It’s August already and the summer is almost over. I can’t believe how time has flown. I’m not sure where June and July went. It feels like just last week that spring classes were ending and summer classes beginning.
School will be starting up again in a few short weeks. We’ll have a full cohort of students back on campus. The lines for coffee will be never ending and parking will be nowhere to be found. Life will definitely get more exciting.
Here are the suggestions from UCF Libraries faculty and staff to help you get back in the mindset for learning. They range from academic subjects to serious fiction to a favorite comic. Welcome to the 2017-18 academic year!
Click on the Keep Reading link to see the full list of books along with their descriptions and catalog links.
Chronicle of a Last Summer by Yasmine El Rashidi
A young Egyptian woman chronicles her personal and political coming of age in this debut novel. Cairo, 1984. A blisteringly hot summer. A young girl in a sprawling family house. Her days pass quietly: listening to a mother's phone conversations, looking at the Nile from a bedroom window, watching the three state-sanctioned TV stations with the volume off, daydreaming about other lives. Underlying this claustrophobic routine is mystery and loss. Relatives mutter darkly about the newly-appointed President Mubarak. Everyone talks with melancholy about the past. People disappear overnight. Her own father has left, too--why, or to where, no one will say. We meet her across three decades, from youth to adulthood. At once a mapping of a city in transformation and a story about the shifting realities and fates of a single Egyptian family, Yasmine El Rashidi's Chronicle of a Last Summer traces the fine line between survival and complicity, exploring the conscience of a generation raised in silence.
Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections
Deadly Outbreaks: How Medical Detectives Save Lives Threatened by Killer Pandemics, Exotic Viruses, and Drug-Resistant Parasites by Alexandra M. Levitt
Despite advances in health care, infectious microbes continue to be a formidable adversary to scientists and doctors. Vaccines and antibiotics, the mainstays of modern medicine, have not been able to conquer infectious microbes because of their amazing ability to adapt, evolve, and spread to new places. Terrorism aside, one of the greatest dangers from infectious disease we face today is from a massive outbreak of drug-resistant microbes. Deadly Outbreaks recounts the scientific adventures of a special group of intrepid individuals who investigate these outbreaks around the world and figure out how to stop them. Part homicide detective, part physician, these medical investigators must view the problem from every angle, exhausting every possible source of contamination. Any data gathered in the field must be stripped of human sorrows and carefully analyzed into hard statistics.
Suggested by Megan Haught, Teaching & Engagement/Research & Information Services
Do It Anyway: The Next Generation of Activists by Courtney E. Martin
If you care about social change but hate feel-good platitudes, Do It Anyway is the book for you. Courtney Martin’s rich profiles of the new generation of activists dig deep, to ask the questions that really matter: How do you create a meaningful life? Can one person even begin to make a difference in our hugely complex, globalized world?
Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
Being consummate fans of the Simon Snow series helped Cath and her twin sister, Wren, cope as little girls whose mother left them, but now, as they start college but not as roommates, Cath fears she is unready to live without Wren holding her hand--and without her passion for Snow.
Suggested by Megan Haught, Teaching & Engagement/Research & Information Services
Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
The short story, Franny, takes place in an unnamed college town and tells the tale of an undergraduate who is becoming disenchanted with the selfishness and inauthenticity she perceives all around her. The novella, Zooey, is named for Zooey Glass, the second-youngest member of the Glass family. As his younger sister, Franny, suffers a spiritual and existential breakdown in her parents' Manhattan living room -- leaving Bessie, her mother, deeply concerned -- Zooey comes to her aid, offering what he thinks is brotherly love, understanding, and words of sage advice.
Suggested by Christina Wray, Digital Learning & Engagement Librarian
Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Y. Davis
In these newly collected essays, interviews, and speeches, world-renowned activist and scholar Angela Y. Davis illuminates the connections between struggles against state violence and oppression throughout history and around the world. Reflecting on the importance of black feminism, intersectionality, and prison abolitionism for today's struggles, Davis discusses the legacies of previous liberation struggles, from the Black Freedom Movement to the South African anti-Apartheid movement. She highlights connections and analyzes today's struggles against state terror, from Ferguson to Palestine. Facing a world of outrageous injustice, Davis challenges us to imagine and build the movement for human liberation.
Suggested by Megan Haught, Teaching & Engagement/Research & Information Services
From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Kronisburg
Claudia and Jamie, pampered suburban children, run away from their Connecticut home and go straight to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art where their ingenuity enables them to live in luxury, even though on borrowed time.
Suggested by Jamie LaMoreaux, Acquisitions & Collections
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Possessing encyclopedia-like intelligence, unusual zookeeper's son Pi Patel sets sail for America, but when the ship sinks, he escapes on a life boat and is lost at sea with a dwindling number of animals until only he and a hungry Bengal tiger remain.
Suggested by Larry Cooperman, Research & Information Services
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The classical study of human nature depicts the degeneration of a group of schoolboys who are marooned on a tropical island after a plane crash.
Suggested by Andrew Hackler, Circulation
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass
The preeminent American slave narrative first published in 1845, Frederick Douglass’s Narrative powerfully details the life of the abolitionist from his birth into slavery in 1818 to his escape to the North in 1838, how he endured the daily physical and spiritual brutalities of his owners and driver, how he learned to read and write, and how he grew into a man who could only live free or die.
Suggested by Cindy Dancel, Research & Information Services
Originals: How Non-conformists Move the World by Adam Grant
How can we originate new ideas, policies, and practices without risking it all? Using surprising studies and stories spanning business, politics, sports, and entertainment, Grant explores how to recognize a good idea, speak up without getting silenced, build a coalition of allies, choose the right time to act, and manage fear and doubt; how parents and teachers can nurture originality in children; and how leaders can fight groupthink to build cultures that welcome dissent.
Suggested by Carrie Moran, User Engagement Librarian
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
The title of this novel is a combination of two Sanskrit words, “siddha,” which is defined as “achieved,” and “artha” which is defined as “meaning” or “wealth.” The word serves as the name for the principal character, a man on a spiritual journey of self-discovery during the time of the first Buddha. Siddhartha is the son of a wealthy Brahmin family who decides to leave his home in the hopes of gaining spiritual illumination. Siddhartha is joined by his best friend Govinda. The two renounce their earthly possessions, engage in ritual fasting and intense meditation and ultimately seek out and speak with Gautama, the original Buddha. Here the two go their separate ways, Govinda joining the order of the Buddha, Siddhartha traveling on in search of spiritual enlightenment. In order to complete this novel Hesse immersed himself in the sacred teachings of both Hindu and Buddhist scriptures and lived a semi-reclusive life in order to achieve his own spiritual enlightenment. It is a work that deals with the quest that we all undertake in some way or another, to define our lives in an environment of conflicting dualities and ultimately find spiritual awareness.
Suggested by Cindy Dancel, Research & Information Services
The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline B. Cooney
A photograph of a missing girl on a milk carton leads Janie on a search for her real identity.
Suggested by Megan Haught, Teaching & Engagement/Research & Information Services
The Kindness of Enemies by Leila Aboulela
History professor Natasha is researching the life of Imam Shamil, a 19th-century Muslim leader who led a resistance against Russia during the Caucasian War. She discovers that Oz, one of her students, is descended from the historical figure and also possesses his legendary sword. As their relationship intensifies, Natasha is forced to confront issues of her own Muslim heritage in the post-9/11 world.
Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections
The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Vol. 1, Squirrel Power by Ryan North
Doctor Doom, Deadpool, even Thanos: There’s one hero who’s beaten them all — and now she’s starring in her own series! That’s right, it’s SQUIRREL GIRL! The nuttiest and most upbeat super hero in the world is starting college! And as if meeting her new roommate and getting to class on time isn’t hard enough, now she has to deal with Kraven the Hunter, too? At least her squirrel friend Tippy-Toe is on hand to help out. But what can one girl, and one squirrel, do when a hungry Galactus heads toward Earth? You’d be surprised! With time running out and Iron Man lending a helping hand (sort of), who will win in the battle between the Power Cosmic and the Power Chestnut? Plus: Squirrel Girl’s classic debut!
Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections
