The Bookworm 2021-2022

The Bookworm

a reader’s guide by the faculty of falmouth academy 32nd edition | 2021-2022

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The Bookworm

Book Recommendations on Climate Change From Librarian Britta Santamauro Falmouth Academy

ADULT NONFICTION Dark Side of the Ocean: The Destruction of Our Seas, Why It Matters, and What We Can Do About It (Planet in Crisis) Albert Bates (2020)

Warmth: Coming of Age at the End of the World Daniel Sherrell (2021)

We are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast Jonathan Safran Foer (2019)

Our House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis Greta Thunberg (2020)

How to Avoid Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need Bill Gates (2021)

Believers: Making a Life at the End of the World Lisa Wells (2021)

Climate Change and the Road to Net-Zero Matthew Hampshire-Waugh (2021)

Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squids Thor Hansen (2021)

YOUNG ADULT Green Nation Revolution: Use Your Future to Change the World Valentian Gianella and Lucia Esther Maruzelli (2020)

Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation Paul Hawken (2021)

The Anthropocene Reviewed John Green (2021)

The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go from Here Hope Jahren (2020)

Taking on the Plastics Crisis Hannah Testa (2020)

Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters Steven E. Koonin (2021) We Are All Whalers: The Plight of Whales and Our Responsibility Michael Moore (2021) How to Prepare for Climate Change: A Practical Guide on How to Survive the Chaos David Pogue (2020) Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don’t Know You Have Tatiana Schlossberg (2019)

Administration Matthew Green, Head of School Michael Earley, Assistant Head of School Petra Ehrenbrink, Academic Dean Pamela Clapp Hinkle, Director of Development Julie Bradley, Director of Admission and Enrollment Management Carmen DiSanto, Director of Finance & Operations

Editorial Staff ADULT FICTION Bewilderment Richard Powers (2021)

Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming Paul Hawken (2017)

7 Highfield Drive, Falmouth, MA 02540 508-457-9696 falmouthacademy.org

No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference Greta Thunberg (2019)

Seen: Rachel Carson Birdie Willis (2021)

Fins (Sharks Incorporated, 1) Randy Wayne White (2021)

The climate crisis is a crisis of humanity, requiring far more than mitigation and adaptation, but a renewed sense of shared destiny.

—Richard Branson

Amy Galvam, Director of Communications Julianne Waite, Designer

Our Mission Harnessing the power of inspired learning in a world-renowned scientific and vibrant artistic community, Falmouth Academy emboldens each student to take creative and intellectual risks to confidently engage the challenges of our times.

Guiding Values We value...

• the beauty of knowledge and the joy of conversation • collaboration and generosity of spirit • the power of a culture of kindness • relationships built on trust, respect, and direct communication • the wonder of imagination • each student’s pursuit of diverse challenges and opportunities • teachers as models of confident, rich adulthood • the richness of an educational experience that includes people with diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and identities

DEI Statement of Commitment Falmouth Academy is committed to continued growth in the area of diversity, equity, and inclusion. We intentionally strive to be a community of dedicated learners who understand their roles and responsibilities as local and global citizens confronting the challenges of our times. We call all members of our community to actively engage in their own learning regarding biases and social injustices specific to ethnicity, gender identity and expression, racism, family composition, ablebodiedness, learning styles, religion, sexuality, age, and socio-economic status. In this pursuit, we continuously aim to create a safe and inclusive community where each member is seen, respected, and empowered to contribute.

From the Librarian

Dear Friends, BuiIding on FA’s long-standing commitment to environmental stewardship and inspired by a shared strategic vision that is deeply rooted in Falmouth Academy’s mission “to embolden each student to take creative and intellectual risks to engage the challenges of our times,” our faculty committed to reading one book together over the summer that would enrich and enlighten us about our changing climate.

Climate Justice by Mary Robinson, took us on a journey from the Sahel region of the Republic of Chad to East Biloxi, Mississippi, and shared the stories of several unlikely climate activists from communities on the frontline of climate change. This powerful book demonstrates that individual action can lead to larger positive change. When taken collectively, these stories are a proverbial canary in a coal mine: what is happening now in some of the most marginal and vulnerable communities will eventually be happening everywhere.

To further our strategic goals, Falmouth Academy launched a new 9th-grade cross-curricular program this fall. “Changing Earth” looks at how the planet and its inhabitants are being affected by a changing climate, how we might adapt to those changes, and what positive actions we can take to help mitigate the effects. Students are engaging these themes in their science, English, and history classes.

In addition, FA’s Students for Social Justice will host a regional social and climate justice conference this spring for students from throughout southeastern Massachusetts, Joining Together: Sparking Change. Derick Lugo, author of The Unlikely Thru-Hiker, will give the keynote followed by breakout sessions focused on the intersection of climate justice, human rights, advocacy, and social action.

I was inspired by the work of my colleagues and the strategic direction of the school to dedicate this issue of The Bookworm to the study of climate change. I’m pleased to share with you a list of books on the subject that might encourage or educate you in charting your own path forward in response to this collective challenge. In addition to the list, which you’ll find on the opposite page, check out the United Nation’s Lazy Person’s Guide to Saving the Planet (un.org/sustainabledevelopment/takeaction), which details several easy ways to be part of the solution.

Please enjoy this year’s faculty book reviews as well as the themed selection. I hope that reading will bring you joy.

Sincerely yours,

Britta Santamauro Director of Library and Media Services

FALMOUTH ACADEMY Founded in 1977 as an independent day school for students in grades 7 to 12 and situated on 34 acres in downtown Falmouth, Falmouth Academy is a community carefully designed so that teachers and students know each other and work together.

Inspired by the teaching excellence of its faculty, the impressive professional accomplishments of its alumni, and a longstanding reputation for academic achievement, Falmouth Academy strives to be the standard for educational excellence in southern New England. We prepare our students to become lifelong learners and engaged and responsible citizens, ready and eager to meet the challenges of the future. We connect our students to other ideas, places, and cultures by creating relevant learning opportunities in and out of the classroom to cultivate the curiosity, creativity, and capacity necessary to fully participate in a diverse society within an increasingly interconnected global world.

Learn why students travel from more than 22 towns across Cape Cod, the South Shore, the South Coast, and Martha’s Vineyard each day to attend Falmouth Academy at falmouthacademy.org.

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Alison Ament

Science

Island of Sea Women Lisa See

This is an amazing novel based on the true-life story of Korean women who dive in the ocean to hand collect saleable seafood items such as abalone and octopus. The culture of these women has existed for many generations on the island of Jeju, south of mainland Korea. The story focuses on the past four generations of women divers, spanning Korean history through idyllic times, Japanese occupation, and post-World War II American presence. There are surprising descriptions of the dangers of this work and of cultural norms for the group, such as the matriarchal hierarchy and the desirability of giving birth in the ocean while on a diving trip. The historical descriptions are important, and I also appreciated learning about the endeavors of visiting scientists to understand the women’s ability to free dive for many minutes in frigid water in winter.

Though this sounds like a lot of historical description, Island of the Sea Women is a fast-moving novel centered on the friendship and falling out of two women.

Middlemarch George Eliot

This well-known novel is set in rural England from 1829–1830 and was first published in 1871–1872. In great detail, the lives and interactions of a series of provincial characters in the town of Middlemarch are explored via gorgeous writing. We meet young women, young men, and their elders as they move through occasions of love and duty, intersecting with difficulties of class and money. We encounter the role of the church, politics, and medicine. Eliot provides a thorough and deeply engaging investigation of her characters’ good intentions, emotions, misunderstandings, failures to explain themselves, and follies. Here is an example of the language: “Mr. Bulstrode in things worldly and indifferent was disposed to do what his wife bade him, and she now, without telling her reasons, desired him on the next opportunity to find out in conversation with Mr. Lydgate whether he had any intention of marrying soon.”

Matt Barnes

History

On Juneteenth

Annette Gordon-Reed

Rarely does a single book change the course of a historical figure’s narrative. In her seminal work, Annette Gordon-Reed reframed the cultural conversation about Thomas Jefferson in her Pulitzer Prize winning book The Hemmings at Monticello.

In her most recent work, Gordon-Reed once

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again brings her pen to reshape the narrative of emancipation.

On Juneteenth brings to light our nation’s newest federal holiday. At a poignant 150 pages, Annette Gordon-Reed develops a nuance and depth that many books fail to achieve.

On June 19, 1865, two years after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, the last enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, were released from their bondage. Gordon-Reed traces the roots of the arduous process of memorializing this event. This past year, our nation celebrated the first federal Juneteenth holiday. It marked the first expansion of our federally recognized holidays since Martin Luther King Jr Day was established in 1983. Nations and societies dedicate holidays to the traditions and virtues developed over time.

This book will guide readers towards a history that deserves greater recognition and understanding of American values such as freedom and individual liberty. On Juneteenth is a new modern classic that should be read yearly, as people read other classics such as the Declaration of Independence or Frederick Douglass’ What is the Fourth of July to a Slave?

Martha Borden

Director of Technology

The Midnight Library Matt Haig

Should have, could have, would have.

Nora Seed defines her young life with these phrases. Should have pursued her philosophy degree. Could have been a famous rock star.

Could have travelled. Would have been happy if she’d married. Would have made her family happy and proud if only she... Nora’s life is one of regrets and lost opportunities. When she loses her dead-end job and her only piano student, Nora sees only one way to end the cycle of endless disappointments.

But the universe, or what is in the Midnight Library, has other plans for Nora.

The shelves in the Midnight Library hold the stories of each life Nora would have lived if she had made the choices her family and friends laid out for her. Each story, each alternate universe, holds the potential to wipe out a regret. Nora only has to choose between the books on the shelves to try on life in an alternate universe. But will she find the life she was meant to live there?

The writing is poignant one moment and funny the next, weaving the philosophy of Thoreau throughout the book.

Each life lived provides closure to the regrets and guilt Nora has held onto and to accepting the choices she made. Not to give the ending away, Nora ultimately finds happiness in the life she has and not one defined by others. For this reader the story ends on a wonderfully hopeful note, although I felt as if the author may have watched It’s A Wonderful Life a few too many times.

The Second Life of Mirielle West Amanda Skenandore Married to a Hollywood silent film star, Mirielle West’s life is one anyone would envy.

But when a small patch of skin on the back of her hand leads to a diagnosis of leprosy, Mirielle’s world comes crashing down around her. Sent against her will to the U.S. Marine Hospital Sixty-Six in Carville, Louisiana, Mirielle believes she is more a prisoner than a patient as the hope for a cure and a return to her family is elusive. To shield her family from the stigma of the disease, Mirielle must find a way to leave her old life behind and create a new one within the walls of the hospital, a life with purpose.

I was immediately drawn into Mirielle’s story. Her evolution throughout the story gives the book momentum and carries the reader all the way to the end of the book. While the story did not end as I anticipated, I was not disappointed. The Second Life of Mireille West is a wonderful read.

Barbara Campbell

Director of Alumni and Parent Relations

The Book of Lost Names Kristin Harmel

I’ve always been interested in historical fiction, especially tales of resiliency, bravery, and courage during the Holocaust and World War II, and I was not disappointed in my vacation reading choices this year.

In The Book of Lost Names, artist Eva Traube flees Paris for the Free Zone, where she becomes a forger of documents for Jewish children, some not old enough to remember or even know their original names or families. Distressed that she is essentially “erasing” these children, Eva chooses a very old book in the church basement where she does her work to record the names of these children using a code derived from the Fibonacci sequence.

The Warsaw Orphan Kelly Rimmer

The Warsaw Orphan shows us the courage of those who defied the Nazis to smuggle children from the Warsaw Ghetto to freedom.

This book was inspired by the real-life heroine, Irena Sendler, who saved thousands of Jewish children during the war.

The Woman with the Blue Star Pam Jenoff

Taking place in the Krakow Ghetto, The Woman with the Blue Star portrays the determination of two families to survive in the sewer, with some help from outside supporters, rather than be arrested and taken to the camps. In the end, in the midst of munition explosions along the pipes, a daring escape will determine who actually survives.

The Orphan's Tale Pam Jenoff

Hearing a baby’s cry as she is scrubbing the floors of Bahnhof Bensheim, Noa discovers a boxcar containing Jewish infants destined for a concentration camp. She picks up a boy and runs just as she hears police near the train.

While Noa is Dutch, the boy, whom she names Theo, is Jewish, and she knows she must leave the area before they are discovered. They find refuge with a German circus where Noa learns to become a trapeze aerialist to avoid detection.

The Lost Girls of Paris Pam Jenoff

The Lost Girls of Paris is a story based on Britain’s real-life female secret agents who were chosen to become secret wireless radio operators, among other things, behind enemy lines in France. A traitor in the British office exposes the women and many of the men in their fight for freedom. Through an intrepid American, who discovers photos of the women in an abandoned suitcase in Grand Central Station, the story, and the families, finally have closure.

Christine Carter

French

For Your Own Good Samantha Downing

A familiar setting—a renowned New England private school—but an unsettling series of events. Teddy Crutcher is a tough teacher, demanding of his students and scornful of his colleagues. If you are one of his favorites, he’ll do anything to help you. If not—he won’t make your life easy. He must be doing something right, though, after winning “Teacher of the Year”—even when his cherished plaque goes missing. All Teddy wants is for his students to listen to him, for them to try and be less selfish, more focused, and for their wealthy, overbearing parents to stop fixing their problems for them. Although many of the students find him harsh, he reassures himself that everything he does is “for their own good.” When a series of deaths at the school begins The Bookworm 2021-22

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to look suspicious, Teddy just wants to return to helping his students become the best they can be, and he’ll do anything to make that happen. Dark but funny, with a large cast of intriguing characters, all with different motives for uncovering what’s behind the deaths at Belmont, this book will have you rooting for both everyone and no one, and probably putting some kind of safety device on your lunchbox.

Survive the Night Riley Sager

Charlie is an average college student, obsessed with film, debating on how serious she wants to be with her boyfriend—but she is also grieving the murder of her beloved roommate, Maddie. After deciding she can no longer handle the memories of Maddie that loom over campus, Charlie decides to leave school for good. She answers an ad for a rideshare and embarks on a long trip home with Josh Baxter, who claims to be a worker at the college, on his way home to care for his sick father. Things don't add up when Charlie asks Josh about his life, and some strange behaviors lead her to think she might actually be trapped in the car with Maddie’s killer. But problems from Charlie’s past make her unsure of what is real and what she is imagining, so all she can focus on is wondering, will she survive the night?

Malibu Rising

Taylor Jenkins Reid

The Riva family is notorious in Malibu.

Children of the womanizing singer Mick Riva, the family boasts a famous model, surfer, photographer, along with kid sister Kit, and an equally famous end-of-summer party.

Malibu residents look forward to the party all year, and a flow of alcohol, drugs, and famous attendees promise both drama and romance. But this year, 1983, the Riva family will be forced to confront some hard truths and secrets before the night is over.

A fun but poignant read that will transport you to 1980s Malibu—if you’re feeling chilly on a cool autumn night, warm yourself up with this crackling novel.

Eleanor Clark

English

Encounters with the Archdruid John McPhee

“The river sometimes leaps straight up through the raft,” John McPhee writes, when reflecting on a trip down the Colorado, “but that is a mark of stability rather than imminent disaster. The raft is informal and extremely plastic. Its lack of rigidity makes it safe.” McPhee’s companions, on this particular trip, and on the others he describes in Encounters with the Archdruid, do not, at first glance, appear 4

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to be rafts. Fierce in their opinions, they seem anything but flexible, which is, of course, why he has chosen them: Charles Park, a geologist and mineral engineer, “who believes that if copper were to be found under the White House, the White House should be moved;” Charles Fraser, the developer responsible for Sea Pines Plantation on Hilton Head; Floyd Dominy, the cigar-chewing, string-tie-wearing Commissioner of Reclamation and force behind Glen Canyon Dam; and David Brower, the leader of the Sierra Club who pulled the organization into national prominence. David Brower, lover of beauty and wilderness, the “Archdruid himself,” gets invited on all three of McPhee’s trips. And therein lies the delight of the book. Apparently the encounters, as improbable as they may sound, were not unwelcome. As McPhee recalls, when he asked Dominy: “If Dave Brower gets into a rubber raft going down the Colorado River, will you get in it, too?” Dominy’s response was simply, “Hell, yes…Hell, yes,” which is not unlike how I felt reading McPhee’s book. Part of what makes the description of these trips so wonderful is the subversion of expectations. Fraser, it turns out, refuses to take down a tree in his development unless a car has crashed into it twice. Park can identify the presence of a pileated woodpecker simply by glancing at a square hole in a cedar stump. And while they do not become any less themselves, the four men move through questions—important questions—about land use and accessibility and the nature of wilderness with intelligence and humor, welcoming the challenge and ready to respect. I say “four men,” when of course there is a quiet fifth. Every now and then McPhee hints at his presence, maybe tending to a blister or enjoying a drink from a metal mug, yet a large part of the genius of McPhee’s writing is that, with its elegant simplicity, it tricks us into immersing ourselves in the journey while forgetting we have a tour guide who carefully organized the whole trip, waterfalls and all. Encounters with the Archdruid was published in 1971. It is almost as old as I am. I found myself wondering, as I revisited it this year, if I should feel depressed that the questions and concerns about land-use and the environment seem like ones we are still having. I am choosing, instead, to feel inspired. At one point Dominy takes a sip of whiskey from Brower’s iconic Sierra Club cup, and we are reminded of the power of good conversation.

Carol DiFalco

School Counselor and DEI Coordinator

Klara and the Sun Kazuo Ishiguro

At what cost would a parent try to advance the security and wellbeing of their child? At what cost is a child shielded from perceived dangers in the world? At what cost would a parent avoid anticipated grief? In Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro presents a nuanced perspective to understanding what it means to be human. At first glance, I thought this book would explore the complexities of human emotion through the lens of artificial intelligence. As interesting a prospect as this may have been, this was merely the surface

covering the substance below. Cleverly, Ishiguro invites the reader to follow Klara, the anomalous narrator, and rather outdated AF (artificial friend) on her journey to be the best friend she can be to her human companion, Josie. Time and again, Klara transcribes the character’s human behaviors to the reader, which the reader, with appreciation for emotional intelligence, draws out the nuanced underlying questions plaguing Josie and her mother. Examining Klara’s interpretation of what it means to be human, the reader is left to grapple with the essential question with no clear answer: at what cost...?

Mike Earley

next. Over many years, they worked to cultivate and protect the land and to raise their children. Their love for their homeland and their strong belief in being honorable people never wavered, even when they had to defend their rights against looters, the mafia, and people with archaeological interests—the hill was believed to hide the ruins of an ancient Greek town, Krimisa—and others who wanted to exploit the coast. Carmin Abate’s descriptions of the rugged Rossarco terrain with its natural beauty, colors, and scents are so vivid that it transports the reader to the hillsides of Calabria.

Petra Ehrenbrink Assistant Head of School, Modern Language

Owls of the Eastern Ice

A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself Peter Ho Davies

Jonathan Slaght

In this book, the author recounts the years he spent trying to research an elusive and endangered fish owl so that steps might be taken to protect the species. The birds live mostly in the wilderness of far eastern Russia, and the research can only be conducted in winter because the birds can be located near the rare patches of unfrozen water and travel is easier thanks to the frozen rivers. The work is grueling and dangerous and the living quarters are not exactly comfortable.

At different times the author and his colleagues live in the back of a military truck and at the remote cabin of a gruff but endearing hermit. While it is nonfiction, many of the characters seem like they belong in a novel. The author’s colleagues are a grizzled and eccentric group themselves (one of them free-climbs huge trees in his socks to get a good look in nests) and that is before you meet the cast of locals who house and transport them. The main challenge they face is learning how to catch the owls for tagging, a process that goes through several iterations before they settle on a low-tech but ingenious approach that works. This is a great book if you’re into conservation, but it is also quite comedic throughout.

Gundhild Eder

Modern Language

Der Hügel des Windes (The Hill of the Wind) Carmine Abate

This summer I picked up a book that I started reading a few years ago but never got to finish. Carmine Abate’s novel, which was first published under the Italian title, La Collina del Vento, is a compelling saga about a peasant family that stretches over several generations, from the early 1900s to today. Rossarco, a hill on the beautiful coast of Calabria, is the backdrop for the story and interwoven with the destiny of the Arcuri family. Here, where during the summertime sweet clover colors the hill in a magnificent red, and the wind seems to whisper to you, the Arcuri families passed on their traditions, dreams, and secrets from one generation to the

Academic Dean and Department Chair, Modern Language

This brief account of parenting is a heart-wrenching, complicated meditation of the repercussions of choice, grief, and shame—and the point when fact might turn into fiction and for what reason. The author’s prose is spare and fearlessly soul-baring. I read this memorable account in one afternoon.

Mirrorland

Carole Johnstone

Gone Girl meets Room in this dark and well-plotted psychological suspense novel about a twin who must decipher numerous mysteriously appearing clues to uncover the fate of her missing sister. It’s a mesmerizing exploration of how reality may spark the power of imagination and how the line between the two can become fluid.

The Ice Swimmer Kjell Ola Dahl

A body pulled out of Oslo Harbor before Christmas sets Detective Lena Stigersand and her colleagues on a surprise collision course with the Norwegian establishment. If you like Nordic noir, this latest installment in the Oslo Detectives series is a complex example that will make you want to keep turning the pages.

Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave Ona Judge Erica Armstrong Dunbar

What a story! This book explores the life of Ona Judge and pits her (successful) plan to achieve freedom against the elaborate maneuvers George and Martha Washington undertook to hold on to their “human property” in the ever-changing landscape of slavery laws of the then-young republic.

Dunbar, both a historian and National Book The Bookworm 2021-22

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Award finalist, successfully weaves together research and storytelling into a readable account that will most likely alter your view of the nation’s first First Family.

Among the Beasts & Briars Ashley Poston

This story reads like a classic fairytale in the best way, infusing familiar elements with originality and turning some of them upside down. As Cerys ponders her role as the future royal gardener of peaceful Aloriya, evil forces invade and force her to flee into the foreboding Wildwood where secrets remain to be uncovered. Poston creates elegant twists and turns where beautiful things can become terrifying and evil creatures might act because of noble intentions. If you like fairy tales, you will love this book. I did.

Thai town, “Claude—Poppy” even finds a bathroom for kathoeys with a sign on its door depicting “a person whose left, blue leg was in pants, and whose right, red leg came out from under a skirt.” After seeing this sign, Rosie and her fifth-grader are ready to go back home to Seattle. Rosie realizes that her child’s gender identity does not necessarily have to be squeezed into just two gender categories. She ponders: “Closet or rooftop? Blockers or puberty? Surgery or hormones? Both or neither? Girl or boy or in between? Today or tomorrow?

Next month or next year?” This story gently guides the reader through new thoughts and ideas, and opens up possibilities outside the box of our traditional Western binary understanding of gender identity.

Amy Galvam

Director of Communications

The Anthropocene Reviewed John Green

Bettina Freelund

Modern Language

This Is How It Always Is Laurie Frankel

A dear friend of mine highly recommended reading this novel. Now I know why it became a New York Times best seller. Once I started reading it, I just couldn’t put it down.

I may have stayed up way, way past my bedtime. With humor and deep empathy, Laurie Frankel draws us into the lives of an unconventional yet fairly typical modern family in Madison, Wisconsin. Raising their five boys, Roosevelt, Ben, Rigel, Orion, and Claude, Dr. Rosie Walsh and her stay-at-home writer husband Penn Adams are faced with the complicated and messy challenges of change and its deeply unsettling uncertainties. Their journey starts when five-yearold Claude declares that he wants to be a scientist when he grows up. A girl scientist, he insists. In the privacy of the family home, he loves to wear his favorite “tea-length” dress with colorful barrettes and matching jewelry. Once Claude goes to preschool wearing his beloved tea-length dresses, his “real clothes” as he says, the five-year-old already has to decide which bathroom to use. The preschool policy issue brings forth the limitations of a culture based on the notion of a primarily binary gender identity. Wholeheartedly supporting Claude to become Poppy, yet understanding the precariousness of “Poppyclaude’s” identity outside their home, Rosie and Penn decide to pursue the path that at first causes the least amount of pain for all involved. After moving to a more liberal and LBTGQ friendly Seattle, they keep Poppy’s gender identity secret. The secret takes its toll on the entire family, until one day it explodes. Poppy is outed and shunned.

Rosie takes her youngest to Thailand to get away from an increasingly toxic situation, and starts working as a physician in a remote village in the north of the country. There, they encounter Rosie’s transgender assistant named K. Deeply embedded in the Buddhist tradition of karma, transgender kathoeys like K. are understood as a third gender. In a small 6

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Prior to picking up this latest work by John Green, my daughter’s favorite author of Fault in Our Stars fame, I had never heard of the term Anthropocene. I also didn’t know that this was Green’s first foray into writing nonfiction and his reason for doing so was heart-warming. He wants his readers to know him and not just assume to know him through the characters he creates.

The Anthropocene is our current geological age and the Great Acceleration is the most recent period, when human activity has profoundly shaped the planet and its biodiversity since the Industrial Revolution, gaining speed after WWII. Green, through a series of essays, reviews different aspects of our human-centered existence on the planet using a five-star scale, similar to what you see on Google and Yelp.

Did you know that Dr. Pepper was the first soda in history not named for what it tastes like? The U.S. trademark courts designated Dr. Pepper and its knock-offs as pepper sodas even though there is no pepper in it. Green asserts that “Dr. Pepper is an artificial drink that doesn’t taste like anything,” which to his mind makes it the perfect human-centered topic. He also notes people’s mass addiction to caffeine and sugar, two of the defining chemical compounds of the Anthropocene, which is fed by the billion-dollar soda industry, as equally worthy of consideration.

Whether detailing the history and merits of Diet Dr. Pepper, the nuisance of resident Canadian geese, or why he loves his not-so-easy-to-love hometown of Indianapolis, Green uses his keen sense of observation, humor, and wisdom to help us consider how to live in this age of accelerated change with hope for the future without falling into despair. He induces readers to “pay attention to what you pay attention to,” and notice where our small lives run into the larger forces of the Anthropocene, but most of all, to fall in love with the world.

I give The Anthropocene Reviewed five stars.

Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted Suleika Jaouad

Given how much I enjoyed the bittersweet but fiercely honest memoir by Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air, I wasn’t surprised that I was drawn to Between Two Kingdoms.

Both Kalanithi and Jaouad are well-educated young professionals whose futures are exceptionally bright but whose paths have been derailed unexpectedly by cancer. They find solace and purpose in writing about what is happening to them.

After graduating from Princeton, Jaouad joined her boyfriend in Paris and was planning a career as a war correspondent when utter exhaustion brought her home to New York City for what she called her “incanceration.” Jaouad was 22 when she’s diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia and spent the next four years undergoing an excruciating treatment regime that left her frail and isolated, and faced with the very real possibility that it wouldn’t work. She was only given a one in three chance of beating her cancer. As a way to cope, she started blogging about her experience and was offered her own column in the New York Times, “Life, Interrupted.” Jaouad also produced an Emmy Award-winning video series for the Times. Her projects touched people from all walks of life who reached out to her to share their stories. These connections expanded Jaouad’s worldview and gave her hope.

Once pronounced cancer-free, Jaouad found herself single after the end of her long-term relationship, with her initial professional aspirations long past, unsure of her body, terrified of this new world, yet needing to find her way forward. She borrowed a friend’s Subaru, after just teaching herself how to drive, and set off from New York City for a 15,000-mile trek.

Together she and her dog Oscar visited a few of the many people who responded to her blog. She visited people living with cancer, those mourning the loss of loved ones, and a death-row inmate in Texas, Lil’ GQ, who saw unique parallels to their shared experience of isolation.

The book’s title was inspired by Susan Sontag’s 1978 essay, “Illness as Metaphor,” where she described the reality that all of us will experience illness and death eventually but that it is how we do so that matters.

Stories of Your Life and Others Ted Chiang

Story of Your Life, a science fiction novella written by Ted Chiang that was first published in 1998, was awarded the Nebula award in 2000. It was later adapted for the big screen by Erik Heisserer. Arrival, the 2016 box-office hit, was directed by Denis Villeneuve and starred Amy Adams. This short collection of stories by Ted Chiang includes “Story of Your Life” in addition to all seven of Chiang’s previously published award-winning science fiction stories with one new one. Some consider him to be the most honored modern scientific writer. He received the John W.

Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1992. "Tower of Babylon," his first published story, won the Nebula Award in 1990 and his other stories have won the Hugo Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, the Sidewise Award, and many more.

Chiang is not just skilled at making complex scientific concepts accessible to the reader but forges a connection to his characters through masterful storytelling that is not just plotand action-driven. He explores big philosophical themes that call into question fundamental human beliefs and scientific principles. What if we could perceive life nonlinearly so that we experienced the past, present, and future simultaneously?

What if the principles of mathematics were proven to be arbitrary? How would our understanding of evolution and the role of humans in scientific discovery change if humans were superseded by metahumans of their own creation?

The last story, “Liking What You See: A Documentary” was particularly powerful to me as a parent of teenage daughters growing up in the age of Snapchat and Instagram. It explores the privilege of beauty and how it relates to status and power as well as the ethics of technology and politics to shape social behavior.

Joshua Rothman of The New Yorker calls Chiang’s writing, “soulful science fiction.” While not easy reading for those of us more comfortable in the realm of liberal arts or social studies, it does invite curiosity about scientific discovery and innovation, as well as contemplation of the role of humans in these endeavors.

Matt Green

Head of School

Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance Richard Powers

The decision to read Richard Powers’ Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance was, I suppose, a bit impulsive. I was perusing the shelves of the Concord Bookshop a few hours before spending the long weekend with my wife’s extended family, a delightful albeit raucous cohort of 21, including 11 children, and I had forgotten to pack any reading material that might provide a few minutes of quiet respite from the festivities. Recalling how thoroughly I had enjoyed Powers’ latest, The Overstory, an epic exploration of the lives of trees and the people who love them, I found my way to the P section. Nestled among four or five copies of that 2019 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Fiction sat Powers’ debut novel, which hit the shelves way back in 1985. A quick scan of the back cover testimonials, among them, “a scintillating, high octane intellectual flight of fancy,” and “an electrifying whale of a book about nothing less than the twentieth century,” and I was sold.

In the end, I am not sure the book deserved praise quite this high, Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance is a cleverly constructed and intellectually stimulating exploration of the social change wrought by the Industrial Revolution and the Age of Machines.

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I have read very few books wherein the cover figured so prominently. It is a black and white photograph of the titular characters, three well dressed young men on a dirt road in front of a field on their way somewhere but pausing momentarily to look back toward a man whom we learn later is the renowned photographer August Sander. The “dance” which these farmers are on their way to turns out to be the first world war and the photo, famous for capturing an historical inflection point between agrarian and industrial, innocence and experience, the past and the future, is Powers’ launching pad for five separately narrated but interconnected stories told in two parallel narratives, one during the war and one in the novel’s present, 1980s Detroit and Boston.

In all of these stories Powers considers technology and, in particular, how it has seemingly mechanized and therefore hastened the spiritual and perhaps literal demise of the human species. Along the way, he invites the reader to indulge him as he discusses topics such as the nature of photography as an art form and the extent to which Henry Ford is the embodiment of the new century.

Three Farmers on the Way to a Dance is no beach read and it does suffer a bit from the self-importance that is not atypical of first novels. If you are willing to work a bit, though, it will pay you back and then some. The question of what it means to be human in an era of rapid technological advancement, of how to negotiate that uneasy relationship between man and his machines, has persisted well past the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918.

Migrations

Charlotte McConaghy

Charlotte McConaghy’s 2020 novel, Migrations, is one of the strongest examples of a genre that has come to be known as “cli-fi.” Set in the not-too-distant future, the book imagines a world in which currently endangered species have gone extinct while those merely threatened are struggling to survive. McConaghy’s protagonist is Franny Stone, a strong-willed, wild-tempered naturalist with a troubled past and a propensity for driving off anyone inclined to show her that, in a world approaching a particular kind of twilight, love is still worth living for.

The novel is timed like so much of episodic television these days—starting in a moment of time, go back in time to fill in the backstory that makes this particular hero’s journey memorable, and launch into the future, in this case a maritime adventure that takes us from Greenland and St. John’s Newfoundland in the north to Ushuaia, Argentina, at the very tip of the southern continent. Franny has determined that by locating the last flock of Arctic terns on earth and following them as they perform what is likely to be their final miraculous migration, she will render her life, and perhaps her death meaningful.

Along the way, we meet many memorable characters, none more so than the captain of fishing boat Saghani, Ennis Malone, a kindred spirit who, to his own surprise, becomes deeply invested in the fate of “Franny’s birds.” The stoic 8

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captain, a colorful (and skeptical) crew, and the eccentric naturalist embark on a voyage that will make The Odyssey seem like a daytrip to Oak Bluffs. As she considers her quest, Franny wonders, “Maybe I thought I’d discover whatever cruel thing drove me to leave people and places and everything, always. Or maybe I was just hoping the bird’s final migration would show me a place to belong.”

Migrations is a hauntingly beautiful and richly melancholic novel, an inward journey into living with loss, a cautionary tale about what it means to be human amidst environmental collapse. One critic summed up the experience of reading it: “I read it in a gasp.”

Andy Hamilton

History

The Hidden Life of Trees Peter Wohlleben

Growing up in rural New England, I spent much of my childhood in the woods and forests exploring nature. I climbed trees, built treehouses, climbed on the trunks of fallen trees, created forts out of limbs and branches, and even tapped sugar maple trees to boil my own maple syrup. So when I casually picked up a book about trees, I thought it could be an interesting read, but I had no idea how truly fascinated I would become by the author’s research and his ideas about the hidden life of trees.

Peter Wohlleben discusses how trees communicate with each other through the sending of electrical impulses, by the emission of gasses as warning signals, by pumping toxins into their leaves as protection, and how they pass on “wisdom in their seeds.” He talks about trees as “social beings” who protect and defend each other as part of an ecosystem that protects itself against all kinds of challenges and invasions.

If you love trees, or even like trees, this can truly be a fascinating read!

Pam Hinkle

Director of Development

While reflecting on these three notably different books— Hamnet, The Underground Railroad, and The Plot—I've thought a lot about the art of storytelling, the process of writing, the beauty and cadence of language, and the complexities of plot.

O'Farrell's Hamnet and Whitehead's Underground Railroad are elegantly written works of historical fiction that recount the horrors of the plague and unimaginable atrocities of slavery, respectively. Both stories hit close to home in the midst of the pandemic and America's struggles for social justice. The Plot is a quick read (sure to soon be a Netflix or Hulu hit) with an engaging storyline that also sheds a revealing light on the writing and publishing process. I recommend all three.

Hamnet

Charles Jodoin

Maggie O'Farrell

Hamnet reimagines the death from bubonic plague of an unnamed playwright's (presumably Shakespeare's) young son, Hamnet, and the impact of that loss on his family. It's a beautifully written, complex love story set in 16th Century England that moves between generations. The lilting narrative paints a vivid picture of the struggles of daily life during that dark period and leads the reader to discover a possible inspiration for Shakespeare's Hamlet, which was written just four years after Hamnet's death.

The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead

I found Whitehead's Underground Railroad, which won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, both beautifully written and utterly horrific. I listened to the audiobook version and found myself immediately engrossed in the harrowing story of Cora, a young slave girl who escapes the unimaginable cruelty of her Georgia plantation via a real track-and-train underground railroad in search of freedom, only to find roadblocks and more cruelty along the way. It's a vividly written, haunting tale of courage, bravery, and resilience and a human's drive to be free. And, sadly, it's a story with far too much relevance today.

The Plot

Director of Auxiliary Programs

The Maidens

Alex Michaelides

Coming off the heels of his best seller The Silent Patient (reviewed in last year’s Bookworm), newbie novelist Alex Michaelides does it again with his much anticipated novel The Maidens. Michaelides has crafted a plot-twisting, suspense filled, page-turner.

Whereas his first novel resided in a psychiatric hospital, The Maidens takes us through the halls and gardens of Cambridge University. We are introduced to a bevy of college coeds, who one by one are brutally murdered. And from the onset of the book’s first page, actually, the very first line, we are told that the American charismatic and popular Greek Tragedy professor, “Edward Fosca is a murderer.” Thus begins an adventure of one girl’s quest to prove what she knows to be true: that there is a murderer within their midst!

Michaelides also gives a nod to his first novel by including a short prequel scene that past readers will certainly recognize and enjoy. The Maidens is a great example of a well thought out plot structure. You will come to the end and realize Michaelides has hit you over the proverbial head, all the while saying to yourself, “I never saw that coming!”

Doug Jones

Department Chair, Math

The Caesar Secret Ernest Dempsey

Jean Hanff Korelitz

The Plot was a fun, if somewhat predictable, read (perhaps with a few too many parenthetical statements, at least at the start). It's the story of a best-selling author who struggles to find the hook for his next book, let alone a blockbuster. When his student reveals an idea for a knock-yoursocks-off best seller, the writer is intrigued.

And when the writer discovers that his student has died without having published this book, the writer grabs the idea and runs with it, leading to dire circumstances. While the story is a good one, the most interesting aspect of this work for me was the commentary on writing and publishing that is woven throughout.

The Falmouth Academy Community Series hosts author Jean Hanff Korelitz on April 19, 2022. For more information and to register, visit falmouthacademy.org/community.

The Empress Holds the Key Gabriel Farago

The Tree of Knowledge, a Mystery Thriller Daniel Miller

Most of my reading this year was prompted by trips I took, suggestions by friends, and the pure guilty pleasure of reading “archaeological thrillers” in the manner of Clive Cussler.

Within the latter category, these were my favorites, each for their own specific reasons that made them interesting to me. First, The Caesar Secret by Ernest Dempsey, was the third book in the Adventure Guild stories, a collection of YA books surrounding three teenagers racing around Rome discovering artifacts, deciphering clues, and avoiding bad guys. While the writing is predictable and uninspired, I, of course, enjoyed the themes and location of the story. In addition, I was impressed and surprised when I received a prompt email response from the author to my questions about the historical context and my offer to have my Latin class help him to create some The Bookworm 2021-22

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interesting Latin clues. Second, The Empress Holds the Key,

by Gabriel Farago is an intriguing story about the role that a Stradivarius played in the discovery of the Ten Commandment Tablets and the Ark of the Covenant. I found this book to be contrived, overly complicated, and a bit difficult to follow, but still fun. Third, The Tree of Knowledge, a Mystery Thriller by Daniel Miller is a tale about a Princeton Mathematics professor who unlocks a secret buried in a secret cipher—how could I not love this book? Well, I certainly could if the writing had been a little better or the plot a little less contrived, but I still found it an enjoyable and distracting read.

Patrick Kennedy

History

Helping Parents Understand the Minds and Hearts of Generation Z Ernest J. Zarra

My love of travelling and exploring led me to pick up The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson. Bryson’s playful and clever stories about his walks around the English countryside have urged me to map out my own future adventures. His stories are full of accidental discoveries, interesting interactions with locals, and often an intriguing investigation in the etymology of place names. While on my own travels to Western Massachusetts, I visited The Mount, Edith Wharton’s home in Lenox and was embarrassingly reminded that I had never read anything by this talented author. Immediately, that evening, I downloaded Wharton’ s Ethan Frome and discovered why she was so respected as a writer. Particularly, after some of the lighthearted and frivolous works mentioned above, I thoroughly enjoyed immersing myself in beautiful, well-crafted prose. Following a friend’s recommendation, I then moved on to Roman Fever which I found equally charming and enjoyable.

In his short, but extremely informative book, Zarra, a high school English teacher in the Los Angeles area, does an excellent job explaining the challenges of educating Generation Z. First he describes the characteristics of Generation Z parents and notes that they generally fall into three categories. Next, the author helps parents understand generational differences between Baby Boomers (born between 1946–1964), Generation X (born between 1965–1980), Millennials (born between 1981–2005), and Generation Z (born 2006–present). He then attempts to answer the following questions: What makes Gen Z tick? What makes Gen Z special? And what makes Gen Z ticked? The role of technology in the lives of Gen Z is a major theme of Zarra’s book and he spends a considerable amount of time detailing the impact that social media has on their lives. This need for “instant or immediate gratification” is something that they are used to and expect in many aspects of their lives, including school. Finally, the author ends by explaining how educators and parents need to partner with one another to ensure the success of Gen Z students.

While I do not have any children of my own, I found this book to be extremely useful in describing what is going on in the minds of the students I teach. The impact of technology on their lives cannot be underestimated, and the role of social media in their daily lives is profound. As an educator, understanding the distractions these students face allows me to be a better teacher.

How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking

Liz Klein

The Road to Little Dribbling Bill Bryson

Jordan Ellenberg

The book that has consumed most of my attention this summer (and still into the fall) is How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking by Jordan Ellenberg. I find that after reading two or three pages of this masterful analysis of the applications of mathematics, I need to take a day or two to fully digest what is being presented. The explanations of the theorems and ideas are clear and simplistic enough to be understood by anyone who has an interest and appreciation for mathematics, but the ideas themselves are fairly complex and require deep thought—a perfect distraction for the inquiring and intellectual mind—in stark contrast to the first books I reviewed above.

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Department Chair, Science

The Beast: Riding the Rails and Dodging Narcos on the Migrant Trail Oscar Martinez

I picked up this book after I read a novel called American Dirt, a fictionalized tale of a woman and her son fleeing gun violence.

That novel was written by a white woman, and after I had finished it, I read a few articles that pushed back against the story that she told. Individuals who were critical of her recommended The Beast by Oscar Martinez as a realistic portrayal for readers who were interested in what really happens along the migrant trail. I have been more intentional in my reading choices, always trying to find authentic voices when possible, so I gave it a try.

From the first page, I was overwhelmed by Martinez’s true stories of the struggles migrants face as they try to escape from violence and poverty, traveling across Mexico in an attempt to reach the U.S. He details the level to which cartels have infiltrated police and immigration officials, allowing them to conduct routine kidnappings without any real response. The heinous acts committed against women are only made worse

when you read his interviews with migrants, many of whom accept rape as one of the many prices paid in their bid for a better life in the U.S. In fact, the routine violence that now befalls migrants almost makes Martinez nostalgic for the good old days, when migrants could pay a coyote, who operated independently, to take them to the border. Now even those coyotes are controlled by cartels, and they are fearful to step outside the lines. Coyotes who choose not to obey the cartel can expect beatings, tortue, and even death. It might not surprise you to learn that I could only read this book in small chunks; I found myself overwhelmed by what I was reading, and I would frequently pause to reflect on the reality faced by many people around the world. To sit on my comfortable couch in my home in West Falmouth and read about atrocities committed against vulnerable people thousands of miles away, people who are fleeing because they feel they have no other choice, was disconcerting to say the least. Martinez spent nearly two years following migrant pathways, recording their stories, and I am so appreciative that he did so. I encourage anyone who wants a realistic portrayal of a migrant’s life to read this harrowing book.

Sarah Knowles

Associate Director of Admissions

The Thursday Murder Club Richard Osman

A Falmouth Academy parent suggested I read The Thursday Murder Club, having read my previous Bookworm suggestions. What a fun read this was! Taking place in an upscale retirement community in the English countryside, a group of four septuagenarians meets weekly on Thursdays to review local cold case files. Each member brings a unique skill to the group and they miraculously solve crimes the police can’t. Calling themselves the Thursday Murder Club, they set out to solve the mysterious murder of the property manager of the luxury retirement village in which they live. I was surprised reading how fit and spritely this group of retirement members is and how convoluted their backstories are. This book is a multi-layered mystery which despite having several murders, refrains from being graphic. This was an entertaining and comical read that had me laughing out loud trying to imagine my grandparents participating in crimesolving activities in their spare time. I recently learned that Steven Spielberg acquired the book's film rights and I’m interested to see what a possible film might look like. I am planning on ordering the second book in the series which is scheduled to be released this fall.

Too Good to Be True Carola Lovering

Too Good to Be True hooked me with the tagline, “One love story. Two marriages.

Three versions of the truth.” It’s a fast-paced, psychological thriller about revenge, deception, and toxic relationships. The author blends multiple points of view that leave the reader questioning what is and isn’t true. One

of the narrators is a thirty-year-old woman and the reader follows her quest to find true love. While I can relate to the main character’s age, everything she and her friends did made me cringe. Despite this, I couldn’t put the book down. She gets caught up in a whirlwind courtship with an older man who she doesn’t realize is married. There is a plot twist halfway that left me feeling like the author had outfoxed me. This novel, with its twists and turns, had me bringing the book out with me to the beach, restaurants, and any other place where I might be alone for a few minutes and I could read to find out what was happening next.

Sharon Kreamer

Science

The Island of Sea Women Lisa See

If you like historical fiction that focuses on relationships between women as well as unfamiliar culture and world events, this is the book for you! This novel follows the life-long relationship between childhood best friends, Young-sook and Mi-ja, who are haenyeo divers on the Korean island of Jeju.

Written in Young-sook’s voice, the novel follows the two women as they learn to be divers and navigate the stark living conditions of their community due to Japanese occupation before and during World War II, and the following occupation by U.S. forces. Young-sook and Mi-ja come from very different backgrounds, but both find their sanctuary in the sea as part of an all-female diving collective. Haenyeo divers dive to great depths without the aid of scuba equipment in weather and conditions that made me shiver as I read about it. As a scientist, the physiology behind this ability was fascinating. I was shocked to learn about this period of history in Korea, where both foreign occupiers subjected the native populations to unspeakable and devastating oppression. This multigenerational story explores several enduring themes: the strength of friendship between women, the consequences of individual choices, and the search for forgiveness. Lisa See beautifully captures and draws readers into the details of the tough everyday life on Jeju Island while at the same time showing the strength of the culture and community. This was a fascinating read and I learned a lot about a piece of history that I was unfamiliar with.

Elizabeth Munro Ledwell

Department Chair, English

Once Upon a River Diane Setterfield

Sometimes, I just love reading fairy tales.

Throw in a bit of magical realism, and I’m hooked. Once Upon a River tells the story of a small village on the River Thames. One dark night, a man bursts into an inn near the riverbank, clutching the lifeless body of a child. Who is the child? Why was she in the

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river? And why, after a seemingly tragic accident that ends with the child’s death, does the child take a breath, come alive, and come to mean so much to the people in the village?

Mixing historical fiction with folk tales, scientific and magical explanations, Sitterfield’s novel is a wonder.

Slow Medicine

Victoria Sweet, M.D.

Like Sweet’s book God’s Hotel, this book explores the lessons Victoria Sweet has gleaned from her many years as a doctor.

While God’s Hotel focuses on her work at the last almshouse in America, Slow Medicine focuses on the early years of her practice as she moved through her internship and residency, working at a variety of different types of practices, sometimes taking time away from the obvious paths toward becoming a board-certified physician.

Her insightful musings about the ways medicine has morphed in “health care,” and how that has changed the ways doctors and patients experience illness and healing, are fascinating.

Project Hail Mary I was excited to read another book by the author of The Martian, a novel that was such an enjoyable mix of science fiction and fact.

Likewise, Project Hail Mary takes outer space as its setting, this time focusing more on the challenges of long-distance travel, rather than surviving on an alien planet. While not as satisfying as The Martian, Weir’s new novel was fun and informative.

Mathematics

The Secret Apartment Tom Garvey

My summer reading usually begins with a book that my eldest daughter has either bought for me or recommended that I read.

She has never steered me wrong. This summer the book she handed to me was The Secret Apartment by Tom Garvey. During the late ’70s and early ’80s, Tom Garvey lived a unique life, as he dealt with fitting back into society after returning from Vietnam. What started out as a blog telling stories from that time in his life to entertain his friends during the pandemic, ended up being a wonderful exploration of how he found his way and the amazing people he met and helped him (and they are an astonishingly varied group). What ties all these stories together is they took place during the two years in which he was living in a secret apartment in a concession stand in Philadelphia’s Veteran Stadium. A quick weekend read, and well worth the time.

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Science and Math

This Book Is Anti-Racist Tiffany Jewell

I was introduced to this book by my best friend last spring. The cover immediately drew me in with its loud colors and illustrations. Even though this book is geared towards young adults, I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a deeper self-reflection on ways to dismantle racism in our society. The author shares short personal stories throughout the book and at the end of each chapter has various exercises that guide the reader on their own journey to take action. It’s a quick read as she clearly defines underlined text throughout the book in a glossary, but as this topic warrants ongoing learning, she also gives a list of further readings and songs to continue the reader’s education at the end.

Susan Moffat

Arts

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

Andy Weir

Edward Lott

Scottie Mobley

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Rachel Joyce

This book is sweet and has a gentle tone.

Harold went out to mail a letter and unintentionally ended up walking for 600 miles in search of a colleague, Queenie Hennessey, who was dying. He believes that his problematic quest will somehow help her.

As he steps out of his monotone life, he’s forced to confront his son’s suicide and his dysfunctional relationship with his wife. Quiet and determined, Harold gets a tremendous amount of publicity thus gaining a following of colorful characters. After 87 days, when he finally arrives to the dying Queenie, his shoes are almost completely made of duct tape, he has lost considerable weight, he’s unrecognizable, and his following of pilgrims has grown.

My favorite part of the book was when he stated that people who had passed away were part of the air that he walked through.

Dirty Mines

John Fitzgerald

In my quest to learn as much about coal mining as possible, I found this gem. It reveals profound tales of mining in northeastern Pennsylvania through the eyes of someone with deep roots. The stories are shocking, heartfelt, and real. Fitzgerald taps into the history of the Molly McGuires, the sacrifice and strength of the miners, and the many devastating environmental disasters. As I grew up in that area and had family in coal, I especially appreciate his writing. Although it’s labeled as fiction, the history is obvious and I recognized many of the locations and people cited. I

would recommend this as an entertaining and enlightening read where one can dive into the fascinating history of anthracite coal.

Jennifer Park

Spanish

Hidden Valley Road Robert Kolker

Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker is a work of narrative nonfiction about how one particular family deals with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. This family is unusual because Don and Mimi Galvin have twelve children, ten boys and two girls. Six out of ten of the boys are diagnosed with schizophrenia by the time they are in their early twenties. Kolker takes the reader through how schizophrenia has been conceptualized over time, starting with Freud blaming it on bad parenting on the part of the mother, moving to doctors conceptualizing it as a chemical imbalance and culminating in the more contemporary line of thinking that its etiology is primarily genetic, but that the environment does have an impact on how certain genes are expressed. Research funding, for better and for worse, has had a great impact on our understanding: Kolker underscores how a promising line of inquiry looking at families was stopped abruptly because a pharmaceutical company chose to invest in a more lucrative opportunity. Because that same company funded the research, they owned most of the records of it, impeding others from accessing them for future lines of investigation. Kolker also highlights the impact that schizophrenia can have on family members who do not have the diagnosis and how they all have different ways of coping. Another consideration is that schizophrenia can manifest itself differently depending on the person. Kolker’s exploration of the Galvin family’s struggle ends with hope. The family has become a seminal case study, providing a foundation for ongoing research. What is now clear is that early intervention, especially during the prodromal period, can help mitigate the disruption schizophrenia can have on individuals and families alike.

Ben Parsons

Middle School Coordinator and English

On Extinction: How We Became Estranged from Nature Melanie Challenger

With the 9th grade diving deep into their “Changing Earth” curriculum, this summer I felt compelled to follow them in their exploration of relevant poetry and prose. I started with Melanie Challenger’s collection of essays, which reads as part travelogue, part environmental history, part meditation on being. Her essays follow her thoughts as a younger writer on visits to an abandoned mine in England to South Georgia's derelict whaling stations, and from South America to a stay among an Inuit community in Canada.

Woven through her reflections are the thoughts of the

anthropologists, biologists, and philosophers who precede her.

Infusing their ideas with her own first person interviews and ruminations, she chronicles humanity’s path toward destruction while offering us a ray of hope rooted in an emotional response to memory that resembles nostalgia. I really enjoyed Challenger’s essays and, although they leave the activist in me a bit unsatisfied, I won’t soon forget her beautiful prose, or the haunting places she describes in her travels.

The Book of Eels: Our Enduring Fascination with the Most Mysterious Creature in the Natural World Patrik Svensson

This was my favorite book of the summer— enigmatic and defying categorization, just like the Anguilla anguilla. Not unlike Mark Kurlansky’s Cod or Salt, The Book of Eels draws on extensive research about eels in literature, history, and marine biology, as well as Svensson’s own experience fishing for eels with his father. Even more so than Kurlansky, however, Svensson writes with a narrative style and depth that brings the “eel question” to life: What are eels and where do eels come from? What drives them, after living for decades in freshwater, to swim great distances back to the ocean at the end of their lives? My favorite passages were Svensson’s accounts of fellow eel-obsessed characters, from notable figures like Aristotle, Sigmund Freud and Rachel Carson, to scientists such as Danish marine biologist Johannes Schmidt, who spent most of his lifetime in the early 20th century attempting to find the eels’ birthing grounds in the Sargasso Sea. Through his study of the eel, Svensson’s vivid narrative becomes an exploration of our roots and destiny, and, ultimately, how we confront the biggest question of all: extinction.

Marney Rathbun

English

Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments Saidiya Hartman

I first encountered Saidiya Hartman’s writing in an undergraduate course on death and dying in Black literature, studying her memoir, Lose Your Mother. The book was an exploration of what it means to be part of the African diaspora, belonging at once to many places and to none. That very discomfiture (of belonging and unbelonging) was foundational to our class discussions. Alongside Hartman, we asked: how does one live when one is evidence, is the direct descendent, of the violence of African enslavement? In her 2018 nonfiction book, Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, Hartman subverts that inquiry by giving a homecoming to her subject. In essence, she divines an answer to her earlier questions. Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments is written around a heavily researched “chorus” of Black women in Philadelphia and New York City at the turn of the 20th The Bookworm 2021-22

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century. Their subversive, raucous, queer human lives and desires make up the book’s subject, and in the art of writing these women back to life, Hartman also develops a landing pad—a loving context, a nest—for each of her subjects.

Hartman rewrites history—experimentally—to explore, contextualize and name the vast inner lives of Black women and queer people so often relegated to the edges, or to the violent and invasive centers, of historical discourse. The book is intoxicating. It is as much theory as it is museum; as much history as it is poetry. And from these disparities, or experimental marriages, emerges a text that defies genre, explanation, or book jacket—one that I cannot recommend highly enough.

Summer Ali Smith

I have loved Ali Smith from the moment I first picked up one of her books, How to be Both where she displayed, like a peacock, blatant disregard for punctuation, a dry British wit, impeccably researched backstories, and delicious banter between characters as if she was just warming up. Smith is, in general, unstoppably herself, and this is no less true in the final installment of her seasonal quartet, Summer. Smith committed to writing four books in four years (2016–2020) exploring the passage of time, the end of the world as we know it, and intergenerational, unromantic relationships (perhaps the least explored relationships in literature!) She could not have predicted swift turns in climate change, a pandemic’s rage, or political friction and how quickly these circumstances would influence her project. Lucky for us, Smith gave her project permission to be altered by unprecedented circumstances. It is rare that a writer writes topically and remains fresh. But as Smith shows us in Summer, tenderly weaving together all four storylines from the quartet, topicality can be timeless. I had the marvelous sense that I was reading a novel that had outlived its writer, that was relevant and potent out of time. Which is a comfort when so few things, save art, feel built to last.

The Secret Gospel of Mark: A Poet’s Memoir Spencer Reece

As a poet, I feel confident in saying that most poets only want attention. I admit to this in myself, though shyly. Spencer Reece— one of my poet-idols, one of my demi-gods— has allowed himself to admit to this as well in his 416 page (!) memoir. The Secret Gospel of Mark: A Poet’s Memoir is just that: a gospel in the guise of an admission, a revelation about the life of a poet and reverend whose path to poetry, God, gayness, and sobriety was knotted, gnarled, difficult, and ultimately, human. The beauty of Reece’s writing is that he can never escape the fact that he is a poet. He flirts with language, its sonic and proverbial qualities, and he loves, like Baldwin and James, to leverage the art of the short sentence as a form of punctuation. In this memoir, he reveals his heart 14

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and life matter-of-factly. With a gentle embellishment of language, the reader is invited to receive the healing properties of poetry inside the vast exposure of a memoir. And Reece, trying his hand at a new form, opens a doorway into his world where the project is plain: he, like most of us, just wants to be seen.

Helen Reuter

Learning Specialist

A Pale View of Hills Kazuo Ishiguro

When the Swedish Academy awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature to Kazuo Ishiguro in 2017, it described him as a novelist who “with great emotional force, uncovers the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world." For me, this statement perfectly captures Ishiguro’s potency and intention in his 1982 debut novel, A Pale View of Hills, and for those so inclined, the book is well worth a read.

On its surface the story is about a widow, Etsuko, living in the English countryside and coming to terms with her estranged daughter’s suicide. The suicide, skirting the edge of the abyss, tugs on Estuko’s conscience and slowly unravels a string of memories from her life as a young woman during the bombing of Nagasaki and its aftermath—memories immutably linked to her deceased daughter and revealing, dreamlike and haltingly, a desparate need to cling to the past, however fragmented and delusionary. In typical Ishiguro fashion, the feelings and motives of the characters are more hidden than revealed, obliging the reader to accompany these bomb survivors as they piece together the shards of their physical and emotional lives that imploded so dramatically and universally with the annihilating force of one human act.

Jill Reves

Science

Black Pioneers of Science and Invention Louis Haber

Being a science teacher, I love coming across interesting science books in my travels.

I should say “travel,” since I only traveled once this summer! This book looks at fourteen Black men and their contributions to modern medicine, science, technology and more. The author notes the often great injustices surrounding these men and their intelligence, determination, and a sincere care for the human race, despite the racism they faced. Next I’ll pick up a book about female Black pioneers—I know they are out there!

Olivia Riddiford

Admission

Big Magic

Elizabeth Gilbert

This book was given to me by my mom and before finishing it, I had already sent out copies to others. Big Magic is all about living your best creative life. I loved that Elizabeth Gilbert refers to inspiration and ideas like spirits that surround us. These spirits come to us with their ideas and it is up to us if we go with that idea or ignore it. Have you ever felt inspired and then let it sit stagnant until it drifts away from you only to be discovered by another in a song or written word? Have you ever felt like suddenly you can overcome that mental block and the words or colors flow freely without thought? This is Big Magic at work! Gilbert talks about the Big Magic in our creative lives but I think this is also relevant in our daily lives. We should be open to the universe and embrace all of our gifts instead of ignoring them or worse, deploring them. We have all heard of the starving artist or dying for your art—Jim Morrison, Mozart, Kurt Cobain. Why do creators tend to look at their gifts as a curse? If we all embraced our inner creator, whoever that is, we would appreciate our lives so much more. At the end of the book she asks the reader, why make anything if the outcome might be nothing. Her answer is, “Because it’s fun... what else are you going to do with your time here on earth—not make things?

Not do interesting stuff? Not follow your love and your curiosity?” So I dare you to embrace the Big Magic and have fun, be a creator, be interesting.

Britta Santamauro

Director of Library Services

Intimacies

Katie Kitamura

If you judge this book by its bright pink cover and alluring title, you may think that this is a sleazy romance novel. Rest assured, it is not. The book tells the story of a seemingly ordinary character leading an extraordinary life as a judicial interpreter at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The unnamed main character, a true polyglot, moves from New York to the Netherlands where she embarks on finding new friends and establishing herself in her new demanding job at the criminal court. The book tells of possibilities and commitments in both work and personal lives, all while staying true to one’s own psychological and physical limits. This book drew me in with its quiet, precise and poetic language. The narrative feels so real, that after finishing the book, it felt like I had just spent weeks living and working in The Hague. Truly a gem of a book!

Warmth: Coming of Age at the End of Our World Daniel Sherrell

What does it mean to grow up with the full acknowledgement that the earth’s climate is changing rapidly? This book gives a voice to the emotional toll the climate emergency is taking on young people who are currently in their 20s and 30s who are asking themselves how to envision their future. They cannot turn their back, shrug and say that the next generation will solve the problem. They do not have the excuse to say that by the time climate change has really messed up the Earth’s systems, they will be long gone. This book is not like any other book on solving the biggest challenge of our time. It is truly personal as the author writes to his unborn child. He grapples with his moral and ethical questions concerning an unknown future and finds that the only thing he knows for sure is that he cannot just watch and do nothing. The book is in equal parts an account of what activism looks like, what type of work will force systematic changes as well as philosophical explorations on living in the time of our global climate emergency. The book will leave you with a small glimmer of hope but most of all, it conveys the human emotional side of the crisis.

George Scharr

Arts

The Outer Beach: A Thousand-Mile Walk on Cape Cod’s Atlantic Shore Robert Finch

Robert Finch compiled essays over 40 years of walking a half mile or so a day on Cape Cod’s outer beach, adding up to roughly 25 miles a year, hence the title. The collection notes changes to the surfside over time. His use of imagery transports the reader to the shoreline, nearly feeling the sun overhead and the sand beneath their feet.

I was struck by this passage which illustrates the everchanging nature of the ocean and its steadfastness, holding onto Earth’s memories: “The barrier beach gradually retreating westward in the face of the ocean’s assaults, buries these tidal creeks and marshes even as it forms new ones farther west. Eventually they emerge again on the ocean side in the form of exposed peat ledges, some of which still carry the prints of old cart wheels and foraging cattle made generations ago.”

As a longtime listener to Finch’s CAI radio show, I was intrigued to read his book in anticipation of his talk, “Encountering Wildlife” at Falmouth Academy as part of this year’s Community Series. In both his show and in his book, Finch reminds us to turn to nature to find inspiration and peace. As a self-described “nature boy” who loves the ocean and outdoor adventure, I found this book relaxing and soulful.

A great fireplace read for the soon-arriving winter.

The Bookworm 2021-22

15

Emily Turner

English

Rob Wells

History

All Girls

Virgil Wander

According to former independent school English teacher and debut novelist Emily Layden, contemporary society consistently undervalues young women. Layden proclaims, on the jacket of the proof of her novel All Girls, that “young women shape our culture and drive our discourse—they tell us what’s cool, what to wear, how to do our makeup, what music to listen to—but they are rarely given credit for the multitudes they contain.” As a young teacher whose experience isn’t too far removed in years from that of many of the young women I teach, Layden’s claim resonates with me. I am constantly impressed by the young women I know who, to quote Layden, “manage to be all of these things inside a world that simultaneously demands so much and thinks so little of them.”

All Girls takes place at the Atwater School, a fictional women’s boarding school in Connecticut, and follows the student body and faculty through a challenging school year that begins in scandal: the night before orientation, an alumna makes a public statement accusing a current teacher of sexual assault. Through the voices of nine students whose narratives are interspersed with emails and letters from the school and its Board of Directors, Layden traces the student body’s reaction to the news and to the school’s response. The cast of storytellers, composed of first year students, seniors, legacy students, international students, insiders, outsiders, dancers, runners, artists, journalists, and activists, recount their struggles with everything from social media to relationships to peer pressure to anxiety to acne. While the school muddles through its public relations disaster, these students keep up with their academics and extracurriculars, animate essential school traditions, and uncover and expose details about the scandal that the school had hoped to safeguard from the public eye. Through her narrators, Layden portrays adolescence with the same honestly and grace that these young women demand from their school’s administration.

Layden calls on readers to truly listen to the young women in our lives, especially where their own wellness is concerned. All Girls is both a page-turner packed with surprises and intrigue and an essential read for anyone seeking to understand the world of contemporary young women. As Layden’s dedication declares, “Young women deserve to have their experiences seen more fully. This book is dedicated to them.”

When my neighbor lent me a stack of her proclaimed favorite novels this winter, I was initially sure that I would not read this one. It was clear at a glance that it was a “quirky” novel and those almost never appeal to me, as I suspect I lack sufficient imagination.

Well, Virgil Wander is a “quirky” work, and I loved it! Maybe there is hope for me yet, which is perfectly in keeping with the theme of the book! It only took a few pages for me to be charmed and caught up in the story of healing, small kindnesses, rejuvenation, and love that apply both to the characters, but also to a post-industrial Midwest town down on its luck. This read was the ideal antidote to this past pandemic year. Enger’s humor is subtle and comes wrapped in an impressive mastery of language and words. This is a book about ordinary lives that become beautifully enriched and transformed by the magic of small acts of friendship, community, and humanity. Apparently, we all need to think about spending some time flying kites!

Emily Layden

16

The Bookworm 2021-22

Leif Enger

Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Message for Our Own Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

This thoughtful work is part biography, part memoir, part social commentary on American society as we begin the third decade of the 21st century, and most clearly a declaration of Glaude’s admiration for James Baldwin. When I first arrived at Falmouth Academy back in 1986, my new colleague, Janet Kearsley recommended Baldwin’s Go Tell it on the Mountain and, given my immediate admiration for Janet and for her awe-inspiring talents as a teacher, I read the novel and came away deeply impacted. Though that 1953 novel has significant autobiographical elements, Glaude’s book gave me a much fuller understanding of Baldwin’s journey as an artist and as a man, and shed light on the events that shaped his evolving views of America and of race. I learned a lot about Baldwin’s life after his return to the U.S. from years of living in Paris and about his involvement with the figures and forces of the Civil Rights Era in the States. I found in Glaude’s book hard truths that also seem to hold out some sort of hope. America’s attempt at self-reform and redemption was stymied short in the 1960s, Glaude argues, and now we as a nation are once again coming face to face with the central issue of race and injustice. We are trying once more to ‘begin again,’ and James Baldwin has wisdom to offer in this cause.

Falmouth Academy

sponsored in part by the Woods Hole Foundation

COMMUNITY SERIES

2021–2022 November 2

7 PM

ENCOUNTERS WITH WILDLIFE with Naturalist Robert Finch

PHOTO BY KATHY SHORR

January 7

7 PM

NEW ENGLAND RINGERS Music Director Daniel Moore held in partnership with the MBL Falmouth Forum

February 15

7 PM

WCAI BEHIND THE SCENES with Mindy Todd, Steve Junker, and Dan Tritle

April 19

7 PM

TALKING ABOUT WRITING with Jean Hanff Korelitz, author of New York Times Best Seller, The Plot PHOTO BY MICHAEL AVEDON

For event information and reservations: www.falmouthacademy.org/community All guests must be masked and provide proof of vaccination prior to entering the venue.

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STUDENTS FOR SOCIAL & ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

REGIONAL CONFERENCE

2022

FALMOUTH ACADEMY | MARCH 26 Joining Together: Sparking Change Learn more at: falmouthacademy.org/justice-conference