American folk culture that enriches our understanding and appreciation of this exceptional writer’s voice and her contributions to America’s literary traditions” (Google Books). To read an excerpt from the book, check out the New York Times article here.

 

 

Voyage of the Sable Venus and Other Poems is the debut collection of poetry by Robin Coste Lewis. The Collection won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2015, the first debut collection to win the award since 1974. Coste Lewis will be visiting campus on April 21 as part of Villanova University’s 22nd annual Literary Festival. She will speak at 7 p.m. in Falvey’s Speakers’ Corner, and the event will be followed by a reception and book signing. To learn more about the other authors coming to Lit Fest, click here.

(Images sourced from Amazon.com.)

 


Daniella Snyder HeadshotDaniella Snyder, Graduate Assistant in the Communication & Marketing department at Falvey, read 47 books in 2019. Some of her favorite 2019 reads were Educated by Tara Westover, The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer, To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, Becoming by Michelle Obama, and Three Women by Lisa Taddeo.

 


 


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1 Comment »

  1. Comment by Luisa Cywinski — January 16, 2020 @ 9:47 AM

    Blue Horses by Mary Oliver. It’s on 2-hour course reserve right now, so I’ll have to read it at lunch, or this summer when it comes off reserve.

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Last Modified: January 15, 2020

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