Most summers, I go to Japan or China for research, but the pandemic this year has made fieldwork abroad all but impossible. To escape lockdown without ever having to leave Brunswick, I read Stranger in the Shogun’s City, written by my brilliant friend and colleague, Amy Stanley, a history professor at Northwestern University. Stranger in …
In Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie reveals the life of Ifemelu, a young woman who struggles to reconcile her new American way of thinking and the culture of her home country, Nigeria. As a child of Zimbabwean parents myself, I found myself nodding along at certain moments in a way I never have while reading other …
Following the recent, brutal murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and Tony McDade, we are living through a moment of protest that I know many of us hope is a turning point in this country’s long history of violence against Black people. As a white person, I have so much to learn and …
(Professor Slowiaczek also recommends The Wind in the Willows, see below.) Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig’s book A Very Stable Genius is about the first three years of the Trump presidency. The authors are journalists at the Washington Post and the style of the book is in keeping with their profession. Rucker and Leonig take an …
An oldie but a goodie, Emily Bronte’s 1847 novel Wuthering Heights shows the darker side of Romanticism, incorporating Gothic elements of ghosts, revenge, and greed into a tragically turbulent story. The novel follows the events over the course of roughly two generations of the dichotomous Earnshaw and Linton families in a roller coaster of feuds …
Wanderers is a dystopian novel where people begin to suddenly develop a sleepwalking-like illness. These individuals begin to all walk in the same direction, but no one knows why or seems to be able to stop them. Though the major mystery of the novel is about figuring out what is causing the phenomenon, the greater …
Flash floods hauling me out to a stormy sea, a treacherous cliffside waiting for a single misstep, or a wrong turn trapping me in a dense jungle— these are the horrors roaring through my mom’s head when she tells me, “Don’t. Go. Hiking!” Yet teenage rebellion, of course, meant I ignored these warnings entirely. Why …
Headlines. Slogans. Politicized rhetoric. Campaign promises. Facebook posts. This is where I was getting all of my information on the state of our southern border. As the issue got hotter and more divisive, it was becoming harder to empathize with people directly involved in the situation. Border residents, immigrants documented and undocumented, the customs and border …
Para Selena, Con Amor is a memoir written by Chris Pérez about his late wife, Tejana singer Selena Quintanilla- Pérez. Para Selena, Con Amor translates to “to Selena with love.” Selena is known as the Queen of Tejano music who was tragically killed in 1995. Selena is one of the most iconic Mexican-American entertainers. In …
I Am, I Am, I Am is a memoir written by Maggie O’Farrell that chronicles seventeen near death experiences in her life. Each chapter tells a story of a different life-altering experience, from a childhood illness, to near drowning after a midnight jump into the ocean, to a hospital procedure gone awry. The book culminates …