Winter break is a prime time to unwind — and get lost in a good book.
With so many books to choose from, we asked literature professors in the Department of English for their recommendations on what to read this winter.
Whether you’re looking to play detective or revisit a classic, these professors in the College of Arts & Sciences curated picks depending on your mood. Read on.
“Claire Keegan’s Foster can be read and reread and admired in one sitting. Quietly devastating, it is the perfect short read.”
–Cóilín Parsons, associate professor and director of Global Irish Studies
“I’ve found somewhat counterintuitive comfort in the genre of post-apocalyptic fiction. Ling Ma’s Severance is a wry parody of the zombie apocalypse that has already taken place. We’ll see if I am up to re-brave the terrifying future envisioned in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower.”
– Dan Shore, professor and chair of the Department of English
“The Great Gatsby. A hundred years old next year. You may have read it, unwillingly, in high school, but it will seem like a different book now.”
– John Glavin, professor
“The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. My favorite book of all time, and one that each time I read it, happens to me all over again. A love story that shows how privilege can’t insulate you against unhappiness, and that we can’t choose who we love — but that even an unhappy love story can enrich your life.”
– Rebecca Tarsa Harcourt, associate teaching professor
“Lev Grossman’s The Bright Sword. From the New York Times bestselling author of the Magicians Trilogy comes a new take on the legendary world of King Arthur that includes the lives of lesser-known characters.”
– Jee Yoon Lee, adjunct lecturer
“Liz Moore’s new book God of the Woods. It is like a good campus novel except that it takes place at a summer camp rather than a college campus. There are moments in the dark woods that remind me of Donna Tartt’s classic The Secret History.”
– Margaret Debelius, teaching professor and director of Faculty Initiatives at the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship
“The British-Somali writer Nadifa Mohamed’s hybrid “nonfiction novel,” The Fortune Men. Based on true events, the book is about the wrongful conviction of a merchant sailor from Somalia for murder in Cardiff, Wales, during the 1950s. We follow the police investigation and get to know all the details of the community as the winding narrative tracks the experiences of different immigrant groups during the first half of the 20th century and examines the difficulties of negotiating the justice system as a person of color.”
– Nicole Rizzuto, associate professor
“Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahnemann. It identifies fallacies built into us humans and teaches us how to avoid them.”
– Jason Rosenblatt, professor emeritus
“The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray. This is a fascinating historical novel based on the life of Belle da Costa Greene, a white-passing Black woman who served as the personal librarian to J. P. Morgan; her expertise and strategic vision created the superb collection that resulted in the Morgan Library, accomplished under the threat of early 20th-century American racism.”
– Lindsay Kaplan, professor
