Summer can be a wonderful opportunity to change up our routines. If you're anything like me, your reading list is usually filled with books and articles from your research area. This summer, consider mixing up that routine with some readings that help you develop your writing, research, and career! Whether you’re working on a thesis, studying for exams, or thinking about your future, it’s always a good time to read something new.
A few years ago, we asked campus experts to recommend books for students who are working on their theses. In this year’s installment, their recommendations include books with writing tips, career exploration strategies, and stories to help you escape work to find balance. Here are their suggestions:
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
Check it out from the University Library
Recommended by Wojtek Chodzko-Zajko, Dean of the Graduate College
Reading has always been one of my favorite pastimes and I am delighted to be able to recommend Amor Towles’s A Gentleman in Moscow. Towles’s second novel tells the story of Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov and his life under house arrest in the luxurious Hotel Metropol in the center of Moscow. My own family hails from Eastern Europe and the trials and tribulations faced by the count during his almost forty years of imprisonment in the hotel are especially meaningful to me since both my mother and father also were imprisoned by Stalin’s Bolshevik regime during their childhood.
When I was asked to provide a recommendation for a book to read for the Graduate College book blog, I decided not to choose a book about research strategy, graduate education, or a self-help book designed to make you a better person. For me, the beauty of literature is its ability to help us escape from our everyday lives, to take a break, to help us to achieve a balance between our work and our lives.
A Gentleman in Moscow takes place almost entirely within the walls of a dignified old-world Moscow hotel. The Count initially stayed in suite 317 of the Metropole, only to be thrown out of these palatial lodgings into a markedly less luxurious room in the attic of the servant quarters. Rostov had been tried and sentenced in 1922 for writing a poem, avoiding a death sentence because he was considered a hero of the pre-revolutionary cause. Instead he is banished to the Metropole and told he would be executed should he ever attempt to leave.
Over the course of the next forty years of his imprisonment, we are introduced to many characters who recur throughout the story. Some are the hotel employees who work alongside the Count in his new role as the hotel’s maître d’ and sommelier. Others, like his childhood friend Mishka, visit the hotel to share stories of the hard times and censorship at the hands of the party. Soon after his house arrest, Rostov befriends Nina, a young girl who often visits the hotel with her parents. Rostov becomes Nina’s mentor and confidante, she is full of energy and a passion for learning, spending many hours roaming the hotel with the Count taking advantage of a skeleton key Nina had acquired them that allowed them to access to the many secrets of the Metropole. Nina reappears years later as an adult, but I will not spoil the book by revealing the details of their final meeting.
What I like most about this book is the extraordinary resilience that Count Rostov shows in the face of adversity. He is simultaneously an intellectual, a wit, and a kind and generous person. He never succumbs, he is an optimist, always determined to find a way to make the best of a bad situation. I like to think that, if more of us were to follow Rostov’s lead, we too would find a way to triumph over adversity.
Write No Matter What: Advice for Academics by Joli Jensen
Check it out from the University Library
Recommended by Gloriana Gonzalez Rivera, Professor and Associate Department Head of Graduate Programs in Curriculum & Instruction
I’m always looking for books about academic writing. Since English is my second language and my background is in mathematics, I figured out early in my career that I had to develop writing habits for disseminating my research. This book has specific strategies to improve academic writing. But what I love the most about the book is that it situates writing within other academic demands and provides a realistic view of expectations for scholarly writing. Beyond getting a thesis or a dissertation done, the writing habits that people learn during their graduate program sustain future academic work. Jensen taught me to think about academic writing as a craft and renew my enthusiasm for writing.
Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James
Check it out from the University Library
Recommended by Kamau Grantham, Clinical Counselor at the Counseling Center
Looking for an escape from your stress? Then take a journey into the New York Times-bestseller Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James. In this African fantasy novel you follow Tracker on his quest to find a mysterious boy who disappeared three years ago. Along the way he encounters mythical creatures and mysterious characters, with a storyline that will have you asking questions until the very end. I am considering re-reading all 640 pages to appreciate all of the nuances of the story. If you enjoy Lord of the Rings, then this book is for you. This would make an epic film. Oh, and did I mention this is only book one in a trilogy? Book two is out now.
Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans
Check it out from the University Library
Recommended by Robby Goldman, PhD Candidate in Geology
Designing Your Life, a book modeled from Burnett and Evans’ Stanford course of the same name, provides an interactive, engaging, and insightful journey into the career exploration process. Burnett and Evans teach the reader to view their career (and life) journey “like a designer” through fun, thoughtful exercises that help reframe “dysfunctional beliefs” (e.g., “I should know where I’m going!”) into practical sources of motivation (e.g., “I won’t always know where I’m going--but I can always know whether I’m going in the right direction”). In short, this book provides a fresh reminder for students and seasoned professionals alike that “it’s never too late to design a life you love.”
The Data Storytelling Workbook by Anna Feigenbaum and Aria Alamalhodaei
Check out a preview on Google Books
Recommended by Sandi Caldrone, Research Data Librarian
The Data Storytelling Workbook by Anna Feigenbaum and Aria Alamalhodaei is for anyone who communicates with data, which is everyone these days. Using journalistic examples anyone can relate to, the authors demonstrate how elements of good storytelling – narrative, characters, conflict – apply to data. This is not about spinning or distorting data to tell a particular story. It’s about understanding what data can tell us, and finding the clearest way to communicate that message to your audience. It’s also a compact and engaging read with short, well-organized sections that make it a handy reference.
Work Won’t Love You Back by Sarah Jaffe
Check it out from the University Library
Recommended by Derek Attig, Assistant Dean for Career and Professional Development
Working on a thesis or dissertation can be all-encompassing. It takes an enormous amount of time and energy, squeezing itself into all corners of your life. In academic research settings, there is often a collapsing of work and self—how often do you introduce yourself by describing your dissertation topic?—that can make it hard to set boundaries. Jaffe’s book is all about why finding distance between yourself and your work is important, and it can be a useful companion as you build a productive but healthy relationship with your dissertation (and whatever work comes after it).
Emily Wuchner is the Associate Director for Student Experience at the Graduate College. She holds a PhD in musicology from the University of Illinois, and her work focuses on music and social welfare in eighteenth-century Austria. In her free time, she enjoys boxing, reading, and knitting and crochet.
