The Order of Time

By Carlo Rovelli

You could read any Rovelli book, really, but this is the one that drew me in. He merges a physics/science‒centered approach to time with a human/experienced‒centered view of it, which I just cannot get enough of. It is beautifully written, at times verging on poetic, while also bringing in a lot of the information and knowledge I seem to have skipped over as a terrible science student. It's joyful and intense and meditative. And yes, this is what I read for fun!

—Amish Trivedi, assistant professor

Just Kids

By Patti Smith

I've recently read M Train by Patti Smith, and now I'm looking forward to reading the book for which she won the National Book Award. Smith's memoirs can be impressionistic, but they often come down to some unexpected detail or some ongoing longing. She's one of those writers who can change how you look for and find what most matters to you, how you look for and embrace your own soul.

—John Ernest, professor and chair

How to Solve Your Own Murder

By Kristen Perrin

This truly is a cozy mystery about a woman who, as a teenager, encounters a fortune teller who portends her murder. The woman, Frances, then spends most of her life obsessively surveilling everyone around her, trying to figure out who will kill her. When she does die, her great niece Annie follows in her great aunt's footsteps by holding all of the town's quirky characters at arm's length while she tries to find out who killed Frances. This is an easy-breezy read, even if it does include a murder mystery at the center. Perfect for a day at the beach. 

—Cathryn Molloy, professor

The Season of Styx Malone

By Kekla Magoon 

Two young Black boys in small-town Indiana fall under the spell of Styx Malone, a mysterious new kid who arrives for the summer and stirs things up by persuading them to pursue their biggest dreams and breaking a few rules along the way. I collect multicultural kids books and stumbled across this one six years ago. It captured me because it celebrates family and friendship, depicts young people with rich interior lives, and mixes in a little mystery and humor. There's something sweet and down-home about it. 

—Délice Williams, associate professor and director of undergraduate studies

The Wilderness

By Angela Flournoy

Have you wondered how your friendships in your early 20s might follow you into middle age? The Wilderness focuses on the friendships between five women from 2008 until 2027, when they are in their early 40s. They support one another through marriage, divorce, career anxiety, loss and a persistent set of questions about who they each want to be in the world and the lives they want to live. The Wilderness is told from many perspectives and details how culture, place, habits, friendships and childhood experiences combine to make and remake our adult lives.  

—Davy Knittle, assistant professor

The School for Good Mothers

By Jessamine Chan

Warning: Do not bring this book to the beach without plenty of sun screen, because you will not put it down and that might make YOU a candidate for enrollment in The School. 

Second Warning: The book is compelling precisely because it will make you mad and freak you out. My wife gave it to friends as a Mother's Day present, and every mother who read it could relate.

—Peter X. Feng, associate professor

Cloud Cuckoo Land

By Anthony Doerr

This is one of the best novels I've ever read. Ever. It follows three stories set in very different times and places (15th-century Constantinople, 21st-century Idaho and the not-too-distant future on a spacecraft headed to a new planet that will support human habitation). It's a book about the value of books and human storytelling. The stories eventually get braided together in moving and surprising ways. Amazing.

—Matt Kinservik, professor 

There Is No Antimemetics Division 

By qntm

A Reddit novel turned print bestseller, There Is No Antimemetics Division is a surreal horror story that follows an X-Fileish government division fighting aliens whose battlefield is the human mind. How do you fight an enemy whose existence you cannot remember?    

—Siobhan Carroll, associate professor