Book Recommendations from UChicago Arts
October isn’t just the start of the academic year at the University of Chicago—it’s also a time to honor what we read outside of coursework or research, for personal education, leisure, or perhaps, both. It’s National Book Month, an annual celebration of the written word and when the National Book Awards are released. (See all of this year’s, and past, nominations here.) To honor our own favorite books, we polled UChicago Arts staff on what they’re reading now, who their favorite authors are, and what their favorite books are—hard questions all around! See below for a selection of answers, and add your favorites to the comments section at the bottom.
Kate Schlachter | Assistant Director of Strategic Planning for UChicago Arts
What are you reading now?
Jerusalem by Alan Moore
Who is your favorite author and why?
Claudia Rankine. I am constantly in awe of how well she curates her essay-poems, I think the structure of her books (physically!) is a totally new way of thinking about composition, and the act of reading.
What is your favorite book and why?
100 Years Of Solitude. I just never get tired of his writing, or the world he builds. Also James Galvin's The Meadow is just one the most beautifully written and balanced books I've read, plus reading a history of a meadow in Wyoming is surprisingly fascinating.
Jamie Gentry | Senior Program Manager, Summer Institute in Social Research Methods, Social Sciences Division
What are you reading now?
Clouds of Witness by Dorothy L. Sayers
Who is your favorite author and why?
Either Shirley Jackson or Ray Bradbury. Jackson for her ability to create a very suspenseful atmosphere with relatively sparse language, and Bradbury for his beautiful prose and exquisite imagination.
What is your favorite book and why?
Another difficult question! Either A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, or So Big by Edna Ferber. The stories really stick to your bones. I think about each one daily, even though I first discovered them years and years ago.
Clare Austen-Smith | Digital Content Manager, Marketing for UChicago Arts and the Logan Center
What are you reading now?
The Seas by Samantha Hunt
Who is your favorite author and why?
This is such a hard question. When I was a kid, it was definitely Brian Jacques (for his Redwall series, of course) or Tamora Pierce. Now, I would say Madeline Miller, whose book, Circe, I loved.
What is your favorite book and why?
Another hard question. Probably Matilda for nostalgic reasons as well as Roald Dahl's wit.
Ronia Holmes | Director of Communications, UChicago Arts and the Logan Center
What are you reading now?
Hervey M. Cleckley's The Mask of Sanity.
Who is your favorite author and why?
Well, that's a tough question. I have a favourite author in every genre I read, but if I could read works by only one author for the rest of my life, it would have to be P.D. James. Specifically, her Dalgliesh series. While the works are, ostensibly, murder mysteries, the novels are about neither murder nor mystery.
What is your favorite book and why?
The Adkins' The War for All the Oceans, an absolutely rousing, heart-pounding account of the naval campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars. I have a great passion for nautical history in the age of sail, and this particular work is illuminating and visceral. I've read it a dozen times.
Joyy Norris | Theatre and Performance Program Manager
What are you reading now?
I'm Telling the Truth But I'm Lying by Bassey Ikpi
Who is your favorite author and why?
Neil Gaiman, because his work is the perfect combination of creepy, imaginative, heartwarming and horrific.
Jack Wang | News Officer for the Social Sciences and Arts & Humanities, University of Chicag
What are you reading now?
Currently The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander, but I just finished Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me and am getting ready to start Emil Ferris' My Favorite Thing Is Monsters. I'm often bouncing between two books at once, usually one non-fiction and one fiction.
Who is your favorite author and why?
Tough question. I usually say Zadie Smith because I love her essays and cultural criticism as well as her first novel White Teeth. I am rather partial to novels that span time and place.
What is your favorite book and why?
I like to go back to The Phantom Tollbooth every few years. Technically a children's book, but it holds the sort of wonderful depth that makes a slightly different impression every time you re-read it.
Naomi Blumberg | Assistant Director, Arts, Science + Culture Initiative; Managing Editor, Portable Gray magazine
What are you reading now?
The Flight Portfolio by Julie Orringer
Who is your favorite author and why?
I don't really have a favorite author, but I will always read a new Ann Patchett book when it comes out. She's a skilled storyteller and writes totally engrossing and enchanting fiction.
What is your favorite book and why?
I don't have a favorite book, but one that always comes to mind when I'm asked this question is Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. I love how the author manages to tell multiple epic stories very well and simultaneously: the life of the narrator--a person born intersex and raised as a girl, the life of the narrator's family over the course of three generations from its beginnings in Greece to its current home in Detroit, and the life of a great American city (Detroit) from its heyday to its downfall. It's just an amazing set of intertwined sagas to read from start to finish.
Stacey Recht | Director of Development, UChicago Arts
What are you reading now?
The Inner Life of Animals by Peter Wohlleben
Who is your favorite author and why?
No one ever has or ever will write like Toni Morrison. The depth of humanity, the richness of her prose, the bright weight of her intellect, the earthy and supernatural storytelling, the fully alive, nuanced characters, the dreamlike brilliance of her unfolding timelines. Her words, her words, her words. I'm at a loss to adequately describe the finest writer of my lifetime.
What is your favorite book and why?
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut were both books I read at an early age that influenced my interests.