Recommended by Professor Comorau

I picked up Trevor Noah’s memoir expecting a light read. What I discovered was a series of episodes in which Noah traces a life in and through South Africa’s complicated political, legal, and social imaginations of race. Noah retains the warmth and sense of humor that he displays on The Daily Show while working to pick apart the absurdities of the constructions of race in South Africa and the horrors of Apartheid and violence around him.…

Recommended by Professor Butcher

Over the winter break, I found myself absolutely engrossed in J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy, a memoir that meditates on Vance’s early life within a poor, isolated Appalachian town, one of many that dot the areas directly south and east of us. Part personal narrative and part social critique, Vance’s book considers the implications of class and legacy as they relate to political ideology, and how—in failing to achieve the American dream, a dream many Americans feel was promised to them—a large swath of this nation has come to feel cheated, ignored, and abandoned.…

Recommended by Professor Carpenter

A young woman is sent by her publisher boss to “mind” a reclusive, eccentric novelist who finally appears on the verge of producing a second novel years after her first grand success (think Harper Lee), only to find herself minding the brilliant, quirky, needy 10-year-old Frank instead.…

Recommended by Professor Musser

Cathy O’ Neil’s Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy warns us that the pervasive use of large collections of data can be dangerous. O’Neil, with a Ph.D. in mathematics (“algebraic number theory”), has taught at Barnard, and also has worked at a hedge fund (as a “quant”) and at an e-commerce start-up.…

Recommended by Michael Barr

In one of Delaware’s antique stores I recently stumbled on a lived-in copy of Herbert Read’s “The Meaning of Art” that seemed worth my $1.25. Read, who was a Fine Arts scholar in the first half of the 20th century touches on various movements, elements, and figures in a way that isn’t daunting for those who, like myself, aren’t quite proficient in its language.…