Steppenwolf<\/em>. Though they may sound as dry and faded as the pages of an old paperback, these novels are wild, trippy, and mesmerizing reads.<\/p>\nMichele Tarter<\/strong><\/p>\nI\u2019ve read some really interesting books this year. One of my favorites is The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane<\/em>, written by Katherine Howe (who is a descendant of one of the victims of the Salem witch hunt). Two other great books that I highly recommend are A Discovery of Witches<\/em> by Deborah E. Harkness and Angelology<\/em> by Danielle Trussoni. Most recently, I\u2019ve delved into the historical fiction of the Tudor period. It started when a student recommended to me The Wise Woman<\/em> by Philippa Gregory. Since that time, I\u2019ve read nearly every book written by that author (who is a historian and professor in England), and my favorites are The Queen\u2019s Fool<\/em>, The Boleyn Inheritance<\/em>, The Lady of the Rivers<\/em>, and Virgin Earth<\/em>.<\/p>\nLincoln Konkle<\/strong><\/p>\nFool<\/em>\u00a0by Christopher Moore (King Lear\u00a0<\/em>retold from the point of view of the Fool; X-rated for sex, violence, and cursing\u2014all hilarious);\u00a0The Enchantress of Florence<\/em>\u00a0by Salman Rushdie (story upon story upon story within story within story within\u2014like he was trying to top\u00a01001 Tales of the Arabian Nights<\/em>);\u00a0Cloud Atlas<\/em>\u00a0by David Mitchell (again, multiple stories, but each in a different genre and time period).<\/p>\nJean Graham<\/strong><\/p>\nWe Is Got Him<\/em> by Carrie Hagen<\/strong>, a 2003 graduate of our MA program. It\u2019s a nonfiction account of a 19th-century kidnapping in Philadelphia, the first in the U.S. for ransom.<\/p>\nMichael Robertson<\/strong><\/p>\nThe first two parts of Margaret Atwood\u2019s MaddAddam trilogy, Oryx and Crake<\/em> and The Year of the Flood<\/em>. Atwood is perhaps best known for her brilliant and disturbing dystopian novel The Handmaid\u2019s Tale<\/em>; these two MaddAddam novels are equally dystopian but even more brilliant and disturbing. The books, set in the future just before and after a biological apocalypse devastates the earth, are speculative fiction at its finest\u2014wildly inventive novels that not only tell completely absorbing stories but that probe the most serious issues facing our society. Atwood is not just one of our greatest living writers; she\u2019s one of our greatest thinkers. Once you\u2019ve read these two novels, you\u2019ll be among the many readers eagerly waiting for the trilogy\u2019s final installment.<\/p>\nEmily Meixner<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/1184809_79081312.jpg\" "\\"1184809_79081312\\"")
Seeing as how I may not be able to assign The Hunger Games<\/em> in LIT 310 [Literature for Young Readers] anymore because nearly everyone in the world has already read it, I\u2019ve been on the lookout for another engrossing YA dystopian\/science fiction option. I think I\u2019ve found it in Veronica Roth\u2019s Divergent<\/em>. Here\u2019s what I liked: a strong, capable female protagonist, a re-worked Chicago landscape set at some point in the future, a society organized into groups that all serve a specific function, a possible love interest, occasional breathtaking violence, and (like The Hunger Games<\/em>) Divergent<\/em> is the first book in a trilogy.<\/p>\nEllen Friedman<\/strong><\/p>\nNathan Englander, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank<\/em>. A brilliant short story collection, Englander\u2019s second, in the tradition\u00a0of Sholom Aleichem. Full of wisdom, humor, and irony.\u00a0 I\u2019d also recommend Adam Johnson, The Orphan Master\u2019s Son.<\/em> A frightening book about North\u00a0Korea based on Johnson\u2019s research in that country. It depicts a society\u00a0that is completely state controlled and in which even parents and\u00a0children are afraid of being reported by one another for slight infractions.<\/p>\nCatie Rosemurgy<\/strong><\/p>\nTimothy Donnelly\u2019s The Cloud Corporation<\/em><\/p>\nGlenn Steinberg<\/strong><\/p>\nAndrea Wulf, Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation<\/em>. This book sheds a somewhat different light on the founding fathers of our nation from the customary one. In doing so, it clarifies much about the revolutionary generation that has been misrepresented in the political discourse of recent elections in the United States.<\/p>\nFelicia Steele<\/strong><\/p>\nFor Non-Fiction, Michael Erard, Babel No More<\/em>. Michael\u2019s a friend from graduate school who has become a journalist focused on language. This book explores hyperpolyglots\u2014people who learn extraordinary numbers of languages. It\u2019s a wonderful exploration of the possibilities of the human brain. For Fiction, Sir Walter Scott, The Antiquarian<\/em>. I\u2019ve been working through \u201cthe classics,\u201d and this book has always been on my list, partially because I admire the English antiquarians. Strangely enough, the Antiquarian actually has very little to do with the plot.<\/p>\nLarry McCauley<\/strong><\/p>\nState of Wonder by Anne Patchett: In some ways a contemporary version of Heart of Darkness<\/em> (but with a much more effectively realized jungle). I found this novel engaging from an ecological\/ethical point of view and also liked that it has a real plot.
\nCrooked Letter, Crooked Letter<\/em> by Tom Franklin: This was recommended to me as \u201ccrime fiction,\u201d but I found in it a powerful tale of betrayal, murder, and racial tension.\u00a0 I also found the atmosphere of rural poverty and small-town life to be spot on. Finally, one of the main characters is locally known as \u201cCrazy Larry\u201d and for some reason that appealed to me.<\/p>\nJia-Yan Mi<\/strong><\/p>\nCharlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History<\/em> by Yunte Huang. Described as a \u201cheady mixture of scholarship, essay and memoir\u201d (Washington Post<\/em>), Charlie Chan<\/em> energetically deconstructs the social and cultural milieu of the fictional detective as it examines the people and events that contributed to his popularity. Critics praised Huang\u2019s extensive research, careful analysis, and his willingness to use his own experiences as a Chinese immigrant to examine racism, exploitation, and assimilation–a deeply personal but surprisingly cheerful journey into his past. As provocative as it is engaging, Charlie Chan<\/em> will captivate fans of all genres.<\/p>\nAlready read everything listed here? Then click over to the department website<\/a> to find out what these professors will be reading next.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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In addition to literary scholars and critics, the faculty in the Department of English includes poets, novelists, biographers, professional writers, and journalists. So who better to ask to recommend a good book to read? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":5446,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,53,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-focus","category-june-2012","category-on-campus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/437783_66076200.jpg\" "\\"437783_66076200\\"")
I recommend Five Chiefs<\/em>, the Supreme Court memoir written by retired Justice John Paul Stevens. It is an intriguing behind-the-scenes look at the nation\u2019s highest court, with Stevens, the third longest-serving justice, recounting his experiences with the five chief justices who served during his tenure. While so much of cable punditry offers a political perspective of the court, Stevens sticks to the legal perspective. While that might at times seem a bit dry, it is refreshing to read that the rule of law is still what governs the third branch. Stevens describes how he disagreed with the decision to hear the epic Bush v. Gore case, and ultimately came to conclude that the death penalty is pointless.\u00a0 On a lighter note, he also recounts how one justice used to answer the phone, \u201cJoe\u2019s Bar.\u201d<\/p>\n