Falvey Library Staff Offer Summer 2023 Reading Recommendations
We’re happy to share reading recommendations by the staff at Falvey Library. Once you’ve explored the list below, check out some summer reads suggested by Falvey’s Distinctive Collections and Digital Engagement. Villanova’s English Department faculty also shared summer reading recommendations on the department’s blog. You can see more recommendations in the display on Falvey’s first floor.
My summer reading rec is A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson. Anyone planning to spend time in the great outdoors of North America should consider reading this book before or during their nature vacation! Bryson’s book is a cautionary tale filled with humor, adventure, information, and human emotion. I’m still finishing it up, so the library copy is checked out. Try EZBorrow or ILL! It was also made into a movie starring Robert Redford, which I haven’t seen. I’m a “book first” kind of person.
- The Collected Poems of C. P. Cavafy
- Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
- Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakisw
- The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
- The Complete Phantom of the Opera, a book about the production of the musical based on the novel.
Sarah Wingo, Librarian for English Literature, Theatre, and Romance Languages and Literature
Babel: An Arcane History, by R.F. Kuang
This book begins with a trope readers know well-intelligent young people with special abilities go away to school to learn a kind of magic, and along the way they make friends and have adventures. But unlike the other books that follow this narrative this one asks the question that most aren’t even aware needs asking, which is “at what cost?.” I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this book since I finished it early in 2023, it is a scathing condemnation of colonialism and also a loving exploration of the beauty and magic of language.
Noor, by Nnedi Okorafor
I discovered Nnedi Okorafor’s writing first through her novella trilogy Binti, and so when Noor came to my attention I knew I wanted to read it. Nnedi Okorafor who coined the term Africanfuturism in a 2019 blog post defined it as a sub-category of science fiction that is “directly rooted in African culture, history, mythology and point-of-view…and…does not privilege or center the West.” This is a short (214 page), fast paced book that immediately sets the reader on an adventure with OA, a young woman who has had major mechanical body augmentations to allow her to live and be mobile, in a society that does not look kindly on such augmentations.
The Marriage Portrait, by Maggie O’Farrell
This book is on my to-read list for summer. I’ve been a big fan of Maggie O’Farrell’s writing ever since a grad school friend gifted me a copy of The Hand That First Held Mine over a decade ago. O’Farrell’s writing is intimate and often switches between multiple timelines exploring multiple generations within the same family.
Linda Hauck, Business Librarian
- Chip War by Chris Miller
- The Power Law by Sebastian Mallaby
Danielle Adamowitz, Metrics and Assessment Librarian
- I recommend anything by Tana French – The Secret Place is available at Falvey.
- Also, Heartstopper by Alice Oseman! Netflix season 2 is coming this August.
- And finally, Babel: An Arcane History, for a long fantasy you can really sink into.
Shawn Proctor, Communication and Marketing Program Manager
- Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel
- Taste by Stanley Tucci
- Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Laurie Ortiz Rivera, Social Sciences Librarian
- I recently finished reading some chapters of an intriguing eBook that I think our community might enjoy. It’s called The Right to Research: Historical Narratives by Refugee and Global South Researchers. The authors are Kate Reed and Marcia C. Schenck, and McGill-Queen’s University Press published it. It was a thought-provoking and insightful read.
Meg Schwoerer-Leister, Access and Collections Coordinator
- Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
- The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
Roberta Pierce, Resource Management and Description Coordinator
- She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb
- The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb
- Washington Square by Henry James
Joanne Quinn, Director of Communication and Marketing
- Graphic novels by Guy Delisle and Riaf Sattouf
Darren Poley, Theology, Classics and Humanities Librarian
- Monastic Wisdom: The Letters of Elder Joseph the Hesychast
- The Way of a Pilgrim and The Pilgrim Continues His Way translated by Helen Bacovcin
- Being Still: Reflections on an Ancient Mystical Tradition by Jean-Yves Leloup
- Inner Way: Toward a Rebirth of Eastern Christian Spiritual Direction by Joseph J. Allen
- Praying with Icons by Jim Forest
- The Philokalia and the Inner Life: On Passions and Prayer by
Jutta Seibert, Director of Research Services & Scholarly Engagement
- In Smoking Typewriters: The Sixties Underground Press and the Rise of Alternative Media in America (Oxford University Press, 2011) historian John McMillian explores the appeal of underground newspapers as instruments of political dissent at the example of a range of geographically diverse student newsletters such as the Berkeley Barb, The East Village Other, and The Rag (Austin). The author captures the idealism that fueled underground newsrooms and student protest movements throughout the decade. He makes it abundantly clear that women were relegated to the role of assistants and girlfriends and African Americans were simply not present despite the calls for political change. Segregation persisted even in the underground: women and African Americans spoke on their own behalf through their own publications. While these are not covered in Smoking Typewriters a wide range of underground newspapers can be found in the Independent Voices archive (JSTOR).
- Unexpectedly, print culture also plays a key role in Nile Green’s How Asia Found Herself: A Story of Intercultural Understanding (Yale University Press, 2022) albeit in a different time and place. Green, an award-winning historian of “the multiple globalizations of Islam and Muslims,” takes on a whole continent in his latest monograph. The book is full of surprising bits and pieces that provoke a fundamental rethink of how Asia came to be. Given the sheer size of the continent it comes as no great surprise that “Asia” did not feature prominently, if at all, in the self-understanding of Asian peoples until fairly recently. Increasing awareness of other Asian cultures came with the imperialist expansion of Europe into Asia accompanied not just by trading posts but also by missionaries and printing presses. Asian participation in inter-Asian trade led to engagement with other Asian languages and religions often by way of books in European languages. The immense popularity of Edwin Arnold’s Light of Asia Being the Life and Teaching of Gautama, Prince of India and Founder of Buddhism re-introduced Buddhism to India. Buddhism had basically disappeared from the Indian subcontinent centuries ago to the extent that Indian languages had no word for Buddhism other than idol worship. ‘Abd al-Khaliq, a contemporary Indian Muslim author called it the religion of Burma for lack of a better label. How Asia Found Herself is an utterly fascinating account of how Asia came to define itself as Asian. Reading it made me rethink much of what I know about Asia and reminded me of Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha a book with a similar footprint to Arnold’s Light of Asia. It hence comes as no great surprise that Siddhartha has been translated into many Indian languages and while the first English translation by Hilda Rosner is still under copyright, the German original has recently moved into the public domain and the Internet Archive offers various English translations published in India as well as the German original. Happy reading!
Kallie Stahl ’17 MA is Communication and Marketing Specialist at Falvey Library. She recommends Our Andromeda by Brenda Shaughnessy.
Anna Jankowski ’23 CLAS is a Senior Communication Major from just outside Baltimore who works as a Communication & Marketing Assistant in Falvey.
So, flip or flick? FLIP!
Anna Jankowski ’23 CLAS is a Senior Communication Major from just outside Baltimore who works as a Communication & Marketing Assistant in Falvey.
Annie Stockmal is a graduate student in the Communication Department and Graduate Assistant at Falvey Library.
This is the last Flip or Flick by Allie Reczek ’22 CLAS. She graduated with a BA in Psychology from Villanova University. Congratulations, Allie! Falvey Library wishes you all the best in your future endeavors. Rebecca Wells’ novel Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood was published 26 years ago on May 22, 1996.
Jenna Renaud is a graduate assistant in Falvey Memorial Library and a graduate student in the Communication Department.
Jenna Renaud is a Graduate Assistant in Falvey Memorial Library and a Graduate Student in the Communication Department.
