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After traveling quite a bit in Italy this past year (to Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples, Pompeii, and Amalfi, as well as taking a number of train rides through less populated areas), I was inspired to learn more about the history and different regions of this amazing country. Italy is a land of contradictions: Ferraris, high fashion, fine cuisine, Renaissance art, music, architecture, the legacy of the Roman Empire and birthplace of western civilization, the mafia, corruption, poverty, social divide, unchecked bureaucracy, and a declining economy all coexist in this beautiful, fascinating, extraordinary, and occasionally frustrating country. Gilmour’s work traces the history of Italy, with an emphasis on the Risorgimento (Italian Unification) and its consequences. This book is extremely thorough and well-researched, very detailed, and academically impeccable in its presentation. I learned a great deal more about Italian history, as well about the different regions of Italy.

“Dance, when you’re broken open. Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance, when you’re perfectly free.” “The soul is a newly skinned hide, bloody and gross. Work on it with manual discipline, and the bitter tanning acid of grief, and you’ll become lovely, and very strong.” “Don’t let your throat tighten with fear. Take sips of breath all day and night, before death closes your mouth.” These are just a few examples of the poetry of Jelaluddin Balkhi, popularly known as Rumi. This great poet lived from 1207-1273, and his timeless poetry is just as relevant to the human condition now as when it was written in the 13th century. I would highly recommend reading this book, as well as the poetry of Hafiz – it’s interesting to compare the two.

What a great idea for a book… I absolutely love Monisha Rajesh’s idea to travel all through India on 80 trains. I also absolutely love train travel – it’s such a wonderful way to see a country, enjoy the landscape, observe the locals, and travel “slowly”. I enjoyed watching Monisha’s confidence grow as the journey continued. I think the book provided an interesting glimpse into India from the inside/outside point of view of a Westerner with Indian roots, but I didn’t enjoy Rajesh’s “wry and witty humor” as much as I would have hoped – I think I just have a hard time with British references.

I just love how this mug combines several of the best things in life: books, a warm mug of tea or coffee, a rainy day, and of course, Powell's!!!! It's just perfect!

I’m surprised that this book is a NY Times Bestseller and has received so many positive reviews, - I really didn’t like it. I suppose whether or not you enjoy the book depends to a large extent on your perception of the main character, Count Rostov – I found him to be pretentious, arrogant, and highly annoying! I also didn’t like the way that his “daughter” Sofia was portrayed, as totally “demure” – and this as a wonderful virtue. There are some interesting historical details underlying the story, but overall it was quite dull. The plot had the potential to be interesting, but I also felt like there were too many threads left hanging at the end, questions left unanswered, and characters who would suddenly just not be mentioned again. I also didn’t enjoy the writing style – the narrator also has a very pretentious and pompous tone – it just seemed superficial and ridiculous, and I found the narrative wordy and the story at times confusing and difficult to follow. Very disappointed! Wouldn’t recommend!

I just love train travel – so I was extremely excited to find this book which explores Italian culture through the lens of the railways! Having also just returned home from a trip through Italy, it was the perfect time to read this book. Parks focuses on the Italian national railway system, Trenitalia, and takes time to explore all of its quirks and eccentricities. Since I recently visited Milan, Florence, Rome and Naples, I remembered having seen/experienced many of the features of the trains and railways stations which Parks describes. I’ve also become fairly familiar with the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB CFF FFS) and the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) – I absolutely agree with Parks’ assertion that a country’s national character is embodied in its railway system; through observing the intricacies of train travel in a given nation, we can learn much about what its culture values and prioritizes. Italy is at once a bureaucratic nightmare and an intensely illogical place and intrinsically lovable and deeply endearing. I love beautiful Italia – take a trip there and ride the rails, where you can enjoy observing the locals! This book is a quick and entertaining read – at times it’s really hilarious and had me laughing out loud!

Cyrus Massoudi is a British man of Iranian descent, and this book tells of his quest to discover his family’s homeland through personally traveling all throughout Iran. I’ve been intrigued by Iran for a long time, and became even more so after reading some of the beautiful poetry of Hafez (from Shiraz, lived from 1320-1389). Despite Iran’s current importance on the international scene, it is a country which most of us Americans and Westerners know very little about. Massoudi is able to provide excellent insight into the country as a dual insider/outsider. However, while this book has plenty of interesting (and often quite funny) anecdotes about Massoudi’s interactions with Iranians, it focuses more on the history and historical sites in Iran than on its culture and Massoudi’s own journey. It is the perfect book for (ancient) history enthusiasts!

Thomas More, a noted Renaissance humanist intellectual of 16th century England, published ‘Utopia’ in 1516. The work was originally written in Latin, and describes the social, legal, political, and religious customs of a fictional utopian island society. For a book that is now over 500 years old, ‘Utopia’ is still entirely relevant today; it is a socio-political satire which denounces the “conspiracy of the rich” and incredible greed which form the backbone of human societies. ‘Utopia’ advocates a form of communism in which money is abolished, gold is used to adorn toddlers, mark prisoners, and manufacture chamber pots, and workdays are just six hours long, with common people devoting their free time to further education and higher intellectual pursuits. Surrounding the book is the question of: what motivated More to write it? This is a very puzzling question, particularly since many of the practices of the Utopians, including euthanasia, ease of divorce, married priests, female priests, and religious tolerance seem to contradict the beliefs that More held as a devout Catholic. ‘Utopia,’ which incidentally means “No Place” in Greek, is a short book, and provides a great deal of food for thought – I highly recommend it!

Set in an unnamed province of the Balkans (most likely Belgrade, Serbia), “The Tiger’s Wife” is centered around the relationship between the protagonist, a young doctor named Natalia, and her grandfather, also a physician, who has recently died. Specifically, it explores the question of the mysterious circumstances surrounding the grandfather’s death: the bulk of the novel relates several stories that Natalia’s grandfather had told her from episodes earlier in his life. These stories have elements of fantasy or of magical realism. The book is ultimately a meditation on death, folklore and cultural practices surrounding death, and how communities and individuals deal with death. If you are a fan of the work of Gabriel Garcia Márquez, who provided inspiration for this book (Obreht’s first novel), this may be the book for you. However, I found the plotline a bit difficult to follow, felt that Obreht often spent far too much time on tangential stories and lateral characters, and felt that ultimately, the novel failed to come together neatly in the end. It left me rather bewildered and disappointed.

Alexievich skillfully weaves together dozens of interviews with people from all over the former Soviet Union in this masterpiece. The result is a stunning portrait of a country that today only exists in the memories of its surviving people. The book provides a great deal of insight into the recent history of modern-day Russia and Eastern Europe, while also providing a glimpse of what it was actually like to live there immediately before, during, and after the collapse of communism. Alexievich’s approach to relating history through the stories of individual citizens is unique and powerful.

Michel de Montaigne was a significant philosopher of the French Renaissance, whose thought would later influence Shakespeare, Rousseau, Descartes, Nietzsche, Emerson, and others. Montaigne is known for his work developing the essay as a literary genre. This collection of seven of his essays, despite being written during the 16th century, is surprisingly accessible for the modern-day reader!

Hafiz, the great Persian poet, lived in Shiraz (modern Iran) from 1320-1389. His beautiful poems are as relevant today as if they had been written by someone in our own age, illustrating the timeless struggles and joys of the human condition. Read this poetry – it is spiritually nourishing, deeply comforting, and provides food for thought.

This book tells of the world’s greatest distance runners, the Tarahumara people, an isolated tribe living deep in the Mexican wilderness. It also tells the story of Christopher McDougall, the author, an injury-riddled runner, and his attempt to learn the Tarahumara’s style of running. This book is an inspiration – it compellingly argues that the human body is in fact designed and perfectly suited for distance running, and that the epidemic in running injuries is largely due to the popularity of modern cushioned running shoes, which do far more harm than good. At first, this argument seemed quite counterintuitive, but McDougall thoroughly explains the evidence: measurements have indicated that compared to running barefoot, the more heavily cushioned the running shoe, the more impact the runner hits the ground with. McDougall also discussed the astonishing fact that after the age of 19, distance running performance increases until at peeks at age 27. At what age does performance return to the same level as at age 19? Not until age 64!!! I found this unbelievable! Unlike for virtually all other sports, humans are designed to be able to run distances with excellent endurance and speed for the majority of our lives. And not just men – women are as good at distance running as men are, if not better.

This book is intended for foreigners, whether students or business people, who are coming to the USA. Its purpose is to give an overview of American culture, habits, expectations, traditions, and society, helping the foreigner to understand how and why Americans act the way that they do. The book was also a fascinating read for me as an American – I am currently studying abroad working as an English teaching assistant, and frequently am asked all kinds of questions about the USA. This book gave me many great ideas about how I can better explain American culture – it also helped me to better understand American culture myself. As the book covered sections describing many different aspects of American life and mentality, I was astonished to realize just how “American” my family and friends are!

This book is simply a collection of questions – 4000 of them! The questions are organized into sections: the latest scoop, childhood & school, family & friends, fun & sport, habits, love & sex, outlook, politics, spirituality, and work. Reading this book opened my eyes to the immense possibilities of conversation – interchanges should be engaging, intense, interesting, and personal, capable of sparking emotion, debate, disagreement, and love. Certainly, they need not be mundane and boring interminable exchanges about the weather. Through asking others intelligent and intriguing questions as well as sharing one’s own thoughts, we can have intellectually stimulating exchanges while simultaneously building strong interpersonal ties. This book is an excellent source of ideas and inspiration for expanding the repertoire of your own conversations.

Ishiguro writes with great restraint and self-control; it is only gradually that the reader picks up clues about the reality of what is happening at the at first normal-seeming Hailsham boarding school. As the story unfolds, the reader is able to piece together the logic underlying this dystopian version of England, and yet questions remain. Key among them: why are the characters so peacefully resigned to their fates? The book was a fairly captivating read, and also brought up interesting ethical questions to ponder. While the world in “Never Let Me Go” seems rather far-fetched, I thought that the rearing of the students contained many eerie parallels to the rearing of animals brought up for the commercial meat industry. Just as George Orwell’s “1984”, Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World”, and Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” are considered essential reading, so too should Kazuo Ishiguro’s “Never Let Me Go”.

Yong explains in fascinating detail how essential bacteria are to our lives – only a minority of microbial species is pathogenic, and we depend heavily on many varieties. Yong gives examples of how the lives of virtually all organisms are deeply entwined with their bacterial partners in symbiotic relationships. He also gives an overview of some recent findings in this field of research, and the great potential there is in our newfound ability to engineer and manipulate microbes to work for us. An exciting read!

Sophie’s Choice tells the story of three young boarders living in Brooklyn – Nathan, Sophie, and Stingo. Nathan is a Jew from New York, Sophie is a Polish Catholic survivor of Auschwitz, and Stingo is an aspiring writer, originally from the Southern USA. Nathan and Sophie are lovers, and Stingo becomes their best friend. The book is quite long – over 600 pages, but held my attention all the way through. It tells the story of Sophie’s past, her experiences in Auschwitz and anti-Semitism in Poland. It also explores themes of mental illness, drug addiction, alcoholism, and suicide, as it becomes clear that Nathan has schizophrenia and grapples with many issues. The book is quite tragic and powerful.

A quick read that is powerful and makes a compelling argument – while women certainly have many more opportunities today than throughout much of history, we still have much work to do in the fight for gender equality!

This book provides an interesting overview not only of how European culture has affected American culture, but also of how American culture has affected European culture. Pells describes what he calls “Transatlantic Misunderstandings” – American stereotypes of Europe and European stereotypes of America – explaining how each side viewed the other throughout the twentieth century. Focusing on music, movies, radio, media, propaganda, food, Disney theme parks, and a variety of other topics, Pells illustrates how these different cultures have influenced each other over the years, as well as contributed to the rise of a global western culture.

I had been meaning to read this for years, and finally did – and I’m so glad! “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” is a poignant memoir of Maya Angelou’s childhood. It tells of her struggles in a broken family and as a child raped at age eight, and with racism as a young black girl in the American South. Nevertheless, despite the very tough time she had, Maya emerges victorious – she triumphs over her circumstances, finds solace in and falls in love with literature, and endures with great strength of spirit. A courageous, poetic, and uplifting work.

A short novel by Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison. This book tells the story of the friendship between two black girls growing up in the American South – Nel and Sula, their fierce devotion to each other, and the eventual divergence of their lives and betrayal of each other. “Sula” contains many black female characters and also explores the themes of motherhood and the importance of the extended family.

Investigative journalist Svetlana Alexievich interviewed over 500 eyewitnesses of the Chernobyl disaster over a period of ten years, and this book tells the stories of these people. It recounts the physical details of the nuclear accident as well as the psychological effect it had on those affected, and relates the tremendous impact that the event had on their lives. A beautiful, tragic, powerful, and moving work – at times funny, and often heartbreaking. The book was originally written in Russian, but this is an excellent translation. Alexievich has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time”.

A highly imaginative and original psychological thriller! I thoroughly enjoyed this dark novel, which explores themes of obsession, violence, power, rebellion, taboo, and the line between sanity and madness. A sometimes shocking and often thought-provoking work of fiction.

I just love the idea of hygge – and this book does a great job of introducing the Danish art of coziness! This book gives practical advice for how to bring more hygge into your life, and also explores the larger themes underlying hygge – how to slow down, enjoy time with other people, feel content, and savor life. An inspirational little book with nice pictures too!

Almost everyone who has worked in biology or medicine, or even taken introductory courses in these fields, has heard of HeLa cells. This immortal human cell line is used extensively for research in laboratories around the world and has been instrumental to countless developments in modern medicine. Yet few know the story of where these cells came from. This book tells that story. HeLa cells were originally taken from the tumor of a poor black women named Henrietta Lacks by Johns Hopkins University in 1951. The cells were taken without Henrietta’s knowledge or consent. This is the story of Henrietta and her family – in a tragic twist of history, Henrietta’s surviving family members are too poor to afford health insurance. A riveting account of the life and family of Henrietta Lacks, the incredible contributions to science of the HeLa cells, and of the ethical breaches involved in this real-life saga.

Prior to reading this book, I knew very little about the Armenian Genocide of 1915. This book opened my eyes to the intense friction between modern-day Armenian and Turkish communities. Meline Toumani, an Armenian-American, grew up surrounded by the frustration of her Armenian community that Turkey had not officially acknowledged and apologized for the Armenian Genocide. Toumani decides to move to Istanbul in an effort to try to get to know and understand the Turkish people, and in the process to interview people about their positions on the Armenian genocide. The book is an interesting account of her personal experiences, but also explores larger themes: the experience of living in a culture other than one’s own and understanding those with different viewpoints, and the question of how to remember a genocide without perpetuating the hatred that gave rise to it.

This book was incredibly eye-opening, interesting, and informative! In this fascinating epidemiological study, clearly presented for the layperson, Stuckler and Basu describe the actual effects of government policies – of austerity measures, meaning the cutting of social programs in an effort to balance the budget – on human health. Through an analysis of statistics on the health of populations in different countries and during different periods, Stuckler and Basu demonstrate that austerity measures can transform economic recessions into actual epidemics, resulting in widespread health crises and the loss of life. Yet, there are alternative policies, in which a government invests in the health of its population, that not only result in improved health during an economic recession, but can also contribute to sound economic recovery as well. Stuckler and Basu mine data through historical case studies drawn from throughout the world in order to illustrate their points. From the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union to the Great Depression in America during the 1930s, to more recent effects of the recession in Greece and Iceland, the authors draw comparisons between the effects of different government policies on the health of their populations – and the results are truly astounding. Stuckler and Basu show that through making wise policy decisions based on verified data, we can prevent widespread suffering and build happier and healthier societies, while simultaneously improving fiscal health. An absolute must-read for every voter, and this should be required reading for every one of our politicians!!!

In this book, surgeon Atul Gawande addresses some of medicine’s most difficult questions and discusses the very topic that many people fear most: ageing, death, and dying. Through telling the stories of his patients and family members, he explores the limits of what medicine can and cannot do, but more importantly, what it should and should not do. Gawande argues that in some cases, we have taken medicine’s recent technical triumphs too far, endlessly providing additional treatment when in some cases it actually just prolongs suffering and decreases quality of life. Through a more open and honest acknowledgment of the reality of death and a careful consideration of factors important to living the most full life possible until the end, medicine may be better able to achieve its ultimate purpose: not just prolonging life, but helping us to lead the highest quality of lives we can. A sensitive and honest appraisal of the failures of himself, his colleagues, and the medical profession, this book is a must-read, especially for everyone who will at some point help to make care decisions for elderly family members.

The final book of Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novel series, “The Story of the Lost Child” tells of Lila and Elena as adults. Studious Elena and fiery Lila have now reached middle-age, have been involved with multiple men, and have had children. Over the years, their friendship has had its ups and downs, yet has remained a central force for both of them, despite the dramatic way in which their lives have diverged. As young girls in a poverty-stricken neighborhood of Naples, Lila and Elena both dreamed of escaping their environment. For Elena, this dream became reality – she was able to pursue an education, even attending college, move to Florence, and have a successful literary career as an author. Lila, however, was not allowed to pursue an education, despite her brilliance as a young child – she married young, had a son, and remained in Naples her whole life, working as a common laborer. This series of novels illuminates the dark side of Italian culture and working-class domestic violence and criminal activity in 1950s Naples. It also explores larger themes – of rivalry, jealousy, friendship, and love. Ferrante’s tone is intensely honest and deeply personal; this is a poignant story that can be enjoyed on a variety of different levels.

The third of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels, “Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay” continues to explore the complex and evolving bond between two young women, Lila and Elena. At this point, Lila has had a young son and has left her marriage – she now works as a low-paid laborer. Elena, on the other hand, has gone to college, something completely unprecedented in her family and community, and has published her own novel. As young children, Elena was a good student, but Lila was a brilliant student – Lila’s parents, however, refused to support her continuing education and she married very young. Over the years, Lila and Elena came to rely on each other, yet their friendship is not always happy. A captivating and enjoyable work on multiple levels.

In “The Story of a New Name”, the friendship between Lila and Elena continues to evolve and grow. At the same time, the girls begin to go their separate ways – Lila gets married at a young age and becomes involved in her family’s business, while Elena continues with school. Both young women face challenges – Lila the constraints and pressures of marriage, and Elena the pressure and stress of school. In addition to friendship, this work also explores themes of commitment, jealousy, freedom, and love. A beautiful work, honest and direct in style. I enjoyed the storyline, while at the same time also savoring the quality of the language (this is a wonderful translation) and the larger themes explored in the book.

The first of the Italian writer Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels, “My Brilliant Friend” tells the story of the friendship between two young girls, Lila and Elena. Set in Naples, Italy in the 1950s, it also explores themes of poverty, social class, gender, and education – particularly, what happens to brilliant students (especially girls) who are not provided with adequate educational opportunities. Ferrante’s tone is very honest and intensely personal – this was a book that I couldn’t put down, and which left me eager to read the remainder of the Neapolitan Novel quartet.

In this beautifully woven work of nonfiction, Mukherjee tells the fascinating story of the history of cancer treatment and research. A fellow in hematology/oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital and a former Rhodes Scholar, Mukherjee also incorporates his own experiences as a doctor, giving a poignant voice to the clinical side of cancer and to the human suffering involved. The book contains technical scientific details, but these are described in a way that is clear and understandable to the layperson. It is an informative, interesting, and at times heartbreaking account. Yet, through describing the immense advances that have been made over the centuries in cancer medicine, it is at the same time able to fill the reader with great hope for a future in which cancer will be defeated. An essential book to read, as cancer has in some way touched the lives of nearly all of us. This book has won the Pulitzer Prize, has been listed as one of the 100 most influential books of the last 100 years by TIME, and was selected as a notable book of the year by the New York Times – for good reason!

After reading Levi’s “Survival in Auschwitz”, I was eager to read the book’s sequel, “The Reawakening”. This is Levi’s account of his journey back home to his native Italy after being liberated from Auschwitz. While he is now technically free, Levi’s troubles are far from over – he faces much suffering and often brutal conditions in the Soviet Union, Hungary, and Romania as he struggles to make it back home. When reading about the Holocaust, too frequently we stop with the liberation of the Nazi death camps. Yet, for those who survived until 1945, liberation frequently marked the beginning of another intensely difficult period of healing and reintegration into society. Levi does a wonderful job of relating details about his surroundings and physical journey home, but also enlightening readers about the psychological aspects of being an Auschwitz survivor and the aftermath of spending time as a prisoner in a death camp. This book is a must-read!

This two-part play by J. K. Rowling is the long-awaited official continuation of the Harry Potter series. Harry, Ginny, Hermione, and Ron are all grown now, and have children of their own. The nostalgia was a little overwhelming when I started to read this book, such was my joy at being reunited with the characters of the Harry Potter series (who haven’t changed at all). I found that it was particularly enjoyable to meet the children, now attending Hogwarts, and see the similarities they had with their parents.

For all of us nostalgic Harry Potter fans, this book was a warm welcome back into the wizarding world! An entertaining and joyful read, with a different storyline than the Harry Potter series, but still with a similar feel, I would highly recommend reading Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them!

I read J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy at the same time as I was reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, and the two books provided a fascinating pair. While Between the World and Me describes the experience of being black in America, the Hillbilly Elegy provides interesting insight into the lives of poor, working-class whites in rural Appalachia. Through relating the personal story of the author and his family members, the Hillbilly Elegy gives powerful insight into the struggles that these people face. This book is particularly valuable for middle- and upper-class liberal Americans to read; the people described in this book are exactly the demographic that voted overwhelmingly for Trump in the 2016 election, and we need to try to understand them and their hardships.

Written as a letter to the author’s teenage son, this is a powerful work about being black in America that has much to offer. It convincingly relates one man’s experience of race in the US, describing his struggles and hardships, both in his daily life and emotionally. For many of us, it is easy to take our privileges for granted, and not to recognize the reality of life for blacks, and especially black men, in this country. This book can help us to gain a better understanding of the disadvantages American blacks still experience, and hopefully can give us a foundation from which we can work towards a better future without prejudice.

This book was absolutely fascinating! In short sections (usually just a few pages each), Dorren discusses sixty of Europe’s most widely spoken languages, as well as some that are endangered. For each language, he provides interesting background information, sometimes a funny story, and sometimes examples illustrating particular characteristics of that language. One of my favorite sections described how to look at written text and identify the language – it may be easy to tell French and German apart, but not so much Serbo-Croatian, Latvian, and Lithuanian – this guide explains how! Reading this book actually got me interested in linguistics, a subject which I previously knew nothing about, and also made me even more excited about traveling in and learning about each of Europe’s many countries.

A series of eight short stories, Viet Thanh Nguyen’s work focuses on the lives of Vietnamese immigrants to the United States, exploring the theme of what it means to belong to two countries. We watch as Nguyen’s characters express hopes and dreams, as well as their struggles in adjusting to life in their adopted country.

This book was an interesting and entertaining read, which provided a great introduction to many of the worst plagues in history. Wright covers Bubonic Plague, Dancing Plague, Smallpox, Syphilis, Tuberculosis, Cholera, Leprosy, Typhoid, Polio, and more, describing the nature of the outbreak, symptoms of disease, attempted remedies and treatments, and eventual cures (sometimes) in great detail. Additionally, Wright frequently tells the stories of the individuals who worked to eradicate the plagues, telling the stories of some of history’s unsung heroes.

This easy to read book provides a quick overview of Austria’s history, art, and culture, as well as practical tips pertaining to daily life in modern Austria. It is ideal for those planning to visit, as well as those planning to move to Austria, and concisely provides the necessary background to better understand the Austrian people and way of life. Reading this book before traveling to Austria will certainly enhance the quality of your trip to the land of Mozart, the Sound of Music, and Sacher Torte!

This is a wonderful bag! I use it to carry books with me wherever I go - and to display my pride in Powell's Bookstore (and by extension, in Portland, Oregon). I look forward to using my Powell's Kitty of Books Bag for years to come!

In this intriguing work of historical fiction, Golden describes the life and struggles of Chiyo Sakamoto. With her mother terminally ill, Chiyo is sold by her father to an okiya (a boarding house for geisha) while still a young girl, and subsequently moves from her poor fishing village to Kyoto. There, Chiyo trains to become a geisha and contends with the difficult members of her new household and their frequent cruelty towards her. The details of Chiyo’s day-to-day life during her training, apprenticeship, and career as a geisha are described in minute detail. In particular, the novel provides fascinating insight into Chiyo’s psychology and world outlook. While the story is fictional, the work is based on historical facts regarding the lives of geisha during the 1930s and 1940s. Thus, while modern feminists may find themselves at times enraged while reading this book, the perspective described provides an interesting glimpse into Pre-WWII Japanese culture.

Susan Southard – Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War - In this poignant work of nonfiction, Southard relates the personal experiences and eyewitness accounts of five survivors of the August 9, 1945 US atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan. All teenagers living in Nagasaki at the time of the bomb, these five survivors were among the approximately 75,000 people who lived through the blast but were injured. Southard describes their experiences, beginning with their lives before the bombing, their individual stories of the day the bomb was dropped, and their struggles in the years and decades afterwards. This book is a tough read: the descriptions of the havoc wreaked by the bomb are heart-wrenching, from the painful deaths of tens of thousands of civilians to the difficulties of survivors, who suffered from gruesome injuries in the immediate aftermath of the explosion, as well as from severe long-term health effects associated with high-dose whole-body radiation. While the suffering described herein is horrific, this is an essential read; as the five survivors in Southard’s book emphasize, we must understand the intense suffering caused by nuclear weapons in order to work towards a peaceful future in which they will never be used again.

Giovanni Boccaccio - The Decameron: Fourteenth-century literature might not be the first thing you think of when you’re looking for a new page-turner, but rest assured, the Decameron will not fail to delight! Giovanni Boccaccio’s classic work consists of 100 short stories told by a group of seven young women and three young men during the height of the Black Death in Italy. The group of friends retires to the countryside to spend some time in relative isolation and to replenish their spirits; over the course of ten days, they tell each other stories grouped around various themes, such as the tricks people play upon one another, methods through which wives deceive their husbands, and adventures of lovers who survive misfortunes and attain a state of happiness. The result is a collection of tales that are hilariously outrageous, highly entertaining, deeply irreverent, and anything but dull!