Hi, I’m Rebecca Amrick, Falvey’s newest Cat in the Stax! I’ll be writing articles covering a broad range of topics, from academics to hobbies to random events. All the while highlighting how Falvey Library can enhance your Villanova experience!

Is the semester starting to get a little intense for you? Do you feel like the work’s beginning to pile up? Feel a need to de-stress? Check out these classic comfort movies! They can be a great way to relax and take a well-deserved break. Give yourself the night off and watch a movie from the following list:

Legally Blonde

Reese Witherspoon stars in this fun comedy as a sorority girl who attends Harvard Law School to win back her ex-boyfriend. Along the way, she discovers she is more than just a ditzy fashionista and learns what she wants out of her life.

Did you know that Falvey Library has a streaming service? Well, it does! You can watch Legally Blonde here.

Ocean’s Eleven

In the mood for some action? This heist movie features great characters played by George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts and more. Ocean’s Eleven follows parolee Danny Ocean and his crew of thieves as they attempt to rob three Las Vegas casinos. This movie is offered on Max (formerly HBO).

Pride and Prejudice

This suggestion is for all you romance lovers and Jane Austen fans. This 2005 film adaptation of Austen’s beloved book explores the relationship between Elizabeth Bennett, a member of English gentry, and Fitzwilliam Darcy, a rich aristocrat, and how they overcome their initial dislike of one another and find love. Pride and Prejudice is currently available on Netflix, but the Library also has it on DVD if you don’t have a subscription.

Inside Out

Sometimes, a good way to relieve stress is to just cry it out. Pixar’s Inside Out is a heartfelt movie that will give you a good cry and an emotional reset. This movie follows a young girl named Riley and her five central emotions as Riley’s family moves to a new state. This film can be found on Disney+.

Clueless

Clueless is a coming-of-age comedy that tells the story of Cher Horowitz, a rich, popular high school student in Beverly Hills, Calif. While giving a new friend a makeover and playing matchmaker for two of her teachers, Cher begins to examine her own existence and values. You can either check this movie out on DVD from the Library or stream it.

Rebecca Amrick is a first year graduate student in the English Department and a Graduate Assistant at Falvey Library.

By Jenna Renaud

Happy Friday, Wildcats! After a year off, Falvey Memorial Library is bringing back Weekend Recs, a blog dedicated to filling you in on what to read, listen to, and watch over the weekend. Jenna, a graduate assistant from the Communication department, scours the internet, peruses the news, and digs through book stacks to find new, relevant, and thought-provoking content that will challenge you and prepare you for the upcoming week. 

Whether it’s because I finally invested in a new iMac after a decade or I’m still mourning the predictable, yet still upsetting death of BlackBerry phones, technology has been top of mind lately. It seems like every day there’s talk of the latest technology trend catching on and spreading like wildfire. For this weekend, I’ve compiled recs to help you keep up with the latest technology news, whether you have 3 minutes or 4 hours. 

If you have 3 minutes… watch this video about the Icelandverse. We’ve all heard about the Metaverse, but have you heard about the Icelandverse? This Icelandic tourism ad pokes fun at Zuckerburg’s Metaverse video and does a good job at making viewers want to book a trip to the real Iceland. 

If you have 5 minutes… get an overview of everything going on regarding the 5G upgrades taking place nationwide and why airports and the FAA aren’t too happy about it. 

If you have 8 minutes… read predictions about 2022 being the year of the smart house and what technological developments we can expect to see in the home. 

If you have 2 hours and 20 minutes… watch Ready Player One on Hulu. Ready Player One is based on the 2011 science fiction novel by Ernest Cline. The story takes place in 2045 where people escape the world by entering into the virtual reality entertainment universe, OASIS. If you haven’t yet seen this movie, it’s definitely worth a watch! 

If you have 4 hours and 30 minutes… read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Arguably one of the greatest dystopian novels of all time, Brave New World takes place in a world where technology has taken the place of some of humanity’s most important traditions and purposes. Despite being written in 1931, Huxley’s novel is still incredibly relevant and thought-provoking today.  

Jenna Renaud is a Graduate Assistant in Falvey Memorial Library and a Graduate Student in the Communication Department.

By Ethan Shea

The weather may feel like mid-July, but the beginning of September means summer is winding down.  Hopefully you were able to squeeze some summer reading into your seasonal schedules. This summer I enjoyed spending time sitting in the sun with a book in hand and focused on some classics I had on my “To Be Read” pile.

If you get the chance, I recommend you do the same and grab one of these classic reads at Falvey Memorial Library!

The Old Man and the Sea

Short novel packing a big punch. As one of Ernest Hemingway’s most celebrated works, The Old Man and the Sea won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and contributed to his 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature. The story tells of Santiago, an old man whose life is dedicated to fishing, as he braves the sea in search of the catch of a lifetime. If you’d like to experience the story in other forms, it has been adapted three times: in 1958 as a film, as a miniseries in 1990, and as an animated short in 1999 which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.

Giovanni’s Room

James Baldwin’s 1956 novel explores the life of David, an American man, as he travels to Paris and experiences a sexual identity crisis while his girlfriend is away. Baldwin contemplates issues of masculinity and identity while elegantly telling of the tragic, passionate, and complex relationship between David and Giovanni. This story was controversial before it was even published. In fact, Baldwin’s publishers wanted the novel to be burnt because they feared a story about the gay experience would disappoint the African-American audiences Baldwin had reached out to earlier with texts such as Go Tell It on the Mountain and Notes of a Native Son. Baldwin has authored many extraordinary pieces of writing, but Giovanni’s Room stands out as a timeless story that took bravery to bring to life.

Although summer isn’t officially over until Sept. 22, I’ve always felt that autumn begins when the academic year does. Nevertheless, you still have some time to accomplish your summer reading goals. No matter what book you decide to end the season with, I hope you enjoy yourself and stay cool!

Ethan Shea is a first-year English Graduate Student at Villanova University and Graduate Assistant at Falvey Memorial Library.

By Darren Poley

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For over 100 years, the Loeb Classical Library has filled a void by supplying critical editions of Greek and Latin texts with a readable English translation with minimal notes done by venerable scholars on the facing pages. This distinctive series of small volumes with their green for Greek and red for Latin covers have, in many cases, been recast with updated texts and fresh translations in recent years, so that the collection still serves the original vision of its namesake.

James Loeb, the Harvard alum and  philanthropist who originally backed the establishment of the Loeb Classical Library, wrote he wanted: “To make the beauty and learning, the philosophy and wit of the great writers of ancient Greece and Rome once more accessible by means of translations that are in themselves real pieces of literature, a thing to be read for the pure joy of it.”

Making the writings of the classical world accessible has been a boon to students and scholars alike for over a century. While the Library does have the books in its print collection, Falvey also provides access to the corpus via the Loeb Classical Library Online (LCL). An author search of the Library’s catalog using “Loeb Online” will result in a list of 220 records with links to the online versions of the close to 550 volumes in the Loeb Classical Library series.

The Villanova University community can access the LCL remotely be means of the Databases A-Z list.

Darren G. Poley is Associate Director of Research Services and Scholarly Engagement, and Theology, Humanities, and Classical Studies Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library.