The end of the semester is in sight, and the upcoming holidays mean you get a little time off. For bookworms, it’s a perfect chance to catch up on reading you might have missed throughout the busy school year.
George Washington Today went around campus and rounded up names of some of the books that students, staff and faculty think you should add to your reading list. Check out some suggestions to page through below:
“The author was born in my hometown, Pittsburgh, and resided in my former childhood neighborhood, Homewood. It is a powerful story that permits the reader access to divergent lifestyles, life choices and the long-term impact of personal choice.”
-GW Chief of Police RaShall Brackney
“It’s very personal—it’s written as a letter to his son—and incredibly touching.”
-Graduate student Audrey Peek
“It was impeccably written. I couldn’t read anything for a month after.”
-Freshman Chizuru Uko
“Marra brings us beautifully written short stories about ordinary Russians struggling in every conceivable way to let their creative impulses blossom and their family ties remain intact in the midst of impossibly repressive and unpleasant circumstances.”
- Lynora Williams, Librarian, Arthur D. Jenkins Library at the George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum
“The characters were so fleshed out, and he brought them all together in a really great way.”
-Freshman Matthew Dynes
“I like the fact that Joe Torre told the story behind the clubhouse.”
-Junior Andrew Shlosh
“This is a true eye-opener and a thought-provoking book about our farming practices; how we have arrived at treating food like a commodity, where quantity started to matter more than quality; and how we have lost the ecological connection to how good food used to be produced.”
- Assistant Professor of Biology Hartmut G. Doebel
“It's a memoir about growing up African American, with privilege, in Chicago. It's a very important book about class and social stratification in the black community in the 1950s and ’60s. It is also a revealing account of depression in the face of professional success.”
-Creative Writing Director Lisa Page
“Both books were very impactful for me.”
-Elliott School of International Affairs Dean Reuben Brigety
“It took mystery to a whole new level.”
-Graduate student Nicole Muller
“It’s about a group of people who attempt to hike the entire Appalachian Trail. It mixes the story narrative with humor while also talking about the day-to-day experiences on the trail.”
-Sophomore Michael Sennel
“It examines how and why people create the national, ethnic, religious and other identities that they have. We need to understand the psychology of being and belonging to make sense of—and make an impact in—today's globalized world.”
- Associate Dean for Graduate Programs at the School of Business Liesl Riddle
“My Last Day at Seventeen,” by Patrick Lynch and Doug Dubois and “Sudden Flowers,” by Eric Gottesman
“They're both touching, collaborative photography books that involve the subjects in the telling of their own story. Both of these books are compelling examples of how artists can be at the forefront of changing established narratives and facile imagery of whom we think ‘the other’ might be.”
-Head of Photography at the Corcoran School Muriel Hasbun