This week in Summer Reading

Book cover for Fuzz

Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law
Mary Roach

Fuzz is a fun, pop-science book, like much of Roach’s work. The premise is: What happens when animals transgress on human society in different ways and how do different places handle that. Human rules meet the natural world with sometimes funny, sad, or concerning results.

CATHERINE CRONQUIST BROWNING
Assistant Dean
Academic Programs, Equity & Inclusion
School of Information

 

 

Book cover for The Magical Language of Others

The Magical Language of Others: A Memoir
E. J. Koh

As a young girl growing up in California, author E. J. Koh’s life is upended when her parents decide to return to their home country of South Korea, leaving her and her older brother behind to benefit from a life in America. Moving freely through time and space, Koh revisits this period of her life and beyond, building her memoir around the process of translating the (always unanswered) letters her mother would write to her. Through this literal process of “rewriting” her mother’s words, and the rules that hold a family together across generations, the book invites readers to embrace the imperfect but necessary role that language plays in enabling us to truly understand one another

BEN SPANBOCK
Lecturer
College Writing Programs