Category Archives: Just for Fun

What is a Vital Lilly Library Resource? Meet Lilly Library’s Class of 2023

What is a Vital Lilly Library Resource?
Meet Lilly Library’s Class of 2023

There is life outside of Lilly! Congratulations to Celine!

The Lilly and Music Libraries are at the heart of East Campus, the First-Year Campus for Duke Undergraduates. To serve our community, during the semester, the East Campus Libraries remain open for 175 hours each week! Our student assistants are an essential element in maintaining a high level of service, and we want to introduce you to one of our “Class of 2023”. Get to know Celine W., one of our graduating student assistants in this profile, and you’ll appreciate her as much we do.

Duke – and Lilly! – Senior Celine

A Lilly selfie with Celine
  • Hometown: Colleyville, TX
  • Family/siblings/pets:
    An older sister (with the cutest dog, Zoey!) and a younger brother
  • Academic major: Literature
  • Activities on campus:
    Asian American Studies Working Group
  • Favorite on-campus activity (besides working in the library):
    Relaxing at the Duke Gardens
  • Favorite off-campus activity:
    Ice cream at Pincho Loco
  • Favorite campus eatery: Beyu Blue!!
  • Favorite off-campus eatery: Wheat

Behind the Curtain at Lilly

Q: If you could have a sleepover anywhere in the libraries, where would you choose, and why?
A: I would like to sleep in the Stacks!! I think setting up a sleeping bag and napping amongst the shelves would be very cozy!!

Q: What’s the strangest/most interesting book or movie or music you’ve come across in the library?
A: There’s this Vivienne Westwood book that’s bound in the iconic tartan pattern, and I know we’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but it looks incredible and is filled with so many historically important runway looks.

Q: What is your favorite part about working at library? Least favorite?
A: I love talking to the patrons and learning about their research! Especially when they come by to pick up a bunch of books from reserve! I do get a question about printing every shift, so I could do without that.

Q: What is one memory from your time in the library that you will never forget?
A: Learning how to use the dumbwaiter or the microfiche, it’s like learning a piece of technology that would’ve been so revolutionary before.

Q: What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done in the library?
A: Using the dumbwaiter!! It feels like I’m living out a retro library experience!

Q: How will your time working in the library help you in your future pursuits?
A: I think any type of work where I get to talk to people and help them interact makes my life richer and grows my empathy toward serving others. I’m studying to become a doctor, and take every experience where I can help others as a learning experience!

Q: What will you miss most about the library when you graduate?
A: The beautiful interior. Lilly was my home in freshman year, and I’m excited to see it become home to many students in the future.

Q: What are your plans for after graduation?
A: I’m taking a gap year before medical school, and will be working at a hospital.

Q: What is your spirit animal? … well, you don’t expect all the questions to be about working in the library, do you?
A: A panda!!

Graduation in May means Lilly Library will say farewell to Celine and our other graduates, treasured members of our East Campus Libraries “family”. We appreciate Celine’s stellar work and dedication to Lilly and wish her all the best!

What Is a Vital Lilly Library Resource? Meet the Lilly Class of 2023

What is a Vital Lilly Library Resource?
Meet Our Lilly Class of 2023

The Lilly and Music Libraries are at the heart of East Campus, the First-Year Campus for Duke Undergraduates. To serve our community, during the semester, the East Campus Libraries remain open for 175 hours each week! Our student assistants are an essential element in maintaining a high level of service, and we want to introduce you to one of our “Class of 2023”. Get to know Hailey B.,  one of our graduating student assistants in this profile, and you’ll appreciate them as much we do.

Hailey, Lilly student assistant and Duke Class of 2023

Duke – and Lilly! – Senior Hailey

  • Hometown: Palm Harbor, FL
  • Family/siblings/pets: I have one (much) younger 3-year-old half-sister and a dog named Carter
  • Academic major: Psychology, plus minors in Computer Science and Math
  • Activities on campus: Duke University Marching Band (DUMB), Duke Cyber, Durham Chi Omega
  • Favorite on-campus activity (besides working in the library 😉 ): Being at Duke games with the marching/pep band! My personal favorite is Duke WBB games
  • Favorite off-campus activity: Trying new restaurants with friends
  • Favorite campus eatery: Krafthouse
  • Favorite off-campus eatery: HeavBuffs

Behind the Curtain at Lilly

Q: If you could have a sleepover anywhere in the libraries, where would you choose, and why?
A: Probably the Thomas Reading Room at Lilly – it’s the most beautiful space and I’d love to wake up to the sunlight through those big windows. Plus the couches are great.

Q: What’s the strangest/most interesting book or movie or music you’ve come across in the library?
A: Most interesting is definitely “First Person Singular” by Haruki Murakami. It’s a collection of short stories all about different narrators, all told from first person singular point of view. It’s super cool and I totally recommend it. Most strange would be a book of poems told entirely from the point of view of a cat – it was incredible. Also interesting that both my picks include playing with POV – maybe that kind of thing just really gets me.

Q: What is your favorite part about working at library? Least favorite?
A: My favorite part is for sure the people – everyone who works at Lilly is incredible and they’re the best coworkers. I can always count on one of the other students or staff librarians brightening my day. My least favorite thing as an avid reader is that I constantly have to resist the urge not to check out 40 books every time I work a shift.

Q: What is one memory from your time in the library that you will never forget?
A: I found out I had made it to the final interview round for a really competitive job while I was on shift and everyone was so happy and helped me celebrate. It was a really special moment.

Q: What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done in the library?
A: I honestly don’t think I’ve ever done anything super crazy – probably just printing out so many pages at one time that I stood at the printer for like 20 minutes.

Q: How will your time working in the library help you in your future pursuits?
A: Customer service is always applicable! Plus a great eye for detail and the ability to learn new things quickly.

Q: What will you miss most about the library when you graduate?
A: Similar to my favorite part, I’ll miss the people. I’ll have to come back and visit so I can see some of them again! Note: Please do! We always love seeing our “Lilly alumni”!

Q: What are your plans for after graduation?
A: I’m currently interviewing for jobs (I have another one this week, wish me luck) with nonprofit organizations and will be working for 1 gap year, before attending law school in Fall 2024. Longer-term, I plan to work in social justice law.

Q: What is the animal that you most identify with? … well, you don’t expect all the questions to be about working in the library, do you?
A: I’ve been told I remind people of a chinchilla – I’m not entirely sure what that means but I love chinchillas so I’ll take it. Other answers I’ve received: orange cat, pangolin, and panther.

Graduation in May means Lilly Library will say farewell to them and our other graduates, treasured members of our Lilly Library “family”. We appreciate Hailey’s stellar work and dedication to Lilly and wish them all the best!

What is a Vital Lilly Library Resource? Meet Our Class of 2023!

What is a Vital Lilly Library Resource?
Meet Our Class of 2023

Young woman
Meet “Lilly'” Class of 2023 – Emma

The Lilly and Music Libraries are at the heart of East Campus, the First-Year Campus for Duke Undergraduates. To serve our community, during the semester, the East Campus Libraries remain open for 175 hours each week! Our student assistants are an essential element in maintaining a high level of service, and we want to introduce you to one of our “Class of 2023”. Get to know Emma L., one of our graduating student assistants in this profile, and you’ll appreciate her as much we do.

Duke – and Lilly! – Senior Emma

Young woman
A Lilly selfie with Emma
  • Hometown: Oak Park, IL
  • Family/siblings/pets:
    One younger sister. The closest thing I have to a pet is a lot of houseplants.
  • Academic major: Biology and Chemistry
  • Activities on campus: Research, Duke Symphony Orchestra, avid Cameron Crazie
  • Favorite on-campus activity (besides working in the library 😉 ): Duke Symphony Orchestra!
  • Favorite off-campus activity: Walks at Eno
  • Favorite campus eatery: Late-night Pitchforks
  • Favorite off-campus eatery: The Parlour

Behind the Curtain at Lilly

Q: If you could have a sleepover anywhere in the libraries, where would you choose, and why?
A: The bottom floor of the Biddle library, it’s so calm and quiet.

Q: What’s the strangest/most interesting book or movie or music you’ve come across in the library?
A: The locked stacks at Lilly have some really cool, really old books! No one book in particular stands out to me, but I love working in that room and seeing all the titles and publication years in there.

Q: What is your favorite part about working at library? Least favorite?
A: The people are my favorite thing by far! I’ve met so many wonderful people at Lilly, from the librarians to the other student workers to the people who come up to the front desk. My least favorite part is when I just barely miss the bus after my shift, which isn’t even to do with Lilly.

Q: What is one memory from your time in the library that you will never forget?
A: There was a tornado warning during one of my shifts this year, so we had to gather everyone up and go down to the basement. It only lasted 15-ish minutes, but it was interesting while it lasted.

Q: What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done in the library?
A: I’ve done several shifts without shoes on because it was raining so hard that they were too wet to wear by the time I got to work.

Q: How will your time working in the library help you in your future pursuits?
A: I’ve learned how to make searches specific enough to find what I’m looking for when finding sources for research. It’s also really helped me learn how to troubleshoot a printer (always a good skill to have).

Q: What will you miss most about the library when you graduate?
A: How friendly everyone who works there is! Especially having worked at Lilly for four years, I’ll miss all the people (especially the librarians) who I met as a freshman. My favorite part of working an early shift this year is that I get to chat with everyone as they come in, and I’m sad I won’t get to do that anymore.

Q: What are your plans for after graduation?
A: I’ll be pursuing a PhD in molecular microbiology at Tufts in Boston!

Q: What is your spirit animal? … well, you don’t expect all the questions to be about working in the library, do you?
A: A cat, purely because of how much they love napping in the sun

Graduation in May means Lilly Library will say farewell to Emma and our other graduates, treasured members of our East Campus Libraries “family”. We appreciate Emma’s stellar work and dedication to Lilly and wish her all the best!

What is a Vital Music Library Resource?

What is a Vital Music Library Resource?

Cierra at work in the Duke Music Library

The Lilly and Music Libraries are at the heart of East Campus, the First-Year Campus for Duke Undergraduates. To serve our community, during the semester, the East Campus Libraries remain open for 175 hours each week! Our student assistants are an essential element in maintaining a high level of service, and we want to introduce you to one of our “Class of 2023”. Get to know  Cierra H., one of the Duke Music Library‘s graduating student assistants in this profile, and you’ll appreciate her as much we do.

Duke (and Music!) Senior Cierra

  • Hometown: Roanoke Rapids, NC
  • Family/siblings/pets: Three younger siblings, Three dogs
  • Academic major: Biology
  • Activities on campus: Duke Med BEC Fellows/Root Causes/Project FEED, Duke Jazz Ensemble
  • Favorite on-campus activity (besides working in the library): Working in my research lab
  • Favorite off-campus activity: Bowling
  • Favorite campus eatery: Il Forno / Sazon
  • Favorite off-campus eatery: Guasaca

Behind the Curtain at the Music Library

Q: If you could have a sleepover anywhere in the libraries, where would you choose, and why?
A: The Music Library because it is always quiet in the evenings, there is plenty of space as well as a piano which would be fun to play.

Q: What’s the strangest/most interesting book or movie or music you’ve come across in the library?
A: There was once a book full of slang that I thought was interesting. We tend to read more of the serious works and to read something that was serious, but lighthearted, was fun.

Q: What is your favorite part about working at the Music Library? Least favorite?
A: My favorite part is finding new books to read and helping people out at the desk. It is also therapeutic to re-shelve or process new books as well as pull items. I don’t think I have a least favorite thing about working at the library.

Q: What is one memory from your time in the library that you will never forget?
A: I will never forget two things. One is the freebies event we had where we gave away a bunch of scores and books. The second is when Jamie put up a skeleton behind the circulation desk named Skylar who pretended to be conducting music on Halloween .

Q: What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done in the library?
A: I haven’t done anything crazy in the library.

Q: How will your time working in the library help you in your future pursuits?
A: I’ve learned to catalog books and how to better interact with people. I’ve gotten to work with some amazing staff and make friends amongst my peers that also work here. There is never a dull moment and some of the socialization skills I’ve gained will be useful in my future.

Q: What will you miss most about the library when you graduate?
A: I will miss the staff: Laura, Sarah, and Jamie (and Jamie’s emails every week). They were very welcoming at first and over the two years, they have gotten to know me on a personal level and I’ve enjoyed every conversation we’ve had.

Q: What are your plans for after graduation?
A: Clinical research for two years while applying to medical schools.

Q: What is your spirit animal? … Well, you don’t expect all the questions to be about working in the library, do you?
A: A dolphin

Graduation in May means the Duke Music Library will say farewell to Cierra and our other graduates, treasured members of our East Campus Libraries “family”. We appreciate Cierra’s  stellar work and dedication to Music and wish her all the best!

What to Read this Month: May

Looking for something new to read?  Check out our New and Noteworthy, Current Literature and Overdrive collections for some good reads to enjoy! Here is a selection of books you will find in these collections!


The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty. Blandine isn’t like the other residents of her building. An online obituary writer. A young mother with a dark secret. A woman waging a solo campaign against rodents — neighbors, separated only by the thin walls of a low-cost housing complex in the once bustling industrial center of Vacca Vale, Indiana. Welcome to the Rabbit Hutch. Ethereally beautiful and formidably intelligent, Blandine shares her apartment with three teenage boys she neither likes nor understands, all, like her, now aged out of the state foster care system that has repeatedly failed them, all searching for meaning in their lives. Set over one sweltering week in July and culminating in a bizarre act of violence that finally changes everything, The Rabbit Hutch is a savagely beautiful and bitingly funny snapshot of contemporary America, a gorgeous and provocative tale of loneliness and longing, entrapment and, ultimately, freedom. Learn more about this National Book Award Winner in The New York Times Book Review.


Yellowface by R.F. Kuang. Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena’s a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts impulsively: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I. So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her work? Doesn’t this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller is? That’s what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree. But June can’t escape Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June’s (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves. With its immersive first-person voice, Yellowface grapples with questions of diversity, racism, cultural appropriation, and the terrifying alienation of social media.


The Measure by Nikki Erlick. Eight ordinary people. One extraordinary choice. It seems like any other day. You wake up, pour a cup of coffee, and head out. But today, when you open your front door, a small wooden box is waiting for you. This box holds your fate inside: the answer to the exact number of years you will live. In an instant, the world is thrust into a collective frenzy. Where did these boxes come from? What do they mean? Is there truth to what they promise? As society comes together and pulls apart, everyone faces the same shocking choice: Do they wish to know how long they’ll live? And, if so, what will they do with that knowledge? The Measure charts the dawn of this new world through an unforgettable cast of characters whose decisions and fates interweave with one another. Enchanting and deeply uplifting, The Measure is a sweeping, ambitious, and invigorating story about family, friendship, hope, and destiny that encourages us to live life to the fullest. Read more in The New York Times Book Review. This intriguing novel was selected as this year’s reading for first-year students Duke Common Experience.


The Forgotten Girls: A Memoir of Friendship and Promise in Rural America by Monica Potts. Growing up gifted and working-class poor in the foothills of the Ozarks, Monica and Darci became fast friends. The girls bonded over a shared love of reading and learning, even as they navigated the challenges of their tumultuous family lives and declining town. Monica left Clinton for college and fulfilled her dreams, but Darci and many in their circle of friends did not. Years later, working as a journalist covering poverty, Potts discovered what she already intuitively knew about the women in Arkansas: Their life expectancy had dropped steeply—the sharpest such fall in a century. This decline has been attributed to “deaths of despair”—suicide, alcoholism, and drug overdoses—but Potts knew their causes were too complex to identify in a sociological study.  In this narrative, Potts deftly pinpoints the choices that sent her and Darci on such different paths and then widens the lens to explain why those choices are so limited. Learn more in this All Things Considered NPR interview.


Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati. A stunning debut follows Clytemnestra, the ancient world’s most notorious villainess, and the events that forged her into the legendary queen. As for queens, they are either hated or forgotten. She already knows which option suits her best…You were born to a king, but you marry a tyrant. You stand by helplessly as he sacrifices your child to placate the gods. You watch him wage war on a foreign shore, and you comfort yourself with violent thoughts. Because this was not the first offense against you. This was not the life you ever deserved. And this will not be your undoing. Slowly, you plot. But when your husband returns triumphantly, you become a woman with a choice. Acceptance or vengeance, infamy follows both. So, you bide your time and force the gods’ hands into the game of retribution. A blazing novel set in Ancient Greece, this is a thrilling tale of power, prophecies, hatred, love, and an unforgettable Queen who fiercely dealt death to those who wronged her.


 

ONLINE: Big Books Edition: “The God of Small Things”

It’s almost summer, and that means it’s time for the Low Maintenance Book Club Big Books Edition! This year, we’ll be reading Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, winner of the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1997.  The first of three meetings is scheduled for Wednesday, May 25th from noon-1pm over Zoom.

At this meeting, we’ll discuss chapters 1-7.  Print, ebook and audiobook formats can be found at Duke University Libraries and most public libraries.

Although the readings are longer, the low maintenance attitude is the same. Join as you like, discuss as much as you want–or just hang out and enjoy the company. Everyone is welcome. Just RSVP so we know how many to expect, and we’ll send out a Zoom link the morning of the meeting.

If you have any questions, please contact Arianne Hartsell-Gundy (aah39@duke.edu).

What Is a Vital Library Resource?

Lilly’s Graduate Student Assistant

Brandon – definitely NOT in Lilly Library!

The Lilly and Music Libraries are at the heart of East Campus, the First-Year Campus for Duke Undergraduates. To serve our community, during the semester, the East Campus Libraries remain open for 175 hours each week! Our student assistants are an essential element in maintaining a high level of service, and we want to introduce you to one of our “Class of 2023”. Get to know Brandon L., one of our graduating student assistants in this profile, and you’ll appreciate the importance of our student staff as much we do.

Graduate Student Brandon

Graduate Student assistant – Brandon
  • Hometown: Allentown
  • Family/siblings/pets: 1 younger sister, no pets 🙁
  • Academic major: Masters of Public Policy
  • Activities on campus:
    President of the Sanford Energy and Environment Club; Chair of the Partnerships Team of Oceans @ Duke; Tutor for economics and statistics; Mentor in Duke F1RSTS; and Member of the Energy Week Leadership Committee.
  • Favorite on-campus activity (besides working in the library): Duke basketball
  • Favorite off-campus activity: Biking or hiking
  • Favorite campus eatery: Tandoor
  • Favorite off-campus eatery: East Cut
Behind the Curtain: Lilly Library

Q: If you could have a sleepover anywhere in the libraries, where would you choose, and why?
A: Thomas Reading Room in Lilly because it’s spacious and comfortable.

Q: What’s the strangest/most interesting book or movie or music you’ve come across in the library?
A: Feline Philosophy, a book about cats.

Q: What is your favorite part about working at library? Least favorite?
A: Faculty delivery when it’s sunny. Least favorite has to be shelf reading.

Q: What is one memory from your time in the library that you will never forget?
A: A student accidentally printed out 100 color copies of Caleb Love (a UNC basketball player). She meant to print 10 for her friends to hold up at the UNC game.

Q: What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done in the library?
A: Worked two 6-hour shifts on back-to-back days.
Note: We agree – that was crazy!

Q: How will your time working in the library help you in your future pursuits?
A: Knowing all the resources and benefits that come with being a member of a library will be very helpful. There is so much people don’t know libraries offer.

Q: What will you miss most about the library when you graduate?
A: All the little treats we got during holidays or the reading period.

Q: What are your plans for after graduation?
A: Moving to Chicago for a job at the Federal Reserve.

Q: What is your spirit animal?
… well, you don’t expect all the questions to be about working in the library, do you?
A: An owl because that was my undergrad’s mascot and I love staying up late.

Graduation in May means Lilly Library will say farewell to Brandon and our other graduates, treasured members of our East Campus Libraries’ “family”. We appreciate Brandon’s  stellar work and dedication to Lilly and wish him all the best!

 

What to Read this Month: April

Looking for something new to read?  Check out our New and Noteworthy, Current Literature, and Overdrive collections for some good reads to enjoy! Here is a selection of books you will find in these collections!


The Skin and Its Girl by Sarah Cypher. In a Pacific Northwest hospital far from the Rummani family’s ancestral home in Palestine, the heart of a stillborn baby begins to beat, and her skin turns vibrantly, permanently cobalt blue. On the same day, the Rummanis’ centuries-old soap factory in Nablus is destroyed in an air strike. The family matriarch and keeper of their lore, Aunt Nuha, believes that the blue girl embodies their sacred history, harkening back to when the Rummanis were among the wealthiest soap makers and their blue soap was a symbol of legendary love. Decades later, Betty returns to Aunt Nuha’s gravestone, faced with a difficult decision: Should she stay in the only country she’s ever known, or should she follow her heart and the woman she loves, perpetuating her family’s cycle of exile? Betty finds her answer in partially translated notebooks that reveal her aunt’s complex life and struggle with her sexuality, which Nuha hid to help the family immigrate to the United States. But, as Betty soon discovers, her aunt hid much more than that.


Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton. A landslide has closed the Korowai Pass on New Zealand’s South Island, cutting off the town of Thorndike and leaving a sizable farm abandoned. The disaster presents an opportunity for Birnam Wood, an undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic guerrilla gardening collective that plants crops wherever no one will notice. For years, the group has struggled to break even. To occupy the farm at Thorndike would mean a shot at solvency at last. But the enigmatic American billionaire Robert Lemoine also has an interest in the place: he has snatched it up to build his end-times bunker, or so he tells Birnam’s founder, Mira, when he catches her on the property. A gripping psychological thriller from the Booker Prize–winning author of The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood is Shakespearean in its drama, Austenian in its wit, and, like both influences, fascinated by what makes us who we are. Learn more about this novel in The New York Times Book Review.


The Trackers by Charles Frazier. Hurtling past the downtrodden communities of Depression-era America, painter Val Welch travels westward to the rural town of Dawes, Wyoming. Through a stroke of luck, he’s landed a New Deal assignment to create a mural representing the region for their new Post Office. A wealthy art lover named John Long and his wife Eve have agreed to host Val at their sprawling ranch. Rumors and intrigue surround the couple: Eve left behind an itinerant life riding the rails and singing in a Western swing band. Long holds shady political aspirations but was once a WWI sniper—and his right hand is a mysterious elder cowboy, a vestige of the violent old west. Val quickly finds himself entranced by their lives. One day, Eve flees home with a valuable painting in tow, and Long recruits Val to hit the road to track her down. American writer Charles Frazier conjures up the lives of everyday people during an extraordinary period of history that bears an uncanny resemblance to our own. Read The Washington Post book review to learn more!


The Only Survivors by Megan Miranda. A decade ago, two vans filled with high school seniors on a school service trip crashed into a Tennessee ravine—a tragedy that claimed the lives of multiple classmates and teachers. The nine students who managed to escape the river that night were irrevocably changed. A year later, after one of the survivors dies by suicide on the anniversary of the crash, the rest make a pact: to come together each year to commemorate that terrible night. Their annual meeting place, a house on the Outer Banks, has long been a refuge. But by the tenth anniversary, Cassidy Bent has worked to distance herself from the tragedy and the other survivors. This year, she is determined to finally break ties once and for all. But on the reunion day, she receives a text with an obituary attached: another survivor is gone. Now they are seven—and Cassidy finds herself hurling back toward the group, wild with grief—and suspicion. A propulsive and chilling locked-box mystery filled with the dazzling hairpin twists that are the author’s signature.


A Living Remedy by Nicole Chung. Nicole couldn’t hightail it out of her overwhelmingly white Oregon hometown fast enough. As a scholarship student at a private university on the East Coast, no longer the only Korean she knew, she found community and a path to the life she’d long wanted. But the middle-class world she begins to raise a family in – where there are big homes, college funds, and nice vacations – looks very different from the middle-class world she thought she grew up in. When her father dies at only sixty-seven, killed by diabetes and kidney disease, Nicole feels deep grief and rage, knowing that years of precarity and lack of access to healthcare contributed to his early death. Exploring the enduring strength of family bonds in the face of hardship and tragedy, A Living Remedy examines what it takes to reconcile the distance between one life, one home, and another – and sheds needed light on some of the most persistent and grievous inequalities in American society. Listen to Nicole discuss her work in this Fresh Air NPR interview!


 

ONLINE: Low Maintenance Book Club reads “All Systems Red”

Need some escapism this time of the semester? Join Low Maintenance Book Club in sci-fi paradise with All Systems Red,  the first novella in Martha Wells’ beloved Murderbot Diaries series (it’s not as morbid as it sounds!). We’ll discuss the work in its entirety at our next meeting on Tuesday April 25th at noon.

As always, you’re welcome to attend regardless of how much (or whether) you’ve read. Copies of the book are available through Duke University Libraries and your local public library.

The meeting will be held over Zoom, so make sure to RSVP to receive an invitation link the morning of the 25th. We hope to see you there!

If you have any questions, please contact Arianne Hartsell-Gundy (aah39@duke.edu).

Celebrate the 45th Anniversary of the Grateful Dead at Duke


On April 12, the Duke community will celebrate the 45th anniversary of the Grateful Dead concert at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Widely regarded as a top show that year, the band delivered smoking renditions of “Jack Straw,” “Bertha,” “Good Lovin’,” and “Eyes of the World,” as you can hear for yourself in the video above.

To commemorate this historic show, join us for a special panel discussion, selections from the remastered video recording, live music, and refreshments on Wednesday, April 12, at 6:00 p.m. in the Ruby Lounge of the Rubenstein Arts Center.

The event is free and open to the public, but please register to help us estimate attendance.

A panel of Dead experts will share their interpretations of the show, including Professor Eric Mlyn; show volunteer and former Duke University Union coordinator Peter Coyle; and John Brackett, author of the forthcoming book Live Dead: The Grateful Dead, Live Recordings and the Ideology of Liveness, coming out next fall from Duke University Press. The book will be the first in a new Duke University Press series, Studies in the Grateful Dead, in the fall of 2023.

Bridget Booher, Director of Duke WIN, will moderate the panel. Footage featuring selected songs from the concert will be screened. After the program, local Dead cover band The Loose Lucies will perform for an hour. Refreshments will be served.

Professor Mlyn teaches a first-year seminar about the Grateful Dead. His students researched the band’s performances at Duke from 1971 to 1982 and curated an exhibit in Perkins Library. According to Mlyn, “4/12/78 was a raucous and animated performance and has been widely recognized by Deadheads as one of the best shows that year. The band was preparing for a trip to Egypt and it was the last full year of shows for keyboardist Keith Godchaux and his wife Donna whose unforgettable vocals punctuated shows during that era.”

See the Rubenstein Arts Center website for information about parking.

Co-sponsored by the Duke University Libraries, Duke Arts, and Duke University Press.

Solarities 1: Asiya Wadud and Roberto Tejada

There’s a poetry reading happening on campus this Thursday, and if you are interested in reading some of the poets ahead of time, the library can help!  Here are some details about the two poets and links to their works in our library.

Asiya Wadud is the author of several poetry collections, most recently No Knowledge Is Complete Until It Passes Through My Body and Mandible Wishbone Solvent (forthcoming in 2024). Her recent work appears in e-flux journal, BOMB Magazine, Triple Canopy, POETRY, Yale Review and elsewhere. Asiya’s work has been supported by the Foundation Jan Michalski, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Danspace Project, Finnish Cultural Institute of New York, Rosendal Theater Norway, and Kunstenfestivaldesarts among others. She lives in Brooklyn, New York where she teaches poetry at Saint Ann’s School and Columbia University.

Other works include Syncope, Crosslight for youngbird, and A filament in gold leaf.

Roberto Tejada is an award-winning poet and author of art histories that include National Camera: Photography and Mexico’s Image Environment (Minnesota, 2009) and Celia Alvarez Muñoz (Minnesota, 2009); a Latinx poetics of the Americas, Still Nowhere in an Empty Vastness (Noemi, 2019), and catalog essays in Now Dig This!: Art and Black Los Angeles, 1960-1980 (Hammer Museum, 2011) and Allora & Calzadilla: Specters of Noon (The Menil Collection; Yale, 2021), among others. His poetry appears in the collections Why the Assembly Disbanded (Fordham, 2022), Full Foreground (Arizona, 2012), Exposition Park (Wesleyan, 2010), Mirrors for Gold (Krupskaya, 2006), and Todo en el ahora (Libros Magenta, 2015), selected poems in Spanish translation. Tejada’s writing spans method, discipline, and form to address the political imagination and impurity of time in shared image environments; configurations of art, life, and language inclined to the future. Committed to poetics and open sites of cultural inquiry—regional, transnational, and diasporic—his research and creative interests involve the language arts and image worlds of Latin America, especially Mexico, Brazil, the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, and other sites of U.S. Latinx cultural production. Awarded The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in Poetry (2021), Tejada is the Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished Professor at the University of Houston where he teaches Creative Writing and Art History.

 

Solarities 1: Asiya Wadud and Roberto Tejada

 Hosted by Tessa Bolsover and Michael Cavuto, Duke English

Thursday 3.30, 7:30PM

Nelson Music Room, East Bldg., 2nd Floor

Duke University, East Campus

Solarities is a new contemporary poetry reading series bringing established and emerging visiting writers to Duke. The series seeks to emphasis experimental literary writing as a unique mode of thought that engages and expands scholarly fields of inquiry.

Lilly Library Presents: March Musical Movie Madness!!!

It’s time for Round 3: 4/4 Time!

Collage of 4 movie postersVOTE HERE

While Duke’s March dance of 2023 has come to an end, Lilly Library brings you its own March Madness with 16 contrapuntal contenders. All of the movies competing in Lilly’s March Musical Movie Madness are available to watch online, with access brought to you by Duke Libraries and the Swank Digital Campus  streaming platform. Contestants will be entered in a raffle, and Duke staff are eligible to win an electronic book plate in the online catalog record for the musical movie of their choosing. It’s shaping up to be a thrilling March at Lilly Library!

Lilly’s resident bracketologist, Nathaniel Brown, and film “reserves” aficionado, David Felton, will bring you all the highlights of this exciting competition. Watch their play-by-play videos highlighting each exciting round.

These Golden OldiesSingin’ in the Rain (1952), The Wiz (1978), Hairspray (1988) and Fame (1980) —will dance into your hearts.
Soundscapes of La La Land (2016), Into the Woods (2014), Pitch Perfect (2012) and In the Heights (2021) vie for the top spot.
The Soloists perform in Selena (1997), Rocketman (2019), Respect (2021) and Elvis (2022).
And the Melodious Medleys of Hedwig & the Angry Inch (2001), Dancer in the Dark (2000), A Star is Born (2018) and Get on Up (2014)
round out this year’s competition. Vote for your favorite Musical Movies to help crown the winner.

VOTE HERE

Four rounds of voting will open at 9am the first day of each round and close at 8pm the last day:
Sounds of 16: 3/20-3/22
Eighth Notes: 3/23-3/27
4/4 Time: 3/28-3/29
Dynamic Duet: 3/30-4/2
Finale (winner announced): 4/3.

Voting dates and updates will be posted on Lilly’s Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts as well as in our blog, Latest@Lilly.

What to Read this Month: March

Looking for something new to read?  Check out our New and Noteworthy, Current Literature, and Overdrive collections for some good reads to enjoy! Here is a selection of books you will find in these collections!


Forager: Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult by Michelle Dowd. A moving, heartbreaking, and inspiring true story of the author’s escape from an apocalyptic cult. Michelle grew up on a mountain in the Angeles National Forest, born into an ultra-religious cult—the Field, as members called it—run by her grandfather, who believed that his chosen followers must prepare themselves to survive doomsday. Bound by the group’s patriarchal rules and literal interpretation of the Bible, Michelle, and her siblings lived a life of deprivation, isolated from Outsiders and starved for love and food. She was forced to learn the skills necessary to battle hunger, thirst, and cold; she learned to trust animals more than humans; and, most importantly, she learned how to survive by foraging for what she needed. With haunting and stark language, Forager is a fierce and empowering coming-of-age story and a timely meditation on the ways in which harnessing nature’s gifts can lead to our freedom. Read more in this Salon interview with Dowd.


We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, And Child Removal in America by Roxanna Asgarian. On March 26, 2018, rescue workers discovered a crumpled SUV and the bodies of two women and several children at the bottom of a cliff beside the Pacific Coast Highway. Investigators soon concluded that the crash was a murder-suicide, but there was more to the story: Jennifer and Sarah Hart, it turned out, were a white married couple who had adopted the six Black children from two different Texas families in 2006 and 2008. Behind the family’s loving facade was a pattern of abuse and neglect. As a journalist in Houston, Asgarian became the first reporter to put the children’s birth families at the story’s center. Her reporting uncovers persistent racial biases and corruption as children of color are separated from birth parents without proper cause. The result is a riveting narrative and a deeply reported indictment of a system that continues to fail America’s most vulnerable children. Read more in a book review by The Washington Post.


Stash: My Life in Hiding by Laura Cathcart Robbins. A propulsive and vivid memoir about the journey to sobriety and self-love amidst addiction, privilege, racism, and self-sabotage from the host of the popular podcast The Only One in the Room. After years of hiding her addiction from everyone—from stockpiling pills in her Louboutins to elaborately scheduling withdrawals between PTA meetings, baby showers, and tennis matches—Robbins settles into a complicated purgatory. She learns the hard way that privilege doesn’t protect you from pain. Facing divorce, the possibility of a grueling custody battle, and internalized racism, Robbins wonders just how much more she can take. Robbins harrowingly illustrates taking down the wall she built around herself and what it means to be Black in a startingly white world. With its raw, finely crafted, and engaging prose, Stash is the story of how badly the facade she created had to shatter before Robbins could reconnect to her true self. Robbins discusses her story in an interview with Thoughts from a Page Podcast.


The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff. Five years ago, Geeta lost her no-good husband. As in, she lost him–he walked out on her, and she has no idea where he is. But in her remote village in India, rumor has it that Geeta killed him. And it’s a rumor that just won’t die. It turns out that is known as a “self-made” widow comes with some perks. No one messes with her, harasses her, or tries to control ( ahem, marry) her. It’s even been good for business; no one dares to not buy her jewelry. Freedom must look good on Geeta because now other women are asking for her “expertise,” making her an unwitting consultant for husband disposal. With Geeta’s dangerous reputation becoming a double-edged sword, she has to find a way to protect the life she’s built–but even the best-laid plans of would-be widows tend to go awry. Filled with clever criminals, second chances, and wry and witty women, Shroff’s The Bandit Queens is a razor-sharp debut of humor and heart that readers won’t soon forget. Read The New York Times Book Review to learn more!


Victory City by Salman Rushdie. In the wake of an unimportant battle between two long-forgotten kingdoms in fourteenth-century southern India, a nine-year-old girl has a divine encounter that will change the course of history. After witnessing her mother’s death, the grief-stricken Pampa Kampana becomes a vessel for a goddess, who begins to speak out of the girl’s mouth. Granting her powers beyond Pampa Kampana’s comprehension, the goddess tells her that she will be instrumental in the rise of a great city called Bisnaga–“victory city”–the world’s wonder. Over the next 250 years, Pampa Kampana’s life becomes deeply interwoven with Bisnaga’s, from its literal sowing from a bag of magic seeds to its tragic ruination in the most human ways: the hubris of those in power. As years pass, rulers come and go, battles are won and lost, and allegiances shift, the very fabric of Bisnaga becomes an ever more complex tapestry–with Pampa Kampana at its center. Brilliantly styled as a translation of an ancient epic, Victory City is a saga of love, adventure, and myth that is a testament to storytelling’s power. Read The New York Times Book Review to learn more!

ONLINE: Low Maintenance Book Club reads selections from “Disability Visibility”

In honor of National Disability Awareness Month, the Low Maintenance Book Club is reading selections from Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Centuryedited by Alice Wong, founder and director of the Disability Visibility Project. Our discussion will take place over Zoom on Wednesday, March 22 at noon.

The readings include:

  • Introduction by Alice Wong
  • “When You are Waiting to be Healed” by June Eric-Udorie
  • “Canfei to Canji: The Freedom of Being Loud” by Sandy Ho
  • “How a Blind Astronomer Found a Way to Hear the Stars” by Wanda Diaz-Merced
  • “The Beauty of Spaces Created for and by Disabled People” by s.e. smith

Attendees are also encouraged to read other essays in the book (they’re all bite-sized, we promise!) and bring a favorite to discuss with the group. As always, though, anyone is welcome regardless of how much (or whether) you’ve read.

Copies of the book and audiobook are available through Duke University Libraries and your local public library.  Please RSVP to receive a Zoom link the morning of the event.

If you have any questions, please contact Arianne Hartsell-Gundy (aah39@duke.edu)

What to Read this Month: February

Looking for something new to read?  Check out our New and Noteworthy, Current Literature and Overdrive collections for some good reads to enjoy! Here is a selection of books you will find in these collections!


Dyscalculia: A Love Story of Epic Miscalculation, by Camonghne Felix. When Felix goes through a monumental breakup, culminating in a hospital stay, everything—from her early childhood trauma and mental health to her relationship with mathematics—shows up in the tapestry of her healing. In this exquisite and raw reflection, Felix repossesses herself through the exploration of history she’d left behind, using her childhood “dyscalculia”—a disorder that makes it difficult to learn math—as a metaphor for the consequences of her miscalculations in love. Through reckoning with this breakup and other adult gambles in intimacy, Felix asks the question: Who gets to assert their right to pain? “Black girls get to write about benign heartbreak too,” she writes. Dyscalculia negotiates the misalignments of perception and reality, love and harm, and the politics of heartbreak, both romantic and familial.


Briefly, A Delicious Life by Nell Stevens. In 1473, fourteen-year-old Blanca dies in a hilltop monastery in Mallorca. Nearly four hundred years later, when George Sand, her two children, and her lover Frederic Chopin arrive in the village, Blanca is still there: a spirited, funny, righteous ghost, she’s been hanging around the monastery since her accidental death, spying on the monks and the townspeople and keeping track of her descendants. Blanca is enchanted the moment she sees George, and the magical novel unfolds as a story of deeply felt, unrequited longing–a teenage ghost pining for a woman who can’t see her and doesn’t know she exists. As George and Chopin, who wear their unconventionality, in George’s case, literally on their sleeves, find themselves in deepening trouble with the provincial, 19th-century villagers, Blanca watches helplessly. She reflects on the circumstances of her own death (which involved an ill-advised love affair with a monk-in-training). From NPR, “Nell Stevens’ debut novel Briefly, A Delicious Life is a curious mashup of historical fiction, a ghost story, and a queer love story.”


Heartbroke: Stories by Chelsea Bieker. From the acclaimed author of Godshot and “a pitch-perfect ventriloquist of extraordinary talent and ferocity” (T Kira Madden) comes a defining book of Californian stories where everyone is seeking or sabotaging love United by the stark and sprawling landscapes of California’s Central Valley, the characters of Heartbroke boil with reckless desire. A woman steals a baby from a shelter in an attempt to recoup her own lost motherhood. A phone-sex operator sees divine opportunity when a lavender-eyed cowboy walks into her life. A mother and a son selling dream catchers along a highway that leads to a toxic beach manifest two young documentary filmmakers into their realm. And two teenage girls play a dangerous online game with destiny. Heartbroke brims over with each character’s attempt to salvage grace where they can find it. Told in bright, snapping prose that reveals a world of loss and love underneath, Chelsea Bieker brilliantly illuminates a golden yet gothic world of longing and abandonment under an unrelenting California sun. Learn more about this title in the Los Angeles Times book review here.


Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results. But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking (“combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride”) proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo. Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters.


The World and All That It Holds by Aleksandar Hemon. As Archduke Franz Ferdinand arrives in Sarajevo one June day in 1914, Rafael Pinto is busy crushing herbs and grinding tablets behind the counter at the pharmacy he inherited from his estimable father. It’s not quite the life he had expected during his poetry-filled student days in libertine Vienna. And then the world explodes. In the trenches in Galicia, fantasies fall flat. Heroism gets a man killed quickly. War devours all that they have known, and the only thing Pinto has to live for is the attention of Osman, a fellow soldier, a man of action to complement Pinto’s introspective, poetic soul; a charismatic storyteller; Pinto’s protector and lover. Together, Pinto and Osman will escape the trenches, survive near-certain death, and tangle with spies and Bolsheviks. Read what The New York Times has to say about this novel here!


 

This Valentine’s Day, Go on a Mystery Date with a Book


Are you stuck in a reading rut? Has that stack of books you’ve been meaning to read suddenly lost all appeal?

Oh, honey. You need to check out our Mystery Date with a Book display next to the Perkins Library Service Desk, now through February 15.

Our librarians have hand-picked some of their all-time favorite literary crushes. Trust us. Librarians are the professional matchmakers of the book world. They’ve picked out some titles guaranteed to improve your circulation, if you know what we mean.

Each book comes wrapped in paper with a come-hither teaser to pique your interest. Will you get fiction or nonfiction? Short stories or travelogue? Memoir or thriller? You won’t know until you “get between the covers,” nudge, nudge. Aw, yeah.

So go ahead, take home a one-night stand for your nightstand. Who knows? Your pretty little self might just fall in love with a new favorite writer!

Don’t forget to “Rate Your Date” and let us know what you thought of your match. Look for the rating card included with your book, and return it for a chance to win a library swag bag!

ONLINE: Low Maintenance Book Club reads “Mr. Malcolm’s List”

Suffering from romance withdrawal while waiting for the third season of Bridgerton? Low Maintenance Book Club is here for you.  We’ll be reading and discussing Suzanne Allain’s Mr. Malcolm’s List at our next meeting on Thursday, February, 9th at noon. As always, you’re welcome regardless of how much (or whether) you’ve read. Copies of the book are available through Duke University Libraries and your local public library.

The meeting will be held over Zoom, so make sure to RSVP to receive an invitation link the morning of the 9th. We hope to see you there!

If you have any questions, please contact Arianne Hartsell-Gundy (aah39@duke.edu)

What to Read this Month: January

Looking for something new to read?  Check out our New and Noteworthy, Current Literature, and Overdrive collections for some good reads to enjoy! Here is a selection of books you will find in these collections!


Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin. On a bitter-cold day in December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees Sadie Green amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform. He calls her name. She pretends she hasn’t heard him for a moment, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won’t protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts. Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Read or listen to NPR’s delightful review of this novel here!


The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, by Shehan Karunatilaka. Maali Almeida―war photographer, gambler, and closet queen―has woken up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the serene Beira Lake, and he has no idea who killed him. In a country where scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers, and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long, as the ghouls and ghosts with grudges who cluster around can attest. But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali. He has seven moons to contact the man and woman he loves most and lead them to the photos that will rock Sri Lanka. Ten years after his prize-winning novel Chinaman established him as one of Sri Lanka’s foremost authors, Shehan Karunatilaka is back with a “thrilling satire” (Economist). Read what The Guardian wrote about this novel: “The scenarios are often absurd – dead bodies bicker with each other – but executed with a humour and pathos that ground the reader. Beneath the literary flourishes is a true and terrifying reality: the carnage of Sri Lanka’s civil wars. Karunatilaka has done artistic justice to a terrible period in his country’s history.”


Acne: A Memoir by Laura Chinn. From the creator and star of Florida Girls comes a hilarious and profound memoir about family, happiness, and really aggressive acne. Despite having dirty-blonde hair and fair skin, Laura Chinn is mixed-race: the daughter of a Black father and a white mother, which on its own makes for some funny and insightful looks at identity. Laura’s parents were both Scientologists and nonconformists in myriad ways. They divorced early in Laura’s childhood, and she spent her teen years ping-ponging back and forth between Clearwater, Florida, and Los Angeles (with an extended stint in Tijuana for good measure). This is not a sad story. There is Jell-O wrestling. There is an abnormal amount of dancing. There is information about whether you can drink gallons of sangria while taking unregulated Accutane acquired in Mexico. But mostly there is love, and ultimately there is redemption. Laura explores her trauma through anecdotes riddled with grit and humor, proving that in the face of unspeakable tragedy, it is possible to find success, love, and self-acceptance, zits and all. Read a review from Oprah Daily to learn more.


The Dream Builders, by Oindrila Mukherjee. After living in the US for years, Maneka Roy returns home to India to mourn the loss of her mother and finds herself in a new world. The booming city of Hrishipur, where her father now lives, is nothing like the part of the country where she grew up, and the more she sees of this new, sparkling city, the more she learns that nothing—and no one—here is as it appears. Ultimately, it will take an unexpected tragic event for Maneka and those around her to finally understand how fragile life is in this city built on aspirations. Written from the perspectives of ten different characters, Oindrila Mukherjee’s incisive debut novel explores class divisions, gender roles, and stories of survival within a constantly changing society and becoming increasingly Americanized. It’s a story about India today and people impacted by globalization everywhere: a tale of ambition, longing, and bitter loss that asks what it really costs to try and build a dream.


The Family Izquierdo by Ruben Degollado. The tight-knit Izquierdo family is grappling with misfortunes none of them can explain. Their beloved patriarch has suffered from an emotional collapse and is dying; eldest son Gonzalo’s marriage is falling apart; daughter Dina, beleaguered by the fear that her nightmares are real, is a shut-in. When Gonzalo digs up a strange object in the backyard of the family home, the Izquierdos take it as proof that a jealous neighbor has cursed them-could this be the reason for all their troubles? As the Izquierdos face a distressing present and an uncertain future, they are sustained by the blood that binds them, a divine presence, and an abiding love for one another. Told in a series of soulful voices brimming with warmth and humor, The Family Izquierdo is a tender narrative of a family at a turning point. Read more about this book in The New York Times Book Review here!

Collection Spotlight: New Year, New You

The theme for this month’s Collection Spotlight is “New Year, New You.” We’re featuring books to help you with any resolutions or goals you might have made this month, ranging from managing stress, developing better habits, learning more about DEI issues, improving study skills, and more. You can find these titles in our Collection Spotlight display near our Perkins Library Service Desk on the first floor of Perkins. Also, make sure to share an affirmation or word of encouragement for others in our Duke Community!

Here is a selection of some of the titles you will find:

Stolen Focus : Why You Can’t Pay Attention–And How to Think Deeply Again by Johann Hari.

Simply Sustainable: Moving Toward Plastic-Free, Low-Waste Living by Lily Cameron.

She’s on the Money: Take Charge of Your Financial Future by Victoria Devine

Being Present: Commanding Attention at Work (and at Home) by Managing your Social Presence by Jeanine W. Turner.

Write More, Publish More, Stress Less!: Five Key Principles for a Creative and Sustainable Scholarly Practice by Dannelle D. Stevens.

Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes that Stick by Wendy Wood.

You may also find relevant titles in our Overdrive collection, including e-books and audio in business, self improvement, and psychology.

$1,500 Prize for Book Collecting

The Duke University Libraries are proud to present the 2023 Andrew T. Nadell Prize for Book Collecting. The contest is open to all students enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate/professional degree program at Duke, and the winners will receive cash prizes.

Submissions due by March 31, 2023

More information: bit.ly/bookcollectors

First Prize

Undergraduate division: $1,500
Graduate division: $1,500

Second Prize

Undergraduate division: $750
Graduate division: $750

Winners of the contest will receive any in-print Grolier Club book of their choice, as well as a three-year membership in the Bibliographical Society of America.

You don’t have to be a “book collector” to enter the contest. Past collections have varied in interest areas and included a number of different types of materials. Collections are judged on adherence to a clearly defined unifying theme, not rarity or monetary value.

Visit our website for more information and read winning entries from past years. Contact Kurt Cumiskey at kurt.cumiskey@duke.edu with any questions.

Happy Birthday, Jane!

Chawton House

Today is Jane Austen’s birthday! As always I like to celebrate with a blog post highlighting interesting things to read and new books that have been published about her. If you are seeing this post early enough, you can sign up for a virtual birthday event at the New York Public Library that takes place at 2:00pm EST today: What is it About Jane? Celebrating Jane Austen’s Birthday 

Here are some new books that we own:

The Routledge Companion to Jane Austen edited by Cheryl A. Wilson and Maria H. Frawley

Jane Austen: A Companion by Laura Dabundo

Lady Susan ; The Watsons ; and, Sanditon : Unfinished Fictions and Other Writings by Jane Austen ; edited with an introduction and notes by Kathryn Sutherland.

What to Read this Month: December

Looking for something new to read?  Check out our New and Noteworthy, Current Literature and Overdrive collections for some good reads to enjoy! Here is a selection of books you will find in these collections!


Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender by Kit Heyam. Today’s narratives about trans people tend to feature individuals with stable gender identities that fit neatly into the categories of male or female. Those stories, while important, fail to account for the complex realities of many trans people’s lives.  Before We Were Trans illuminates the stories of people across the globe, from antiquity to the present, whose experiences of gender have defied binary categories. Blending historical analysis with sharp cultural criticism, trans historian and activist Heyam offers a new, radically inclusive trans history, chronicling expressions of trans experience that are often overlooked, like gender-nonconforming fashion and wartime stage performance. Before We Were Trans transports us from Renaissance Venice to seventeenth-century Angola, from Edo Japan to early America, and looks to the past to uncover new horizons for possible trans futures. Read this The New York Times review to learn more.


Becoming Eve: my journey from ultra-Orthodox rabbi to transgender woman by Abby Stein. The powerful coming-of-age story of an ultra-Orthodox child who was born to become a rabbinic leader and instead became a woman. Abby was raised in a Hasidic Jewish community in Brooklyn, isolated in a culture that lives according to the laws and practices of eighteenth-century Eastern Europe, speaking only Yiddish and Hebrew and shunning modern life. Stein was born as the first son in a dynastic rabbinical family, poised to become a leader of the next generation of Hasidic Jews. But Abby felt certain at a young age that she was a girl. She suppressed her desire for a new body while looking for answers wherever she could find them, from forbidden religious texts to smuggled secular examinations of faith. Finally, she orchestrated a personal exodus from ultra-Orthodox manhood to mainstream femininity-a radical choice that forced her to leave her home, her family, and her way of life. Powerful in the truths it reveals about biology, culture, faith, and identity, Becoming Eve poses the enduring question: How far will you go to become the person you were meant to be? Learn more in this review by The Humanist.


Fairest: A Memoir by Meredith Talusan. Fairest is a memoir about a precocious boy with albinism, a “sun child” from a rural Philippine village, who would grow up to become a woman in America. Coping with the strain of parental neglect and the elusive promise of U.S. citizenship, Talusan found childhood comfort from her devoted grandmother, a grounding force as others treated her with special preference or public curiosity. As an immigrant to the United States, Talusan came to be perceived as white. An academic scholarship to Harvard provided access to elite circles of privilege but required Talusan to navigate the complex spheres of race, class, sexuality, and her place within the gay community. She emerged as an artist and an activist questioning the boundaries of gender. Talusan realized she did not want to be confined to a prescribed role as a man and transitioned to become a woman, despite the risk of losing a man she deeply loved. Throughout her journey, Talusan shares poignant and powerful episodes of desirability and love that will remind readers of works such as Call Me By Your Name and Giovanni’s Room. Learn more about Talusan’s memoir in a review from The New York Times.


Sorted Growing up, Coming Out, and Finding My Place: A Transgender Memoir by Jackson Bird. When Jackson was twenty-five, he came out as transgender to his friends, family, and anyone with an internet connection. Assigned female at birth and raised as a girl, he often wondered if he should have been born a boy. Growing up in Texas in the 1990s, he had no transgender role models. In this “soulful and heartfelt coming-of-age story” (Jamia Wilson, director, and publisher of the Feminist Press), Jackson chronicles the ups and downs of growing up gender-confused. With warmth and wit, Jackson recounts how he navigated the many obstacles and quirks of his transition–like figuring out how to have a chest binder delivered to his NYU dorm room and having an emotional breakdown at a Harry Potter fan convention. From his first shot of testosterone to his eventual top surgery, Jackson lets you in on every part of his journey, explaining trans terminology and little-known facts about gender and identity along the way. Sorted demonstrates the power and beauty in being yourself, even when you’re not sure who “yourself” is. Learn more in this LGBTQ Reads guest post by Bird.


The House of Impossible Beauties by Joseph Cassara. A gritty and gorgeous debut that follows a cast of gay and transgender club kids navigating the Harlem ball scene of the 1980s and ’90s, inspired by the real House of Xtravaganza made famous by the seminal documentary Paris Is Burning. It’s 1980 in New York City, and nowhere is the city’s glamour and energy better reflected than in the burgeoning Harlem ball scene, where seventeen-year-old Angel first comes into her own. Burned by her traumatic past, Angel is new to the drag world, new to ball culture, and has a yearning to help create a family for those without. When she falls in love with Hector, a beautiful young man who dreams of becoming a professional dancer, the two decide to form the House of Xtravaganza, the first-ever all-Latino house in the Harlem ball circuit. But when Hector dies of AIDS-related complications, Angel must bear the responsibility of tending to their house alone. Told in a voice that brims with wit, rage, tenderness and fierce yearning, The House of Impossible Beauties is a tragic story of love, family, and the dynamism of the human spirit. Learn more here.


 

Let’s Create: Zine Making Party


Studies show creating art reduces stress and enhances well-being. So come make a zine with us during finals week to celebrate and reflect on your semester. Zines are mini-magazines that can be anything you can imagine. For this project, we will create a personal storybook to remind us of the challenges and accomplishments we’ve nailed this semester. We will repurpose book jackets by cutting them up and adding collages to our zine pages; no two zines will be alike! All you need to do is drop in between exams and studying. Zine-making materials and snacks will be provided.


Where: The Oasis, Room 418, Perkins Library

When: Monday, Dec. 12th, 2:30 to 4 pm, and Thursday, Dec. 15th, 11 am to 12:30 pm


 

ONLINE: Low Maintenance Book Club reads “A Room of One’s Own”

 

For the final Low Maintenance Book Club of 2022, we’ll be reading and discussing the entirety of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own on Thursday, December 8thAs always, you’re welcome regardless of how much (or whether) you’ve read. Copies of the book are available through your local public library and Duke University libraries in both print and ebook format.

The meeting will be taking place over Zoom, so make sure to RSVP to get an invitation link the morning of the 8th.  We hope to see you there!

If you have any questions, please contact Arianne Hartsell-Gundy (aah39@duke.edu)

 

What to Read this Month: November

Looking for something new to read?  Check out our New and Noteworthy, Current Literature and Overdrive collections for some good reads to enjoy! Here is a selection of books you will find in these collections!


Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng. Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve “American culture” in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the authorities are now allowed to relocate children of dissidents, especially those of Asian origin, and libraries have been forced to remove books seen as unpatriotic—including the work of Bird’s mother, Margaret, a Chinese American poet who left the family when he was nine years old. Our Missing Hearts is an old story about how supposedly civilized communities can ignore the most searing injustice. It’s a story about the power—and limitations—of art to create change, the lessons and legacies we pass on to our children, and how any of us can survive a broken world with our hearts intact. Learn more here, The New York Times Book Review.


Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is a story of a boy born to a teenage single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damage to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens’ anger and compassion and, above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Read more in The Washington Post’s book review.


Acceptance by Emi Nietfeld. As a homeless teenager writing college essays in her rusty Toyota Corolla, Emi Nietfeld was convinced that the Ivy League was the only escape from her dysfunctional childhood. But upward mobility required crafting the perfect resilience narrative. She had to prove that she was an “overcomer,” made stronger by all she had endured. The truth was more complicated. Emi’s mom was a charming hoarder who had her put on antipsychotics but believed in her daughter’s brilliance—unlike the Minnesotan foster family who banned her “pornographic” art history flashcards (of Michelangelo’s David). Emi’s other parent vanished shortly after coming out as trans, a situation few understood in the mid-2000s. Both a chronicle of the American Dream and an indictment of it, this searing debut exposes the price of trading a troubled past for the promise of a bright future. Told with a ribbon of dark humor, Acceptance challenges our ideas of what it means to overcome. Read this NPR review to learn more.


Carry: A Memoir of Survival on Stolen Land by Toni Jensen. Jensen is a Métis woman, and she is no stranger to the violence enacted on Indigenous women’s bodies on Indigenous land. In Carry, Jensen maps her personal experience onto the historical, exploring how history is lived in the body and redefining the language used to speak about violence in America. In the title chapter, Jensen connects the trauma of school shootings with her experiences of racism and sexual assault on college campuses. “The Worry Line” explores the gun and gang violence in her neighborhood the year her daughter was born. “At the Workshop” focuses on her graduate school years, during which a workshop classmate repeatedly killed off thinly veiled versions of her in his stories. In prose at once forensic and deeply emotional, Toni Jensen shows herself to be a brave new voice and a fearless witness to her own difficult history–as well as to the violent cultural landscape in which she finds her coordinates. Read more about Jensen’s debut book here and an interview with Clemson University here.


Dog Flowers: A Memoir by Danielle Geller. A daughter returns home to the Navajo reservation to retrace her mother’s life in a memoir that is both a narrative and an archive of one family’s troubled history. When Geller’s mother dies of alcohol withdrawal while attempting to get sober, Geller returns to Florida and finds her mother’s life packed into eight suitcases. Most were filled with clothes, except for the last one, which contained diaries, photos, letters, a few undeveloped disposable cameras, dried sage, jewelry, and the bandana her mother wore on days she skipped a hair wash. Geller, an archivist and a writer uses these pieces of her mother’s life to try and understand her mother’s relationship to home and their shared need to leave it. Geller embarks on a journey that will end at her mother’s home: the Navajo reservation. Dog Flowers is an arresting, photo-lingual memoir that masterfully weaves together images and text to examine mothers and mothering, sisters and caretaking, and colonized bodies. Read more about this story in the Southern Review of Books.


New Artwork at East Asian Collection

This blog post was contributed by Luo Zhou, Chinese Studies Librarian, International & Area Studies Department, Duke University Libraries.

A beautiful silk painting has just been hung above the microfilm cabinet across from the Gillespie East Asia Reading Room.  The work of an unknown artist, this contemporary Japanese silk painting (16.5” x 48” with frame) is a replica of a famous Chinese painting called Evening Bell from Mist-Shrouded Temple (煙寺晚鐘圖) by the Chan Buddhist monk painter Muqi (Muxi) 牧谿 (1207–1291), who lived towards the end of the Southern Song Dynasty period (1127-1279). Muqi is the art name (Hao 號) of the monk’s Dharma name (Fachang 法常). He was initially from Sichuan and later moved to Hangzhou, the capital of Southern Song Dynasty. Although he was not very well known in his lifetime, he is today widely recognized as the predecessor of Chinese Chan (Japanese: Zen) Buddhist painting.

Art historians generally agree that Chan painting in China developed in the thirteenth century. Chan Buddhist painters used the same tools and techniques created and refined by generations of Chinese artists, but they applied these means in the Chan spirit, which could be explained as the abundance of emptiness or the nothing of Being.

Evening Bell from Mist-Shrouded Temple (煙寺晚鐘圖) by Muqi Fachang. Source: Hatakeyama Memorial Museum of Fine Art

Muqi received a more immediate recognition in Japan. His works were collected and brought from China to Japan.  Evening Bell from Mist-Shrouded Temple is one of his surviving works from the original set of Eight View of the Xiao and Xiang River (瀟湘八景) paintings. It is currently housed at Hatakeyama Memorial Museum of Fine Art (畠山記念館) in Tokyo, Japan. The painting is found to be listed in the Ashikaga Shugunate collection. The collector, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (足利義滿, 1358-1408), the military ruler in Japan, was passionate about Muqi’s paintings. His collection catalog listed 134 works of Muqi. Evening Bell from Mist-Shrouded Temple used to be displayed in his tea room. His seal as a collector (道有) shown below, is one important key to link this silk painting with Muqi’s original art work.

Collection Seal of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu

It is unknown exactly how the contemporary Japanese version of the Muqi painting arrived at Duke University, but we do know that it was most likely first hung in the office of University Librarian Jerry D. Campbell, who worked at Duke from 1984 to 1995. For a long time after Campbell’s departure, this objet d’art was housed in an office in Lilly Library, on Duke’s East Campus.

This Japanese silk painting is now located above the microfilm cabinet and next to the religion section of the East Asian collection, where books on Buddhism, Daoism, and other Asian religious forms and practices can be found.

Please stop by and take a look!

 

What to Read this Month: October 2022

Looking for something new to read?  Check out our New and Noteworthy, Current Literature and Overdrive collections for some good reads to enjoy! Here is a selection of books you will find in these collections!


Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi. This winner of the 2019 Man Booker International Prize and national bestseller is “an innovative reimagining of the family saga.” In the village of al-Awafi in Oman, we encounter three sisters: Mayya, who marries after a heartbreak; Asma, who marries from a sense of duty; and Khawla, who chooses to refuse all offers and await a reunion with the man she loves, who has emigrated to Canada. These three women and their families, their losses and loves, unspool beautifully against a backdrop of a rapidly changing Oman, a country evolving from a traditional, slave-owning society into its complex present. Through the sisters, we glimpse a society in all its degrees, from the very poorest of the local slave families to those making money through the advent of new wealth. The first novel originally written in Arabic to ever win the Man Booker International Prize, and the first book by a female Omani author to be translated into English. Read more about this striking novel in a thoughtful review by The New Yorker.


Crying in the Bathroom: A Memoir by Erika L. Sánchez. From the New York Times bestselling author of I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, an utterly original memoir-in-essays that is as deeply moving as it is hilarious. Growing up as the daughter of Mexican immigrants in Chicago in the nineties, Erika was a self-described pariah, misfit, and disappointment–a foul-mouthed, melancholic rabble-rouser who painted her nails black but also loved comedy, often laughing so hard with her friends that she had to leave her school classroom. Twenty-five years later, she’s now an award-winning novelist, poet, and essayist, but she’s still got an irrepressible laugh, an acerbic wit, and singular powers of perception about the world around her. Raunchy, insightful, unapologetic, and brutally honest, Crying in the Bathroom is Sánchez at her best–a book that will make you feel that post-confessional high that comes from talking for hours with your best friend. Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with Erika’s poignant memoir, and listen to her interview with NPR to learn more.


I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy. A heartbreaking and hilarious memoir by iCarly and Sam & Cat star Jennette McCurdy about her struggles as a former child actor—including eating disorders, addiction, and a complicated relationship with her overbearing mother—and how she retook control of her life. In I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette recounts all this in unflinching detail—just as she chronicles what happens when the dream finally comes true. Cast in a new Nickelodeon series called iCarly, she is thrust into fame. Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame, and self-loathing. These issues only get worse when, soon after taking the lead in the iCarly spinoff Sam & Cat alongside Ariana Grande, her mother dies of cancer. Finally, after discovering therapy and quitting acting, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time in her life what she really wants. Told with refreshing candor and dark humor, I’m Glad My Mom Died is an inspiring story of resilience, independence, and the joy of shampooing your own hair. Read more in this review by The Atlantic.


The Source of Self-Regard by Toni Morrison. Here is the Nobel Prize winner in her own words: a rich gathering of her most important essays and speeches, spanning four decades that “speaks to today’s social and political moment as directly as this morning’s headlines” (NPR). These pages give us her searing prayer for the dead of 9/11, her Nobel lecture on the power of language, her searching meditation on Martin Luther King Jr., her heart-wrenching eulogy for James Baldwin. She looks deeply into the fault lines of culture and freedom: the foreigner, female empowerment, the press, money, “black matter(s),” human rights, the artist in society, the Afro-American presence in American literature. And she turns her incisive critical eye to her own work and that of others. An essential collection from an essential writer, The Source of Self-Regard shines with the literary elegance, intellectual prowess, spiritual depth, and moral compass that have made Toni Morrison our most cherished and enduring voice. Learn more in Morrison’s candid interview with Bitch Media.


The Women Could Fly by Megan Giddings. Reminiscent of the works of Margaret Atwood, Shirley Jackson, and Octavia Butler–a piercing dystopian novel about the unbreakable bond between a young woman and her mysterious mother. Josephine Thomas has heard every conceivable theory about her mother’s disappearance. That she was kidnapped. Murdered. That she took on a new identity to start a new family. That she was a witch. This is the most worrying charge because in a world where witches are real, peculiar behavior raises suspicions and a woman–especially a Black woman–can find herself on trial for witchcraft. But fourteen years have passed since her mother’s disappearance, and now Jo is finally ready to let go of the past. Yet her future is in doubt. The State mandates that all women marry by the age of 30–or enroll in a registry that allows them to be monitored, effectively forfeiting their autonomy. At 28, Jo is ambivalent about marriage. When she’s offered the opportunity to honor one last request from her mother’s will, Jo leaves her regular life to feel connected to her one last time. Read the LA Times Book Review to learn more.

ONLINE: Low Maintenance Book Club reads “Night of the Living Rez”

Get spooky with the Low Maintenance Book Club! At our October 27th meeting, we’ll discuss selections from the award-winning short story collection Night of the Living Rez: “Burn,” “In a Jar,” “The Blessing Tobacco,” and “Night of the Living Rez.” As always, you’re welcome regardless of how much (or whether) you’ve read!

Copies of the book are available through your local public library, on our Overdrive, and soon through our print copies. This meeting will be taking place over Zoom, so make sure to RSVP to get a invitation link the morning of the 27th!

Date: Thursday, October 27, 2022

Time:12:00pm – 1:00pm

If you have any questions, you can contact Arianne Hartsell-Gundy at aah39@duke.edu.

Lilly Collection Spotlight: Library Things for Your Curiosity Voyage

Library Things –
Embark on Your Curiosity Voyage

Films, Books, and Music of the 1980s in the Libraries’ Collections

Do you know that the creators of Stranger Things are from Durham, North Carolina?
The supernatural series may be set in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana, but creators Matt and Ross Duffer grew up in Durham. Although the identical twins grew up in the 90s, the series is awash with popular culture references from the 1980s. They lived in Durham County and attended the Duke School for elementary and middle school, graduating from Jordan High School. The Duffer brothers later attended Chapman University in California where they studied film and media arts.

Enjoy the ambience of Hawkins – we mean Durham – and immerse yourself in the 1980s. Discover movies, books, comics, and music of the era in our Duke Libraries’ collections.

Films of the 1980s

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Spain) DVD 30088

To give a sense of the world beyond Hawkins/Durham, we’ve highlighted international films from the same period including Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Spain), Police Story (Hong Kong), Cinema Paradiso (Italy), and My Neighbor Totoro (Japan).

Films that the Hellfire gang watched include popular titles like Ghostbusters and E.T. – and, yes, those are in our film collection.

Visit the Library Things Collection Spotlight  in our lobby to browse these films*  – and more (the full list is here) –  that we’ve selected from our film collection.

Note: The list incudes some titles which  you can stream via your Duke NetID.

Music of the 1980s

LL Cool J’s Radio (1985)

Heavy Metal, Punk, Rock, Electronic, Pop, Rap – the 1980s are calling! Songs and artists featured in the show are seeing a resurgence of interest and gaining new audiences. If you wonder why “old” music such as Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill (1985), Metallica’s Master of Puppets (1986), and the Clash have been at the top of playlists, you can thank Stranger Things. The 1980s also saw the rise of Rap as a musical force with the emergence of iconic performers such as LL Cool J, Grandmaster Flash, and Run D.M.C.

The Duke Music Library has a collection of CDs embracing all musical genres including rock, folk and rap. Don’t want to immerse yourself in the 1980s  with a boombox or other older formats?  Your Duke NetID  provides access to streaming music platforms.  Interested in the same sort of 1980s  (and more recent) music of Stranger Things?  Alexander Street Music database can lead you directly to genres of popular music.

Books of the 1980s

Stephen King’s It

While film, music, and the rise of gaming of the 1980s populate the atmosphere of Stranger Things, books about – and of – the period illuminate popular culture.  A selection of suspense and fantasy novels by writers such as Stephen King, graphic novels (which evolved from comic books), and books examining contemporary culture are available in the Lilly Library lobby.  Peruse these highlighted titles, plus a few eBooks in our Lilly Collection Spotlight Reading List.

To quote  Stranger Things‘ character  Dustin:
… I am on a curiosity voyage, and I need my paddles to travel. These books… these books are my paddles…

Our Duke Libraries and your Duke NetID  provide “paddles” that encompass books, film, music, and a breadth of online resources.  Explore Duke Libraries’ “library things” and embark on your own curiosity voyage!

 

Collection Spotlight: Banned Books in 2022

This post was written by Ciara Healy, Librarian for Psychology & Neuroscience, Mathematics, and Physics.

Banned or challenged books are alive and well across the country. Recently there have been PTA and livestreamed school board meetings devoted to banned books, with parents and students alike defending or protesting Critical Race Theory in schools. Two places to learn more about this ongoing issue is Unite Against Book Bans and EveryLibrary Institute.

The American Library Association (ALA) offers lists of books as part of their annual Banned and Challenged Books week kicking off September 18th through the 24th of September. The list of the top ten most banned and challenged books of 2021 can be found on their website. Thanks ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom!

Th 2021 list linked above has a mix of books covering challenges to books about race and a surprising number of LGBTQIQ+ titles and the reasons for their being challenged or banned in schools and libraries.

If you are interested in learning more, there are several upcoming opportunities. First, Duke Alumni has programs beginning on September 27th through December 14th at the Karsh Alumni and Visitors center and through Zoom. To register, use this link for the events: https://tinyurl.com/48wbv2p5.

Also, check out the Collection Spotlight featuring Banned and Challenged books, which can be found in Perkins Library on exhibit near the book drop at the Perkins Service Desk.

What to Read this Month: September 2022

Looking for something new to read?  Check out our New and Noteworthy, Current Literature and Overdrive collections for some good reads to enjoy! Here is a selection of books you will find in these collections!


The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan. Frida Liu is struggling. She doesn’t have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents’ sacrifices. She can’t persuade her husband, Gust, to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress. Only with Harriet, their cherubic daughter does Frida finally attain the perfection expected of her. Until Frida has a very bad day. Because of one moment of poor judgment, a host of government officials will now determine if Frida is a candidate for a Big Brother-like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother’s devotion. Faced with the possibility of losing Harriet, Frida must prove that a bad mother can be redeemed. That she can learn to be good. An “intense” ( Oprah Daily ) page-turner that is also a transgressive novel of ideas about the perils of “perfect” upper-middle class parenting; the violence enacted upon women by both the state and, at times, one another; the systems that separate families; and the boundlessness of love. Using dark wit to explore the pains and joys of the deepest ties that bind us, Chan has written a modern literary classic. Watch Chan discuss her novel on the Today Show and listen to her on the Lit Hub Radio podcast.


Nuclear Family by Joseph Han. Things are looking up for Mr. and Mrs. Cho. Their daughter, Grace, is busy finishing her senior year of college and working for her parents, while her older brother, Jacob, just moved to Seoul to teach English. But when a viral video shows Jacob trying—and failing—to cross the Korean demilitarized zone, nothing can protect the family from suspicion and the restaurant from waning sales. Struggling with what they don’t know about themselves and one another, the Chos must confront the separations that have endured in their family for decades. Set in the months leading up to the 2018 false missile alert in Hawaiʻi, Joseph Han’s profoundly funny and strikingly beautiful debut novel is an offering that aches with histories inherited and reunions missed, asking how we heal in the face of what we forget and who we remember. Learn more in The New York Times Book Review and NPR’s Book of the Day podcast interview with Han.


Tell Me Everything by Erika Krouse is the mesmerizing story of a landmark sexual assault investigation and the female private investigator who helped crack it open. In the fall of 2002, Erika accepts a new contract job investigating lawsuits as a private investigator. Erika knows she should turn the assignment down. Her own history with sexual violence makes it all too personal. But she takes the job anyway. Over the next five years, Erika learns everything she can about P. I. technique, tracking down witnesses and investigating a culture of sexual assault and harassment ingrained in the university’s football program. But as the investigation grows into a national scandal and a historic civil rights case, Erika becomes increasingly consumed. When the case and her life both implode simultaneously, Erika must figure out how to help win the case without losing herself. Read The Washington Post review and listen to her Colorado Public Radio interview to learn more.

 


We should have known the end was near. So begins Imbolo Mbue’s powerful second novel, How Beautiful We Were. Set in the fictional African village of Kosawa, it tells of a people living in fear amid environmental degradation wrought by an American oil company. Pipeline spills have rendered farmlands infertile. Children are dying from drinking toxic water. Told from the perspective of a generation of children and the family of a girl named Thula who grows up to become a revolutionary, How Beautiful We Were is a masterful exploration of what happens when the reckless drive for profit, coupled with the ghost of colonialism, comes up against one community’s determination to hold on to its ancestral land and a young woman’s willingness to sacrifice everything for the sake of her people’s freedom. This New York Review of Books article asks the hard questions about oil extraction, climate change, and the intersectionalities in Mbue’s visionary novel.


Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty is a riveting debut collection about what it means to be Penobscot in the twenty-first century and what it means to live, to survive, and to persevere after a tragedy. In twelve striking, luminescent stories, a boy unearths a jar that holds an old curse, which sets into motion his family’s unraveling; a man, while trying to swindle some pot from a dealer, discovers a friend passed out in the woods, his hair frozen into the snow; a grandmother suffering from Alzheimer’s projects the past onto her grandson; and two friends, inspired by Antiques Roadshow, attempt to rob the tribal museum for valuable root clubs. Night of the Living Rez is an unforgettable portrayal of an Indigenous community and marks the arrival of a standout talent in contemporary fiction. Listen to Talty, a citizen of the Penobscot Indian Nation discuss how these stories came to be in his NPR interview.

Low Maintenance Book Club Reads The Memory Librarian

The Low Maintenance Book Club is starting off the semester with a bang—our first in-person meeting since 2020 and a superstar reading selection (if we do say so ourselves)! Join the Low Maintenance Book Club on Wednesday, September 21st at 5:30pm for a discussion of selections from Janelle Monáe’s The Memory Librarian: the introduction, “The Memory Librarian” and “Timebox.” We’ll be meeting outdoors at the tables near the breezeway between Perkins & Bostock. In case of inclement weather, we’ll send a rain location to participants who have RSVP’d.

Copies of the book can be found at Duke University Libraries (audiobook, ebook and print) and most public libraries.

Low Maintenance Book Club reads selections from The Memory Librarian

Wednesday, September 21st, 5:30-7:00pm

Tables near Perkins-Bostock breezeway

Light snacks will be served, so please RSVP if you plan to attend. We hope to see you there!

What to Read this Month: August 2022

Looking for something new to read?  Check out our New and Noteworthy, Current Literature, and Overdrive collections for some good reads to enjoy! Here are a selection of books you will find in these collections!


Carolina Built by Kianna Alexander. Josephine N. Leary is determined to build a life of her own, and a future for her family. When she moves to Edenton, North Carolina from the plantation where she was born, she is free, newly married, and ready to follow her dreams. As the demands of life pull Josephine’s attention- deepening her marriage, mothering her daughters, supporting her grandmother- she struggles to balance her real estate aspirations with the realities of keeping life going every day. She teaches herself to be a business woman, to manage her finances, and to make smart investments in the local real estate market. But with each passing year, it grows more difficult to focus on building her legacy from the ground up. Moving and inspiring, Josephine Leary’s untold story speaks to the part of us that dares to dream bigger, tear down whatever stands in our way, and build something better for the loved ones we leave behind. If you’d like to learn more about Josephine N. Leary’s life, we have some of her papers in the Rubenstein Library.


Sticker by Henry Hoke. Stickers adorn our first memories, dot our notebooks and our walls, are stuck annoyingly on fruit, and accompany us into adulthood to announce our beliefs from car bumpers. They hold surprising power in their ability to define and provoke, and hold a strange steadfast presence in our age of fading physical media. Henry Hoke employs a constellation of stickers to explore queer boyhood, parental disability, and ancestral violence. A memoir in 20 stickers, Sticker is set against the backdrop of the encroaching neo-fascist presence in Hoke’s hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia, which results in the fatal terrorist attack of August 12th and its national aftermath. We have other books in the Object Lessons series, if you are interested in exploring the cultural context of everyday objects.


In The Last Days of the Dinosaurs: An Asteroid, Extinction, and the Beginning of our World, Riley Black walks readers through what happened in the days, the years, the centuries, and the million years after the impact, tracking the sweeping disruptions that overtook this one spot, and imagining what might have been happening elsewhere on the globe. Life’s losses were sharp and deeply-felt, but the hope carried by the beings that survived sets the stage for the world as we know it now. Picture yourself in the Cretaceous period. It’s a sunny afternoon in the Hell Creek of ancient Montana 66 million years ago. A Triceratops horridus ambles along the edge of the forest. In a matter of hours, everything here will be wiped away. Lush verdure will be replaced with fire. Tyrannosaurus rex will be toppled from their throne, along with every other species of non-avian dinosaur no matter their size, diet, or disposition. They just don’t know it yet. Check out this New Scientist book review to learn more.


Vagabonds! by Eloghosa Osunde. In the bustling streets and cloistered homes of Lagos, a cast of vivid characters–some haunted, some defiant–navigate danger, demons, and love in a quest to lead true lives. As in Nigeria, vagabonds are those whose existence is literally outlawed: the queer, the poor, the displaced, the footloose and rogue spirits. They are those who inhabit transient spaces, who make their paths and move invisibly, who embrace apparitions, old vengeances and alternative realities. Eloghosa Osunde’s brave, fiercely inventive novel traces a wild array of characters for whom life itself is a form of resistance: a driver for a debauched politician with the power to command life and death; a legendary fashion designer who gives birth to a grown daughter; a lesbian couple whose tender relationship sheds unexpected light on their experience with underground sex work; a wife and mother who attends a secret spiritual gathering that shifts her world. As their lives intertwine–in bustling markets and underground clubs, churches and hotel rooms–vagabonds are seized and challenged by spirits who command the city’s dark energy. Whether running from danger, meeting with secret lovers, finding their identities, or vanquishing their shadowselves, Osunde’s characters confront and support one another, before converging for the once-in-a-lifetime gathering that gives the book its unexpectedly joyous conclusion. To learn more, you can read an NYT review and a Guardian review.


Pandora: A Novel in Three Parts by Susan Stokes-Chapman. A pure pleasure of a novel set in Georgian London, where the discovery of a mysterious ancient Greek vase sets in motion conspiracies, revelations and romance. Dora Blake is an aspiring jewellery artist who lives with her uncle in what used to be her parents’ famed shop of antiquities. When a mysterious Greek vase is delivered, Dora is intrigued by her uncle’s suspicious behaviour and enlists the help of Edward Lawrence, a young antiquarian scholar. Edward sees the ancient vase as key to unlocking his academic future. Dora sees it as a chance to restore the shop to its former glory, and to escape her nefarious uncle. But what Edward discovers about the vase has Dora questioning everything she has believed about her life, her family, and the world as she knows it. As Dora uncovers the truth she starts to realize that some mysteries are buried, and some doors are locked, for a reason. Here’s a review from the Guardian.  You might also enjoy this YouTube video where the author discusses the Greek mythology that inspired this book.

What to Read this Month: July 2022

Looking for something new to read?  Check out our New and Noteworthy, Current Literature, and Overdrive collections for some good reads to enjoy!


Activities of Daily Living by Lisa Hsiao Chen. How do we take stock of a life–by what means, and by what measure? This is the question that preoccupies Alice, a Taiwanese immigrant in her late thirties. In the off-hours from her day job, Alice struggles to create a project about the enigmatic downtown performance artist Tehching Hsieh and his monumental, yearlong 1980s performance pieces. Meanwhile, she becomes the caretaker for her aging stepfather, a Vietnam vet whose dream of making traditional Chinese furniture dissolved in alcoholism and dementia. As Alice roots deeper into Hsieh’s radical use of time–in one piece, the artist confined himself to a cell for a year; in the next, he punched a time clock every hour, on the hour, for a year–and his mysterious disappearance from the art world, her project starts metabolizing events from her own life. Moving between present-day and 1980s New York City, with detours to Silicon Valley and the Venice Biennale, this vivid debut announces Lisa Hsiao Chen as an audacious new talent. To learn more, check out this San Francisco Chronicle review and this NYT review.


Noisy Autumn: Sculpture and Works on Paper by Christy Rupp. Christy Rupp emerged as an American artist and activist in Manhattan in the late 1970s, using commodified materials to construct three-dimensional, sculptural works imbued with a dynamic sense of life. Noisy Autumn contains her recent sculptures and works on paper anticipating the dawn of late capitalism, and the Anthropocene. Rupp is primarily concerned with humans’ perceptions of nature: where do the borders of the “natural” emerge? The work aims to deconstruct harsh divisions that separate humans from our environment, while addressing the intersection of geopolitics, culture, and economics, as they impact the vulnerabilities of ecosystems. Her sculptures and works on paper alike leave readers pondering human engagement with the natural world amid rampant consumption–and how they may take action. Check out her website to learn more about Christy Rupp.


Don’t Cry for Me by Daniel Black. As Jacob lies dying, he begins to write a letter to his only son, Isaac. They have not met or spoken in many years, and there are things that Isaac must know. Stories about his ancestral legacy in rural Arkansas that extend back to slavery. Secrets from Jacob’s tumultuous relationship with Isaac’s mother and the shame he carries from the dissolution of their family. Tragedies that informed Jacob’s role as a father and his reaction to Isaac’s being gay. But most of all, Jacob must share with Isaac the unspoken truths that reside in his heart. He must give voice to the trauma that Isaac has inherited. And he must create a space for the two to find peace. With piercing insight and profound empathy, acclaimed author Daniel Black illuminates the lived experiences of Black fathers and queer sons, offering an authentic and ultimately hopeful portrait of reckoning and reconciliation.  There’s an interesting review in Southern Review of Books. You might also be interested in this video from the Georgia Center for the Book that shows a conversation between Daniel Black and Julian Winters.


Unprotected: A Memoir by Billy Porter. “This is not a coming-out story. It’s not a down-low story either. I never could have passed for straight, even if I’d wanted to, and so I never had the dubious luxury of living a lie.” From the incomparable Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award winner, a powerful and revealing autobiography about race, sexuality, art, and healing It’s easy to be yourself when who and what you are is in vogue. But growing up Black and gay in America has never been easy. Before Billy Porter was slaying red carpets and giving an iconic Emmy-winning performance in the celebrated TV show Pose; before he was the groundbreaking Tony and Grammy Award–winning star of Broadway’s Kinky Boots; and before he was an acclaimed recording artist, actor, playwright, director, and all-around legend, Porter was a young boy in Pittsburgh who was seen as different, who didn’t fit in. At five years old, Porter was sent to therapy to “fix” his effeminacy. He was endlessly bullied at school, sexually abused by his stepfather, and criticized at his church. Porter came of age in a world where simply being himself was a constant struggle. Billy Porter’s Unprotected is the life story of a singular artist and survivor in his own words. This audiobook is also narrated by Billy Porter himself!


The Invisible Kingdom : Reimagining Chronic Illness by Meghan O’Rourke.  Drawing on her own medical experience as well as fifteen years of interviews with doctors, patients, researchers, and public health experts, O’Rourke’s incisive new work speaks to an urgent subject: the epidemic scale of autoimmune disease in America (even greater with the advent of ‘Long Covid’) and where we go from here. O’Rourke reveals crucial, subtle complexities about the American struggle with chronic illness and autoimmune conditions, and offers new reasons for hope, as well as a new framework for thinking about infectious disease and autoimmune response going forward. You can read reviews in Slate and the Los Angeles Times.

ONLINE: Big Books Edition: One Hundred Years of Solitude

 

It’s almost summer, and that means it’s time for the Low Maintenance Book Club’s Big Books Edition! This year, we’ll be reading “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel García Márquez over three months.

The third and final meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, July 20th from noon-1pm over Zoom. For this meeting, we’ll discuss the chapter beginning with the sentence “The war was over in May.” through the end of the novel.

The second meeting will take place on Wednesday, June 22 from noon-1pm over Zoom. For this meeting, we discussed pages 133-315 in the Harper Collins edition.

The first meeting took place on Wednesday, May 25th from noon-1pm over Zoom We read pages 1-31 in the Harper Collections edition.

Although you may read any edition, we recommend the Gregory Rabassa translation. Hard copies and audiobooks may be found at Duke University Libraries and most public libraries. Currently, there are no ebook editions available.

Please RSVP to receive a Zoom link the morning of the meeting. We hope to see you there!

What to Read this Month: June 2022

Looking for something new to read?  Check out our New and Noteworthy, Current Literature, and Overdrive collections for some good reads to enjoy!


The First, the Few, the Only: How Women of Color Can Redefine Power in Corporate America by Deepa Purushothaman. A deeply personal call to action for women of color to find power from within and to join together in community, advocating for a new corporate environment where we all belong—and are accepted—on our own terms. Women of color comprise one of the fastest-growing segments in the corporate workforce, yet often we are underrepresented—among the first, few, or only ones in a department or company. For too long, corporate structures, social zeitgeist, and cultural conditioning have left us feeling exhausted and downtrodden, believing that in order to “fit in” and be successful, we must hide or change who we are.  Deepa Purushothaman  met with hundreds of other women of color across industries and cultural backgrounds, eager to hear about their unique and shared experiences. In doing so, she has come to understand our collective setbacks—and the path forward in achieving our goals. To learn more, watch this interview or read this article outlining five key insights.


Taste: My Life through Food by Stanley Tucci. From award-winning actor and food obsessive Stanley Tucci comes an intimate and charming memoir of life in and out of the kitchen. Stanley Tucci grew up in an Italian American family that spent every night around the kitchen table. Taste is a reflection on the intersection of food and life, filled with anecdotes about his growing up in Westchester, New York; preparing for and shooting the foodie films Big Night and Julie & Julia ; falling in love over dinner; and teaming up with his wife to create meals for a multitude of children. Each morsel of this gastronomic journey through good times and bad, five-star meals and burned dishes, is as heartfelt and delicious as the last. You can read reviews here and here.


The Bald Eagle: The Improbable Journey of America’s Bird by Jack E. Davis. The bald eagle is regal but fearless, a bird you’re not inclined to argue with. For centuries, Americans have celebrated it as “majestic” and “noble,” yet savaged the living bird behind their national symbol as a malicious predator of livestock and, falsely, a snatcher of babies. Taking us from before the nation’s founding through inconceivable resurgences of this enduring all-American species, Jack E. Davis contrasts the age when native peoples lived beside it peacefully with that when others, whether through hunting bounties or DDT pesticides, twice pushed Haliaeetus leucocephalus to the brink of extinction. This book is a cultural and natural history that demonstrates how this bird’s wondrous journey may provide inspiration today, as we grapple with environmental peril on a larger scale. You can learn more through this review and and this review.


The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections: A Novel by Eva Jurczyk. A stunning debut following a librarian whose quiet life is turned upside down when a priceless manuscript goes missing. Soon she has to ask: what holds more secrets in the library–the ancient books shelved in the stacks, or the people who preserve them? Liesl Weiss long ago learned to be content working behind the scenes in the distinguished rare books department of a large university, managing details and working behind the scenes to make the head of the department look good. But when her boss has a stroke and she’s left to run things, she discovers that the library’s most prized manuscript is missing. Liesl tries to sound the alarm and inform the police about the missing priceless book, but is told repeatedly to keep quiet, to keep the doors open and the donors happy. What Liesl discovers about the dusty manuscripts she has worked among for so long–and about the people who care for and revere them–shakes the very foundation on which she has built her life. If you want to visit a real-life rare books and special collections, make sure to check out our Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.


Joan is Okay: A Novel by Weike Wangoan. Joan is a thirtysomething ICU doctor at a busy New York City hospital. The daughter of Chinese parents who came to the United States to secure the American dream for their children, Joan is intensely devoted to her work, happily solitary, successful. She does look up sometimes and wonder where her true roots lie: at the hospital, where her white coat makes her feel needed, or with her family, who try to shape her life by their own cultural and social expectations. Once Joan and her brother, Fang, were established in their careers, her parents moved back to China, hoping to spend the rest of their lives in their homeland. But when Joan’s father suddenly dies and her mother returns to America to reconnect with her children, a series of events sends Joan spiraling out of her comfort zone just as her hospital, her city, and the world are forced to reckon with a health crisis more devastating than anyone could have imagined.  You can read an interview here and a review here.

What to Read this Month: April 2022

Congratulations on making it through another academic year! Now that we’re just about done with final exams, why not catch up on some reading? As always, our New & Noteworthy and Overdrive collections are waiting for you!

On a somewhat sadder note, this will be my final What to Read post, as I will be leaving Duke next week. I’ve had such a fun time curating this series for the past couple of years, so I’ve decided to leave you with some of my favorite titles I’ve selected for this series. Enjoy, and have a great summer! What to Read will be back soon with a new author.


My Autobiography of Carson McCullers: A Memoir | IndieBound.orgMy Autobiography of Carson McCullers by Jenn Shapland. In this genre-bending memoir (not a biography, though it contains elements of one), Shapland comes to understand facets of her own life as a queer and chronically ill person while studying the life of Carson McCullers, the renowned 20th-century Southern Gothic novelist, and herself a queer and chronically ill person. McCullers, perhaps best known for her novels The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and The Member of the Wedding, empathetically wrote of outsiders in her fairly short lifetime, drawing on a personal experience that Shapland finds to have been largely overlooked by her biographers. Her experience with McCullers begins with an internship at the University of Texas at Austin’s Harry Ransom Center, an archive in which she discovers a number of McCullers’ love letters to another woman. What follows is a strong investigation into McCullers’ life as a lesbian in the mid-twentieth century, interspersed with Shapland’s personal anecdotes about coming to terms with her own sexuality. Throughout this intense discussion of McCullers’ life, Shapland readily questions her own perception of the author, and her personal identification with her, making for an engaging and self-aware read. You can read reviews here and here.


The State Must Provide: Why America's Colleges Have Always Been  Unequal--and How to Set Them Right: Harris, Adam: 9780062976482:  Amazon.com: BooksThe State Must Provide: Why America’s Colleges Have Always Been Unequal–and How to Set Them Right by Adam Harris. In this book, Atlantic staff writer Harris takes an incisive look at the resource-related disparities that often exist between historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and predominantly white institutions, focusing particularly on the policy decisions–historical and current–that underpin them. Harris reveals that so many HBCUs were essentially set up to fail from their inception, with federal and state governments working to maintain segregation in American higher education while also deliberately underfunding predominantly Black institutions. These issues of chronic underfunding persist to this day, leaving many HBCUs egregiously lacking in resources. In chronicling this history, Harris also provides compelling portraits of the many Black scholars across generations who have worked to rectify these imbalances, and also weighs the benefits of many potential solutions to this systemic problem. You can read a review here and listen to an interview with Harris here.


The Disaster Tourist: A Novel: Ko-Eun, Yun, Buehler, Lizzie: 9781640094161:  Amazon.com: BooksThe Disaster Tourist by Yun Ko-eun (translated by Lizzie Buehler). In this dark satire of late-stage capitalism, originally published in South Korea in 2013 but published in English for the first time in 2020, Yun tells the story of Yona, an employee at a travel company that specializes in disaster tourism, arranging tours to locales devastated by all kinds of momentous crises for the perceived moral betterment of their customers. Yona has worked for the company for 10 years, coordinating tours and assessing what locations would bring in the most clients, but is on the brink of quitting after facing the sexual harassment of her boss and getting demoted for no clear reason. In a last-ditch effort to keep her in the company, she is directed to travel to an island called Mui, the company’s least popular destination. There, Yona discovers a seemingly ludicrous plot being carried out by the company: to bring in more clients, the company will create a disaster on the island, one that will surely kill a significant number of its inhabitants. From here, Yona must make some critical decisions, and Yun portrays her subsequent period on the island in a terrifying and yet darkly humorous way. You can read reviews here and here.


Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner: 9780525657743 |  PenguinRandomHouse.com: BooksCrying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner. In this memoir Zauner, founder of the band Japanese Breakfast, depicts her often complicated relationship with her mother Chongmi, as well as her grief following Chongmi’s death from cancer in 2014. Though Zauner describes a childhood and adolescence in which she attempts to distance herself from her and Chongmi’s Korean heritage (Zauner’s father Joel is white American), she finds that her ties to her mother always remain in some form, and often hinge upon their shared love of Korean cuisine. Just when Zauner begins to increasingly reconnect with her mother in her twenties, Chongmi is diagnosed with cancer. Zauner describes the futility of the treatments and her mother’s slow death, and spends the rest of the book depicting the ways in which her intense grief shaped her life and musical work. In describing these emotionally wrought events, the memoir serves as a unique meditation on the relationship between food and identity, as well as grief. You can read reviews here and here.


Chouette: Oshetsky, Claire: 9780063066670: Amazon.com: BooksChouette by Claire Oshetsky. Oshetsky’s debut novel tells the otherworldly story of Tiny, a cellist living with her reliable–if somewhat boring–husband, who inexplicably has an affair with a female owl and even more inexplicably becomes pregnant with a hybrid owl-human baby, the eponymous Chouette. Despite the child’s obvious strangeness, which isolates Tiny from others in her life and evokes dire warnings from nearly every doctor who sees her, her mother immediately loves her unconditionally. She is fully supportive of Chouette and seeks not to change her, even as she is forced to give up her career and even as Chouette’s undeniably owl-like behavior completely upends all normalcy in her life. She faces a tough battle in this determination as her husband seeks exactly the opposite, pursuing “cures” for Chouette at every turn. In tracing Tiny’s pregnancy, Chouette’s early childhood, and her later independence, Oshetsky, who is herself autistic and a mother, offers a unique meditation on the nature of neurodivergence, pregnancy, and motherhood, the fantastic elements of her story providing a unique lens through which to view and understand these massive topics. You can read reviews here and here.

For Library Staff, Remote Work Is a Booklover’s Paradise

Relocating Duke’s priceless special collections 4,700 miles away from the researchers who need to consult them will help ensure their long-term preservation.

With Duke’s recent addition of Hawaii to the list of states where university employees are allowed to work remotely, the Duke University Libraries announced today that its entire 250-person staff will be working full-time from the Aloha State, starting this spring and summer.

In what’s being described as a radical experiment in putting the lessons of the pandemic to work, Duke will have the first library system in the nation to be operated entirely remotely, from nearly 5,000 miles and five time zones away.

Though it will take some getting used to, the change will come with major benefits for students, said retiring University Librarian Deborah Jakubs, who has already gone ahead to the popular vacation destination to oversee the staff move.

“For years, Duke students have been asking us for more study space in the libraries,” said Jakubs from a private lanai overlooking a breathtaking Pacific sunset. “Now we’re finally able to give them what they want. With staff offices empty and all of us out of the way, students can finally have the entire place to themselves,” she added between sips from a tall, cool Mai Tai.

How exactly will a remotely operated research library work? Largely on the honor system and with the help of student employees, said Dave Hansen, Associate University Librarian for Research, Collections & Scholarly Communication. “The past two years have prepared us well for maintaining high levels of service even when we’re not onsite,” said Hansen, sporting a three-day beard under a wide-brim sun hat. “The Libraries employ almost 200 highly trained student workers who are already accustomed to assisting patrons and performing various support functions that keep our operations going.”

Books and other materials in the circulating collection will be available on a self-checkout basis, Hansen explained. The Libraries are purchasing additional self-checkout stations, which will be installed near every library entrance.

“And here’s the best part—once you’re done with your books, DVDs, whatever, you just put them back on the shelves where you found them,” said Hansen, the faint sounds of a ukulele strumming somewhere behind him. “We totally trust you.”

“Our librarians will still be available for consultation via Zoom,” said Emily Daly, Interim Head of Research and Instructional Services, casually waxing a Duke blue surfboard. “Whenever students or faculty need help with a class or research project, we’ll be just the click of a button away,” Daly added, as dolphins could be seen cavorting in the gnarly whitecaps behind her “office.” When scheduling Zoom appointments with library staff, Duke students and faculty are advised to add a 30-minute buffer on either end to account for “island time.”

While books and other materials in the Libraries’ general collection will remain onsite in Durham, some 65,000 linear feet of archival material in the Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library will be relocated to a secure facility on Mauna Kea on Hawaii’s Big Island.

“We believe the best way to preserve Duke’s priceless special collections is to put about 4,700 miles of distance between them and the researchers who need to consult them,” said Naomi Nelson, Associate University Librarian and Director of the Rubenstein Library. “With its low temperatures, low humidity, and clean air, Mauna Kea has some of the best environmental conditions anywhere on earth for preserving rare books and historical papers,” Nelson explained, tossing a few more logs into a fire pit where she planned to slow-roast a pig over the course of the day. “Not to mention the billions of stars you can see out here at night. Really helps you keep all that important ‘research’ in perspective, you know?”

Nelson confirmed that the Rubenstein Library will continue to staff a reading room for researchers who wish to consult special collections material in person, “assuming they don’t mind a 15-hour flight.”

With Duke’s current University Librarian Deborah Jakubs set to retire in May, one unanswered question is whether her eventual successor will join the library staff or remain in Durham as the “face” of the Libraries on campus.

“We appreciate everyone’s patience and flexibility as we work to serve Duke better,” said Jakubs, reclining into a hammock slung between two palm trees that gently swayed in the sea breeze. “Mahalo.”


Can this flexible work arrangement be for real? Unfortunately it’s not a “remote” possibility. Happy April Fools’ Day, Dukies!

What to Read this Month: March 2022

Hello again from the library! I know what you’re probably thinking: it’s getting close to the weekend, and you’ve got absolutely nothing scheduled,  so now’s the perfect time to pick up a new book (what do you mean, there’s a huge game this weekend???). If that’s you–or even if you do have plans to watch something this weekend–I’ve come to help with some suggestions! I’ve personally been on a memoir kick, as you’ll see with these titles I’ve picked out, but if that’s not your thing, never fear. All of these titles come from either the Libraries’ Overdrive ebook collection, or the New & Noteworthy collection. These collections contain all sorts of popular reading, so do check them out! I can guarantee you’ll find something that grabs your interest.


Admissions: A Memoir of Surviving Boarding School: James, Kendra:  9781538753484: Amazon.com: BooksAdmissions: A Memoir of Surviving Boarding School by Kendra James. In this memoir, writer James recounts her time at the Taft School, an elite Connecticut boarding school. Despite graduating in 2006, James was the school’s first Black legacy student (her father attended the school and was a trustee during her time there), and much of her account details her experiences as one of the school’s only Black students in the early to mid-2000s. James describes an institution with near-countless opportunities for scholarly enrichment and connections to prestigious colleges and universities, but despite these features, she struggles socially due to the racism of her primarily white peers, despite arriving at the school eager to form lasting ties. Although the experiences she describes are markedly difficult, James frequently punctuates her account with humor, and thoughtfully examines the ways her time at Taft has shaped her present-day life. You can read reviews here and here.


Lost & Found: A Memoir: Schulz, Kathryn: 9780525512462: Amazon.com: BooksLost & Found: A Memoir by Kathryn Schulz. In this memoir, journalist Schulz recounts two major personal events that have impacted the trajectory of her life over the past decade: the death of her father and the formation of her relationship with her current partner. Although Schulz’s account of this former event is often fittingly sober and steeped in grief, it is also quietly hopeful and grateful in its contemplative tone; Schulz notes that her father was largely able to live a happy and intellectually stimulating life, as he so wished. She also meditates on the ways his life influenced her own, and finds solace in the fact that her relationship with him was both healthy and very much mutually beneficial. Shortly before her father’s death, Schulz met the woman who would become her partner, and the beginnings of this relationship form the backbone of the memoir’s second half. Here, Schulz discusses the serendipity of meeting her partner, and marvels at the chance circumstances under which the two were able to build such a meaningful relationship. You can read reviews here and here.


Pure America: Eugenics and the Making of Modern Virginia: Catte, Elizabeth:  9781948742733: Amazon.com: BooksPure America: Eugenics and the Making of Modern Virginia by Elizabeth Catte. In this book, author Catte traces the often obscured history of the eugenics movement in Virginia, contextualizing it within the broader history of eugenics in the United States, and centering a number of historical events and locations throughout the state, from which she hails. Writing that eugenics “is everywhere and nowhere,” Catte focuses both on the 20th-century initiatives undertaken by the state with directly pro-eugenics motives–including the history of Western State Hospital in Staunton, in which many disabled Virginians were forcibly confined, as well as the Virginia-based US Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell, which sanctioned involuntary sterilization throughout the United States–and events that had indirectly eugenicist outcomes, including the forced uprooting of Appalachian families during the formation of Shenandoah National Park, and Charlottesville’s destruction of its most prominent historically Black neighborhood. Importantly, Catte also emphasizes the dangerous systematic erasure of these events, and calls on her readers to learn from the fraught history she discusses. You can read a review here and read an interview with Catte here.


The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness: O'Rourke, Meghan:  9781594633799: Amazon.com: BooksThe Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness by Meghan O’Rourke. In this book, writer O’Rourke makes the case for a radical reframing of chronic illness in both the medical profession and broader American culture, centering her argument in both extensive research and an account of her own experiences with chronic illness. Developing an unnamed autoimmune condition in her adulthood, O’Rourke painstakingly chronicles a near decade-long search for a medical practitioner who can accurately diagnose and address the complicated and troubling array of debilitating symptoms she faces, with many dismissing her outright when the tests she takes are repeatedly inconclusive in their results. O’Rourke likens this period of inadequately addressed suffering to being invisible, and she details how this experience of invisibility is distressingly common, with many chronically ill people taking, on average, several years to receive a correct diagnosis. Although O’Rourke eventually does receive the treatment she needs, she notes that she is still not completely well, and she urges her readers to understand the everyday complications of existing with chronic illness. You can read reviews here and here.


Amazon.com: Go Back to Where You Came From: And Other Helpful  Recommendations on How to Become American: 9780393867978: Ali, Wajahat:  BooksGo Back to Where You Came From and Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become an American by Wajahat Ali. In this memoir, author Ali recounts both his coming-of-age as a child of Pakistani immigrants, and his complex reckoning with American identity as an adult. Growing up in California’s Bay Area, Ali describes a 1980s-90s childhood in which he bears witness to his family and other members of the area’s Pakistani immigrant community as they chase the American dream, which Ali closely aligns with typical markers of whiteness. Ali more directly confronts his own racial and national identity in college after 9/11 happens, an event which, as illustrated by Ali’s observations, drastically changed white American society’s perception of Middle Eastern and South Asian people, particularly Muslims. Faced with a sudden swell of islamophobia, Ali feels driven to artistically make sense of his complicated feelings, but struggles until his college mentor, renowned playwright Ishmael Reed, encourages him to write a play. In the rest of the memoir, Ali discusses how his eventual work, The Domestic Crusaders, both launched his eventual writing career and assisted in his understanding of identity in the face of bigotry. You can read reviews here and here.

Collection Spotlight: Women’s History

Image from the Lisa Unger Baskin Collection in the Sallie Bingham Center.

 

Happy International Women’s Day! Today seems like a great day to mention that our Collection Spotlight this month features books related to women’s lives, history, and culture. You can find these titles in our Collection Spotlight rack near our Perkins Library Service Desk on the first floor of Perkins.  Here is a selection of the titles you can find in this spotlight:

Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists: A Graphic History of Women’s Fight for their Rights by Mikki Kendall

Ida B. the Queen: The Extraordinary Life and Legacy of Ida B. Wells by Michelle Duster and Hannah Giorgis

Gertrude Weil: Jewish Progressive in the New South by Leonard Rogoff

Modern HERstory: Stories of Women and Nonbinary People Rewriting History by Blair Imani

Latina Voices = Voces de Mujeres Latinas by Ana Fernández

Beloved Women: The Political Lives of LaDonna Harris and Wilma Mankiller by Sarah Eppler Janda

First Women: The Grace and Power of America’s Modern First Ladies by Kate Andersen Brower

My Wars are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson by Alfred Habegger

ONLINE: Low Maintenance Book Club reads selections from “Dubliners” by James Joyce

To continue the St. Patrick’s Day mood, the Low Maintenance Book Club will be discussing selected stories from James Joyce’s Dubliners during our March meeting: “The Sisters,” “Araby,” and “The Dead.” Join us on Tuesday, March 29th at noon over ZoomPlease RSVP to receive a Zoom link the morning of the meeting. As always, you’re welcome regardless of how much (or whether) you’ve read.

You can find copies of Dubliners at Duke University Libraries and your local public library.  We hope to see you there!

Though the exhibit is no longer up, you might also be interested in reading about our recent ReJoyce exhibit that was on display last month to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of Ulysses.

What to Read this Month: February 2022

We hope you all had a good February! While we at the library know full well that this is a busy time in the semester, we also realize that you might want to spend your limited free time in the company of a good book, or maybe pick up a new title just in time for spring break. If that describes you, then look no further! Here are some interesting titles from our New & Noteworthy collection. On the off chance none of these titles grab your attention, however, then don’t worry. We’re always adding new popular titles to both our New & Noteworthy and Overdrive ebook collections, so we encourage you to take a look at both of them. Happy reading!


Amazon.com: The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois: An Oprah's Book Club Novel  (Oprahs Book Club 2.0): 9780062942937: Jeffers, Honoree Fanonne: BooksThe Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers. This debut novel by poet Jeffers, nominated for last year’s National Book Award for fiction, chronicles the multigenerational and multicultural history of the African American Garfield family, anchored by the late 20th century events surrounding its protagonist, Ailey Garfield. Interspersed with the main narrative thread of Ailey’s educational experiences and family research, in which she divides her time between an unnamed city and her family’s ancestral hometown in rural Georgia, are segments, referred to as songs, that delve into the histories of her individual ancestors of African, Creek, and Scottish origin. As Ailey learns more about these ancestors, so too does she come to understand her present-day family. As the title suggests, too, the works of W.E.B. Du Bois play a prominent role, informing both the content of the novel as well as its very structure. You can read reviews here and here.


Loot: Britain and the Benin Bronzes: Phillips, Barnaby: 9781786079350:  Amazon.com: BooksLoot: Britain and the Benin Bronzes by Barnaby Phillips. In this book, journalist Phillips offers a comprehensive and compelling history of the Benin Bronzes, metal plaques and ivory artworks dating from the 13th through 18th centuries in the Edo Kingdom, located in what is now southern Nigeria. Prior to 1897, most of the bronzes were kept in the royal palace of Benin City for the kingdom’s rulers, but this changed when British forces invaded, an act that ultimately led to the downfall of the Edo Kingdom and the establishment of the British Southern Nigeria Protectorate. During the invasion, the bronzes were sacked by the British and taken back to England as loot, where many remain today. Although Phillips notes that the Nigerian government has repeatedly called for the repatriation of the bronzes since 1974, this has largely been ignored. Today, most remain in Europe (specifically the UK), with still others scattered across Canada and the United States. In addition to relaying this fraught history, Phillips also makes his own case for repatriation and delves into the mindset of many of the institutions still possessing the bronzes in Europe. You can read more here and here.


Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch: A Novel: Galchen, Rivka:  9780374280468: Amazon.com: BooksEveryone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch by Rivka Galchen. This novel, Galchen’s second, tells the story of Katharina, a German woman accused of witchcraft in 1615. Based on historic events–several hundred women were executed for alleged witchcraft throughout the Holy Roman Empire in the seventeenth century–Katharina finds herself the object of suspicion in her small town for a confluence of seemingly ridiculous reasons: she is a widow, perceived to be too independent by those around her, and is not particularly well-liked. Most importantly, she has been accused of poisoning a local woman. Though the accusation itself is baseless, Katharina finds that many people in her community are all too eager to testify against her, seemingly determined to portray her as a malicious witch bent causing harm to anyone and everyone. Though the novel is peppered with dark humor (often in the form of Katharina’s dry mental observations about those around her), the subject matter, and the course of the story, prove to be rather harrowing. You can read reviews here and here.


How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across  America: Smith, Clint: 9780316492935: Amazon.com: BooksHow the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith. In this book, Atlantic staff writer Smith studies the way the history and legacy of slavery in the United States has been dealt with at nine historic sites (eight in the US, and one abroad). As Smith observes, each site reckons with the subject quite differently—he contrasts, for example, the centering of enslaved people’s lives at Louisiana’s Whitney Plantation with the glorification of the Confederacy at Virginia’s Blandford Cemetery—reflecting the contradictory and tumultuous understanding of slavery present in American culture at large. Smith’s depiction of these sites is multi-faceted and richly described, in no small part because he interviews such a wide range of people, including tourists and tour guides, historians and other experts, and formerly incarcerated people. In presenting such a complex picture of historical reception in the contemporary United States, Smith offers a compelling and extremely relevant read. You can read reviews here and here.


Amazon.com: I Love You but I've Chosen Darkness: A Novel: 9780593330210:  Watkins, Claire Vaye: BooksI Love You but I’ve Chosen Darkness by Claire Vaye Watkins. This novel, Watkins’ second, traces the story of one fictional writer named Claire Vaye Watkins as she travels away from her husband and newborn child in Michigan for a book event in Nevada (despite the character having the same name and a number of characteristics as Watkins, the novel is fictional). In the throes of postpartum depression, Claire finds herself in crisis, and she takes the time away from her orderly life in Michigan as an opportunity to reassess the decisions she has made, to confront a variety of personal issues she has been avoiding, and, more unfortunately, to unravel somewhat. Having grown up in the west, her travels reunite her with several relics from her past, including a group of living college friends as well as a dead ex-partner. As Claire grapples with her own grief and reckons with her own life, she acts a witness towards those around her who are struggling with similar issues. Though the novel is often disorienting, it remains a cogent examination of grief, depression, poverty, drug addiction, and a host of other themes. You can read reviews here and here.

Treat Your Pretty Little Self to a Mystery Date with a Book


Are you stuck in a reading rut? Has that stack of books you’ve been meaning to read suddenly lost all appeal?

This Valentine’s Day, check out our Mystery Date with a Book display next to the Perkins Library Service Desk, now through February 16.

Our librarians have hand-picked some of their all-time favorite literary crushes. Trust us. Librarians are the professional matchmakers of the book world. They’ve picked out some titles guaranteed to improve your circulation, if you know what we mean.

Each book comes wrapped in paper with a come-hither teaser to pique your interest. Will you get fiction or nonfiction? Short stories or travelogue? Memoir or thriller? You won’t know until you “get between the covers,” nudge, nudge. Aw, yeah.

So go ahead, take home a one-night stand for your nightstand. Who knows? You might just fall in love with a new favorite writer!

ONLINE: Low Maintenance Book Club reads “A Psalm for the Wild-Built”

Never read solarpunk? Neither have we! Join the Low Maintenance Book Club for a discussion of  Becky Chambers’ novella, A Psalm for the Wild-Built, the first in her Monk & Robot duology. We’ll meet on Thursday, February 24th at noon over Zoom. As always, you’re welcome to join regardless of how much (or whether) you’ve read.

Low Maintenance Book Club reads A Psalm for the Wild-Built
Thursday, February 24th, noon-1pm
Zoom (link to be sent the morning of the meeting)

You can find copies at Duke University Libraries (ebook, audiobook, print) and through your local public library.

Please RSVP to receive a Zoom link the morning of the meeting. We hope to see you there!

What to Read this Month: January 2022

Welcome back! As we’re beginning to settle into a new semester, we at the library wanted to recommend yet another set of titles from our Overdrive and New & Noteworthy collections. These collections are excellent places to look if you’re trying to find a new read, and these five books represent only a tiny fraction of all that you’ll find there. So by all means, if any of the below highlights don’t grab your attention, click either of the above links. You’ll be sure to find something!


Intimacies: A Novel: Kitamura, Katie: 9780399576164: Amazon.com: BooksIntimacies by Katie Kitamura. This novel, Kitamura’s fourth, tells the story of an unnamed woman who travels from the US to The Hague shortly after the death of her father. There, she works as an interpreter for the International Criminal Court, developing a strange yet compelling dynamic with an accused war criminal in her professional life and a series of confusing relationships with some of the city’s inhabitants in her personal life. She forms an unsatisfying romantic attachment with Adriaan, a man midway through a divorce, as well as a complicated friendship with art historian Eline and her brother, Anton. The titular intimacies refer to these inscrutable relationships, as well as the intimacy inherent in the protagonist’s work as an interpreter. Ultimately, though often puzzling and mysterious, the novel deftly tackles a bevy of complex themes, ranging from interpersonal relationships to neocolonialism. You can read reviews here and here.


The State Must Provide: Why America's Colleges Have Always Been  Unequal--and How to Set Them Right: Harris, Adam: 9780062976482:  Amazon.com: BooksThe State Must Provide: Why America’s Colleges Have Always Been Unequal–and How to Set Them Right by Adam Harris. In this book, Atlantic staff writer Harris takes an incisive look at the resource-related disparities that often exist between historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and predominantly white institutions, focusing particularly on the policy decisions–historical and current–that underpin them. Harris reveals that so many HBCUs were essentially set up to fail from their inception, with federal and state governments working to maintain segregation in American higher education while also deliberately underfunding predominantly Black institutions. These issues of chronic underfunding persist to this day, leaving many HBCUs egregiously lacking in resources. In chronicling this history, Harris also provides compelling portraits of the many Black scholars across generations who have worked to rectify these imbalances, and also weighs the benefits of many potential solutions to this systemic problem. You can read a review here and listen to an interview with Harris here.


Velvet Was the Night: Moreno-Garcia, Silvia: 9780593356821: Amazon.com:  BooksVelvet Was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. This noir adventure, set in the midst of the Mexican Dirty War, centers on Maite, a young Mexico City secretary who unexpectedly stumbles into intrigue after her neighbor Leonora goes missing. Though an enthusiast of wild and romantic stories, Maite herself is not a natural investigator, and she only embarks on the case because she had been cat-sitting for Leonora and wants to get paid for her efforts. The reader learns very early on that Maite is not the only one looking for Leonora; so is Elvis, a 21-year-old member of a paramilitary group targeting leftist university students and journalists throughout the city. Moreno-Garcia tells the story from both of their perspectives, and things ultimately come to a head when Maite and Elvis finally cross paths. You can read reviews here and here.


Doomed Romance: Broken Hearts, Lost Souls, and Sexual Tumult in  Nineteenth-Century America: Heyrman, Christine Leigh: 9780525655572:  Amazon.com: BooksDoomed Romance: Broken Hearts, Lost Souls, and Sexual Tumult in Nineteenth-Century America by Christine Leigh Heyrman. In this book, Heyrman documents a unique episode in the history of American evangelicalism, telling the story of Martha Parker. A young woman in 1820s New England, Parker ignited a series of tensions between prominent members of the local evangelical community, despite harboring an earnest desire to serve as a Christian missionary abroad. Fatefully Parker, in pursuit of her dream, broke her engagement to her influential second cousin, Thomas Tenney, to accept the proposal of missionary Elnathan Gridley. Heyrman chronicles Tenney’s subsequent efforts to ruin Parker’s name, including enlisting the help of another one of her former suitors and inciting an investigation into her character by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Ultimately, Tenney’s handiwork leads to the dissolution of Parker’s new engagement, and she eventually agrees to set aside her missionary ambitions and marry him. In relaying this sordid tale, Heyrman makes several cogent connections to the history of gender relations in evangelicalism, connecting this seemingly isolated event to much larger, more systemic problems within the movement. You can read reviews here and here.


Build Your House Around My Body by Violet Kupersmith: 9780812993325 |  PenguinRandomHouse.com: BooksBuild Your House Around My Body by Violet Kupersmith. In this debut novel, Kupersmith fashions a mysterious and supernatural tale anchored in the experiences and eventual disappearance of Winnie, a young American woman who travels to Saigon in 2010 in order to teach English and better understand her Vietnamese roots. Winnie’s time in Saigon is exceedingly difficult for her; her general unhappiness is exacerbated by her inability to form meaningful connections with those around her, and her work suffers. Eventually, she forms a relationship, predicated more on mutual survival than romance, with Long, who works at the same school as she does. It is Long who initially discovers that Winnie is missing, and the subsequent events in the novel adopt a grotesque and often fantastical path, one that connects Winnie’s story to the stories of seeming strangers in Saigon, spanning the days and years leading up to and following her disappearance. You can read reviews here and here.

ONLINE: Low Maintenance Book Club reads “Cyrano de Bergerac”

Want help with your resolution to read more in 2022? Join the Low Maintenance Book Club for our discussion of Cyrano de Bergerac: A Play in Five Acts, a classic play that inspired the new movie Cyrano, starring Peter Dinklage. We’ll meet on Wednesday, January 26th at noon over Zoom. As always, you’re welcome to join regardless of how much (or whether) you’ve read.

Low Maintenance Book Club reads Cyrano de Bergerac: A Play in Five Acts
Wednesday, January 26th, noon-1pm
Zoom (link to be sent the morning of the meeting)

We do not have a recommend translation or edition, but you may find this one to be especially readable: https://find.library.duke.edu/catalog/DUKE009632684.

Please RSVP to receive a Zoom link the morning of the meeting. We hope to see you there!

Happy Birthday, Jane Austen!

Every year I write a blog post to celebrate Jane Austen’s birthday where I highlight books and resources related to her writing and her life. One of my highlights this year was attending Jane Austen & Co.‘s Race and Regency series. You can see the recordings of these talks at their website. In honor of those great programs, I’m going to share some resources related to the speakers and the topics they covered.

 

 

Sanditon by Jane Austen

 

Britain’s Black Past edited by Gretchen H. Gerzina

 

 

The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano written by himself with related documents

 

 

Slavery and the British Country House edited by Madge Dresser and Andrew Hann

 

 

 

 

Zong! by M. NourbeSe Philip

 

 

Belle directed by Amma Asante

 

Pride by Ibi Zoboi

 

The Woman of Colour: A Tale edited by Lyndon J. Dominique (on order)

 

Finally Devoney Looser’s recent article about the Austen family’s complex ties to slavery is well worth the read.

What to Read this Month: December 2021

As the semester begins to wind down, we at the library hope you’ll have some time to rest and potentially cross some books off your list! If you’re looking for new books to add to your reading list, look no further. One of these five titles, from our New & Noteworthy and Overdrive collections, just might do the trick! If not, though, don’t worry; new titles are being added to these collections all the time, so you’re guaranteed to find something that catches your eye. Have a happy and restful winter break!


The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story: Hannah-Jones, Nikole, The New York Times Magazine, Roper, Caitlin, Silverman, Ilena, Silverstein, Jake: 9780593230572: Amazon.com: BooksThe 1619 Project: A New Origin Story, edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones. In the two years since Nikole Hannah-Jones’ 1619 Project first appeared in the pages of the New York Times Magazine, it has become a household name, praised by numerous historians for its compelling and thorough reframing of the United States’ origin story while also igniting a vitriolic backlash among rightwing figures both within the US and beyond. This first book edition of the project includes the content of its original New York Times appearance while also expanding upon its aims with the inclusion of more details, notes, and seven additional essays. Although the Project was always sweeping and comprehensive in its examination of several centuries of American history, this edition builds on that, resulting in the fullest and most vivid iteration of the Project to date. You can read reviews here and here.


Amazon.com: Alec: A Novel: 9780374102609: Canzio, William di: BooksAlec by William di Canzio. Di Canzio’s novel is both a reworking and a continuation of E. M. Forster’s Maurice, which was originally written in the 1910s but remained unpublished until 1971 owing largely to the happy ending Forster provides to his gay protagonist, Maurice Hall. In this original novel, Maurice, a member of the English upper-class, ultimately finds himself able to forge a successful romantic relationship with the gamekeeper Alec Scudder, despite the rampant homophobia and classism permeating English society during this period. Di Canzio expands on Forster’s story in two major ways: first, he retells the events of Maurice from Alec’s point-of-view, which differs significantly from Maurice’s, and secondly, he confronts Forster’s original ending with the realities of World War I: in this telling, Maurice and Alec’s relationship is threatened when the two, now soldiers, are stationed apart from each other across Europe. With the addition of Alec’s perspective and these new events, di Canzio’s novel is an excellent complement to Forster’s. You can read reviews here and here.


Amazon.com: How Beautiful We Were: A Novel: 9780593132425: Mbue, Imbolo: BooksHow Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue. Mbue’s second novel, which was recently named by the New York Times as one of the ten best books of the year, focuses on Kosawa, a village in an unnamed West African country that has long been beset with troubles inflicted by Pexton, a massive American oil corporation. The year is 1980, and although Pexton has repeatedly attempted to placate Kosawa’s residents with periodic, unproductive visits by their representatives, it remains obvious that their operations in the area have caused the egregious levels of pollution and illness to which they are subjected. Things come to a head when, over the course of the corporation’s latest visit, the residents decide to take the Pexton delegates hostage, spurred on by Konga, who is known as the local madman. Witnessing these events is a young girl, Thula, on whom the novel eventually focuses. As Thula grows, she becomes determined to seek justice for her community, and her journey eventually takes her to the US, where she gains undergraduate and graduate degrees. Upon her eventual return to Kosawa, she seeks to mobilize her peers into fighting Pexton and the dictatorship leading her country, facing numerous barriers along the way. You can read reviews here and here.


Amazon.com: Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath eBook : Clark, Heather L. : Kindle StoreRed Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath by Heather Clark. Clark’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated biography of Sylvia Plath recounts her life and legacy with both details and a level of care that have hitherto not been seen in the many previous accounts of the poet’s life. A lot of the work she undertakes in relaying the events of her life involves dismantling the mythologization surrounding Plath and her death, offering a fresh reexamination of her poetry, her mental health, and the numerous figures that influenced her, ranging from her parents to mentors to friends. All of these details contribute to one of the most exhaustive portraits of Plath published to date, one that appears astonishingly unscathed by the longstanding, often prurient public fascination with her personal life and death, making it an exceedingly satisfying and sensitive read. You can read reviews here and here.


Chouette: Oshetsky, Claire: 9780063066670: Amazon.com: BooksChouette by Claire Oshetsky. Oshetsky’s debut novel tells the otherworldly story of Tiny, a cellist living with her reliable–if somewhat boring–husband, who inexplicably has an affair with a female owl and even more inexplicably becomes pregnant with a hybrid owl-human baby, the eponymous Chouette. Despite the child’s obvious strangeness, which isolates Tiny from others in her life and evokes dire warnings from nearly every doctor who sees her, her mother immediately loves her unconditionally. She is fully supportive of Chouette and seeks not to change her, even as she is forced to give up her career and even as Chouette’s undeniably owl-like behavior completely upends all normalcy in her life. She faces a tough battle in this determination as her husband seeks exactly the opposite, pursuing “cures” for Chouette at every turn. In tracing Tiny’s pregnancy, Chouette’s early childhood, and her later independence, Oshetsky, who is herself autistic and a mother, offers a unique meditation on the nature of neurodivergence, pregnancy, and motherhood, the fantastic elements of her story providing a unique lens through which to view and understand these massive topics. You can read reviews here and here.

The Paper Station

Looking to de-stress and get research and writing help?

Join us at The Paper Station on Thursday, December 2nd from 7-9 pm near the Perkins service desk on the 1st floor of Perkins Library!

At The Paper Station, you can:

  • Meet with Thompson Writing Studio consultants for 20-minute lightning consultations and get handouts with writing tips.
  • Create your own zine or bookmark.
  • Find scholarly sources for your papers and projects with support from our librarians.
  • Learn Google Scholar tips and tricks like how to avoid paywalls.
  • Get help navigating citation manuals and using citation management tools.

This event is co-sponsored by Duke University Libraries and the Thompson Writing Studio.

What to Read this Month: October 2021

As the leaves are finally changing and the temperatures are finally resembling those of autumn, you might find yourself looking for a new book to read with your PSL or otherwise seasonally appropriate hot beverage. Well, look no further! Here’s a quick sampling of some recently added titles in our Overdrive and New & Noteworthy collections. Remember, we are always adding new titles to both of these collections, so be sure to frequently check back with each of them!


The Wrong End of the Telescope: Alameddine, Rabih: 9780802157805: Amazon.com: BooksThe Wrong End of the Telescope by Rabih Alameddine. Alameddine’s sixth novel tells the story of Mina Simpson, a middle-aged Lebanese-American physician who volunteers to treat migrants on the Greek island of Lesbos in the midst of a refugee crisis. The experience is very emotionally taxing for Mina, in no small part because her patients and their lives remind her so much of her painful childhood growing up in Beirut, clashing with the conservative culture in which she was raised—along with her abusive parents—before eventually attending Harvard, becoming a doctor in Chicago, undergoing gender transitioning, and adopting her current name. While dealing with these connections, she serves as a vivid narrator of all the people she encounters, painting detailed portraits of her patients to an unnamed Lebanese writer, and wryly criticizing the Western journalists and others who have come to Lesbos to gawk at the crisis as it unfolds. Indeed, the novel offers a thorough examination of Western attitudes toward the Middle East and the refugee crisis in particular, as Mina and the writer contemplate how her stories might be received in the United States. You can read reviews here and here.


Believing: Our Thirty-Year Journey to End Gender Violence: Hill, Anita: 9780593298299: Amazon.com: BooksBelieving: Our Thirty-Year Journey to End Gender Violence by Anita Hill. In this book, Brandeis law professor Anita Hill discusses the current state of gender-based violence in the contemporary United States, describing its general pervasiveness and inextricable connection to other forms of bigotry, including racism and transphobia. Reflecting on her own allegations of sexual harassment against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and her subsequent testimony against him during his confirmation hearings thirty years ago, Hill remarks upon how little the myriad difficulties facing people alleging gender-based violence against those in power have changed, comparing her experience with that of Christine Blasey Ford, who alleged sexual assault by, and testified against, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, as well as that of Tara Reade, who alleged that now-President Joe Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993. In describing all these events, as well as several others, Hill focuses primarily on the numerous barriers facing those who experience gender-based violence, as well as the way this violence affects everyone all of ages, races, and social classes. With its informative—though often difficult—details, Hill’s book is a compelling read. You can read reviews here and here.


My Monticello: Fiction: Johnson, Jocelyn Nicole: 9781250807151: Amazon.com: BooksMy Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson. In this debut collection, Johnson tells numerous stories, most of which feature Black characters in contemporary Virginia (Johnson’s home state) reckoning with experiences of racism and their own racial identities, with the heavy history and culture of the state serving as a kind of omnipresent backdrop. The titular novella of the collection, which takes up the most space in the book and also arrives at the very end of the collection, sets itself in a near-future Charlottesville undergoing organized racial violence perpetrated by white supremacist militias (with Johnson’s imagery heavily alluding to the events of the 2017 Unite the Right rally that took place in the city). In this story, UVA student Da’Naisha leads a group of fleeing Black and brown Charlottesville residents (including her own grandmother) to Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s plantation located just outside the city; having previously interned there, Da’Naisha knows it to be a potentially effective hideout. As the characters hide there, they are continuously confronted with the links between the plantation’s history and their current circumstances as refugees from racial violence. For Da’Naisha, this link is particularly acute, as she reveals to her grandmother that they are both descendants of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. You can read reviews here and here.


Americanon by Jess McHugh: 9781524746636 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: BooksAmericanon: An Unexpected U.S. History in Thirteen Bestselling Books by Jess McHugh. In this nonfiction debut, journalist McHugh traces the history of common cultural values and ideas of success in American society by examining thirteen bestselling books, all of which serve as instructional texts of some kind (with many resembling modern-day self-help books, despite preceding the advent of the formal genre). Ranging from The Old Farmer’s Almanac to Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book to The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, McHugh offers up a comprehensive overview of each title, explaining the varying cultural contexts and publication histories surrounding them. In so doing, she creates a fascinating work on the ways commonplace American values have changed—and not changed—over the past three centuries, and also offers a thorough examination of whose voices and values have been (and currently are) the most present and privileged in the popular market of didactic books. You can read reviews here and here.


Arsenic and Adobo (A Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mystery Book 1) - Kindle edition  by Manansala, Mia P.. Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Kindle eBooks @  Amazon.com.Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala. Manansala’s debut, the first entry in a new mystery series, tells the story of Lila Macapagal, a young woman who has moved back to her Illinois hometown following the emotionally-wrought breakup of her engagement. While she intends simply to assist her aunt in the running of her Filipino restaurant, Tita Rosie’s Kitchen, things quickly take a turn when her embittered ex-boyfriend from high school, restaurant reviewer Derek Winter, abruptly dies in the middle of a meal there. While these circumstances are enough to cast suspicion on Lila, making matters worse is the fact that Derek was dining with his stepfather, the restaurant’s landlord with whom Lila’s aunt had been having financial difficulties. Lila is quickly pinned as the primary suspect in Derek’s apparent murder, leaving her no recourse but to try to clear her name, which she does with the assistance of her friend Adeena and Adeena’s brother Amir, an attorney who also serves as Lila’s love interest. Though this mystery deals with a number of dark elements, the tone remains generally light throughout, and the events of the novel are brightened by Manansala’s detailed descriptions of food and the many ways it figures into the lives of the book’s characters. You can read reviews here and here.

Powerful Documentary Films Honoring Indigenous Peoples

The Docuseek streaming video platform  provides a window into subjects and content from around the world and across disciplines. Here is a selection of titles that examine indigenous peoples of North America. Available through Duke Libraries with netid/password authentication, explore new cultures and topics through the lens of award-winning filmmakers.

Ama  Stream Online
A powerful look at the untold story of the involuntary sterilization of Native American women conducted by the Indian Health Service and lasting  well into the 1970s.
(Bullfrog Films, 2019, dir. Lorna Tucker)

 

Awake : a dream from Standing Rock Stream Online or Lilly DVD 31281
Moving from summer 2016, when demonstrations over the Dakota Access Pipeline’s demolishing of sacred Native burial grounds began, the film documents the story of Native-led  fight for clean water and the  environment. The film is a collaboration between indigenous filmmakers: Director Myron Dewey and Executive Producer Doug Good Feather; and environmental Oscar-nominated filmmakers Josh Fox and James Spione.

nipawistamasowin: We Will Stand Up Stream Online
The story of the killing of young Cree man Colten Boushie and his family’s pursuit of justice weaves a profound narrative encompassing the filmmaker’s own adoption. (National Film Board of Canada, 2020, dir. Tasha Hubbard)


Paulette
Stream Online
Follows the historic campaign of Paulette Jordan, the first Native American candidate — as well as the first woman — to win the Idaho Primary for Governor. (Women Make Movies, 2020, dir. Heather Rae)


Sisters Rising Stream Online
Native American survivors of sexual assault fight to restore personal and tribal sovereignty against the backdrop of an ongoing legacy of violent colonization. (Woman Make Movies, 2021, dir. Willow O’Feral)


Tribal Justice Stream Online

Anne Makepeace documents an effective criminal justice reform movement in America: the efforts of tribal courts to return to traditional, community-healing concepts of justice. (Bullfrog Films, 2017, dir. Anne Makepeace)


Without a Whisper Stream online

The untold story of the profound influence of Indigenous women on the beginning of the women’s rights movement in the United States. (Women Make Movies, 2020, dir. Katsitsionni Fox)

 

ONLINE: Low Maintenance Book Club reads “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”

Take a seat at the round table for a discussion of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a delightfully creepy Arthurian tale (and the inspiration for the new movie The Green Knight, starring Dev Patel). We’ll meet on Wednesday, October 27th at noon over Zoom, and the link will be mailed out the morning of the meeting. Register here to join us. As always, you’re welcome to join regardless of how much (or whether) you’ve read.

Although you may choose to read any edition (including some freely available online), we especially recommend the Burton Raffel and J.R.R. Tolkien translations.

What to Read this Month: September 2021

Hello again! We at the library hope your semester has gotten off to a good start, and that you’re enjoying the great weather we’ve been having lately. I myself have been so excited about the apparent start of fall (we’ll see if it sticks this time) that I’ve nearly forgotten to recommend some great new reads for the month. Whoops! Fortunately, since our New & Noteworthy and Overdrive collections are adding new titles all the time, it’s easy to find something new to read, even on short notice. Here are just a few of these new selections!


Amazon.com: Harlem Shuffle: A Novel: 9780385545136: Whitehead, Colson: BooksHarlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead. In this latest novel by Whitehead, winner of last year’s Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, furniture salesman Ray Carney finds himself at the center of a heist gone wrong in early 1960s Harlem. Specifically covering the years 1959 to 1964, the reader watches as Ray attempts to balance his slightly doubled life as an upstanding entrepreneur who occasionally fences stolen goods for thieves, a balance that is slowly unraveled by a heist at the locally renowned Hotel Theresa perpetuated by his cousin Freddie in the first act. Freddie, who is far more of a career criminal than Ray, arranges for him to fence the products of the heist, and this intrusion into his work has consequences that run the course of the book. Along the way, Ray also plans revenge against an unscrupulous banker, and this act brings with it its own host of various and sundry characters and events. As the story takes shape, too, it meaningfully engages with the contemporary history of Harlem, all the while maintaining its humor and gentle parody of 20th century crime fiction. You can read reviews here and here.


Already Toast: Caregiving and Burnout in America: Washington, Kate:  9780807011508: Amazon.com: BooksAlready Toast: Caregiving and Burnout in America by Kate Washington. In this book, Washington chronicles her own experiences of caregiving from 2016 to 2018 while linking them to the extensive, collective struggle of unpaid family caregivers in the contemporary United States. With often devastating detail, she describes the way in which her husband Brad’s sudden lymphoma diagnosis completely upended the lives of herself and her family, his rare illness repeatedly evading treatment and requiring Washington to devote all her time to learning how to care for him at the expense of her career and relationships, including with Brad himself. Washington deftly contextualizes these experiences by discussing how systemic barriers play out in caregiving situations, noting, among other things, how unpaid caregivers—who are disproportionately women—are routinely denied any kind of meaningful support in modern-day American society. Though she ends her account by discussing Brad’s general improvement after a stem-cell transplant (which it is by no means a full recovery), she uses her experience to call for increased structural support for caregivers. You can read a review here and listen to an interview with Washington here.


Afterparties: Stories: So, Anthony Veasna: 9780063049901: Amazon.com: BooksAfterparties by Anthony Veasna So. This short story collection, So’s posthumous debut (he died in December 2020 at the age of 28), tells the stories of numerous Cambodian-American characters, young and old alike, in California’s Central Valley. The stories primarily concern themselves with generational and cultural differences between the characters as they each reckon with their Cambodian identity in various ways. At a donut shop, a wedding, a car repair shop, and still many other settings, So’s characters interact and clash over what this identity should mean and how it manifests in their lives. In all, the stories touch on themes of sexuality, the cultural importance of food, generational ties, and the enduring legacy of the Cambodian genocide, among other topics. You can read reviews here and here.


Craft: An American History: Adamson, Glenn: 9781635574586: Amazon.com: BooksCraft: An American History by Glenn Adamson. In this exhaustive survey, stretching some four centuries, curator Adamson covers the importance of craft in American history, emphasizing its universal presence in all the cultures that form the modern-day United States. In defining craft as “whenever a skilled person makes something with their hands,” too, Adamson’s reach is quite broad, studying everything from the effect of the industrial revolution on American craft to the much more recent impact of e-commerce and social media. Throughout this lengthy discussion, Adamson is quick to discuss the long and fraught relationship between craft and capitalism, noting the repeated tendency of American culture to characterize craft as unserious and lacking in value, and to characterize crafters—particularly those of marginalized identity—in exploitative, demeaning, and fetishistic ways. In all, the book is a nuanced and fascinating read. You can read reviews here and here.


The Disaster Tourist: A Novel: Ko-Eun, Yun, Buehler, Lizzie: 9781640094161:  Amazon.com: BooksThe Disaster Tourist by Yun Ko-eun (translated by Lizzie Buehler). In this dark satire of late-stage capitalism, originally published in South Korea in 2013 but published in English for the first time last year, Yun tells the story of Yona, an employee at a travel company that specializes in disaster tourism, arranging tours to locales devastated by all kinds of momentous crises for the perceived moral betterment of their customers. Yona has worked for the company for 10 years, coordinating tours and assessing what locations would bring in the most clients, but is on the brink of quitting after facing the sexual harassment of her boss and getting demoted for no clear reason. In a last-ditch effort to keep her in the company, she is directed to travel to an island called Mui, the company’s least popular destination. There, Yona discovers a seemingly ludicrous plot being carried out by the company: to bring in more clients, the company will create a disaster on the island, one that will surely kill a significant number of its inhabitants. From here, Yona must make some critical decisions, and Yun portrays her subsequent period on the island in a terrifying and yet darkly humorous way. You can read reviews here and here.

Online: Low Maintenance Book Club reads “Persepolis”

To get in the back-to-school spirit, we’ll be reading and discussing Persepolis, a newer addition to many middle and high school reading lists. Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel describes her experience growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. As always, you’re welcome to join regardless of how much (or whether) you’ve read the book!

Low Maintenance Book Club reads Persepolis
Tuesday, September 28th, noon-1pm
Zoom (link to be sent the morning of meeting)

Copies of the book can be found at Duke University Libraries and at all local public libraries. Please RSVP to receive a Zoom link the morning of the meeting.

If you have questions, please contact Arianne Hartsell-Gundy at aah39@duke.edu

What to Read this Month: August 2021

Welcome to the fall semester! We at the library know that this is a busy time for everyone at Duke (including ourselves), but if you have time to read, here are some new recommendations from our New & Noteworthy and Overdrive collections! The titles below represent only a tiny fraction of these collections, so be sure to follow those links to explore them in more depth. For the first time in a long time, too, you can visit our New & Noteworthy collection on the first floor of Perkins, inside the lobby by the Perk. Just be sure to wear a mask!


Amazon.com: The Aeneid: 9781984854100: Vergil, Virgil, Bartsch, Shadi: BooksThe Aeneid by Vergil, translated by Shadi Bartsch. Though there are numerous English translations of Vergil’s epic, Bartsch’s, which was published in the US earlier this year, sets itself apart by striving to be as close to the original Latin as possible in its content and presentation. Unlike most English translations, Bartsch largely preserves Vergil’s rhythm, resulting in often clipped English that starkly contrasts with other high-profile translations of the poem. Accompanying the translation is her introduction, in which she discusses the Aeneid’s continuing political resonance today, over 2000 years after it was originally written. In all, this new translation offers an innovative look at the poem, one that keeps close to Vergil while also rendering the poem accessible to modern-day readers. You can read a review here and an excerpt here.


How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across  America: Smith, Clint: 9780316492935: Amazon.com: BooksHow the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith. In this book, Atlantic staff writer Smith studies the way the history and legacy of slavery in the United States has been dealt with at nine historic sites (eight in the US, and one abroad). As Smith observes, each site reckons with the subject quite differently—he contrasts, for example, the centering of enslaved people’s lives at Louisiana’s Whitney Plantation with the glorification of the Confederacy at Virginia’s Blandford Cemetery—reflecting the contradictory and tumultuous understanding of slavery present in American culture at large. Smith’s depiction of these sites is multi-faceted and richly described, in no small part because he interviews such a wide range of people, including tourists and tour guides, historians and other experts, and formerly incarcerated people. In presenting such a complex picture of historical reception in the contemporary United States, Smith offers a compelling and extremely relevant read. You can read reviews here and here.


Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner: 9780525657743 |  PenguinRandomHouse.com: BooksCrying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner. In this memoir Zauner, founder of the band Japanese Breakfast, depicts her often complicated relationship with her mother Chongmi, as well as her grief following Chongmi’s death from cancer in 2014. Though Zauner describes a childhood and adolescence in which she attempts to distance herself from her and Chongmi’s Korean heritage (Zauner’s father Joel is white American), she finds that her ties to her mother always remain in some form, and often hinge upon their shared love of Korean cuisine. Just when Zauner begins to increasingly reconnect with her mother in her twenties, Chongmi is diagnosed with cancer. Zauner describes the futility of the treatments and her mother’s slow death, and spends the rest of the book depicting the ways in which her intense grief shaped her life and musical work. In describing these emotionally wrought events, the memoir serves as a unique meditation on the relationship between food and identity, as well as grief. You can read reviews here and here.


Amazon.com: Hearing Homer's Song: The Brief Life and Big Idea of Milman  Parry: 9780525520948: Kanigel, Robert: BooksHearing Homer’s Song: The Brief Life and Big Idea of Milman Parry by Robert Kanigel. In this biography, Kanigel tackles the life of classicist Milman Parry, who died young but proved to be monumentally influential on the field of Classical studies. Though some previous Classical scholars had proposed the idea that Homer, legendary author of the Iliad and Odyssey, was not in fact a real person, it was Parry who first fully fleshed out the idea that the epics were the products of generations of storytelling by countless performers. Kanigel discusses at length how Parry came to this conclusion, including his pointed observations about language and meter in Homer’s poems, as well as his travels to Yugoslavia, where he closely studied the oral traditions of the region’s singers and performers. In the midst of this discussion, Kanigel talks about the often difficult circumstances of Parry’s personal life, including his dysfunctional marriage and untimely death: Parry shot himself at the age of 33 in 1935, but whether this was a suicide, an accident, or a murder at the hands of his wife remains unclear. You can read reviews here and here.


Revival Season: A Novel: West, Monica: 9781982133306: Amazon.com: BooksRevival Season by Monica West. In this novel, West tells the story of teenager Miriam Horton as she accompanies her family on a summer-long tour of Baptist revivals in the South. Her father Samuel, once an exceptionally popular preacher and faith healer on the revival circuit, finds his audience evaporating as word gets out about his physically assaulting a pregnant teenager during the previous summer. This disappointment heightens preexisting tensions between the volatile Samuel and his family, but things get even more complicated for Miriam when she discovers that, unlike her father, she has a genuine ability to heal others. What follows is Miriam’s gradual coming-of-age, and the discovery of her individual spirituality, as she navigates her relationships with her father, mother, sister, and various others. In bringing Miriam’s story to life, West offers a thoughtful and enjoyable—though sometimes intense—meditation on African-American evangelicalism, patriarchy, and general spirituality. You can read reviews here and here.

What to Read this Month: July 2021

Looking for something new to read?   Check out our New and Noteworthy, Overdrive, and Current Literature collections for some good reads to enjoy!


Chatter: The Voice in our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It by Ethan Kross. Tell a stranger that you talk to yourself, and you’re likely to get written off as eccentric. But the truth is that we all have a voice in our head. When we talk to ourselves, we often hope to tap into our inner coach but find our inner critic instead. When we’re facing a tough task, our inner coach can buoy us up: Focus–you can do this. But, just as often, our inner critic sinks us entirely: I’m going to fail. They’ll all laugh at me. What’s the use? Ethan Kross explores the silent conversations we have with ourselves. Interweaving groundbreaking behavioral and brain research from his own lab with real-world case studies–from a pitcher who forgets how to pitch, to a Harvard undergrad negotiating her double life as a spy–Kross explains how these conversations shape our lives, work, and relationships. You can read reviews here, here, and here.


The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix, author of The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires. Lynette Tarkington is a real-life final girl who survived a massacre. For more than a decade, she’s been meeting with five other final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, working to put their lives back together. Then one woman misses a meeting, and their worst fears are realized—someone knows about the group and is determined to rip their lives apart again, piece by piece. But the thing about final girls is that no matter how bad the odds, how dark the night, how sharp the knife, they will never, ever give up. Read a review here, and an interview here.


How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones. In the tradition of Zadie Smith and Marlon James, a brilliant Caribbean writer delivers a powerful story about four people each desperate to escape their legacy of violence in a so-called “paradise.” In Baxter’s Beach, Barbados, Lala’s grandmother Wilma tells the story of the one-armed sister. It’s a cautionary tale, about what happens to girls who disobey their mothers and go into the Baxter’s Tunnels. When she’s grown, Lala lives on the beach with her husband, Adan, a petty criminal with endless charisma whose thwarted burglary of one of the beach mansions sets off a chain of events with terrible consequences. The book is an intimate and visceral portrayal of interconnected lives, across race and class, in a rapidly changing resort town, told by an astonishing new author of literary fiction. You can read reviews here and here.


I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way through the TV Revolution by Emily Nussbaum. From The New Yorker ‘s fiercely original, Pulitzer Prize-winning culture critic, a provocative collection of new and previously published essays arguing that we are what we watch. In this collection, including two never-before-published essays, Nussbaum writes about her passion for television, beginning with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the show that set her on a fresh intellectual path. She explores the rise of the female screw-up, how fans warp the shows they love, the messy power of sexual violence on TV, and the year that jokes helped elect a reality-television president. More than a collection of reviews, the book makes a case for toppling the status anxiety that has long haunted the “idiot box,” even as it transformed. Through it all, Nussbaum recounts her fervent search, over fifteen years, for a new kind of criticism, one that resists the false hierarchy that elevates one kind of culture (violent, dramatic, gritty) over another (joyful, funny, stylized). It’s a book that celebrates television as television, even as each year warps the definition of just what that might mean.


The Agitators: Three Friends Who Fought for Abolition and Women’s Rights by Dorothy Wickenden. In the 1850s, Harriet Tubman, strategically brilliant and uncannily prescient, rescued some seventy enslaved people from Maryland’s Eastern Shore and shepherded them north along the underground railroad. One of her regular stops was Auburn, New York, where she entrusted passengers to Martha Coffin Wright, a Quaker mother of seven, and Frances A. Seward, the wife of William H. Seward, who served over the years as governor, senator, and secretary of state under Abraham Lincoln.  Through richly detailed letters from the time and exhaustive research, Wickenden traces the second American revolution these women fought to bring about, the toll it took on their families, and its lasting effects on the country. Riveting and profoundly relevant to our own time, The Agitators brings a vibrant, original voice to this transformative period in our history. You can read review here, and the US National Archives has a video (starts at about the 10 minute mark) of a virtual book discussion with the author.

LMBC Big Books Edition: Middlemarch (final discussion)

Duke University Library’s Low Maintenance Book Club (Big Books Edition) goes provincial this summer with George Eliot’s Middlemarch, discussed over three monthly meetings.

  • The third will take place on Zoom, Tuesday, August 10, noon-1pm EST and cover book seven through the end of the novel.
  • The second took place on Zoom, Tuesday, July 13, noon-1pm EST and covered book four through book six. A link to the Zoom meeting will be sent out the morning of the 13th.
  • The first meeting took place on Tuesday, June 15, noon-1pm EST and covered the prelude through book three.

Frequently named as one of the greatest British novels, Eliot’s work explores issues of class and gender through the residents of the fictional town of Middlemarch. Does it live up to its reputation? Is it still relevant in the present age? Let’s discuss!

Print and online versions of Middlemarch can be found through Duke University Libraries and most public libraries. Project Gutenberg also provides multiple ebook formats for free.

Although the readings are longer, the low maintenance attitude is the same. Join as you like, discuss as much as you want–or just hang out and enjoy the company. Everyone is welcome. Just RSVP so we know how many to expect, and we’ll send out a Zoom link the morning of the meeting.

What to Listen to this Month: June 2021

Normally we highlight books from our New and Noteworthy, and Current Literature collections for this monthly post, but this month we will be showcasing audiobooks from our Overdrive. Protip: make sure to also check out Durham County Public Library’s Overdrive collection!


Just as I Am: A Memoir written and narrated by Cicely Tyson. “Just As I Am is my truth. It is me, plain and unvarnished, with the glitter and garland set aside. Here, I am indeed Cicely, the actress who has been blessed to grace the stage and screen for six decades. Yet I am also the church girl who once rarely spoke a word. I am the teenager who sought solace in the verses of the old hymn for which this book is named. I am a daughter and mother, a sister, and a friend. I am an observer of human nature and the dreamer of audacious dreams. I am a woman who has hurt as immeasurably as I have loved, a child of God divinely guided by His hand. And here in my ninth decade, I am a woman who, at long last, has something meaningful to say.” –Cicely Tyson


The Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel. With The Mirror & the Light, Hilary Mantel brings to a triumphant close the trilogy she began with her Booker Prize-winning novels, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. She traces the final years of Thomas Cromwell, the boy from nowhere who climbs to the heights of power, offering a defining portrait of predator and prey, of a ferocious contest between present and past, between royal will and a common man’s vision: of a modern nation making itself through conflict, passion and courage. This book is read by Ben Miles, who played Thomas Cromwell in the Royal Shakespeare Company adaptation of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies and includes a bonus conversation between Ben Miles and Hilary Mantel.


Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone by Sarah Jaffe. You’re told that if you “do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.” Whether it’s working for “exposure” and “experience,” or enduring poor treatment in the name of “being part of the family,” all employees are pushed to make sacrifices for the privilege of being able to do what we love. Sarah Jaffe, a preeminent voice on labor, inequality, and social movements, examines this “labor of love” myth — the idea that certain work is not really work, and therefore should be done out of passion instead of pay. Told through the lives and experiences of workers in various industries — from the unpaid intern, to the overworked teacher, to the nonprofit worker and even the professional athlete — Jaffe reveals how all of us have been tricked into buying into a new tyranny of work. You can read reviews here and here.


The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo. Quick-witted, ambitious Ji Lin is stuck as an apprentice dressmaker, moonlighting as a dancehall girl to help pay off her mother’s Mahjong debts. But when one of her dance partners accidentally leaves behind a gruesome souvenir, Ji Lin may finally get the adventure she has been longing for. Eleven-year-old houseboy Ren is also on a mission, racing to fulfill his former master’s dying wish: that Ren find the man’s finger, lost years ago in an accident, and bury it with his body. Ren has 49 days to do so, or his master’s soul will wander the earth forever. As the days tick relentlessly by, a series of unexplained deaths wracks the district, along with whispers of men who turn into tigers. Ji Lin and Ren’s increasingly dangerous paths crisscross through lush plantations, hospital storage rooms, and ghostly dreamscapes. Narrated by the author. You can read a review here, and check out this NPR interview.


The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go from Here by Hope Jahren. Hope Jahren is an award-winning scientist, a brilliant writer, a passionate teacher, and one of the seven billion people with whom we share this earth. In The Story of More, she illuminates the link between human habits and our imperiled planet. In concise, highly readable chapters, she takes us through the science behind the key inventions—from electric power to large-scale farming to automobiles—that, even as they help us, release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere like never before. She explains the current and projected consequences of global warming—from superstorms to rising sea levels—and the actions that we all can take to fight back. At once an explainer on the mechanisms of global change and a lively, personal narrative given to us in Jahren’s inimitable voice, it is an essential pocket primer on climate change that will leave an indelible impact on everyone who reads it. You can read reviews here and here.

What to Read This Month: May 2021

Welcome back to What to Read This Month! Quick confession: since the semester ended, I’ve been so busy catching up on my reading list that I’ve nearly forgotten to recommend a fresh batch of books for May. Fortunately, I have a number of great titles to choose from, as you’ll see below. Of course, these five books represent only a miniscule fraction of the titles we’re continually adding to our New & Noteworthy and Overdrive collections, so if you’re in need of some additional summer reading, head over there!


How to Order the Universe: Ferrada, María José, Bryer, Elizabeth:  9781951142308: Amazon.com: BooksHow to Order the Universe by María José Ferrada (translated into English by Elizabeth Bryer). In this novel, Ferrada tells the story of M and D, a father-daughter duo of traveling salespeople peddling hardware in Pinochet-era Chile. M, who is seven years old, begins her foray into entrepreneurship when D realizes that his daughter has a knack for attracting customers. Though M has to skip school and deceive her mother to join D on his sales, doing so is fairly easy owing to her mother’s general emotional distance, which has been exacerbated by recent personal losses related to the Pinochet regime. As M travels with her father, she begins to grow up, and her increased realizations and understanding of the world around her are shaped by her business and familiarity with the products she hawks with D. Though she adores her father and her ability to travel with him, over the course of the novel M is frequently forced to come to grips with staggering loss and political tumult as the Pinochet dictatorship upends her life and the lives of those around her. You can read reviews here and here.


Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain: 9780241445297:  Amazon.com: BooksEmpireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain by Sathnam Sanghera. In this book, journalist Sanghera discusses the general reluctance of modern-day British society to reckon with its imperialistic history, and the reasons why this reluctance has taken the form that it has. Arguing that empire is still a highly influential force in the United Kingdom today, Sanghera focuses both on the history his country is willfully choosing to forget, and the ways in which this refusal has enabled contemporary racism in Britain and has justified attempts to reject its present-day status as a multicultural nation. In writing his account, Sanghera cites the general erasure of brutality committed by British imperialist forces, such as its 1903 invasion of Tibet, as well as the contributions of imperial citizens to British society at large. He also links the content of the book to his own personal experience, contextualizing the racist violence he witnessed as a child of Indian Punjabi immigrants growing up in 1980s Wolverhampton. In all, while the book is often a heavy and disturbing read, it is also moving in the way it highlights these often overlooked elements of British history. You can read a review here and listen to a discussion with Sanghera, presented by Amandeep Kaur Bhangu and hosted by the UK Punjab Heritage Association, here.


Nobody's Normal: How Culture Created the Stigma of Mental Illness: Grinker,  Roy Richard: 9780393531640: Amazon.com: BooksNobody’s Normal: How Culture Created the Stigma of Mental Illness by Roy Richard Grinker. In this book, anthropologist Grinker discusses the ways in which cultural ideas of normalcy have given rise to an entrenched and pernicious stigma surrounding mental illness. He traces the history of terms that have been extensively used to stigmatize mentally ill people, such as “mad,” and discusses how these terms have historically been used to stigmatize marginalized populations in particular; those in power, he notes, have largely been able to avoid being branded with such terms. Though the exact nature of the stigma surrounding mental illness has changed, he writes that this inequality is still certainly present in modern-day perceptions of mental illness, discussing how some of the most stigmatized mental illness diagnoses today are disproportionately applied to marginalized people. Ultimately, Grinker argues that this development of stigma is inextricable from capitalism, colonialism, and the influence of Western religious thought. You can read reviews here and here.


The Doctors Blackwell: How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women  and Women to Medicine: Nimura, Janice P.: 9780393635546: Amazon.com: BooksThe Doctors Blackwell: How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women—and Women to Medicine by Janice P. Nimura. In this biography, historian Nimura takes a detailed look at Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States, as well as her sister Emily Blackwell, herself a physician whose legacy is often overshadowed by Elizabeth’s. Nimura emphasizes Elizabeth’s unusually tenacious character and her determination to obtain a medical degree, a threatening prospect to a medical establishment that feared women doctors would prove to be too successful with women patients. Emily followed with her medical degree, and together, the two eventually opened the first hospital to be staffed by women. While Nimura includes numerous fascinating stories about Elizabeth’s life, she is also quick to point out her serious flaws of character that are often erased in her status as a cultural icon: for instance, she is unflinching in her discussion of Elizabeth’s lifelong opposition to women’s suffrage. The biography is also unique in its vivid portrait of Emily, whom Nimura describes as a generally more effective doctor compared to Elizabeth, and as a woman who navigated multiple same-gender partnerships in the 19th-century US. You can read reviews here and here.


Meltdown: Inside the Fukushima Nuclear Crisis - Kindle edition by  Funabashi, Yoichi. Politics & Social Sciences Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.Meltdown: Inside the Fukushima Nuclear Crisis by Yoichi Funabashi. This year marks ten years since the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster, and in this new book, journalist Funabashi offers an exhaustive account of the disaster itself, its continuing aftermath, and its implications for Japan and the world at large. Funabashi has been chronicling the disaster since it occurred in 2011, and the book is the result of his interviews with hundreds of people, including Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant personnel, members of the Japanese military, and Japanese government officials. Though one leaves the book with a strong impression of the factors leading up to the disaster and its occurrence, much of the book is focused on the present and future, as Funabashi dwells on present cleanup efforts, the complications surrounding the long-term management of the disaster site, and the future of energy policy in Japan. Ultimately, in his depiction of the disaster, Funabashi argues that, although Japan is in need of sustainable energy sources, it has proven to be unprepared for harnessing nuclear energy, citing the mismanagement of evacuation during the disaster as well as the role that insufficient safety regulations played in the disaster itself. You can listen to two interviews with Funabashi here and here.

“Library Takeout” Wins Library Film Festival

Screen Still of Library Takeout Video

Hey, does anybody remember “Library Takeout”?

What are we saying, of course you do. That funkalicious earworm is probably still bopping around inside your head right now.

With its playful animation, catchy chorus, and infectious beat, the short music video takes a simple set of step-by-step instructions for using a library service during the pandemic and transforms them into something unexpectedly funky, danceable, and fun. It was composed, animated, and produced last summer by a staff member in our Music Library (and Duke alum!), Jamie Keesecker.

Soon after it was released, the video became a viral hit both on campus and off, racking up over 890,000 views on YouTube and more than a thousand appreciative comments. There have been articles written about it (such as this one, this one, and this one), drum jam fan tributes, and the music streaming service Spotify even tweeted about it, calling it “the greatest library-focused track ever made.” (Speaking of Spotify, you can also find the song there, where it has been played almost 300,000 times.)

Now the video has earned another distinction—the admiration of our library peers!

Last week, the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) announced that “Library Takeout” had won their annual ARL Film Festival (the Arlies), carrying home the trophy in three different categories: How-To/Instructional Films, Best Humor, and (drumroll please) Best of Show.

Every year, the Arlies festival highlights and shares multimedia projects developed by member institutions to increase knowledge and use of libraries, their spaces, services, collections, and expertise. The films are voted on by ARL member institutions, which include the 124 largest research libraries throughout the U.S. and Canada.

We are honored by the recognition, and absolutely delighted for our colleague Jamie, who deserves all the credit for bringing Duke’s unofficial pandemic anthem into the world.

Thanks to the video’s popularity, relatively few people at Duke can say they don’t know how to check out books from the library right now. As a matter of fact, many fans of the video who have no connection to Duke whatsoever could easily tell you the steps. As one YouTube commenter noted, “How am I going to explain that my favorite song is an instructional video for a library I’ve never been to, at a school I’ve never attended?!”

We may never be able to replicate the success of “Library Takeout.” In fact, we’re positive we won’t. (All those people who subscribed to our YouTube Channel are going to be pretty disappointed by our usual fare of instructional videos and event recordings.) But we feel lucky to have hit on something that clicked with our users and supporters, at a time when they (and we) really needed it.

So go ahead, give it another listen (or five). It’s precisely what you need.

What to Read This Month: April 2021

Congrats on making it through another unusual semester here at Duke! We at the library realize that you’re probably busy with end-of-semester projects and finals (and remember, we’re always here to help!), but if by chance you’ve got the time to pick up a new book to read, here are some great selections from our Overdrive and New & Noteworthy collections. As always, these picks represent just a tiny fraction of what’s available, so be sure to follow the above links to see what else we have!


Your House Will Pay: A Novel: Cha, Steph: 9780062868855: Amazon.com: BooksYour House Will Pay by Steph Cha. In this thriller, Cha tells the story of Grace and Shawn, two Angelenos whose lives unexpectedly intersect when Grace’s mother is injured in a drive-by shooting. It is the summer of 2019, and as tensions in the city come to a head following the police shooting of an unarmed Black teenager, Grace is shocked to learn an egregious family secret: in 1991, a member of Grace’s family murdered a teenage girl named Ava, believing her to be stealing from the family’s convenience store, and received no jail time for the crime. The event ignited tensions between Los Angeles’ Black and Korean communities, and in 2019, the investigation surrounding the shooting of Grace’s mother resurrects some of these tensions at the family level. It also exacts a heavy toll on Shawn, Ava’s brother, who has been haunted by sister’s death for 28 years. As he becomes involved in the investigation, he must confront his own grief as well as the very family responsible for Ava’s murder. Cha derives much of the story from the real-life 1991 murder of Latasha Harlins, and in so doing, offers a tense exploration of race, grief, and justice. You can read a review here and an interview with Cha here.


Troubled: The Failed Promise of America's Behavioral Treatment Programs:  Rosen, Kenneth R.: 9781542022118: Amazon.com: BooksTroubled: The Failed Promise of America’s Behavioral Treatment Programs by Kenneth R. Rosen. In this book, journalist Rosen traces the fraught history of American behavioral treatment programs, most of which have historically taken the form of spartan residential camps and schools. The book is partially a memoir, as Rosen describes at length his own experience with such programs: as a teenager with behavioral issues in the mid-2000s, Rosen was sent against his will to three separate institutions throughout the United States, all of which treated him brutally while also having little positive effect on him; despite (or perhaps because of) his years in these programs, his young adulthood proved to be a dysfunctional and often unstable one. Rosen also interviews a number of other graduates from similar institutions, and their testimonies strongly bolster Rosen’s argument that the American industry of behavioral treatment programs is one built not only on precarious conclusions about mental health and behavioral therapy, but also on abject cruelty to children. The book is undoubtedly a heavy read, but nonetheless an important one. You can read a review here and listen to an interview with Rosen here.


Klara and the Sun: A novel: Ishiguro, Kazuo: 9780593318171: Amazon.com:  BooksKlara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. In this novel, Nobel Prize winner Ishiguro explores issues ranging from the myriad difficulties of adolescence to questions surrounding the nature of emotional artificial intelligence. At an unspecified future date, Klara exists an “Artificial Friend,” essentially a robot designed to serve as an empathizing and socializing companion, in an era where technology has upended many facets of everyday human life. She lives in a department store, spending her days making human—and somewhat superhuman—observations about the world around her, until one day she is purchased for a sickly teenage girl named Josie. Josie is the result of “lifting”—genetic editing, which in this universe has become rather commonplace for wealthy people—and is intelligent beyond her years. This has come at a personal cost; normal schools have proven inadequate for her, and her homeschooling has caused her socialization to lag behind. Worse, the side effects of the editing have rendered her ill and will possibly even kill her. Klara fills a serious void for Josie, and as the two develop their relationship, Ishiguro explores heavy themes of love, intelligence, and loneliness. You can read reviews here and here.


Of Women and Salt: A Novel: Garcia, Gabriela: 9781250776686: Amazon.com:  BooksOf Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia. In this novel, Garcia tells the collective and intergenerational tale of two families living in contemporary Miami. There are two pairs of mothers and daughters that anchor the story: Jeannette and her mother Carmen, and Ana and her mother Gloria. Carmen and Jeannette’s relationship is marked by tumult, with their political and cultural disagreements (Jeannette was raised in Miami and comes to question the perspectives of her mother, a wealthy Cuban immigrant) exacerbated by Jeannette’s struggles with addiction. The two live in close proximity to Ana and Gloria, both of whom are undocumented immigrants from El Salvador. After Gloria is detained by ICE, Jeannette briefly takes Ana in, and things come to a head when Carmen fatefully convinces Jeannette to call the police over the situation. In the midst of these current events, Garcia also focuses on Jeannette’s relationship with her family in Cuba, exploring both her interactions with her living family members as well as her understanding of the family’s past generations. In all, Garcia poetically portrays issues of identity and family in a heated political atmosphere. You can read reviews here and here.


The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song: Gates Jr., Henry  Louis: 9781984880338: Amazon.com: BooksThe Black Church: This Is our Story, This Is Our Song by Henry Louis Gates Jr. In this book, which serves as a companion piece to a recently-aired PBS documentary series of the same name, renowned historian Gates offers a near-exhaustive history of the Black church in the United States, as well as its significance and profound influence on American culture at large. Beginning with the subject of praise houses, churches used by enslaved people in the South, Gates explicates the manifold spiritual and theological roots of the modern-day Black church, and relays the evolution of its many denominations. He makes the compelling case that the Black church has proven to be a highly elastic institution, adapting to the varying needs and plights of Black Americans throughout history, while at once serving as a powerful shaper of Black culture and political movements. Ending his account in the modern era, he brings in the voices of a number of scholars, and these contributions only further enrich his telling of this complicated and often controversial history. You can read a review here and learn more about the accompanying PBS documentary here.

National Poetry Month 2021

This year is the 25th National Poetry Month. The Academy of American Poets has 30 ways to celebrate on their website.

This year I want to honor Lawrence Ferlinghetti who died this year at the age of 101. You can read a nice bio and overview of his work at the Poetry Foundation. We of course also have many of his works in our library:

Little Boy

Ferlinghetti’s Greatest Poems

How to Paint Sunlight: Lyric Poems & Others (1997-2000)

These are My Rivers: New & Selected Poems, 1955-1993

Starting from San Francisco

He was also the founder of City Lights, a bookstore and a publisher in San Francisco. This 2013 blog post “A Literary Meeting Place: The History Behind City Lights Bookstore” is a good place to start to understand the legacy of City Lights. Here is a selection of titles that they have published:

City Lights Pocket Poets Anthology

City Lights Anthology

Every Day We Get More Illegal by Juan Felipe Herrera

Funeral Diva by Pamela Sneed

Collected Poems of Bob Kaufman

Heaven is All Goodbyes by Tongo Eisen-Martin

And Then We Became by Devorah Major

Save Twilight selected poems of Julio Cortázar ; translated by Stephen Kessler

What to Read This Month: March 2021

Hello again! As spring arrives and we start to progress through the latter part of the semester, now might be a good time to find a new book to read. This month’s post can help you get started on that! As always, though, this selection of five books is just a sampling of the new titles we continually add to the library. If you want to check out more, be sure to visit our New & Noteworthy and Overdrive collections!


Amazon.com: The Committed (9780802157065): Nguyen, Viet Thanh: Books The Committed by Viet Thanh Nguyen. In this novel, Nguyen continues the winding, action-packed, and often terrifying story of his protagonist, a unnamed undercover Vietnamese communist agent who continually reinvents himself as the world around him remains in constant flux. We last saw him in Nguyen’s 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Sympathizer, in which, among several other memorable events, he fled Vietnam with a South Vietnamese general to the United States following the fall of Saigon, consulted on a Hollywood film about the war (think Apocalypse Now), and ultimately returned to Vietnam on an ill-advised mission led by the general, only to be captured and interrogated in a reeducation camp. The Committed sees him leave Vietnam a second time, this time settling in 1980s France, where he quickly becomes entrenched in the world of organized crime. As in the first novel, the narrator provides a constant commentary in which he not only richly describes the events unfolding around him, but also meditates on personally complicated issues of identity, empire, and colonialism. You can read reviews here and here.


Surviving the White Gaze: A Memoir: Carroll, Rebecca: 9781982116255: Amazon.com: BooksSurviving the White Gaze by Rebecca Carroll. In this memoir, Carroll discusses her coming of age as the only Black person in her rural New Hampshire community during the 1970s and 80s. Though she portrays her white adoptive parents as empathetic and loving, Carroll describes a childhood in which she felt isolated from her Black identity, and emphasizes the events in her life, leading into her adulthood, that ultimately allowed her to understand herself as a Black woman. Among these events are her first relationship with another Black person, her childhood ballet teacher Mrs. Rowland, her fraught dealings with her biological mother, Tess, a white woman who deliberately seeks to undermine Carroll’s identity as a Black person, and her simultaneously affirming yet difficult experiences as a young adult. Ultimately, Carroll focuses on the peace she is able to find in the family she builds for herself, and reflects on her later life as a parent. You can read a review here and listen to a conversation between Carroll and actor Zoe Kazan, hosted by the New York Public Library, here.


Fake Accounts: Oyler, Lauren: 9781948226929: Amazon.com: BooksFake Accounts by Lauren Oyler. In this debut novel, Oyler tells the story of a young woman who, shortly after the 2016 presidential election, discovers that her boyfriend has been living a secret online life as a rightwing conspiracy theorist. Though the relationship has been unsatisfying and she has no qualms about leaving him following this discovery, she finds that the next chapter in her life—leaving New York City to go live in Berlin—is equally rife with various forms of digital deception and manipulation. Over the course of her journey in Berlin, as she dates and works, she is forced to confront the narcissism, vapidity, and performativity that plagues both her own social media use, and the social media use of those around her. Ultimately, the novel serves as an unusually rich depiction of life in the age of social media, and as an effective satire. You can read reviews here and here.


Soul City: Race, Equality, and the Lost Dream of an American Utopia: Healy, Thomas: 9781627798624: Amazon.com: BooksSoul City: Race, Equality, and the Lost Dream of an American Utopia by Thomas Healy. In this book, Seton Hall law professor Healy relays the often overlooked story of Soul City, a community planned in 1970s northeastern North Carolina to embody racial integration and the myriad other gains of the Civil Rights Movement. The community was the brainchild of Floyd McKissick, a Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) leader and the first Black law student at UNC-Chapel Hill. McKissick, as Healy tells, secured a 5000-acre plot of land in Warren County, a $14 million grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the support of the Nixon administration, but despite his efforts, the project never truly took off, and today, little remains of the community. Healy dives into all the reasons why the initiative ultimately floundered, including opposition by the media and local white residents, racism in the bureaucratic process, and the virulent campaign against the project by US senator and noted North Carolina racist Jesse Helms. In so doing, he paints a vivid picture of American society in the 1970s, and its complicated racial politics. You can read reviews here and here.


Bonnie | Book by Christina Schwarz | Official Publisher Page | Simon & SchusterBonnie by Christina Schwarz. In this novel, Schwarz offers a fictionalized biography of Bonnie Parker, famed 1930s outlaw and accomplice of Clyde Barrow. Special attention is paid to Parker’s difficult, impoverished upbringing outside of Dallas, where she develops a talent for and love of poetry that is unfortunately discouraged by an uncharitable teacher. Dropping out of high school, Parker marries but soon leaves her husband, meeting Clyde Barrow and eventually joining him on an initially successful but ultimately fateful crime spree. Schwarz of course devotes much of the novel to this final chapter of Parker’s life, detailing the crimes of the pair, their accomplices, and their eventual deaths at the hands of the law. But where Schwarz deviates from other fictionalizations of the duo, and where the novel makes for a unique and especially insightful work of historical fiction, is in its commitment to realism and lack of romanticization. Other works, most famously the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde, have relied on the popular imagining of the pair as romantic outlaws, a perception fueled by contemporary media coverage of their crime spree, but Schwarz offers an unflinching portrayal of the numerous hardships Parker faced as a poor woman on the run in the midst of the Great Depression. You can read reviews here and here.

$1,500 Prize for Book Collecting

The Duke University Libraries are proud to present the 2021 Andrew T. Nadell Prize for Book Collecting. The contest is open to all students enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate/professional degree program at Duke, and the winners will receive cash prizes.

Submissions due by March 31, 2021

More information: bit.ly/bookcollectors

First Prize

Undergraduate division: $1,500
Graduate division: $1,500

Second Prize

Undergraduate division: $750
Graduate division: $750

Winners of the contest will receive any in-print Grolier Club book of their choice, as well as a three-year membership in the Bibliographical Society of America.

You don’t have to be a “book collector” to enter the contest. Past collections have varied in interest areas and included a number of different types of materials. Collections are judged on adherence to a clearly defined unifying theme, not rarity or monetary value.

Visit our website for more information and read winning entries from past years. Contact Kurt Cumiskey at kurt.cumiskey@duke.edu with any questions.

What to Read this Month: February 2021

Hello again! I don’t know about you, but for me, February went by in a flash and I can’t believe we’re now inexplicably near the mid-point of the semester! If you’re looking for something new to read in this last little slice of February, look no further. Or actually, do look further: as always, our New & Noteworthy collection and our Overdrive collection are adding new titles all the time. I also recommend checking out our new 5 Titles series, which highlights the works of underrepresented authors and titles related to diversity, equity, and inclusion in our collection. This month’s post, featuring memoirs by African-American men, was written by RIS head Kim Duckett, and last month’s inaugural post, featuring nonfiction on neurodiversity, was authored by yours truly. Now, on to the books!


Wandering in Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her  Roots: Jerkins, Morgan: 9780062873040: Amazon.com: BooksWandering in Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots by Morgan Jerkins. In this memoir, essayist Jerkins documents her tracing of her family’s heritage, a journey involving several locales in the United States, the investigation of multiple missing pieces in her family line, and the contributions of various historians and archivists. Along the way, Jerkins grapples with the many complexities of African-American identity, placing her personal family history in the larger context of Black American history. Some particular facets of this history that Jerkins touches upon in her investigation include the Great Migration, the development and preservation of Gullah culture, the fraught history of tribal citizenship for Black indigenous Americans, and the experiences of free people of color in Louisiana. In so doing, Jerkins also thoroughly interrogates the culture of white supremacy underpinning each piece of her family’s history, both past and present. Ultimately, her deeply personal investigation also serves as a compelling illustration of African-American history and culture. You can read reviews here and here.


The New Wilderness: Cook, Diane: 9780062333131: Amazon.com: BooksThe New Wilderness by Diane Cook. In this novel, shortlisted for last year’s Booker Prize, Cook tells the story of Bea and Agnes, a mother and daughter living a harsh life of hunting and gathering in a rough wilderness left frighteningly unbalanced by climate change. Three years prior to the story’s events, Bea and Agnes, along with Bea’s husband Glen, had been living in a deeply polluted metropolis referred to only as “the City,” but Agnes’ respiratory problems drove the family to participate in a study on human-nature interactions that moved them to a place known as the Wilderness State, understood to be the last wild region left in the world. There, they live with the study’s other participants, roaming the land and learning survival skills lest they perish. Though the group is subject to the demands of the study’s “rangers,” tensions begin to flare between them, driving many of the novel’s core events. In the midst of all this, Cook focuses on the mother-daughter relationship between Bea and Agnes, exploring how it changes as Agnes regains her health and develops a strong attachment to the wilderness. You can read reviews here and here.


Trans America: A Counter-History | WileyTrans America: A Counter-History by Barry Reay. In this book, historian Reay seeks to correct the sidelining of transgender history in the US by providing readers with a thorough, compelling, and far-reaching account of the way transgender identity has developed over the centuries. His inclusive approach identifies several periods in this history, beginning with a broader survey of gender flexibility in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Following this discussion is an examination of the rise of transgender visibility in the 1960s and 70s, including the degree of persecution that accompanied it, and the more recent history of transgender people in the US leading up to the present. Reay populates his account with rich depictions of several transgender historical figures, many of whom have been hitherto ignored by the mainstream historical record. There is also a great deal of discussion devoted to the particular history of transgender culture within the Black and Latinx communities, as well as an exhaustive account of the history of medicalization (the book resists the medical model in its approach). You can read interviews with Reay here and here.


Self Care: A Novel: Stein, Leigh: 9780143135197: Amazon.com: BooksSelf Care by Leigh Stein. In this novel, novelist Stein offers ripping satire of corporate, Girlboss-style feminism in her portrayal of Richual, the fictional online women’s wellness company created by her fiercely ambitious, yet ultimately nihilistic protagonists Maren and Devin. The two hatch a plan to market a sanitized, monetized combination of social justice and self-care to their audience of primarily white, thin, middle-class women, and all goes well until a string of scandals forces the two to come to grips with exactly what it is that they have created. As Maren faces backlash for a misguided tweet, the duo also finds itself woefully unprepared to deal with a board member accused of sexual misconduct, one who happens to be involved with Devin and is largely responsible for the company’s funding. Amidst all this, Stein also focuses on Khadijah, a pregnant employee of the company who finds herself in the peculiar predicament of being afraid to ask for maternity leave from her nominally feminist bosses. In all, the novel, in its own darkly funny way, serves as a sharp criticism of white, lean-in feminism, one that’s difficult to look away from. You can read a review here and a Q&A with Stein here.


Amazon.com: Just as I Am: A Memoir eBook: Burford, Michelle: Kindle StoreJust as I Am by Cicely Tyson with Michelle Burford. In this memoir, iconic actress Cicely Tyson tells the story of her life and her decades-long career. She first recounts early her life pre-show business, including a difficult account of the domestic abuse she witnessed as a child and her first marriage and divorce as a young woman, before describing her discovery as a model in the early 1950s at the age of thirty. From here, Tyson describes her experiences working in film and television as a Black woman in the mid- to late-twentieth century, offering a personal perspective on some of her most well-known projects, including Sounder and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. She is unflinching in her descriptions of the difficulties she has faced, both in her professional and personal life, offering a full account of her long and often difficult relationship with Miles Davis. With Burford, she also reflects on the legacy of her career, her influences, and her many accolades. In this way, the memoir serves as a satisfying, full account of Tyson’s life, as well as something of an epilogue—Tyson died just days after its release last month. You can read reviews here and here.

ONLINE: Low Maintenance Book Club reads “A Year in Provence”

Missing spring break? Take a literary trip with this month’s Low Maintenance Book Club reading, Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence. This classic memoir chronicles the author and his wife’s first year after moving to France’s Provence region. As always, you’re welcome to join regardless of how much (or whether) you’ve read the book!

Copies of the book can be found at Duke University Libraries (hard copy), Durham County Library (hard copy and audiobook), Wake County Public Libraries (hard copy), Orange County Public Library (hard copy) and Chapel Hill Public Library (eBook) and as an eBook through Open Library (you’ll just need to set up a free account to borrow).

Please RSVP to receive a Zoom link the morning of the meeting.

For Valentine’s Day, We Offer Some of Our Favorite Literary Crushes

Valentine Card. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

Surrounded by stories surreal and sublime,
I fell in love in the library once upon a time.
— Jimmy Buffett, “Love in the Library”

Maybe it’s the intimacy of hushed voices, the privacy of so many nooks and crannies, or the feeling of mysterious possibility that comes from being surrounded by so many books and stories. Let’s face it—there’s something romantic about libraries.

That’s why this Valentine’s Day has hit us right in the feels. Normally, in pre-pandemic times, we would be encouraging you right now to go on a “Mystery Date with a Book,” wrapping up dozens of our favorite titles in pink and red paper with come-hither teasers designed to lure you in.

Alas, our innocent fun is another casualty of COVID. But we’re still hoping we can spice up your reading life. We revisited our mystery picks from years gone by and pulled together some of our all-time favorite literary crushes, personally recommended by our staff. All titles are available to check out through our Library Takeout Service.

So go ahead, treat your pretty little self to something different. Who knows? You might just fall in love with a new favorite writer!


Selected by Arianne Hartsell-Gundy, Head, Humanities Section and Librarian for Literature and Theater Studies:

  • Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things: “Seven year old twins are forever changed by one day in 1969.”
  • Naomi Novik, Uprooted: “The fairy tale you always wanted as a child…and finally got as an adult.”

Selected by Kim Duckett, Head of Research and Instructional Services:

  • Anthony Mara, The Tsar of Love and Techno: Stories: “A collection of beautiful interlocking short stories dipping back and forth through 20th century Russia.”
  • Matthew Kneale, English Passengers: “Twenty narrators tell a fascinating story of Manx smugglers, seekers of the Garden of Eden, and the plight of Tasmanian Aborigines.”

Selected by Brittany Wofford, Librarian for the Nicholas School for the Environment:

Selected by Megan Crain, Annual Giving Coordinator:

  • Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine: “We all know what it means to survive. But do we know what it means to live in the 21st century?”
  • Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time: “A childhood classic about family, bravery, and finding light through the darkness.”

Selected by Aaron Welborn, Director of Communications:

  • Richard Hughes, The Innocent Voyage (A High Wind in Jamaica): “One of the best novels you’ve never heard of. A combination of Peter Pan, Heart of Darkness, and Lord of the Flies, all rolled into one.”
  • J. L. Carr, A Month in the Country: “A gem of a book: a quaint English village, a WWI vet, and a shimmering summer of youth.”

Selected by Elena Feinstein, Head, Natural Sciences and Engineering Section and Librarian for Biological Sciences:

  • Monique Truong, The Book of Salt: “Flavors, seas, sweat, tears – weaves historical figures into a witty, original tale spanning 1930s Paris and French-colonized Vietnam.”
  • Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler’s Wife: “According to the author, the themes of the novel are ‘mutants, love, death, amputation, sex, and time.’ Many readers would include loss, romance, and free will.”

Selected by Jodi Psoter, Librarian for Chemistry and Statistical Science:

  • Bill Bryson, In a Sunburned Country: “Travel without having to fly….”
  • Catherine Baily, Secret Rooms: “A haunted castle, a plotting duchess, and a family secret.”

Selected by Hannah Rozear, Librarian for Instructional Services and Global Health:

  • Mike Carey, The Girl with All the Gifts: “Zombie kiddo loves her teacher, and also spores!”
  • Stefan Fatsis, Word Freak: “Wonderful word weirdos. Glimpse inside the world of competitive Scrabble.”

Selected by Sarah Park, Librarian for Engineering and Computer Science:

Selected by Katie Henningsen, Head of Research Services, Rubenstein Library:

  • Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo: “Love, Revenge, and Money.”
  • Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows: “Ocean’s Eleven but make it 17th-century Amsterdam. Read it before the adaptation shows up on Netflix in April!”

Selected by Lee Sorensen, Librarian for Visual Studies and Dance, Lilly Library

  • Collin Thurbron, Night of Fire: “John Banville and I think this is the best book we’ve read in years. Zen meets Spoon River Anthology.”

Selected by Sara Seten Berghausen, Associate Curator of Collections, Rubenstein Library

Selected by Ciara Healy, Librarian for Psychology & Neuroscience, Mathematics, and Physics

  • Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House: A Memoir: “If you lived through some stuff, and survived… this book is for you. Exquisitely written, heart wrenching.” 
  • Edgar Cantero, Meddling Kids: “A Scooby Doo re-do; former kids detective club grows up, messes up and tries to solve a spooky mystery + actual dog as part of the Doo crew.”

Selected by Kelli Stephenson, Coordinator, Access and Library Services

  • Omar El Akkad, American War: “A second American Civil War, a devastating plague, and one family caught deep in the middle.”
  • Tamsyn Muir, Gideon the Ninth: “Necromancers unraveling a mystery in a haunted space mansion, complete with epic sword fighting, deep world-building, and laugh-out-loud profane humor.”

Love, Unconventionally

When Valentine’s Day approaches many of us conjure images of chocolate and flowers.  However 2021 has been anything but a conventional year. As Duke Libraries’ Librarian for Film, Video & Digital Media I would like to highlight three movies that reveal an unconventional side of love.

Image from film
My Name is Khan 2010, ((dir. Karan Johar)

Rizvan Khan is an Indian Muslim man with Asperger’s Syndrome who falls in love with a Hindu woman in the United States, post-9/11. This feature film depicts the resentment that ordinary, law-abiding Muslims felt about their treatment by fellow Americans and delivers a strong message that Hindus and Muslims should work together against the common enemies of extremism and intolerance. With a running time of 245 minutes, settle in for a long night of viewing pleasure. (Lilly DVD 17475 and streaming online for Duke users)

Image of film
Invitation to Dance (2014, dirs. Simi Linton and Christian von Tippelskirch)

At age 23, Simi Linton was injured while hitchhiking to Washington, D.C. to protest the war in Vietnam. As a young college student, newly disabled, she confronted unimaginable discrimination. Years before the Americans with Disabilities Act was conceived, Linton emerges in Invitation to Dance as a resourceful activist, and in time realizes that love, sexuality, and dance can once again become a part of her life. (Lilly DVD 27418 and streaming online for Duke users)

 

Image from DVD cover
CinemAbility: the Art of Inclusion (2018, dir. Jenni Gold)

 

Directed by Jenni Gold, the first female wheelchair-using member of the Directors Guild of America, CinemAbility explores how disability has been portrayed on screen in Hollywood over the past 120 years. Nearly all characters in film and television have been played by abled actors, leaving our collective perception of disability skewed. Gold interviews abled and disabled people from in front of and behind the camera to dissect and examine the history of representation. (Lilly DVD 32937 and streaming online for Duke users)
Code of the Freaks (2020, dir. Salome Chasnoff) is another compelling  documentary that focuses on these  issues.
(Streaming online for Duke users)

 

What to Read this Month: January 2021

Welcome back! If you’re looking to ring in the new year and the new semester with some new reading material, we at the library have got you covered. This month, as always, we’re highlighting a selection of titles from our New & Noteworthy and Overdrive collections. The below titles represent only a very small sampling of what these collections hold, however, so we encourage you to explore them in full to discover your next read.


Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu: 9780307948472 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu. In this novel, Westworld writer Yu tells the story—in the format of a screenplay—of Willis Yu, an aspiring Hollywood actor who continually finds himself limited to menial, racist roles such as “Background Oriental Male” and “Delivery Guy.” Frustrated with the entertainment industry’s pigeonholing of Asian actors, Willis is determined to land a more glamorous part, striving to eventually be cast as “Kung Fu Guy” even though such a role still easily falls under Hollywood’s stereotypical envisioning of Asian characters. Interspersed with Willis’ work as an actor are scenes in which he interacts with a number of other compelling characters, including his father Sifu and his fellow actors. Through the character of Willis, the characters surrounding him, and the screenplay format, Charles Yu crafts a searing and exceedingly humorous satire of the modern-day entertainment industry and its racism, one which ultimately won last year’s National Book Award for Fiction. You can read reviews here and here.


Administrations of Lunacy: Racism and the Haunting of American Psychiatry at the Milledgeville Asylum: Segrest, Mab: 9781620972977: Amazon.com: Books

Administrations of Lunacy: Racism and the Haunting of American Psychiatry at the Milledgeville Asylum by Mab Segrest. In this book, activist Segrest describes her investigation of the records of Central State Hospital in Milledgeville, Georgia, a psychiatric hospital that opened in 1842 and closed in 2010. While the hospital has developed a notorious reputation for its well-known history of patient mistreatment, Segrest focuses on its particularly egregious abuse of Black patients, who were first admitted into segregated quarters of the hospital following the end of the Civil War. In addition to drawing attention to the inferior conditions these patients endured relative to white patients as a result of de jure and later de facto segregation, Segrest also delves into the records of individual Black patients to contextualize their various diagnoses and treatments with the long history of racism in American psychiatric research and practice. She discusses at length the way in which disability and mental illness diagnoses were weaponized against Black patients in particular, as well as the disturbing frequency with which they were subjected to forced sterilization and other treatments influenced by the burgeoning eugenics movement. In all, the book serves as an important study of the intersection of white supremacy and ableism, and proves highly relevant to the way this intersection plays out today. That said, much of the book’s content is decidedly graphic, something potential readers should consider. You can read reviews here and here.


Monogamy: A Novel: Miller, Sue: 9780062969651: Amazon.com: Books

Monogamy by Sue Miller. In this novel, bestselling author Miller focuses on Annie, a middle-aged photographer in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who has suddenly lost her husband of 30 years, bookstore owner Graham. When Graham was alive, he and Annie often appeared be an odd couple to those around them, with Annie’s small size and reserved character contrasting quite sharply with Graham’s vast physical presence and bon vivant personality. Yet Annie herself was generally happy in the marriage, despite occasional tensions, but her love and mourning for Graham following his passing is quickly marred by the sudden realization that he had been having an affair before his death. In what follows, Annie finds herself reassessing their relationship, and embarks on a journey to find peace with what they had—and did not have—together. While the examination of the marriage makes for a fascinating story on its own, Miller supplements Annie’s perspective with the insightful perspectives of key side characters, such as Annie and Graham’s adult daughter, Sarah, and Graham’s first wife, Frieda. You can read reviews here and here.


Amazon.com: My Baby First Birthday (9781947793811): Zhang, Jenny: Books

My Baby First Birthday by Jenny Zhang. In this poetry collection, poet and essayist Zhang examines issues of identity—and being born into a specific identity—that prove to be long-lasting, and essentially timeless, in a given person’s life. Over the course of the collection’s 97 poems, Zhang touches on several iterations of these identities, such as her mother’s womanhood and her own life as an Asian woman in a world that values whiteness, the suffering that derives from the perennial expectations placed upon these identities, and the desired and sometimes attainable liberation from such suffocating expectations (“be the baby ppl didn’t let u be / for once in yr life / & see what happens”). Zhang’s observations on identity are not entirely interior, however, as she also casts a light on the reader, inviting them to make the same considerations she is making about herself. Though this focus on identity is present throughout the whole of the collection, there are a number of interesting intersections with other subjects, most notably Zhang’s conception of her own sexuality. Through its use of overwhelming emotions, the collection makes for a memorable read. You can read reviews here and here.


The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World, Postrel, Virginia I., eBook - Amazon.com

The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World by Virginia Postrel. In this book, journalist Postrel puts forth the argument that each and every piece of fabric produced in human history reveals key information about the life, experiences, and desires of the person who made it, and that, when assembled together, all of the textiles and fabrics ever produced form an invaluable tapestry that tells the story of human history. In making this assertion, Postrel writes an engrossing account of the history of fabric, one that is occasionally overwhelming in its scope, but always compelling. Beginning in Bronze Age Crete and ending with the modern-day US, the examination of this history—which also accounts for the individual histories of different fabrics like wool and linen—extends to a myriad of cultures and places, including Egypt, China, Mexico, England, and Italy, among others. In the midst of this survey are several close-ups on individual processes and people, and these sections, along with the many helpful diagrams that Postrel employs, help enliven and personalize the broad account that she conveys. Overall, the book provides a vivid history of an often overlooked—yet essential—element of the human experience. You can read reviews here and here.

ONLINE: Low Maintenance Book Club reads “The Duke & I”

Join the Low Maintenance Book Club for a very special Valentine’s-themed meeting on Tuesday, February 16th at noon. We’re delving into romance with The Duke and I by Julia Quinn, the basis for the hit Netflix series Bridgerton.  As always, you’re welcome to join regardless of how much (or whether) you’ve read the book!

Copies of the book are available through Duke University Libraries (ebook), Durham County Library (book and audio CD | downloadable audiobook | ebook), and Wake County Public Libraries (book and downloadable audiobook | ebook).

Please RSVP to receive a Zoom link on the morning of the meeting.

What to Read this Month: December 2020

Hello again! We at the library hope you’re enjoying the long winter break. If by chance you find yourself in need of new reading material, here are some recommendations of ours for this month. As always, these books come from our New & Noteworthy and Overdrive collections, and we highly recommend checking them out whenever you want something new to read – these collections feature new material all the time.


Burnt Sugar: 9780241441510: Amazon.com: Books

Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi. In this debut novel, shortlisted for this year’s Booker Prize, Doshi tells the story of an intensely fraught mother-daughter relationship. Antara, a prosperous woman living in modern-day Pune with her husband and infant daughter, reflects on and grieves the difficult childhood she faced with her mother, Tara. When Tara became swept up in the teachings of a charismatic guru, she abandoned her marriage to live at the ashram where he resided. Though she took the young Antara with her, she was neglectful and sometimes overtly abusive towards her, leaving Antara with psychological wounds that continue to fester in her adulthood. Complicating Antara’s present understanding of Tara is her decision to take her in after she develops dementia. Though Tara’s condition does much to superficially soften the relationship between the two women, it also seriously complicates Antara’s necessary search for closure. Amidst this portrayal of a difficult relationship, Doshi also provides a searing satire of the wealthy and privileged in contemporary India through her portrayal of Antara’s entitled and often vacuous social circle. You can read reviews here and here.


My Autobiography of Carson McCullers: A Memoir | IndieBound.org

My Autobiography of Carson McCullers by Jenn Shapland. In this genre-bending memoir (not a biography, though it contains elements of one), Shapland comes to understand facets of her own life as a queer and chronically ill person while studying the life of Carson McCullers, the renowned 20th-century Southern Gothic novelist, and herself a queer and chronically ill person. McCullers, perhaps best known for her novels The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and The Member of the Wedding, empathetically wrote of outsiders in her fairly short lifetime, drawing on a personal experience that Shapland finds to have been largely overlooked by her biographers. Her experience with McCullers begins with an internship at the University of Texas at Austin’s Harry Ransom Center, an archive in which she discovers a number of McCullers’ love letters to another woman. What follows is a strong investigation into McCullers’ life as a lesbian in the mid-twentieth century, interspersed with Shapland’s personal anecdotes about coming to terms with her own sexuality. Throughout this intense discussion of McCullers’ life, Shapland readily questions her own perception of the author, and her personal identification with her, making for an engaging and self-aware read. You can read reviews here and here.


Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership (Justice, Power, and Politics): Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta: 9781469653662: Amazon.com: Books

Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. In this book, a finalist for this year’s Pulitzer Prize in history, historian Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor takes a clear look at the long history of housing discrimination and segregation in the modern-day US. While she begins her study in the early twentieth-century, in the age of the Great Migration and legally-sanctioned redlining, she particularly focuses on the late 1960s and later, when the Fair Housing Act was passed by Congress. While this act, along with related legislation passed as a part of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society initiative, outlawed de jure housing discrimination and was designed to create paths toward homeownership among the marginalized, Taylor argues that these measures actually preserved housing inequality among Black Americans, and enabled its existence into the present day. Highlighting the public-private nature of these measures (noting how the federal government largely relegated the task of guaranteeing mortgages to the private sector), Taylor writes of how they ultimately created a system of predatory lending, enriching the real estate industry while providing little concrete relief to Black homeowners, an issue only exacerbated by the succeeding Nixon administration. Throughout this vivid telling of history, Taylor emphasizes the accounts of Black families affected by these policies, driving home the personal ramifications of the flaws in the system. You can read an interview with Taylor here and a review here.


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The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave. In this novel, Hargrave builds on the historic 1621 witch trials that unfolded in the Norwegian town of Vardø, and, through the characters she creates, crafts a compelling commentary on what lies at the root of witch trials and cultural suspicion more broadly. In 1617, an intense storm overtakes the region of Finnmark, leaving many dead, including 20-year-old Maren’s father, brother, and fiancé. For a few years, the survivors of the storm cope as best as they can—two women rise up as leaders in the village, while Maren’s sister-in-law turns to her traditional Sami beliefs—but their way of life is threatened when the infamous Scottish witch hunter Absalom Cornet arrives at the behest of local authorities. He brings with him a timid young wife, Ursa, whom he met and wed in the Norwegian city of Bergen. Maren ends up taking Ursa under her wing, and the love that develops between the two women centers the novel, even as the witch hunter sows an increasing path of violence. He targets any woman who fails to conform to the religious or social norms of Vardø, and eventually, he sets his sights on Maren, spelling serious trouble for both her and Ursa. You can read reviews here and here.


A World Beneath the Sands: The Golden Age of Egyptology: Wilkinson, Toby: 9781324006893: Amazon.com: Books

A World Beneath the Sands: The Golden Age of Egyptology by Toby Wilkinson. This fascinating study takes a critical look at the so-called Golden Age of Egyptology, which the historian Toby Wilkinson defines as taking place roughly between the deciphering of the Rosetta Stone in 1822 and the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922. The rush on the part of Britain and France to learn about and produce scholarship on Ancient Egyptian civilization—processes which often took the form of plundering antiquities for the British Museum and the Louvre, respectively—is argued by Wilkinson to be the result of a kind of imperialist arms race between the two nations, as they each attempted to prove their might as colonial powers. Wilkinson discusses at length the consequences of this rush, noting that the insights learned about Ancient Egypt came at a severe cost, including the oppression of the Egyptian people and the destruction of many historical sites and artifacts. In particular, Wilkinson asserts that the occupation and widespread theft of the British and French had the unintended consequence of mobilizing the Egyptian people into developing a national identity for themselves, built both on the history of Ancient Egypt and the intense desire for self-government. In relaying this history, Wilkinson is quick to punctuate his account with vivid descriptions of the major figures who brought it into being. You can read reviews here and here.

Happy Birthday to Jane Austen!


Every year I like to write a blog post to celebrate Jane Austen’s birthday.  This year I’m going to celebrate with titles related to Emma since this new version of Emma (watch online through our library) was the last movie I saw in movie theaters this year.

If you want to see other film versions of Emma, we have several you can watch through the library, including this 2010 Masterpiece Theatre version, this 2004 BBC  version,  the 1996 version with Gwyneth Paltrow, and what some people (me) would argue is the greatest adaptation of them all, Clueless.

If you want to read the book, we of course have you covered with multiple versions, including this one on Overdrive.

For a special treat, check out Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library’s first edition. Put this on your list to check out for a future in person visit, or check it out on Internet Archive.

And let me end with some of the fun Jane Austen related things that came out of this year.

https://twitter.com/LibraryLydia/status/1244723932722343942?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1244723932722343942%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.marieclaire.com%2Fculture%2Fa32699248%2Fdating-during-covid19-jane-austen-novel%2F)
I saw many memes comparing our experience of staying home, taking long walks, and social distancing to Jane Austen’s world, many of them outlined in this May Marie Claire article and this recent New Yorker humor column. I found a lot of enjoyment from this twitter account called Pride and Plague. I was also fortunate to be able to attend many online Jane Austen related talks this year, hearing scholars and enthusiasts I probably normally wouldn’t have been able to see live. I especially enjoyed the Jane Austen & Co. virtual series, sponsored by our UNC neighbors.  You can find videos of the recorded events on their website. I also attended the Virtual Jane Austen Mini Fest hosted by the Glendale Public Library.

What to Read this Month: November 2020

Congratulations on finishing this semester! This fall was certainly unusual and challenging for all of us here at Duke, but we now have a long break ahead of us. Why not reward your hard work with a good read? This month’s selections, as always, represent a mix of books in our New & Noteworthy Collection and our Overdrive collection. In addition to taking a look at these particular books, we also encourage you to regularly check on each of these collections – new books are being added all the time.


How Much of These Hills Is Gold: A Novel: Zhang, C Pam: 9780525537205: Amazon.com: Books

How Much of These Hills Is Gold by C Pam Zhang. In this debut novel, told in the style of a fable, a nameless Chinese family settles in the American West, hoping to reach prosperity in a gold rush. This dream is quickly soured, however, as the gold rush proves illusory and the father, Ba, dies after attempting a hard living as a coal miner. This event follows the death of his wife, Ma, and as a result, their young children, Lucy and Sam, are left on their own. They ultimately embark on a journey to find the silver dollars they believe necessary to lay their father to rest, all the while carrying his body with them. Over the course of their quest, Zhang creates a portrait of the American West that deconstructs its romantic myths and archetypes, while at once drawing attention to the often overlooked role played by immigrants in shaping its history. In so doing, the grim adventure of these children makes for a gripping and oftentimes moving read. You can read reviews here and here.


A Long Petal of the Sea: A Novel: Allende, Isabel, Caistor, Nick, Hopkinson, Amanda: 9781984820150: Amazon.com: Books

A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende. Allende, who has retained a decades-long following owing to her literary treatment of history with magical realism, also reckons with journeys in her latest novel. In this book, Roser and her deceased husband’s brother Victor, two refugees fleeing the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, settle in Chile, where they gradually fall in love following a marriage of convenience. What follows is a further examination of history, as the decades in Chile pass and Roser and Victor must cope with another flare-up of political unrest, this time taking the form of Augusto Pinochet’s 1973 coup d’état. While the novel is quite exhaustive in this relaying of Spanish and Latin American historical events, reviewers have been quick to assure readers that it is all evenly anchored by the love story at the novel’s heart. You can read reviews here and here.


American Contagions: Epidemics and the Law from Smallpox to COVID-19: Witt, John Fabian: 9780300257274: Amazon.com: Books

American Contagions: Epidemics and the Law from Smallpox to COVID-19 by John Fabian Witt. Witt’s book, which began life as a course he taught at Yale Law School in the spring of this year, offers a thorough and engaging history of the way epidemics have shaped American law over the centuries. In identifying two major legal impulses—the more civilly-minded sanitationism and the more authoritarian quanrantinism—Witt describes how legal engagements with the epidemic have simultaneously brought about some the most beneficent and some of the cruelest legislation in American history. Of course, engaging with pandemic-related reading material during this difficult fall and winter may be challenging for some, but for those who gravitate towards the study of disasters as they unfold, Witt’s book offers fresh insight not just into the history of disease in the US, but into its larger history of inequality, as well. You can read reviews here and here.


New Waves: A Novel: Nguyen, Kevin: 9781984855237: Amazon.com: Books

New Waves by Kevin Nguyen. In his debut novel, Nguyen tells the story of Lucas, who works at a tech startup in 2009 Manhattan. His friendship with one of the startup’s most talented programmers, Margo, takes an interesting turn when she is unjustly fired. The two, in retribution, steal sensitive data from the company, but their plan goes awry when Margo is suddenly killed in an accident. Lucas is left to deal with her absence, not only having to make sense of their plot together, but also having to make sense of their relationship as a whole. In his personal grapplings with their time together and the company for which they both worked, Nguyen offers a searing satire of startup culture in the late 2000s and early 2010s, drawing attention to the casual racism endemic to many startups (Lucas, who is Asian, and Margo, who is Black, originally bond over their marginalization by the company) and to the general cluelessness of their leadership. Despite this element of satire, the story is also quite moving, as Lucas reckons with his relationship with Margo and his own personal shortcomings. You can read reviews here and here.


Beheld: Nesbit, TaraShea: 9781635573220: Amazon.com: Books

Beheld by TaraShea Nesbit. In this novel, Nesbit brings to life one Alice Southworth, a woman known in the footnotes of history as the second wife of William Bradford, famed governor of the Puritan Plymouth Colony in 17th-century Massachusetts. Alice was Bradford’s second wife, their marriage beginning following the somewhat odd death of his first wife, Dorothy, who fell off the docked Mayflower in Cape Cod Bay and drowned. Nesbit alludes to the mysteriousness of this death while primarily focusing on the events of Alice’s life in Plymouth Colony, events which often highlight the varying hypocrisies of the Puritans, and the contentiousness of their presence in Massachusetts more generally. Much of the plot is marked by Alice’s ongoing tension with her Anglican indentured servants, Eleanor and John Billington, and some of the story is told from Eleanor’s perspective. The deceased Dorothy also voices a section of the novel, and, in speaking through the voices of these women, Nesbit offers a unique perspective on the history of the Pilgrims and Plymouth Colony. You can read reviews here and here.

Virtual Halloween Thrills & Chills

 

ghostieBoo!

 

 

When’s the last time you saw
An American Werewolf in London? Or Hocus Pocus?

DVD cover Hocus Pocus

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Lilly Library has hundreds of horror films for your seasonal dis-pleasure. Don’t be timid. Check one out…if you DARE!!!

A sampling of our Halloween movies is available as a virtual handout. Request DVDs of vintage vampire flicks, modern monster tales and Asian psychological scarers alongside musicals, comedies and silent era classics. Check them out the old-fashioned way, using Library Takeout for an extra- spooky experience.

And for those of you thirsting for streaming screaming, we have ghoulish titles available online. Curl up to Carnival of Souls or The Blob. Dip into a Bucket of Blood  or classic creepies like Bride of Frankenstein, The Birds, Night of the Living Dead and Rosemary’s Baby. Or enjoy newer frights like Us. Are you getting goosebumps just thinking about them!?

jackolantern

skeletonHere’s a chilling challenge: watch all the titles listed  on the handout by 11/30 and receive a FREE devilDVD!

As an added bonus, Duke faculty, Neal Bell’s recently published book, How to Write a Horror Movie, is coming online soon  … stay in a state of suspended animation or, better yet, R.I.P.!

 

What to Read this Month: October 2020

This month, as we enter into the throes of spooky season (midterms), we at the library would like to offer up another selection of new additions to our collection to check out. These picks represent a mix of books in our New & Noteworthy Collection, as well as our Overdrive collection. Books are being continually added to both of these collections, so as always, we encourage you to explore them to discover new and interesting reading material.


Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam. Alam’s novel, which was released earlier this month, has already been hailed as one of the best novels published this year by the likes of the New York Times and NPR. At once a suspenseful thriller and biting satire, it tells the story of two households who unexpectedly end up sharing a space during what is quite possibly the apocalypse. Amanda and Clay, a middle-class white couple from New York City, decide to take a summer vacation in a remote corner of Long Island, renting a home there. Things take a strange turn when the home’s owners, a wealthy Black couple named George and Ruth, suddenly arrive, taking refuge from what initially seems to be a citywide blackout. What follows is a suspenseful commentary on issues ranging from race to disaster response in contemporary American society, as the two families gradually begin to realize that a much larger and much more dire occurrence is unfolding before their very eyes. You can read/listen to reviews here and here.


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The Lost Family: How DNA Testing Is Upending Who We Are by Libby Copeland. In this nonfiction study of home DNA test kits, Copeland, a journalist, explores the myriad unintended yet far-reaching consequences that often come with spitting into a vial to discover one’s genetic origins. What is often perceived to be a harmless novelty, Copeland argues, can be anything but, and the harm caused by these kits wreak havoc both on the individual and societal level. Copeland discusses this harm at length, sharing accounts of people making startling familial revelations, including several discoveries about parentage and adoption. But even more gripping is the commentary on the cultural ramifications of commodifying the human genome: our conceptions of race and identity, the use of genetic data to solve crimes, and the troubling relationship between the practice of DNA testing and eugenics. You can read a review here and here.


The Mirror of My Heart: A Thousand Years of Persian Poetry

The Mirror of My Heart: a Thousand Years of Persian Poetry by Women, introduced and translated by Dick Davis. This anthology of Persian-language poems, many of which first appear in English here, abounds with epigrams and elegies. As the title suggests, the chronological period covered by this work is extremely broad, beginning in the Middle Ages and ending in the 21st century. While Persian poetry has been studied at length for centuries, the voices of women poets have often been overlooked, by academics and other readers alike, mainly due to systemic issues in both Persian and non-Persian culture. But Davis, in translating these works, makes clear for his audience that women have played an invaluable role in the history of Persian poetry, with their works often asserting perspectives and concepts hitherto largely unseen by English-speaking audiences. The poems offer unparalleled insight into the lives of Persian women from century to century, and even the oldest poems represented in this anthology are quite accessible to a modern audience, owing to their beautiful and careful coverage of timeless issues, such as love and loss. You can read reviews here and here.


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Who Gets in and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions by Jeffrey Selingo. In this book, education journalist Jeffrey Selingo seeks to break down the overarching factors in college admissions decisions by offering a behind-the-scenes look at the process at three selective colleges and universities. His ultimate conclusion is that the factors controlling the process are largely outside the individual applicant’s control, but his journey in making that somewhat disheartening point makes for a compelling read, as Selingo offers an effective deconstruction of the concept of meritocracy, while also providing commentary on its seemingly inextricable place in contemporary American culture. The book also serves as an interesting complement to another recent journalistic work on college admissions, Melissa Korn’s and Jennifer Levitz’s Unacceptable: Privilege, Deceit & the Making of the College Admissions Scandal, which is currently available as an audiobook in our Overdrive collection. You can read a review of Selingo’s book here and here.


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Culture Warlords: My Journey Into the Dark Web of White Supremacy by Talia Lavin. In this book, Talia Lavin, a freelance writer known for her works in publications such as the New Yorker, the Washington Post, and the New York Times, relays her in-depth investigation of online and offline white supremacist culture. Long the target of online far-right trolls for her Jewish identity and antifascist writings, Lavin describes her effort to infiltrate white supremacist spaces as a journey to find out what draws people—largely young, disaffected white men—into online, far-right culture. Over the course of this journey, Lavin adopts false identities to achieve this end, and the book proves to be a harrowing account of this dangerous movement and what makes it run. And throughout, Lavin provides a compelling story with the many insights she makes. While the book is often darkly humorous thanks to Lavin’s entertaining voice, it nonetheless contains a great deal of disturbing content related to violence and hatred, something readers should keep in mind. You can read a review here and watch an online discussion with Lavin hosted by New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage here.

ONLINE: A Very Spooky Low Maintenance Book Club

Get in the halloween spirit with the Low Maintenance Book Club! For our next meeting on October 21st at noon EST, we’ll discuss selections from the short story collection Things We Lost in the Fire: Stories by Mariana Enriquez. Named a Best Book of the Year by: Boston GlobePASTE Magazine, Words Without BordersGrub StreetRemezccla, and Entropy Magazine, these disquieting stories draw regular comparisons to Shirley Jackson.

We’ll discuss the following stories during the meeting:

  • “Things We Lost in the Fire”
  • “Adela’s House”
  • “The Inn”

This book is available online and in print from Duke University Libraries and print and audio at Durham County Library.

Please RSVP to receive a Zoom link to the meeting the morning of the event. If you have any questions, you can contact Arianne Hartsell-Gundy at aah39@duke.edu.

What to Read this Month: September 2020

As we reach the midpoint of this unusual semester, we’d like to highlight a variety of new reading material in our collection. These books are currently held in our New and Noteworthy collection, or in Duke’s Overdrive e-book collection. As always, we encourage you to check out both of these resources in full if you’re looking for something new to read! This month’s selections feature a mix of recent fiction and nonfiction.


IF I HAD TWO WINGS

If I Had Two Wings by Randall Kenan. Randall Kenan, a long-time professor of creative writing and food writing at UNC-Chapel Hill, as well as the 1994 William Blackburn Visiting Professor in Creative Writing here at Duke, died this past month at the age of 57. Having grown up in Duplin County, North Carolina, he was renowned for his rich portrayals of poor, Black, and gay lives in the rural South, crafting unique characters whose experiences were often tinged with a touch of magic and mysticism. His latest collection of short stories, published a few weeks before his death and currently one of ten nominees for the National Book Award for Fiction, features a return to Tims Creek, North Carolina, a fictional community which originally appeared in Kenan’s 1989 novel, A Visitation of Spirits. The ten stories in this collection relay the exploits and experiences of characters who interact with the community in various ways, ranging from a retired plumber who leaves the town for Manhattan, an elderly woman who becomes a miracle-worker, and even a fictionalized Howard Hughes, who arrives searching for a woman who once made him butter beans. You can read a review here, its National Book Award nomination here, as well as Kenan’s recent New York Times obituary here.


Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex

Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen. In this book, which debuted earlier this month, science journalist Angela Chen offers a “big-picture exploration of ace issues,” or a generalized look at asexuality and its place in society. Drawing in part on her own experiences as an asexual person, Chen describes what it means to be asexual in a world where asexuality is underrepresented and often misunderstood. As a “blend of reporting, cultural criticism, and memoir,” she also reports on the experiences of other asexual people of various genders and romantic orientations, all the while acknowledging that there is no singular experience of the sexuality. In this way, the book serves as an elucidating and approachable introduction for readers of any sexual orientation. You can read a review here, and listen to an interview with Chen here.


Axiom's End

Axiom’s End by Lindsay Ellis. This book is the debut novel of Hugo Award finalist Lindsay Ellis, video essayist and co-host of PBS web series It’s Lit!. The science fiction novel offers a unique variation of the popular “first contact” narrative. Set in an alternate universe version of 2007, it tells the story of Cora, a young woman who learns that her family, including her estranged whistleblower father, has been involved in a decades-long US government coverup of humankind’s first contact with an alien species. After government agents kidnap her family, Cora finds that she must align herself with a member of the alien species who is searching for some of his compatriots being held on Earth. The two forge a deep bond as they work together, and ultimately, the novel offers compelling commentary on themes of xenophobia and grief. A sequel to the novel is forthcoming, slated to be released next year. You can read a review here and read an interview with Ellis here.


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How to Be Autistic by Charlotte Amelia Poe. In this memoir, writer and artist Charlotte Amelia Poe relays the story of their life and experiences as an autistic person. The book, which was published last year, serves as a sort of companion piece to Poe’s 2017 short film of the same name, in which they discussed some of the experiences and incidents that the book covers in more detail. Being a memoir, Poe’s book only focuses on their individual experiences, but the issues they touch on ring very true for many other autistic people. Among other things, Poe discusses their childhood sensory and motor issues, problems cultivating interpersonal relationships, a late diagnosis in their twenties, coming to understand their sexual and gender identity, and generally learning how to navigate a neurotypical world as an autistic person. While the subject matter is often very heavy—and this is something readers should consider—it is frequently punctuated by Poe’s wry and enjoyable humor. You can read a review of the book here, and an interview with Poe here.


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Days of Distraction by Alexandra Chang. Chang’s debut novel, published this year, centers on Jing Jing, a Chinese-American woman in her mid-twenties working as a tech journalist in Silicon Valley. Jing Jing is deeply unsatisfied in her position, finding it difficult to thrive in the publication’s male-dominated, racist atmosphere while also being one of its only woman writers of color. When her white boyfriend of five years, J, gets accepted into a biochemistry PhD program at Cornell, she sees an opportunity to escape Silicon Valley and live a better life in New York. However, this decision brings its own complications for Jing Jing, as she comes to question her place in her interracial relationship with J, meditating on her longing for his approval and the connection to whiteness that he provides her. In the midst of all these events, Jing Jing also visits her father, now living in China and urging her to live there as well, and the trip brings its own insights for her. Throughout the whole of novel, Jing Jing has a compelling conversation with herself, contemplating her identity in the prejudiced society in which she lives while also making numerous dry, humorous observations about it. You can read a review here and an interview with Chang here.

What to Read this Month: August 2020

Normally we highlight books from our New and Noteworthy, and Current Literature collections for this monthly post, but this month we will be showcasing books from our Overdrive. Please read this recent blog post to learn more about Overdrive, and also make sure to check out Durham County Public Library’s Overdrive collection!

Since we are we are currently commemorating the centenary of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, I thought I would highlight books about the suffrage movement and women’s rights and history. If you’re looking for some films and television shows, USA Today recently had a nice list of titles. If you would like to read more about North Carolina’s involvement in the suffrage movement, check out She Changed the World: North Carolina Women Breaking Barriers


Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists: A Graphic History of Women’s Fight for Their Rights by Mikki Kendall is a fun and fascinating graphic novel-style primer that covers the key figures and events that have advanced women’s rights from antiquity to the modern era. In addition, this compelling book illuminates the stories of notable women throughout history—from queens and freedom fighters to warriors and spies—and the progressive movements led by women that have shaped history, including abolition, suffrage, labor, civil rights, LGBTQ liberation, reproductive rights, and more.


The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote by Elaine Weiss. The nail-biting climax of one of the greatest political battles in American history: the ratification of the constitutional amendment that granted women the right to vote. Thirty-five states have ratified the Nineteenth Amendment, twelve have rejected or refused to vote, and one last state is needed. It all comes down to Tennessee, the moment of truth for the suffragists, after a seven-decade crusade. The opposing forces include politicians with careers at stake, liquor companies, railroad magnates, and a lot of racists who don’t want black women voting. Following a handful of remarkable women who led their respective forces into battle, The Woman’s Hour is the gripping story of how America’s women won their own freedom, and the opening campaign in the great twentieth-century battles for civil rights.


The Women’s Suffrage Movement by Sally Roesch Wagner. An intersectional anthology of works by the known and unknown women that shaped and established the suffrage movement, in time for the 2020 centennial of women’s right to vote, with a foreword by Gloria Steinem. Comprised of historical texts spanning two centuries, The Women’s Suffrage Movement is a comprehensive and singular volume that covers the major issues and figures involved in the movement, with a distinctive focus on diversity, incorporating race, class, and gender, and illuminating minority voices. In an effort to spotlight the many influential voices that were excluded from the movement, the writings of well-known suffragists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony are featured alongside accounts of Native American women who inspired suffragists like Matilda Joslyn Gage to join the movement, as well as African American suffragists such as Sarah Mapps Douglas and Harriet Purvis, who were often left out of the conversation because of their race.


Suffrage: Women’s Long Battle for the Vote by Ellen Carol DuBois. Honoring the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment to the Constitution, this exciting history explores the full scope of the movement to win the vote for women through portraits of its bold leaders and devoted activists. DuBois explains how suffragists built a determined coalition of moderate lobbyists and radical demonstrators in forging a strategy of winning voting rights in crucial states to set the stage for securing suffrage for all American women in the Constitution. She follows women’s efforts to use their voting rights to win political office, increase their voting strength, and pass laws banning child labor, ensuring maternal health, and securing greater equality for women.


Why They Marched: Untold Stories of the Women Who Fought for the Right to Vote by Susan Ware is a tribute to the women who worked tirelessly across the nation, out of the spotlight, protesting, petitioning, and insisting on their right to full citizenship. Ware shows how race, class and religion divided the movement even as she celebrates unheralded African American, Mormon, and Jewish activists. The dramatic, often joyous experiences of these pioneering feminists resonate powerfully today, as a new generation of women demands to be heard.

ONLINE: Low Maintenance Book Club reads N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season

Duke University Libraries’ Low Maintenance Book Club is now online! To close out the summer, we’re reading and discussing The Fifth SeasonN.K. Jemisin’s Hugo award-winning dark fantasy/sci-fi novel. The first book in The Broken Earth Trilogy follows a mother searching for her daughter after an act of retaliation against an oppressive civilization sparks an apocalypse.

Readings and discussions will be split between two monthly meetings. The second session is scheduled for Wednesday, September 2nd at noon on Zoom and covers chapter 16 through the end of the novel.

Copies of The Fifth Season can be found at Duke University Libraries and at Durham County Library.

Although the readings are longer, the low maintenance attitude is the same. Join as you like, discuss as much as you want–or just hang out and enjoy the company. Everyone is welcome. Just RSVP so we know how many to expect, and we’ll send out a Zoom link the morning of the meeting.

If you have any questions, you can contact Arianne Hartsell-Gundy at aah39@duke.edu.

What to Listen to this Month: July 2020

Normally we highlight books from our New and Noteworthy, and Current Literature collections for this monthly post, but this month we will be showcasing audiobooks from our Overdrive. Please read this recent blog post to learn more about Overdrive, and also make sure to check out Durham County Public Library’s Overdrive collection!


The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr. But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life. Bahni Turpin, who has been included on AudioFile magazine’s list of Golden Voice Narrators, narrates.


The Princess Bride by William Goldman. Fairy tale collides with reality in this adventure about a beautiful maiden who must be rescued from her price. Everything William Goldman liked about S. Morgenstern’s original is here: good guys, bad guys, sword fighting, revenge, romance, and even “rodents of unusual size. “Join Buttercup the beautiful maiden, Westley the plucky farm boy, Inigo Montoya the embittered swordsman, Prince Humperdinck the scheming villain, and many other characters in this swashbuckling tale of good-natured silliness. This is a true keepsake for devoted fans and an absolute treasure for those lucky enough to discover it for the first time. Bonus: This audiobook is narrated by the film’s director, Rob Reiner!


No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference by Greta Thunberg. In August 2018 a fifteen-year-old Swedish girl, Greta Thunberg, decided not to go to school one day in order to protest the climate crisis. Her actions sparked a global movement, inspiring millions of students to go on strike for our planet, forcing governments to listen, and earning her a Nobel Peace Prize nomination. No One Is Too Small to Make A Difference brings you Greta in her own words, for the first time. Collecting her speeches that have made history across the globe, from the United Nations to Capitol Hill and mass street protests, her book is a rallying cry for why we must all wake up and fight to protect the living planet, no matter how powerless we feel. The speeches are read by Greta Thunberg herself!


The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin. On an alien world in the middle of an Ice Age, one man prepares for the biggest mission of his life. Alone and unarmed, Genly Ai has been sent from Earth to persuade the people of Gethen to join the Ekumen, a union of planets. But it’s a task fraught with danger. Ursula Le Guin’s award-winning masterpiece was one of the first feminist SF novels. This BBC Radio 4 production is the first ever broadcast dramatisation of this novel. It stars Lesley Sharp (Scott & Bailey), Toby Jones (Dad’s Army) and Louise Brealey (Sherlock).

 


Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling. In Why Not Me?, Kaling shares her ongoing journey to find contentment and excitement in her adult life, whether it’s falling in love at work, seeking new friendships in lonely places, attempting to be the first person in history to lose weight without any behavior modification whatsoever, or most important, believing that you have a place in Hollywood when you’re constantly reminded that no one looks like you. Mindy turns the anxieties, the glamour, and the celebrations of her second coming-of-age into a laugh-out-loud funny collection of essays that anyone who’s ever been at a turning point in their life or career can relate to. And those who’ve never been at a turning point can skip to the parts where she talks about meeting Bradley Cooper. Mindy narrates herself, which just increases the humor!

A Fun To-Do List: The Summer Bucket List Quaran-zine

For many of us, the summer of 2020 will look and feel a little different.  Vacations have been postponed or canceled, beaches and museums are closed.  What would normally feel like a time to relax and take a break might feel more like an additional burden, trying to find ways to fill the days and weeks ahead.  Luckily, we’re here to help!

We’ve put together a Summer Bucket List Quaran-zine, a pocket-sized zine to help you get organized and excited in preparation for a summer spent primarily at home.  We’ve provided the categories of things you can do throughout the summer to help you get started, but the rest is up to you.

Been meaning to watch the Avengers movies in chronological order? Write it down! Having trouble keeping up with the books your friends keep recommending? Write them down! Always wanted to try your grandmother’s peach pie recipe but never found the time? You know what to do!

The best part of your tiny to-do list: checking off each thing as you go, and maybe making the summer of 2020 one of your best ever.

Instructions: How to Print, Fold, and Make This Zine

  1. You will need a printer. Or, you can hand-copy what you see on the screen on your own sheet of paper and make your own!
  2. Download and print the zine.
  3. Follow the folding and cutting/tearing instructions in this video by writer and artist Austin Kleon.

Want more zines?

Create your own mini zine anthology of quotations with Print, Fold, Ponder: A Wee Zine of Wise Words We Need Now. Or, learn more about the history of zines and the Libraries’ own zine collection.

Lilly Looks – A Summer Premiere

Lilly Looks – A Summer Premiere

Seagull in Rome Italy
Lilly Looks – Travel to Italy with Your Duke NetID
Art Librarian Lee S. Makes Art Out of Books

When Spring Break 2020 (remember all the way back to March?) morphed into a covid19 quarantine, closing our Lilly Library building did not mean we left our library resources “remaining in place”. Digitizing course material, consulting with students and faculty, while expanding online collections and streaming databases are a few ways all of us in the Duke Libraries connect with our users.

Being off campus has us thinking of Lilly Library and missing all of our wonderful assets, headlined by our knowledgeable colleagues. One way to stay connected is with our new series of virtual pop-ups, Lilly Looks.

Lilly Looks is a collage of insider glimpses and highlights of our collections of resources, films, books, and beyond, presented in short video posts. Some may be scholarly while some may definitely go “beyond” with lighthearted and fresh perspectives!

Lilly Looks: Let Your NetID Be Your Passport

A wistful Carol Terry, who works with Lilly’s Communications and Collections, finds a way to travel this summer via Alexander Street Films, one of the libraries’ streaming video databases.

Lilly Looks: Making Art from Your Own Books

Art Librarian Lee Sorensen demonstrates an artful way to use unwanted or obsolete books.

Lilly Looks: On Trails courtesy of Overdrive

While out hiking, Ira King, Evening Librarian and Disability Studies Librarian,  reveals the breadth of Overdrive for Duke Library users.

 

Continue exploring the Duke Libraries, no matter where you may be – and, stay tuned as we post weekly on Lilly Library’s Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

 

What to Read this Month: May 2020

Normally we highlight books from our New and Noteworthy, and Current Literature collections for this monthly post, but this month we will be highlighting books from our Overdrive. Please read this recent blog post to learn more about Overdrive, and also make sure to check out Durham County Public Library’s Overdrive collection!


These Ghosts are Family by Maisy Card was an Entertainment Weekly, Millions, and LitHub Most-Anticipated Book of 2020 pick. This is the story of how a Jamaican family forms and fractures over generations. Stanford Solomon has a shocking, thirty-year-old secret. And it’s about to change the lives of everyone around him. Stanford Solomon is actually Abel Paisley, a man who faked his own death and stole the identity of his best friend. This novel explores the ways each character wrestles with their ghosts and struggles to forge independent identities outside of the family and their trauma. The result is an engrossing portrait of a family and individuals caught in the sweep of history, slavery, migration, and the more personal dramas of infidelity, lost love, and regret.


Whisteblower: My Journey to Silicon Valley and Fight for Justice at Uber by Susan Fowler. Susan Fowler was just twenty-five years old when her blog post describing the sexual harassment and retaliation she’d experienced at Uber riveted the nation. Her post would eventually lead to the ousting of Uber’s powerful CEO, but its ripples extended far beyond that, as her courageous choice to attach her name to the post inspired other women to speak publicly about their experiences. In the year that followed, an unprecedented number of women came forward, and Fowler was recognized by Time as one of the “Silence Breakers” who ignited the #MeToo movement. Now, she tells her full story for the first time: a story of extraordinary determination and resilience that reveals what it takes—and what it means—to be a whistleblower.


The Authenticity Project by Clare Pooley. Julian Jessop, an eccentric, lonely artist and septuagenarian believes that most people aren’t really honest with each other. But what if they were? And so he writes—in a plain, green journal—the truth about his own life and leaves it in his local café. It’s run by the incredibly tidy and efficient Monica, who furtively adds her own entry and leaves the book in the wine bar across the street. Before long, the others who find the green notebook add the truths about their own deepest selves—and soon find each other In Real Life at Monica’s Café. It’s a story about being brave and putting your real self forward—and finding out that it’s not as scary as it seems. In fact, it looks a lot like happiness.


Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson. Moving forward and backward in time, Jacqueline Woodson’s taut and powerful new novel uncovers the role that history and community have played in the experiences, decisions, and relationships of these families, and in the life of the new child. As the book opens in 2001, it is the evening of sixteen-year-old Melody’s coming of age ceremony in her grandparents’ Brooklyn brownstone. Watched lovingly by her relatives and friends, making her entrance to the music of Prince, she wears a special custom-made dress. But the event is not without poignancy. Sixteen years earlier, that very dress was measured and sewn for a different wearer: Melody’s mother, for her own ceremony— a celebration that ultimately never took place.


Captain Marvel: Higher, Further, Faster, More by Kelly Sue DeConnick. Did you know you can read comics and graphic novels through Overdrive? We have a small but growing collection of these titles. Please note that some versions of the Kindle may not support reading graphic novels and comics. This volume collects Captain Marvel (2014) #1-6. One of Marvel’s most beloved Avengers launches into her own ongoing series! Carol Danvers has played many roles in her life; hero, pilot, Avenger, and now, deep-space adventurer! Join Captain Marvel as she attempts to return an alien girl to her home world, and defend the rights of aliens revolting against the Galactic Alliance. Guest-starring Guardians of the Galaxy!

Print, Fold, Ponder: A Mini-Zine for This Moment

Mozart once said, “Art lies in expressing everything, the sad as well as the gay, the horrible as well as the enchanting, in forms which remain beautiful.”

We love quotations like that—wise, witty, pithy, and stylish all at once. We love collecting great quotes, and as a library you could say we collect a great many of them. On our digital reference shelves, you can find hundreds of anthologies of quotations, aphorisms, proverbs, epigrams, bon mots, folk sayings, and old saws.

Quotations come in handy, whether you’re writing a paper, working on a presentation, struggling to craft a clever wedding toast—or a dignified obituary—or even just looking for inspiration.

Great quotations have the power to impose perspective and definition on lived experience—or, as the nineteenth-century novelist Samuel Butler put it even better, to “enclose a wilderness of idea within a wall of words.”

There are times when we stumble on a quotation that comes surprisingly close to home, like this verse from Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera The Mikado: “Though the night may come too soon, we have years and years of afternoon.”

It certainly feels that way to many of us right now, with so many monotonous days and weeks trapped at home, and goodness knows how many more stretching out ahead. But there’s something gratifying and almost consoling to see someone else put it so cleverly.

So this week, while our Duke students are busily working on final papers and filling them with illustrative quotations of their own (properly cited, we have no doubt), it seemed like a good time to offer some quotable words of our own.

We’ve put together a little zine anthology of quotations we’ve been thinking about during this difficult time. The title says it all: Print, Fold, Ponder: A Wee Zine of Wise Words We Need Now. It’s a little collection of quotes about optimism, hope, leisure—words that inspire us to look on the bright side of what we’re going through—but also about the seriousness of the situation we’re in. It’s like Mozart said—a little bit of the sad as well as the gay, the horrible as well as the enchanting.

Keep it for yourself, give it to a neighbor, or leave it for a delivery person as a little token to let them know someone’s thinking of them. Just as we’re thinking of you and looking forward to seeing you back in the library one day. You can quote us on that.

Instructions: How to Print, Fold, and Make This Zine

  1. You will need a printer. Or, you can hand-copy what you see on the screen on your own sheet of paper and make your own!
  2. Download and print the PDF.
  3. Follow the folding and cutting/tearing instructions in this video by writer and artist Austin Kleon.

If you’re interested in the book he mentions in the video (Watcha Mean, What’s a Zine?: The Art of Making Zines and Minicomics), we have a digital version you can check out through HathiTrust (Duke NetID required). Enjoy!

Meet Lilly’s Class of 2019-20: Toni

Meet a Vital Library Resource

Woman with miniature horse
Toni with Kiwi at Lilly’s Stampede of Love December 2019

Lilly Library is at the heart of East Campus, the First-Year Campus for Duke Undergraduates. To serve our community, during what used to be a normal semester, Lilly remains open for 129 hours each week, and 24/7 during reading period and final exams each semester.

Our student assistants are an essential element in maintaining a high level of service, and we want to introduce you to one of our Lilly alumni, Toni – a  December 2019 graduate who worked in Lilly Library throughout her Duke career.

If you’ve been in Lilly Library over the past four years, chances are you’ve seen all of this year’s seniors: Toni, Jessica, Sarah, Esha,  and Noelle. Toni is one of our seniors who worked at Lilly Library since she arrived as wide-eyed First-Year student on East Campus way back in August of 2016. Toni graduated last December, but is an honorary member of this year’s Lilly class.

Take this opportunity to acquaint yourselves with Toni, one of our treasured Lilly seniors of this past academic year, albeit, technically, a treasured alumna of the Lilly Library Class of 2019!

Senior Toniya aka “Toni”

Tall stack of books on desk with woman
A tower of books is no match for Toni
  • Hometown: I moved a lot growing up because my dad is in the Army, but we currently live in Washington D.C.
  • Family/siblings/pets:
    My mom, my dad, my three siblings, and a very sassy chihuahua
  • Academic major: Psychology
  • Activities on campus: The Center for Race Relations, researcher in the Duke Hospital Psychiatric Department, Camp Kesem Counselor, Residential Assistant
  • Favorite on-campus activity (besides working at Lilly): Hanging out with my friends late at night in the Bryan Center
  • Favorite off-campus activity: Volunteering for the organization “A Helping Hand” (check them out online!)
  • Favorite campus eatery: Il Forno
  • Favorite off-campus eatery: Dames Chicken and Waffles

Q: If you could have a sleepover anywhere in the libraries, where would you choose, and why?
A: Probably the Lilly staff lounge! It’s so cozy down there and we might find yummy leftovers.
Q: What’s the strangest/most interesting book or movie you’ve come across in Lilly?
A: There was a book called The Aesthetics of Ugliness that I remember seeing my first year.
Q: What is your favorite part about working at Lilly? Least favorite?
A: My favorite part is definitely the people there. The staff and patrons have all been such warm, genuinely caring, fascinating individuals. This has led to many amazing spontaneous conversations! My least favorite part about working at Lilly is probably finding shift coverage during a shift at a busy hour (evenings on a weekday, late night on a weekend, etc.)
Q: Why have you worked at Lilly Library ever since your first year?
A: The staff has been so kind to me and coming back every year has been the only consistent part my Duke experience year after year. Going into a space where people know your name and have seen you mature has been so comforting. In addition, Yunyi is probably the best supervisor and mentor ever!
Q: What is one memory from Lilly that you will never forget?
A: One time a student came in at 2 am on the day of spring LDOC. His eyes were very red and he seemed dazed (I won’t speculate as to why) and he walked up to the desk and stared at me for a solid two minutes while I repeated “Can I help you? Sir? Do you need assistance finding materials?…. Sir?”. FINALLY, he asked me “Do you have any books about…. Physics?” I told him we had physics textbooks and asked if he wanted a book to read for class or as leisure reading. His response was “it’s for fun…. Thank you” then he promptly walked out the door before I could respond.
Q: What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done in Lilly?
A: One time during a reading period over-night shift, I texted this guy I liked at the time to come and keep me company behind the desk for a bit (DEFINITELY against the rules, but the things we do for love. Am I right?). He came over to Lilly at about 1:30 am and he stayed and talked to me until I forced him to go to bed around 7:45am (so basically the whole shift). It was very sweet, wholesome, but also super risky given one of the librarians could have came in early and saw him!
Q: What was closing Lilly late at night like? Eerily empty, people reluctant to leave, unexpected people?
A: I won’t change my answer now to my least favorite part of working at Lilly, but clearing people out at 4 a.m. was the WORST. People get so testy when you ask them to leave or remind them of closing soon. I’m always so grateful Lonny (the night shift guard, I heart you Lonny!) is usually willing to round up stragglers. Also, one of my most niche fears was that someone secretly lives in the basement of Lilly and they were going to pop up somewhere unexpectedly in the dark, eerie, basement at 4 am and attack me. I think if someone (or thing) lives down there, they’re too scared of Lonny to show their face.
Q: How will your time at Lilly help you in your future pursuits?
A: I created an online library catalog system at a non-profit I interned at a couple summers ago which kind of kick started me using the skills I’ve picked up here in all of my other jobs. I’ve learned how to talk to literally anyone and learn how to operate computer systems and data systems swiftly which will help me in whatever else I find myself doing later on in life!
Q: What will you miss most about Lilly when you graduate?
A: Definitely the staff and the way feeling of security I felt working there. I had been performing the same tasks for four years and it’s nice to be able to zone out doing something familiar.
Q: What are your plans for after graduation?
A: I will be completing a pre-medical post baccalaureate program at Bryn Mawr College in the fall before applying to medical school next year!
Q: What is your spirit animal? … well, you don’t expect all the questions to be about Lilly, did you?
A: A panda because I’m usually very mellow and unassuming. But I could actually bite your head off if I wanted to.

Graduation in December meant Lilly Library had to say farewell to Toni as an employee, but we treasure her as a member of our Lilly forever “family”. We appreciate her stellar work and dedication to Lilly and wish her all the best!

Puppies & Ants & Sharks, Oh My!

Do discussion boards have you down? Are papers making you pessimistic? Do finals have you frantic?

Do you just need a way to de-stress?

Well in lieu of Puppies at Perkins, the libraries have compiled a caboodle of animal live streams for you to view any time you need to de-stress! Puppies, kittens, sharks, and even giraffes, below you’ll find live streams for zoos, aquariums, shelters, and more!

  • Zoos:
    • The Smithsonian’s National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute has several animal lives streams including cheetah cubs, naked mole-rats, a lion, a giant panda, and elephants!
    • The Melbourne Zoo and Werribee Open Range Zoo have a live snow leopard cub cam!
    • If you need more pandas, head on over to Edinburgh Zoo’s live panda cam and meet Yang Guang!
    • Need late night de-stressing? Let Chewy & Mo the sloths keep you company from Hattiesburg Zoo’s sloth cam!
    • Baboons, owls, koalas, butterflies, and so much more the San Diego Zoo is bring them all live here!
    • Of course the Houston Zoo has live streams! And their’s includes ants, flamingos, and rhinos!

  • Aquariums
    • Monterey Bay Aquarium has quite a few live streams. Jelly fish, birds, penguins, sea otters, and even sharks, head on over and see the many live cams this aquarium has to offer!
    • Another aquarium packed with interesting lives streams is the The Georgia Aquarium! Piranha? Gators? Whales? They’re all here!

  • Parks

  • Non-Profits
    • Warrior Canine Connection helps provide service dogs to veterans. You can watch their puppy cams here!
    • Kitten Rescue Los Angeles is a rescue sanctuary for cats and kittens. While they find homes for them you can watch them live!

Happy De-Stressing and stay safe!

Finals De-stress Tips

Happy LDOC everyone! Whether you are planning a DIY LDOC or no longer have any sense of time, here are some resources to get you through the next couple weeks.

Feeling nostalgic for an LDOC concert? Look no further than Duke Performance’s livestream of Grammy-nominated jazz vocalist Kate McGarry and guitarist Keith Ganz. Drop in via Facebook Live or Instagram Live at 7 tonight (April 22).

Send a note to someone in the Duke community you appreciate via Blue Devil Mail (log-in required).

Listen to the first four chapters of the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone read-aloud by Duke faculty and staff.

Participate in a virtual CAPS discussion group Friday April 24 or Monday April 27 at 10 am (registration required).

Listen to children’s audiobooks free through Audible Stories.

Find a Duke accountability partner.

Read, write, and comment on fan fiction on Archive of our Own.

Play games and take quizzes on anything Disney related or [insert childhood favorite].

 

Animated April – the Winner is Crowned

An Animation Coronation

Lion King
All hail – The Lion King wins!

Just in time for LDOC (that’s Last Day of Class for you non-students), Lilly’s Animated April has drawn to a close. The final match between The Lion King and Mulan was fiercely fought. Bracketologist Nathaniel takes you inside the battle , with his final wrap up of this year’s contest. You can watch his commentary on  Lilly’s Facebook page.

Nathaniel Brown Media & Reserves Coordinator, Lilly Library
Bracketologist Nathaniel Brown

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner!!! It was a close and grueling affair. At one point during the contest, just three votes separated the two combatants.

However, pulling it out at the very end with a 169 – 162 victory is…THE LION KING! Drawing strength, determination, and grit from Mufasa and his other ancestors, Simba “remembered who he was” and defeated the mighty warrior and worthy adversary, Mulan.

We thank you for your participation in this event. We understand the unique and tough times we are experiencing currently as humankind with the COVID crisis. We hope we have provided a bit of levity and fun in an uncertain and scary time. Thanks to you, during this final round we received the most votes we have ever received in the 3 years of these themed brackets . Thank you so much for your participation!

Thanks, too,  for your suggestions for future brackets.

Lilly’s inaugural March Movie Madness in 2018 featured Sports Movies with Rocky winning. In 2019, Lilly’s March Movie Madness Superhero Edition featured Marvel vs. DC brackets in which Black Panther was the victor.

Thanks again for your participation and we will see you down the road!

Here’s looking forward to
Lilly’s bracket challenge in 2021!

Written by Nathaniel Brown

Contributor Carol Terry

Animated April: the Favorite Four Revealed

Enchanted no more?
It’s down to the Favorite Four!

Lion King, Toy Story, Mulan, Finding Nemo images
Animated April’s Favorite Four

The voting for the Enchanted Eight in Round Two is over, and the Favorite Four remain. Lilly’s resident (or shall we say currently remote) analyst Nathaniel offers his take on the results of the latest Disney versus Pixar match.

VOTE to select the Perfect Pair HERE

Nathaniel Brown Media & Reserves Coordinator, Lilly Library
Bracketologist Nathaniel Brown

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen!  Round Three results of the Enchanted Eight are in…

Representing the FIRE region, the Lion King slashed the Incredibles! In the ICE bracket, Mulan thawed the number one seed Frozen in a rout! In the EARTH region, Toy Story made its way back to the winner’s circle by defeating Beauty and the Beast. And representing the UNDER THE SEA bracket, Finding Nemo “UP”ends Up!

The Fave Four match-ups are set! Who will continue their path to the championship? We have two number one seeds squaring off for a place at the championship table:

Representing FIRE, we have The Lion King and representing EARTH, we have Toy Story. Can Simba continue to wear his “big cub pants” and rip the championship hopes of Woody and company to shreds, proving that he is indeed king of the jungle, FIRE, and EARTH? Or will Woody put fear in the heart of young Simba with a “snake” and his “boot” and send the cub back to the desert of outcasts scouring for grub?

On the other side of the bracket, we have no number one seeds remaining. What we do have are two scrappy films that have demonstrated dominance in their own way. With a number three seed representing the ICE region, we have Mulan. And with a number two seed representing UNDER THE SEA, we have Finding Nemo. Already taking down a number two seed (WALL-E) and a number one seed (Frozen), can Shang “make a man” out of Mulan as she dons the old armor to not only snatch the helpless fish, but also snatch the championship wishes and title dreams? Or will Nemo prove he is not just “the little clownfish from the reef,” and that these are not just “fishing grounds,” but that he can be a “shark” in his own right? Will Dory take Mulan “down” under to 42 Wallaby Way?

Stay tuned to see who goes on to be the Perfect Pair!

VOTE for the Perfect Pair HERE

Voting Closes Sunday, April 19th at 8pm EDT

Written by Nathaniel Brown

Contributor Carol Terry

Meet Lilly’s Class of 2020: Esha

What is a Vital Lilly Library Resource?

Lilly’s Senior Student Assistants

Young woman with miniature horse
Lilly Senior Esha with Kiwi at Lilly’s Stampede Of Love Study Break

Lilly Library is at the heart of East Campus, the First-Year Campus for Duke Undergraduates. To serve our community (during what used to be a “normal” semester), Lilly Library remains open for 129 hours each week! Our student assistants are an essential element in maintaining a high level of service, and we want to introduce you to one of our “Class of 2020” – seniors who have worked in Lilly Library throughout their Duke careers. Get to know our seniors in these profiles, and you’ll appreciate them as much we do.

If you’ve been in Lilly Library over the past four years, chances are you’ve seen our seniors: Esha, Jessica, Sarah, Toni, and Noelle. Esha is one of our seniors who worked at Lilly Library since she arrived as wide-eyed First-Year student on East Campus way back in August of 2016.
Commencement 2020 may be virtual, but our regard for our student assistants is very real and enduring. Take this opportunity to acquaint yourselves with Esha, one of our treasured Lilly Library Class of 2020.

Senior Esha

  • Hometown: Charlotte, NC
  • Family/siblings/pets: 1 older brother, no pets
  • Academic major: Economics and Political Science
  • Activities on campus: RA (N1 and Craven), Resident
  • Assistant Leadership Council, ULAB, Senior Giving Challenge
  • Favorite on-campus activity, besides working at Lilly: Being an RA!
  • Favorite off-campus activity: Getting ice cream at the Parlour
  • Favorite campus eatery: Sazon
  • Favorite off-campus eatery: Bali Hai
Two women students holding plaque
Lilly’s Class of 2020 Esha and Sarah

Q: If you could have a sleepover anywhere in the libraries, where would you choose, and why?
A: Green couches in Perkins first floor because they are so comfy!

Q: What’s the strangest/most interesting book or movie you’ve come across in Lilly?
A: There were so many but a single one doesn’t come to mind right now!

Q: What is your favorite part about working at Lilly? Least favorite?
A: Favorite part is working with the librarians because they are so nice/helpful, and fun to have random conversations with. Least favorite is when I have to check in/out 20+ books on my own.

Q: Why have you worked at Lilly Library ever since your first year?
A: I love working at Lilly because everyone is so friendly! They make you want to keep coming back.

Q: What is one memory from Lilly that you will never forget?
A: Having to check in two FULL-SIZED suitcases full of books by myself. I think I checked in at least 50 books!

Q: What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done in Lilly?
A: Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever done anything crazy in Lilly.

Q: What was opening an empty (or at least, it was supposed to be empty) Lilly like? Eerie?
A: I worked the Sunday morning shift, which was really nice because there were very few people (unless it was midterm/finals season), so everything was calm and quiet. I absolutely LOVED working Sunday mornings!!

Q: How will your time at Lilly help you in your future pursuits?
A: Working at Lilly taught me to be organized and be better at time management, which is super useful no matter where I end up after leaving.
Q: What will you miss most about Lilly when you graduate?
A: I will definitely miss the librarians the most!

Q: What are your plans after graduation?
A: Who knows!

Q: What is your spirit animal? … well, you don’t expect all the questions to be about Lilly, do you?
A: Definitely an elephant

Graduation in May means Lilly Library will say farewell to Esha and our other seniors, treasured members of our Lilly “family”. We appreciate her stellar work and dedication to Lilly and wish her all the best!

Animated April: From a Stellar Sixteen to an Enchanted Eight

From a Stellar Sixteen to an Enchanted Eight

While Round One is over, and some of our stars may have fallen, we still have an Enchanted Eight remaining.  Lilly’s resident (or shall we say currently remote) analyst  Nathaniel offers his take on the results of the first round voting.

It’s Time to Vote in Round Two – HERE

Animated April’s Enchanted Eight

 

What an exciting round of action!

In the Fire Region, The Lion King‘s Simba took Rafiki’s stick and made sure Monsters Inc. did not “feel the love tonight” by trouncing them in the first round! The Incredibles, once again proving their “glory days” are here again, defeated Aladdin!

In the Ice Region, Frozen almost had a “meltdown,” but pulled out the victory over Coco by 2 votes! Meanwhile, Mulan unleashed the “dragon” and easily disposed of Wall-E.

In the Earth Region, Toy Story showed Cinderella she did not have a “friend in them” by taking her glass slippers, ushering in the midnight hour, and dispatching the would-be princess. In a touch and go affair, Belle managed to revive the downtrodden Beast and restore their championship hopes as the Beauty and the Beast rallied to defeat that pesky Ratatouille by just 2 votes!

Lastly, Under the Sea, Finding Nemo defeated Moana and in the surprise of the tournament, Up “rose to the occasion” and desiccated the Little Mermaid in a rout, not even close with a margin of victory greater than two to one!

Make your choices for the Favorite Four SOON!

VOTE

Voting closes Thursday, April 16 8pm (EDT)

Nathaniel Brown Media & Reserves Coordinator, Lilly Library
Bracketologist Nathaniel Brown

Written by Nathaniel Brown

Contributor: Carol Terry

 

Animated April – Opening Round with Our Expert

Pixar or Disney – the Animation Domination

Nathaniel Brown Media & Reserves Coordinator, Lilly Library
Bracketologist Nathaniel Brown

Welcome to this year’s special Bracketology: Lilly Library’s Animated April featuring Lilly Library’s resident (despite working remotely),  Bracketologist, Nathaniel Brown:

We have a stacked bracket this year full of favorites and some underdogs.

In the FIRE region The Lion King takes on Monsters Inc. In this first round match Simba “can’t wait to be king” so let’s see if he and Naila will “be prepared” to defeat Sullivan and Mike. Or will Sully intimidate and scare the young pup? In the other First Round match, Aladdin squares off with The Incredibles. Aladdin has the street smarts to woo Princess Jasmine and defeat Jafar, but does he possess the “magic” to dethrone The Incredibles, the family of superheroes who finished in the Final Four in last year’s tourney, losing to the eventual finalist, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse.

Brackets with film titles
All the Characters in Animated April

In the ICE region we have Frozen vs. Coco. Will Elsa and company put the freeze on Miguel and Hector? Or will Miguel remember the game plan and force Elsa to let it (her chance at a championship) go? The second match-up features Mulan vs. Wall-E. Can Mulan reflect her true passion to take out the trash? Or will Wall-E dispose of the determined and courageous warrior?

In the EARTH region, Beauty and the Beast takes on Cinderella. Can the spirited and headstrong Belle sacrifice enough to overcome the oppressed and ragged Cinderella and turn her championship dreams into pumpkins at midnight? Or will Cinderella embody the phrase ball is life royally and take out Belle?
Next we have Ratatouille vs. Toy Story. Will Remy make the championship his new object of affection, subjecting Woody and company to their greatest fear, the lonely shelf in the dark closet never to be heard from again? Or will Woody and Buzz destroy Remy’s illusions of grandeur and instill in him that rats belong down in the dumps?

Last but certainly not least in the UNDER THE SEA region, we have the Little Mermaid vs. Up. Can Ariel, Flounder, and Sebastian deflate the hopes of Carl and Russell and attempt to be a part of that championship world? Or will Carl, Russell, and Dug kiss the girl (Ariel) goodbye in the first round? Finally, we have Moana vs. Finding Nemo. Can Nemo and Dory forget his deficiencies and find a way to continue along their path to championship glory? Or will Moana and Maui find the heart to set sail toward a championship victory?

Cast your votes HERE

Keep voting, and stay tuned – especially on Lilly Library’s Instagram and Facebook feeds for my bonus video analysis – over the next week and a half for results as we crown this year’s champion!

Written by Nathaniel Brown

Carol Terry, contributor

 

Animated April

Animated April @ Lilly Library

Team Pixar or Team Disney?

Animated April @ Lilly begins Monday, April 13!

Animated April – Are you Team Pixar or Team Disney?

Brackets aren’t just for March!

Do you like Looney Tunes, the quirkiness of Wallace and Gromit, anime like Spirited Away, French comedies like The Triplets of Belleville? Are you all about Disney classics or the latest offerings from Pixar?

Lilly Library has 100s of animated films. In fact, we have so many animated films, it’s time for you to “toon” in and enjoy our very own Lilly Library Animated April challenge: Pixar versus Disney.

If it’s animated, Disney and Pixar are the dominant players, so we’re highlighting eight films from each studio to face off in a special edition of our Animated April challenge starting Monday, April 13th. Join in the fun, pick your favorites, and maybe  win a prize!

Here’s how:
Vote when you visit our  Lilly Library Animated April cast of characters HERE.

Make your selections and vote for your choice of hot titles in Bracket Fire versus films that landed in Bracket Earth to eventually face the coolest films in Bracket Ice, which challenge the animated gems making waves in Bracket Under the Sea.

Brackets with film titles
All the Characters in Animated April

Voting dates are listed below and on the contest page.
Updates will be posted on Lilly’s Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts as well as in our blog, Latest@Lilly :

Nathaniel Brown Media & Reserves Coordinator, Lilly Library
Bracketologist Nathaniel Brown

Enjoy Bracketologist Nathaniel’s insights for each round:

All votes are to be submitted via Lilly Animated April .

Animated April

  • Round 1: Stellar 16:  CLOSED
  • Round 2: Enchanted 8 : CLOSED
  • Round 3: Favorite 4 : CLOSED
  • Round 4: Perfect Pair VOTE HERE
    Voting opens Monday, April 20 9am
    Voting closes Tuesday, April 21 8pm
  • Champion Crowned:  Wednesday April 22nd

*Did someone say PRIZES?
Participants who provide their Duke NetID and vote for the animated movie “champion” will be entered into drawings for virtual prizes, as well as special prizes for Duke students.

Be sure to make your picks of your favorites  – Pixar or Disney!

Meet Lilly’s Class of 2020: Jessica

What is a Vital Lilly Library Resource?

Lilly’s Senior Student Assistants

One of Lilly’s Class of 2020 – Jessica

Lilly is at the heart of East Campus, the First-Year Campus for Duke Undergraduates. To serve our community, during what used to be a normal semester, Lilly Library remains open for 129 hours each week! Our student assistants are an essential element in maintaining a high level of service, and we want to introduce you to one of our “Class of 2020” – seniors who have worked in Lilly Library throughout their Duke careers. Get to know our seniors in these profiles, and you’ll appreciate them as much we do.

If you’ve been in Lilly Library over the past four years, chances are you’ve seen our seniors: Jess, Sarah, Esha, Toni, and Noelle. Jessica is one of our seniors who worked at Lilly Library since she arrived as wide-eyed First-Year student on East Campus way back in August of 2016.
Commencement 2020 may be virtual, but our regard for our student assistants is very real and enduring.

Take this opportunity to acquaint yourselves with Jessica, one of our treasured Lilly Library Class of 2020.

Senior  Jessica

Student with 3D Scanner
A model student: Jessica demos a 3D Scanner for a Lilly Library Facebook post
  • Hometown: Glen Rock, NJ
  • Family/siblings/pets: I have one younger brother
  • Academic major: Statistics and Computer Science
  • Activities on campus: Marching & Pep Band
  • Favorite on-campus activity, besides working at Lilly: Playing with the band at basketball games
  • Favorite off-campus activity: Used to be going for cheese and chocolate fondue at the Little Dipper on Ladies’ Night (it’s now closed though)
  • Favorite campus eatery: Div Cafe
  • Favorite off-campus eatery: Sushi Love

Q: If you could have a sleepover anywhere in the libraries, where would you choose, and why?
A: I would say the armchairs in the Thomas Reading Room. It has a very pleasant, relaxing atmosphere, and I’m pretty sure I’ve already taken accidental naps there while doing homework.

Q: What’s the most interesting book you’ve come across in Lilly?
A: The most interesting book I came across at Lilly was a photography book about Jim Marshall. Someone had just returned it and I flipped through all the photos before putting it in the bin of Perkins books.

Q: What is your favorite part about working at Lilly? Least favorite?
A: I loved having time to put down the rest of my schoolwork and thinking about something else for at least a short while. I always found the tasks at Lilly like shelving books and processing holds to be quite satisfying. I don’t think I had a least favorite part!

Q: Why have you worked at Lilly Library ever since your first year?
A: I thought about switching to Perkins after freshman year, but then I wouldn’t get to see Yunyi every week!

Q: What is one memory from Lilly that you will never forget?
A: It’s not one specific memory, but because I’m in the band, a lot of the staff would chat with me about Duke football and basketball with me, especially Yunyi. I always knew that if the basketball team lost, I would get a chance to vent and complain about the team at my next shift. I will never forget how excited the staff always was for me when I got to travel with the teams for tournament games.

Q: What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done in Lilly?
A: It’s not super crazy, but the few times I had to shelve books or straighten the stacks on the 4th level and no one was around, I would listen to music and dance to myself as I worked.

Q: How will your time at Lilly help you in your future pursuits?
A: Lilly provided the first customer service-related job I’ve ever had, and my time at Lilly certainly helped me develop skills in that area, especially with continuing to be polite even when patrons were not (although that was quite rare to encounter). It also helped me with organization, multitasking, and adaptability, skills translatable into all kinds of fields.

Q: What will you miss most about Lilly when you graduate?
A: I will definitely miss Yunyi and the other librarians/staff members the most.

Q: What are your plans for after graduation?
A: I will be working as a Data Scientist for a start-up in New York City.

Q: What is your spirit animal? … well, you don’t expect all the questions to be about Lilly, did you?
A: Always a tough question, but I guess a cat?

Student
Lilly Senior Jessica

Graduation in May means Lilly Library will say farewell to Jessica and our other seniors, treasured members of our Lilly “family”. We appreciate her stellar work and dedication to Lilly and wish her all the best!

National Poetry Month 2020

It’s currently National Poetry Month, and I feel like I need poetry now more than ever as a source of comfort. In fact Poets.org is running a #ShelterInPoems campaign right now. It’s quite lovely and worth checking out. In a similar vein, Professor Faulkner Fox is featuring a  Poem of the Day on the Hart Leadership Program page, and we in the libraries will be featuring lines from poems on Instagram this month.

If you are looking to read some poetry, I’m happy to say that we do have poetry you can read online in our collection. You can search our catalog for ebooks that we have. I have also had good luck finding poetry in literary magazines in Humanities International Complete. Plus I’ve recently been purchasing some poetry on Overdrive. Try out some of these titles:

Delphi Complete Works of Paul Laurence Dunbar

Delphi Complete Works of Emily Dickinson

Delphi Works of Robert Frost

Delphi Complete Works of W. B. Yeats

Delphi Complete Works of Walt Whitman

And let me leave you with two fun poetry related things. I was recently introduced to this tinyletter newsletter called Pome that sends a poem to your inbox everyday. Finally Sir Patrick Stewart has been posting #ASonnetADay on his Twitter. I personally can’t think of anything more lovely than that!

 

Meet Lilly’s Class of 2020 – Sarah

What is a Vital Lilly Library Resource?

Lilly’s Senior  Student Assistants

woman looking at stacks of books
Many “happy” book returns greet Lilly Senior Sarah

Lilly is at the heart of East Campus, the First-Year Campus for Duke Undergraduates. To serve our community, during what used to be a “normal” semester, Lilly Library remains open for 129 hours each week! Our student assistants are an essential element in maintaining a high level of service, and we want to introduce you to one of our “Class of 2020” – seniors who have worked in Lilly Library throughout their Duke careers. Get to know our seniors in these profiles, and you’ll appreciate them as much we do.

If you’ve been in Lilly Library over the past four years, chances are you’ve seen our seniors: Jessica, Sarah, Esha, Toni, and Noelle. Sarah is one of our seniors who worked at Lilly Library since she arrived as wide-eyed First-Year student on East Campus way back in August of 2016.

Commencement 2020 may be virtual, but our regard for our student assistants is very real and enduring. Take this opportunity to acquaint yourselves with Sarah, one of our treasured Lilly Library Class of 2020.

Senior Sarah

Woman sitting in front of pumpkins
Sarah at the North Carolina State Fair
  • Hometown: Flower Mound, Texas (north of Dallas)
  • Family/siblings/pets: Mom, Dad, younger sister (in her first year of college)
  • Academic major: Biomedical Engineering
  • Activities on campus: Club Swimming, Sport Clubs Executive Board, RA (in Neighborhood 1 on East, then in Crowell/Wannamaker), former FYLAB / UAB member
  • Favorite on-campus activity (besides working at Lilly): Swimming with Club Swim!
  • Favorite off-campus activity: I love going to sporting events, and my favorite annual event to attend since I have moved here for college is the North Carolina State Fair.
  • Favorite campus eatery: Pitchforks (nothing beats 24-hour service)
  • Favorite off-campus eatery: The Pit (BBQ)

Q: If you could have a sleepover anywhere in the libraries, where would you choose, and why?
A: Probably the Thomas Room, because it has really comfy chairs and the doors on both ends lock so I would feel safer…

Q: What’s the strangest/most interesting book or movie you’ve come across in Lilly?
A: I can’t think of a specific strange example right now, but a special DVD to me is DVD 30,000 (The Princess Bride) which the class of 2020 got to pick!

Q: What is your favorite part about working at Lilly? Least favorite?
A: My favorite part is all the librarians that have been so kind and supportive to me during my time working at Lilly. I always feel so welcome in the library and it became a sort of safe haven for me during my time at Duke. My least favorite part is walking through the library at closing time, because it’s dark and I keep thinking someone will jump out at me and scare me. Also, having to drive back to west campus at 4am.

Q: Why have you worked at Lilly Library ever since your first year?
A: Because of the librarians! I started working at Lilly my first year because I really loved libraries and reading throughout my childhood and had volunteered at my public library in high school. I chose to stay throughout the years (even during the time I spent living on West Campus) because of the friendships I made with the people I worked with and because of the increased trust that everyone placed in me.

Q: What is one memory from Lilly that you will never forget?
A: The little things the staff did for the student workers to make us feel appreciated – candy for every Halloween and Valentine’s Day, and student worker lunches at the end of every semester during Finals week. Even though after my first year I knew these things were coming, they were still always a nice surprise.

Q: What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done in Lilly? A: I don’t know how crazy this is, but I’ve definitely fallen asleep at the desk while working the late night shift a few times more than I’d like to admit…

Q: What was closing, or opening an empty (or at least, it was supposed to be empty) Lilly like? Eerily empty, people reluctant to leave, unexpected people?
A: I worked a closing shift every week for the last three years I worked at Lilly, and most of the time people filtered out on their own within five minutes of closing time (even if they didn’t want to). I did sometimes get some interesting people that would filter through the building or have strange requests of me (for example, one time I got a call from a father who wanted me to find his daughter in the building and give her a message – but didn’t even know if she was actually at Lilly). Most of the time, though, the only spooky part was walking through the library alone and hoping no one was staking out to scare me. I only worked opening shifts at Lilly every once in a while, but it was always nice to come into an empty, quiet building and get to watch the early risers trickle in!

Q: How will your time at Lilly help you in your future pursuits?
A: Lilly has taught me a lot of lessons about how to serve others and how to be a go-getter. Working behind the desk in particular has built a lot of confidence for me in talking to people I don’t know and helping to serve them. As an engineer, I might not always be in a customer-facing position, but having that experience will certainly give me a boost over those who are not as comfortable working in service roles.

Q: What will you miss most about Lilly when you graduate?
A: Both the librarians, who have always been so nice to me, and the space as I remember it in my head. I know with renovations coming to Lilly in the future that when I come to visit as an alum, I might no longer be able to walk around the space knowing exactly where everything is. I will miss that feeling of knowing a place so well.

Q: What are your plans for after graduation?
A: This summer I will be interning at Garmin International in Cary, NC to complete my internship requirement for the Master of Engineering program at Duke, and then I will graduate from Duke again in May of 2021!

Q: What is your spirit animal? … well, you don’t expect all the questions to be about Lilly, did you?
A: My favorite animal is a monkey so I will go with that!

Sarah and her Club Swim teammates

Graduation in May means Lilly Library will say farewell to Sarah and our other seniors, treasured members of our Lilly “family”. We hope to see Sarah while she continues her graduate studies at Duke next year, even if she no longer works with us. We appreciate her stellar work and dedication to Lilly and wish her all the best!

Overdrive and Libby are always open!

Maybe you’re finding yourself with more free time now that all of of your social events and entertainment/shows have been canceled. Maybe you just need a break from it all. Either way now might be a great time to pick up a good book, and we still have you covered with Overdrive.

Overdrive at Duke

We have ebooks and audiobooks on a variety of subjects and genres, including graphic novels, humor, and fantasy. You just need your netID. You can borrow titles for 21 days, and you can download to  all major computers and devices, including iPhones®, iPads®, Nooks®, Android™ phones and tablets, and Kindles®.

Overdrive at Your Public Library

It’s quite possible that the public library in your area has Overdrive, so take a look there too. Our friends at the Durham County Public Library has a wonderful collection that is worth checking out!

Libby

Duke Libraries is now available on the Libby app, which allows you to consolidate your checkouts across multiple libraries onto a single digital shelf. The app works with both smartphones and tablets. If you like to switch between reading on your phone and tablet, the app will sync your bookmarks and notes between devices so you won’t be left wondering where you last stopped reading. Libby also works with audiobooks!

Collection Spotlight: March Madness

March Madness, the NCAA Division I Basketball Tournament, is one of the most famous annual sporting events in the United States.

During the course of the month millions of Americans are glued to the screens, many fill out a bracket, there’s an increase in the number of sick days used, extended lunch breaks are taken, and even conference calls are rescheduled to allow for more tournament watching.

Duke has won 5 NCAA Championships, participated in 11 Championship Games (third all-time) and 16 Final Fours (fourth all-time), and has an NCAA-best .755 NCAA tournament winning percentage.

Duke’s continuous success in the tournament has raised the profile of the university, and one can spot Duke shirts all over the US and the world. This year both the men’s and the women’s basketball teams have high expectations and are poised to make their mark.

The Libraries have an extensive collection, covering March Madness, the Duke basketball teams (men and women), and the sport of basketball in general, a sample of which can be seen in the March Collection Spotlight, located near our Perkins Library Service Desk on the first floor of Perkins.

You can find interesting basketball facts and answers to the questions on everyone’s minds like:

…Who was the first basketball coach at Trinity?

…How many of the players on Trinity’s first team had ever played basketball?

…When Mike Krzyzewski, Coach K, was named the Duke men’s basketball coach?

the first African American player to integrate the Men’s Basketball program at Duke

…Who is the leading scorer in Duke history?

…What is the “Miracle Minute”?

…How many times have Duke and UNC met post-season?

This month’s spotlight was co-created by Tzvetan Benov (Evening Service Desk Assistant), Stephanie Ford (Evening Research Services Librarian), and Annette Tillery (Overnight Circulation Desk Assistant)!

What to Read this Month

As Black History Month leads into Women’s History Month, I’ve selected a handful of books from the list 48 Books By Women and Nonbinary Authors of Color to read in 2019.
For more books to enjoy or mull over during spring break, check out our Overdrive, New and Noteworthy, and Current Literature collections.


Shapes of Native Nonfiction: Collected Essays by Contemporary Writers edited by Elissa Washuta and Theresa Warburton.

Just as a basket’s purpose determines its materials, weave, and shape, so too is the purpose of the essay related to its material, weave, and shape. Editors Elissa Washuta and Theresa Warburton ground this anthology of essays by Native writers in the formal art of basket weaving. Using weaving techniques such as coiling and plaiting as organizing themes, the editors have curated an exciting collection of imaginative, world-making lyric essays by twenty-seven contemporary Native writers from tribal nations across Turtle Island into a well-crafted basket.

Shapes of Native Nonfiction features a dynamic combination of established and emerging Native writers, including Stephen Graham Jones, Deborah Miranda, Terese Marie Mailhot, Billy-Ray Belcourt, Eden Robinson, and Kim TallBear. Their ambitious, creative, and visionary work with genre and form demonstrate the slippery, shape-changing possibilities of Native stories. Considered together, they offer responses to broader questions of materiality, orality, spatiality, and temporality that continue to animate the study and practice of distinct Native literary traditions in North America.


The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa, translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder.

A haunting Orwellian novel about the terrors of state surveillance, from the acclaimed author of The Housekeeper and the Professor.

On an unnamed island off an unnamed coast, objects are disappearing: first hats, then ribbons, birds, roses–until things become much more serious. Most of the island’s inhabitants are oblivious to these changes, while those few imbued with the power to recall the lost objects live in fear of the draconian Memory Police, who are committed to ensuring that what has disappeared remains forgotten.

When a young woman who is struggling to maintain her career as a novelist discovers that her editor is in danger from the Memory Police, she concocts a plan to hide him beneath her floorboards. As fear and loss close in around them, they cling to her writing as the last way of preserving the past.

A surreal, provocative fable about the power of memory and the trauma of loss, The Memory Police is a stunning new work from one of the most exciting contemporary authors writing in any language.

Yoko Ogawa was profiled in the New York Times in an article titled “Yoko Ogawa Conjures Spirits in Hiding: ‘I Just Peeked Into Their World and Took Notes’.”


The Pretty One: On Life, Pop Culture, Disability, and Other Reasons to Fall in Love with Me by Keah Brown.

From the disability rights advocate and creator of the #DisabledAndCute viral campaign, a thoughtful, inspiring, and charming collection of essays exploring what it means to be black and disabled in a mostly able-bodied white America.

Keah Brown loves herself, but that hadn’t always been the case. Born with cerebral palsy, her greatest desire used to be normalcy and refuge from the steady stream of self-hate society strengthened inside her. But after years of introspection and reaching out to others in her community, she has reclaimed herself and changed her perspective.

In The Pretty One, Brown gives a contemporary and relatable voice to the disabled–so often portrayed as mute, weak, or isolated. With clear, fresh, and light-hearted prose, these essays explore everything from her relationship with her able-bodied identical twin (called “the pretty one” by friends) to navigating romance; her deep affinity for all things pop culture–and her disappointment with the media’s distorted view of disability; and her declaration of self-love with the viral hashtag #DisabledAndCute.

By “smashing stigmas, empowering her community, and celebrating herself” ( Teen Vogue ), Brown aims to expand the conversation about disability and inspire self-love for people of all backgrounds. You can see an interview with Brown and read more of her work by visiting her website.


Sabrina & Corina by Kali Fajardo-Anstine.

Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s magnetic debut story collection breathes life into her Indigenous Latina characters and the land they inhabit. Set against the remarkable backdrop of Denver, Colorado – a place that is as fierce as it is exquisite – these women navigate the land the way they navigate their lives: with caution, grace, and quiet force.

In “Sugar Babies,” ancestry and heritage are hidden inside the earth, but have the tendency to ascend during land disputes. “Any Further West” follows a sex worker and her daughter as they leave their ancestral home in southern Colorado only to find a foreign and hostile land in California. In “Tomi,” a woman returns home from prison, finding herself in a gentrified city that is a shadow of the one she remembers from her childhood. And in the title story, “Sabrina & Corina,” a Denver family falls into a cycle of violence against women, coming together only through ritual.

Sabrina & Corina is a moving narrative of unrelenting feminine power and an exploration of the universal experiences of abandonment, heritage, and an eternal sense of home.

Kali Fajardo-Anstine is a National Book Award Finalist, a finalist for the PEN/Bingham Prize and The Story Prize, and longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize. Fajardo-Anstine is the 2019 recipient of the Denver Mayor’s Award for Global Impact in the Arts. Her fiction and essays have appeared in GAY Magazine, The American Scholar, Boston Review, Bellevue Literary Review, The Idaho Review, Southwestern American Literature, and elsewhere. Kali has been awarded fellowships from Yaddo, MacDowell Colony, and Hedgebrook. She has an MFA from the University of Wyoming and is from Denver, Colorado.


The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You by Dina Nayeri.

Aged eight, Dina Nayeri fled Iran along with her mother and brother and lived in the crumbling shell of an Italian hotel-turned-refugee camp. Eventually she was granted asylum in America. She settled in Oklahoma, then made her way to Princeton University. In this book, Nayeri weaves together her own vivid story with the stories of other refugees and asylum seekers in recent years, bringing us inside their daily lives and taking us through the different stages of their journeys, from escape to asylum to resettlement. In these pages, a couple fall in love over the phone, and women gather to prepare the noodles that remind them of home. A closeted queer man tries to make his case truthfully as he seeks asylum, and a translator attempts to help new arrivals present their stories to officials.

Nayeri confronts notions like “the swarm,” and, on the other hand, “good” immigrants. She calls attention to the harmful way in which Western governments privilege certain dangers over others. With surprising and provocative questions, The Ungrateful Refugee challenges us to rethink how we talk about the refugee crisis.

In 2017, Nayeri wrote an essay by the same title. A 2019 Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination Fellow, winner of the 2018 UNESCO City of Literature Paul Engle Prize, a National Endowment for the Arts literature grant (2015), O. Henry Prize (2015), Best American Short Stories (2018), and fellowships from the McDowell Colony, Bogliasco Foundation, and Yaddo, her stories and essays have been published by the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, Los Angeles Times, New Yorker, Granta New Voices, the Wall Street Journal, and many others. Her debut novel, A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea (2013) was translated into 14 languages. Her second novel, Refuge (2017) was a New York Times editor’s choice.

 


$1,500 Prize for Book Collecting

NOTE: Due to changes in the university’s operations in light of COVID-19, the Nadelle Prize for Book Collecting has been postponed.

Attention, student bibliophiles!

The Duke University Libraries are proud to present the 2020 Andrew T. Nadell Prize for Book Collecting. The contest is open to all students enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate/professional degree program at Duke, and the winners will receive cash prizes!

First Prize

Undergraduate division: $1,500
Graduate division: $1,500

Second Prize

Undergraduate division: $750
Graduate division: $750

Winners of the contest will receive any in-print Grolier Club book of their choice, as well as a three-year membership in the Bibliographical Society of America.

Winners will also be eligible to enter the National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest, where they will compete for a $2,500 prize and an invitation to the awards ceremony in Washington, D.C., at the Library of Congress.

You don’t have to be a “book collector” to enter the contest. Past collections have varied in interest areas and included a number of different types of materials. Collections are judged on adherence to a clearly defined unifying theme, not rarity or monetary value.

Interested in entering? Visit our website for more information and read winning entries from past years. Contact Kurt Cumiskey at kurt.cumiskey@duke.edu with any questions.

Entries must be received by March 30, 2020.