The Bookworm 2018-19

The Bookworm

a reader’s guide by the faculty of falmouth academy 29th edition

2018-2019

Dear Friends, The benefits of reading have been well documented. Our minds are active and focused when we read. We engage parts of our brains that are responsible for concentration and cognition. We use our imaginations to translate what we read into mental pictures. And it simply makes our lives more interesting. We are entertained, informed, astonished, and at times possibly enraged. Simply put, it is great to be in the company of people who read. How lucky we are at Falmouth Academy to have just that: a wonderful community of bibliophiles.

Looking back on my first year as the Director of Library Services, I was amazed to find that a total of 2,200 books circulated this past year. Out of all seventh graders, whose reading we track through a reading program, the recipient of the Patrice Buxton Love of Reading Award read an astonishing 81 books last year. Our new seventh graders are already well on their way, with three to ten books read by the majority of students, and with 20-33 books read since the beginning of the school year by our most engaged readers.

We believe that nurturing a love of reading and encouraging close reading in all grade levels sets the foundation for academic success and prepares our students well for their lives after high school. As you will see, more often than not, readers turn into writers. We assembled the proof at the back of The Bookworm, where we are proud to present the many published authors who are currently attending or have graduated from Falmouth Academy.

Please enjoy this year’s 77 faculty reviews. I hope that you will be able to find at least one, if not more, recommendations that will inspire you to read the books. Just remember, the benefits are numerous.

Sincerely yours,

Britta Santamauro Director of Library and Media Services

FALMOUTH ACADEMY Falmouth Academy has been educating Cape, Coast, and Islands students in grades 7-12 since 1977.

Remarkable teachers lead an innovative academic program that is deep in English, history, science, mathematics, and foreign languages, and enhanced by signature offerings including Arts-Across-the-Curriculum, Science in the Real World, and 40-plus electives. Class sizes are intentionally small, ensuring personalized attention and “no back rows.” FA students become confident, active learners who read closely, listen carefully, and think critically. They are scholars and musicians, athletes and artists, budding scientists and aspiring authors who go on to thrive at many of America’s finest colleges and universities. Learn more at falmouthacademy.org.

MISSION STATEMENT 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.

Alison Ament

Science

Three of my favorite books this year all struck me for their authors’ insistence on truthfulness, though one is a memoir, one a history, and one a novel.

Lab Girl Hope Jahren This memoir Lab Girl, by the acclaimed research geologist/botanist Dr. Hope Jahren, describes Jahren’s pathway toward academic success, from the stresses and poverty of graduate student life to the politics of setting up a research lab and navigating a university career.

She tells her own story of personal and professional relationships with an honesty I could hardly have imagined. I became so curious about her brilliant, lovable, oddball lab manager, “Bill,” that I looked him up on Dr. Jahren’s lab website. Finding his picture was like spying on a celebrity. Surprisingly, the first two-thirds of the book are hilariously funny, rich with anecdotes, and the farthest thing from dry narration. The final third is more devastating as the author discloses more serious problems in her life that we wouldn’t have suspected. Alternate chapters of the story discuss facts about plants, with Jahren’s implication that they are almost like people. I recommend this book to scientists and nonscientists alike for its great writing and human interest.

I found Hope Jahren and her lab assistant Bill quirky and loveable—and I appreciated how she wove in the right amount of science to keep the lay reader interested and engaged. - Amy Galvam

SPQR, A History of Ancient Rome Mary Beard SPQR, A History of Ancient Rome, is an intriguing and very readable account of the founding of Rome through the time of the Republic and the emperors. Beard is a classics scholar at Cambridge University. Although her depth of scholarship is always evident, the book is written for everyone. She makes the historic characters come to life. About statesman/philosopher Cicero she writes: “Alongside … political and military cases, at the same time he was worrying about money, dowries and marriages (his daughter’s and his own), grieving the death of those he loved, divorcing his wife, complaining about an upset stomach after an unusual menu at dinner, attempting to track down runaway slaves and trying to acquire some nice statues to decorate one of his many houses.” The emperors are similarly treated as flesh and blood people, with personalities and attitudes toward power that impact the whole of Roman history and culture—and our own. She consistently lets the reader in on both her evaluation of what is myth and that for which there is actual evidence. She is honest about what we can

never really know. Parallels to present-day politics seep through the pages. As a non-historian, I loved this book for how eye-opening it was.

The Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow I read The Adventures of Augie March, by Saul Bellow (1953), because I thought I should read a whole Saul Bellow work from start to finish. I am glad I did. The story tells of Augie’s experiences growing up during the Depression in a poor section of Chicago, from boyhood to early manhood and his series of contact with sketchy people who try to influence him. Augie branched out from home to the neighborhood to leaving town and then the country. The time setting allows for vivid descriptions of peddling, dirty jobs, indignity, the formation of unions, graft, petty crime and riding the rails. Augie described his experience working in a coal yard, a job that his older brother was able to get him into: “So those were evil days for me, in that particular field of feeling that had the shape of the yard, the forms of the fence, coal heaps, machinery, the window of the scale, and that long brass, black-graduated beam where I weighed. These things: and the guys that worked, the guys that bought, the cops that came for theirs, the mechanics and the railroad agents, the salesmen, got into me.” The squirmy truth of human struggle, imperfection and recurring hope come through all the way along Augie’s journey.

Jana Becker

Modern Language

The Shortest History of Germany James Hawes “Ugh, what nationalistic propaganda is this?” I thought, when struck by the startlingly bright black, red and gold, and the stern-looking imperial double eagle on the bookshelf of a shop in Germany. Upon closer inspection, it was a history of Germany by an Englishman—so, no imminent danger for any Germans currently shaken up by mass-migration and a changing European political landscape. I like to read history books, but I think this is the first one I would call “entertaining.” Hawes writes in a light and more “brotherly” style rather than a dry and scholarly tone, which makes the book an accessible read. He starts with the Romans and ends with Trump and Merkel, thus managing to cram about 2,000 years of German history into just over 200 pages. I disagree with Hawes on some of his interpretations of events and people, but these are minor issues. Overall, he answers all the questions that nobody ever asks him or herself, but that matter nonetheless: Why does a comparatively small river such as the Rhine function as a border when so many other much bigger rivers in the world do not?

Why is there no uniform name for the German people 1

(Allemande, Germans, Niemcy, Deutsche, to list a few)?

Why does a country that is half as big as Texas, consisting of sixteen states, have a north-south gradient in wealth and population density? And, why the difference in religious denomination? Why do Germans tend to feel uncomfortable when confronted with their national colors (see above)? Although short, this book provides many insights about German history, and is not only for history enthusiasts.

Martha Borden

Director of Technology

We Were the Lucky Ones Georgia Hunter In April 1939, the Kurc family gathered together in Radom, Poland, for the Passover Seder, to give thanks for their growing family. By September, the family had been torn apart as Europe plunged into World War II. Yet, We Were the Lucky Ones is not a story of loss but of survival, courage, and the strength of the human spirit that is born from the bonds of family.

Georgia Hunter, great-granddaughter of Sol and Nechuma Kurc, pieced together her family’s history through oral histories passed down to her and nearly a decade of research and travel. Written as historical fiction, the book weaves six separate stories of survival: Addy’s exodus from Europe after the fall of France; Mila’s determination to keep her daughter hidden and alive; Genek and Herta’s exile to a Russian gulag; the day-today existence of Sol and Nechuma in the Walowa ghetto; and Halina and Bella, each forced to labor in the factories, where living to the next day depended on endless hours of work with little or no food.

Although the subject is grim and it is difficult to comprehend the level of human cruelty and suffering portrayed, Hunter gives the reader a story of hope, celebrating the resiliency of the human spirit and the sheer determination of the will to survive and to protect the ones they cherish. In the end, We Were the Lucky Ones is a story of family.

Marite Burns

Arts

The Chilbury Ladies Choir Jennifer Ryan The Chilbury Ladies Choir takes place in Chilbury, England, inside of a few months within 1940. World War II is raging on the continent, and the men have gone to fight the Nazis. After the vicar decides to disband the choir because the men are gone, one of the ladies comes up with the novel idea of having a ladies’ choir. Several women are horrified, but life must go on, men or no men.

The story is told by several women in their letters and journals: Mrs. Tilling, a widow who must rent out a room to a man she dislikes; Miss Paltry, a midwife whose 2

greed and immorality prompt her to switch babies; Kitty Winthrop, a 13-year-old who wants to be a singer when she grows up; and her beautiful older sister Venetia, a flirt who falls in love with a mysterious artist.

The story of these women and the effects of war on their lives is told through their journals and letters. The choir brings the women together, and they help each other through difficult times. The village is bombed, there are spies, people fall in love, and a baby swapping takes place. This book has all the ingredients of a good read. I enjoyed meeting the characters, and it was heartwarming to share part of their lives.

Barbara Campbell

Director of Alumni and Parent Relations

The Innocent Man John Grisham In 1982 a cocktail waitress in Ada, Oklahoma was murdered. Two innocent men were arrested; one received a life sentence and one spent years on Death Row. Shoddy police work, inconclusive analysis in the early days of using DNA as evidence, made-up confessions and snitch testimony kept these men incarcerated. New DNA technology and a group called The Innocence Project eventually won an acquittal freeing both men. A true story, this book is Grisham’s first non-fiction work, and it reads just like any of his other books. It will leave you incredulous and wanting more–more justice and more redemption.

Alexander Hamilton: A Life Willard Sterne Randall With all the hype about the musical Hamilton, I wanted to learn more about its subject matter. An orphaned immigrant, Hamilton came to the United States where he was sponsored to further his education. Our first Secretary of the Treasury had a genius and analytical mind, not to mention superb writing skills, which brought him to the attention of local community leaders and publishers.

Working as General Washington’s aide during the Revolutionary War, he had a bird’s eye view as our new country was taking shape; in fact he was one of the chief shapers. Hamilton so strongly believed in his ideas that he forged ahead when others wouldn’t listen and made many enemies as a result. Still, we can thank him for many of the federal institutions he created. As I read the book, I kept wondering if I would have liked Hamilton as a person. He had an honor so deep, and yet he could also be wily. I certainly admired him, but sometimes I didn’t like him, which may have been true of many people he came into contract with during his life.

Christine Carter

Modern Language

Eleanor Clark

English

Vox Christina Dalcher

Barbarian Days William Finnegan

This book shares many parallels with Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. In the near future, a religious faction—the Pure movement—has taken control of the U.S. Government. One of the major goals of the Pure movement is to return to a traditional, biblical model of the family. Women are removed from the workforce in order to stay home, are required to be obedient to their husbands, and are stripped of many rights. The most significant example of this is related to women’s speech: all females, including infants, are required to wear a wristband which monitors the amount of words spoken.

Their allowance: 100 words a day. The protagonist, Dr. Jean McClellan, is a former research scientist who was forced to abandon her work on restoring speech in stroke victims until the President himself requests her help for his brother, the victim of a skiing accident. But his motives are unclear, and Jean is forced to work on her own research without knowing the goal of her project.

This novel not only explores ideas of women’s rights, but also examines the importance of language. What if people were limited to 100 words a day? What would they say? What if certain words were not allowed at all?

How would people communicate complicated concepts such as illness?

Vox is thought-provoking, certainly disturbing, and quick read that reminds people to appreciate the power of language and the importance of speaking up and defending one’s beliefs. Not a wind-down book before bedtime, but very relevant to issues facing our world today.

Barbarian Days should not have been my book of the summer. How wildly counterintuitive that I, a person whose “big” wave experience peaked with one Delaware weekend of tentative body surfing when I was twelve, and who dreads feeling out of control under water, would ever pick up this volume, much less love it. Perhaps, though, it is the very foreignness that I found soothing.

Finnegan’s book—part memoir, part travel literature— takes us through the moves of his childhood into adulthood, from California to Hawaii, Fiji to South Africa.

The range of place and experience alone is worth the ride.

But then there’s the surfing thing. Who knew that waves, like people with hands, are described as “left” or “right?”

Logical, but I certainly hadn’t considered it. And is there a more delightful way to describe the height of a wave than to imagine how many refrigerators high it is, as in: “Sloat looked to be a least five refrigerators as I pulled up one Sunday afternoon in January.” Another surprising and wonderful aspect of the book is the way the waves carry the names we remember. We get a sense of people here and there, but only just so much, only to a point. The waves have the more intriguing personalities, puzzling places waiting to be discovered. And read. Finnegan, now a staff writer for The New Yorker, is at heart a teacher and scholar, and no doubt his interest in studying the water resonates. “Getting a spot wired—truly understanding it—can take years,” he writes. “At the very complex breaks, it’s a lifetime’s work, never completed. This is probably not what most people see, glancing seaward, noting surfers in the water, but it’s the first-order problem that we’re out there trying to solve: what are these waves doing, exactly, and what are they likely to do next?

Before we can ride them, we have to read them, or at least make a credible start on the job.” I admit there were moments when I almost put down Barbarian Days, feeling a bit like the old woman he describes seeing in Jardim, Portugal, who railed against the surfers for their selfabsorption and lack of respect for the dangers of the sea.

But just at those moments, Finnegan turns on himself, questioning his own motives or admitting to trepidation and compunction. That was enough. There is a section, deep in the book, when he describes a time working as a reporter in El Salvador during the civil war. After an election day, when he was caught in a firefight and three journalists were killed elsewhere, he found himself filing his story and going surfing. “Surfing was an antidote, however mild, for the horror.” While I finished Barbarian Days all the more certain that surfing would never be my antidote, I respect the impulse. Certainly there are worse ways to ride the times.

The Immortalists Chloe Benjamin New York, 1969. Four siblings, bored on a hot summer’s day, decide to visit a psychic who claims to be able to predict the future and give the exact date of a person’s death.

The subsequent chapters tell each sibling’s story and reveal the results of the psychic’s predictions. The major draw of the novel is that it prompts readers to think about what would happen if they knew the date they would die.

How would they make choices differently? Would these choices lead to one’s death, or would the date of death remain the same no matter what?

This is a fascinating novel, as much about the power and importance of family and relationships as it is about the concept of fate.

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Mike Deasy

English

The Lice W.S. Merwin While I was procrastinating writing my summer school papers, I binge read W.S. Merwin’s poetic response to the unrest of the 1960s (what productive procrastination!). The Lice marks a shift in the career of Merwin, who made his name as a prolific poet in the fifties through his mastery of strict forms and meters.

But the tumult of the 1960s disrupts Merwin’s poetics, and in 1967, he publishes The Lice, a rumination on a “coming extinction,” in which he abandons regular meter and omits punctuation entirely. The uncertainty of the 1960s reverberates in the topics of Merwin’s poems, which contain some of his most famous lines: “When the forests have been destroyed the darkness remains”; and, “The dead will think the living are worth it we will know/ Who we are/ And we will all enlist again.” We feel the uncertainty of the era in these poems not just because of Merwin’s topics but also because of the form that he adopts. Merwin senses the structures of a post-WWII world falling apart, and the once strict forms of his poetry crumble into an expansive and deeply troubling free form.

The periods and commas and colons that quietly hold language together have gone. Their absence could almost go unnoticed, and, yet, we are left wondering: exactly what is holding all of this together?

Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings Joy Harjo Joy Harjo brought me from the tumult of the past to the tempest of the present. Motivated by our increasingly tense socio-political moment, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, is a manual for reconciliation. Harjo, a prolific indigenous American poet, meditates in her poems on the tattered relationships of our current moment—our relationships with the earth, with each other, with ourselves, and offers us steps forward in beautiful verse.

Carol DiFalco

School Counselor and Math

Behold the Dreamers Imbolo Mbue Through beautiful, rich dialogue, we watch two families try to survive in New York City in 2007. One is an immigrant family from Cameroon with hopes and dreams as wide as America itself. The second family is of Wall Street privilege, as the American economy teeters on the brink of financial collapse. In her debut novel, Imbolo Mbue doesn’t hold back in letting the reader into the intimate thoughts of these complex characters. Through the detail she gives the reader space to sit with the question always lingering in the backdrop, “What does it mean to be an American?” I cried, laughed, and cried again.

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She’s Come Undone Wally Lamb I may have been the last person I know to have read Wally Lamb’s She’s Come Undone. That is, until this summer, when it finally made it off of my ever-evolving book wish list thanks to an impulse stop at the Falmouth Library book sale. Needless to say, it did not disappoint!

Following Dolores through hardship, joy, trauma, and psychiatric instability seemed like a rollercoaster with no end in sight. Lamb created a character of such depth and detail, fully exposed in her humanness. I have never cheered for a character more than Dolores Price. She’s Come Undone is now officially on my growing reread book wish list.

Mike Earley

Assistant Head of School and Modern Languages

Selection Day Aravind Adiga A concise way to describe this book is as a Todd Marinovich story set in the cricket world of Mombai.

(Do a search on him if you’re really curious!) Here we have a gifted young athlete in a highly competitive environment with the potential for huge financial gains if he or she reaches the highest levels of the sport. And, not surprisingly, we also have greedy, misguided, selfish adults who are manipulating the athletes for their own gain. I was more surprised than I should have been at the parallels here with the cesspool that is youth sports in America. I am sure that soccer in England and baseball in Cuba would offer similar parallels, to name just a few.

The scope of the book is not limited to sports. This is a story about growing up in Mombai, about brothers, fathers, and sons, and about young people grappling with what they want their adult lives to look like. Readers will learn a lot about Indian culture, Mombai, and the sport of cricket by reading this excellent novel.

I have not yet read White Tiger, for which the author won the Booker Prize, but it is now on my list.

Gundhild Eder

Modern Language

Saints for All Occasions J. Courtney Sullivan Saints for All Occasions is a multi-generational saga about an Irish family that immigrated to America in the 1950s. The story follows the life of two teenage sisters, Nora and Theresa Flynn, who, in search for a better life, leave their father, grandmother, and little brother behind and embark on the long sea voyage to Boston. There, they join friends of the family, who are already living in Dorchester. Being twenty-one and the older sibling, Nora, who is engaged to a childhood friend from her hometown

in Ireland, feels it is her responsibility to look after her younger sister Theresa, who is only seventeen. Nora sees it as her duty to make sure their Irish-Catholic family values are upheld. Theresa, much more adventurous than her older sister, enjoys her exciting new life in Boston, particularly dressing up for nightly dances in the dance halls to meet and hang out with other teenagers.

Although Nora cautions her not to go out by herself, Theresa ignores her and repeatedly sneaks out to meet her boyfriend after everyone has gone to sleep. Spoiler alert: Theresa ends up pregnant. Nora must come up with a plan, which has a big impact on their lives as well as on future generations in ways they could have not imagined at the time. As both sisters have to live with the consequences of their actions, their family bond starts to fall apart.

Petra Ehrenbrink Academic Dean and Modern Language Chair The Woman in the Window A.J. Finn This is a terrific debut novel with nods to classics, old and new. Dealing with her own trauma, child psychologist Anna Fox has become a recluse. While spying on her neighbors with a camera, she witnesses a crime in the house across the street. Or did she? Impaired by an unhealthy mix of medications and alcohol, she can no longer be sure of what is real and what is a figment of her imagination. I didn’t find Anna a very likeable protagonist, but this taut and twisty Hitchcockian thriller made me want to keep turning the pages nevertheless.

The Silent Companions Laura Purcell This story of a 19th-century woman tormented by a decaying English mansion’s curios is a well-crafted and compelling take on Gothic fiction. The creepy plot, split in three different timelines, made the pages all but turn themselves.

Circe Madeline Miller If you like Greek mythology, this book is for you. It contains an intriguing, embellished retelling of the title character’s story from her unique perspective. I enjoyed reading this book so much that it tempted me to read a few other retellings of Greek myths. (See Monica Hough) Mr. Flood’s Last Resort Jess Kidd Caregiver Maud Dunn is assigned to help eccentric hoarder Mr. Flood and he is not amused. Haunted by events in their pasts, the reluctant companions bond over

their shared love of Irish folktales, as well as a dislike of Mr. Flood’s scheming son. Joining the party is a gaggle of gossiping saints, apparitions only Maud can see. When she stumbles upon secrets in Mr. Flood’s cluttered mansion, the saints are never shy to offer both unwanted advice and comic relief. The author made me care about the characters with a few cleverly chosen words. I was eager to find out how their story would unfold.

Educated: A Memoir Tara Westover I found this to be a remarkable memoir. It speaks to the power of education without minimizing the heartache it can cause when education sets someone onto the path of finding one’s place in the world that may be far removed from one’s home and family’s belief system. It’s a powerful story well worth reading.

This memoir stayed with me for a long time. Such an incredible read. - Britta Santamauro

Amy Galvam

Director of Communications

When Breath Becomes Air Paul Kalanithi The marketing hook for this memoir is that a bright young neurosurgeon is tragically diagnosed with terminal cancer. The story chronicles Kalanithi’s transition from physician to patient in simple but poignant prose.

However, the story truly comes alive for me as he attempts to answer the big question of what makes life meaningful in the face of his own mortality—with honesty, kindness, wisdom, and humility. “I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything,” he wrote.

“Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: ‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on.’”

Kalanithi is patently likeable, and I found myself forgetting amidst the details of his life as a physician that he wasn’t going to beat the odds and wrap up this memoir with a happy ending. Yet, his words are a lifeaffirming gift that tell a complicated story of life at its most vulnerable.

A Gentleman in Moscow Amor Towles This charming and improbable story invites the reader to enjoy a cast of beloved characters including a well-mannered anachronism of a protagonist who finds himself embroiled in small adventures while creating a full life under house arrest at the Metropol, a once-upscale Russian hotel. Sentenced for being an aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, Count Alexander Rostov gradually assembles a surrogate family out of the hotel’s employees 5

and regular guests which leads to a warm-hearted respite of a read, keeping the harsher realities of Stalinist Russia outside of the hotel.

A favorite of mine! - Alison Ament

Small Wonder Barbara Kingsolver While this book is sixteen years old and was initially written in response to the events of September 11, 2001, it still carries a beautiful message of hope for today’s world, perhaps needed now more than ever. Kingsolver’s collection of short stories doesn’t shy away from big and truly terrifying realities–global warming, terrorism, the poverty gap, and species extinction–but they are inspiring rather than crippling because she explores them on a personal level, always with a gentle invitation to consider one’s lifestyle choices. She affirms the power of individuals to affect great change when working together.

I happened to borrow this audiobook from the library at the tail end of summer right around the anniversary of 9/11. It was a quick listen and accompanied me on my commute to and from school. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing Barbara Kingsolver break open aspects of the natural world and challenge me in her soft southern lilt to do my part.

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane Lisa See Li-yan is a poor Akha girl, part of a Chinese ethnic minority, whose only inheritance is the wisdom and superstition of her tradition and an ancient and hidden tea tree grove. She lives a hard life and when she breaks a serious tribal taboo, she is driven out ultimately left to grapple with where she came from and who she is meant to be.

Once again, Lisa See brought me into the small and poignant world of her characters while opening a window into greater Chinese culture. As it tells the story of Li-yan, Tea Girl also touches on international Chinese adoption, Chinese migration to the United States, and the international fine-tea trade. I am drawn to both the detail and the compassion with which she writes and am left with a desire to know more and a sense of gratitude that there is redemption in the end.

Matt Green

Head of School

Exit West Moshin Hamid “The end of the world can be cozy at times.”

So says Saeed in the not-too-distant future; in the background, his unnamed city descends into chaos while in the foreground he is falling in love.

Pakistani author Moshin Hamid’s 2017 Man Booker Prize Finalist Exit West explores the timely theme of displacement and migration. Blending dystopian fiction with magical realism, Hamid imagines a world all too familiar to us, one where the places from which people must escape vastly outnumber the places to which they might seek refuge.

Saeed is a gentle, devout soul who works an unremarkable job in an unremarkable, presumably Middle Eastern city, where he meets and falls in love with fierce and strong Nadia, a woman who, even when tearing through town on her motorcycle, adorns herself in black robes from head to toe. They are lovers and best friends who cling to one another when it “seems that as everyone was coming together everyone was also moving apart.”

Scenes of civil unrest and economic collapse play out across the global south and a mass migration begins to unfold. But this is no ordinary migration. Rumors of doors transforming into mysterious portals begin to spread and soon Saeed and Nadia book passage through one such door, stepping out of their decimated city and seconds later into their new home, a massive refugee camp in the west.

Hasid compels us to consider ongoing tensions between East and West, South and North, black and white, poor and rich, amplifying and expediting current trends that for many of us are only as immediate as the evening news. At the same time, Exit West is a love story, an homage to love’s healing and protective power, and to humanity’s capacity to find hope even in the most dire of circumstances.

Long after you have returned Exit West to the shelf, and perhaps long before so-called outsiders are knocking on your door, you may find yourself haunted by a universal truth uttered by one of the novel’s characters: “Everyone migrates, even if we stay in the same houses our whole lives, because we can’t help it. We are all migrants through time.”

Really wonderful and important book. - Britta Santamauro

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Monica Hough

English

Circe Madeline Miller Miller weaves a poignant and page-turning story of Circe, best known as the goddess with “a human voice” who turns men into pigs and other animals in Homer’s Odyssey. Miller gives Circe a human voice both literally and figuratively. The other gods mock her ugly voice and remind her that humans will not fear her as they ought.

While mortals see her as a golden goddess, Circe reminds us that nymphs are lowest in the hierarchy of gods, and usually come to horrid ends, since they are “so very bad at getting away.” Miller goes far beyond Homer, showing us a young Circe whose own mother, the nymph Perse, finds her repulsive, and whose father, the Titan Helios, coldly ignores Circe’s desperate attempts to gain his favor and banishes her for a lonely eternity to the island of Aeaea.

Fortunately for her readers, myriad gods, monsters, and mortals appear in Circe’s story, as she encounters Prometheus, Scylla, Odysseus, Athena, the Minotaur, Daedalus, Medea, Penelope, and Telemachus, among many others. Miller goes beyond the myths to create complicated characters with intriguing stories. This is my favorite book so far this year, and I fell completely under Circe’s spell. (See Petra Ehrenbrink) Educated: A Memoir Tara Westover When students write stories for my English classes, I counsel against too much mayhem: one serious accident or incident can add to the drama; too many more seem unbelievable. Educated proves that truth is indeed stranger than fiction, for Westover compellingly conveys the mayhem of her childhood in this fascinating memoir. Raised by survivalist parents in Idaho, Westover has never gone to school or seen a doctor; she does not even have a birth certificate. All ills are treated by her herbalist mother, and family loyalty runs so deep that no one questions the father’s mania or a brother’s violence.

Inspired by another brother who left the mountain for school, Westover teaches herself enough to take the ACT and attend Brigham Young University, then Harvard, and Cambridge. In gaining the world, she loses much of her family, which makes her story by turns inspiring, harrowing, and heartbreaking.

After a vacation week of mindless “beach reading,” I discovered Educated and could not put it down. It’s a powerful true story—sometimes hard to read or even fathom—of love, survival, and transformation. - Pam Hinkle

The Long Haul: A Trucker’s Tales of Life on the Road Finn Murphy Murphy dropped out of Colby College after his junior year to become a long haul trucker, a decision that angered his parents, but will delight his readers. Who wouldn’t become fond of a man who has a crush on NPR’s Terry Gross because she is the woman with whom he spends the most time? Although the book drags a bit in spots, it offers keen-eyed insight into the world of truckers and parts of America that many of us will never experience. It has also taught me valuable lessons about winnowing out my stuff, being kind to movers, and never, ever, driving near the front wheels of an 18-wheeler.

Lethal White Robert Galbraith At the risk of evisceration by Harry Potter fans everywhere, including my own children, I have never warmed too much to the wizard and his friends. I do, however, admire what J.K. Rowling has done to inspire readers of all ages. Writing under the name Robert Galbraith, Rowling brings the same characterdriven, intricate plotting to her series of detective novels. Lethal White is the fourth in the series featuring detective Cormoran Strike and his resourceful partner Robin Ellacott. A former Royal Military Police Special Investigator, Strike turned private detective after losing his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan. All four of the books offer interesting characters and plot-lines, but the real pleasure is spending time with Strike and Robin who are, of course, destined to eventually end up together.

Too clever a writer to destroy the exquisite tension just yet, Rowling makes these books a favorite guilty pleasure of mine.

Doug Jones

Math

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry Neil Degrasse Tyson Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea Charles Seife When travelling in Costa Rica with Carol DiFalco and 14 Falmouth Academy teenagers, I loaded two books onto my Kindle for some light reading during our flights, waiting periods in airports, and late night entertainment: Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil Degrasse Tyson and Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife. These two books had a surprising number of overlapping points to make about mathematics, philosophy, science and religion. While Tyson’s book is enjoyable and readable, I have to admit that I still don’t quite understand the difference between dark energy and dark matter, and I find the concept of time beyond 1,000 years impossible to totally grasp (don’t bother 7

mentioning a million or a billion years). Seife’s discussion of the development of and resistance to the idea of zero is fascinating, well written, thought provoking, and, at times, frightening. Zero has only been widely accepted as a concept relatively recently (in the past four hundred years), but it is a fundamental basis of many modern mathematical concepts and formulae.

An Odyssey tells the story of a classics professor at Bard College whose father joins his freshman seminar on The Odyssey by Homer. He includes interesting analysis of the epic poem while also exploring his own complicated father/son relationship. He draws many parallels between his filial relationship and those of Odysseus and Telemachus or Laertes. He raises many fascinating questions and he brilliantly weaves his story following the pattern established in the classic epic tradition. A totally enjoyable read with many poignant moments interspersed with some fascinating revelations.

having a second child while they lived there. Though she found it difficult, she adapted to life in Germany and over time, she developed great admiration for the parenting style that she encountered in Berlin. While she acknowledges that differences exist in parenting in Germany, overall children are allowed more freedom and risk taking opportunities than children in America. Zaske supports her personal experiences with conversations with German parents and research from educational literature.

As she tells her story of parenting in Germany, you can tell how hard she worked to let go of her fears and allow her children to become independent from a very young age. She found that German parents, for example, very rarely supervise their children on the playground and save the word “Achtung”(caution) for serious situations.

Instead of constantly telling children to be careful, they are allowed to develop their own comfort zone. While a lack of supervision seems like it is more dangerous, Zaske didn’t find that German children are more often injured when playing; instead, her research showed that more American children end up in the hospital with playground injuries each year. She concludes, with support from educators that she spoke to, that because the child is allowed to find his or her own limit, he or she is able to monitor the level of risk and avoid injury.

When I asked my husband, this lined up with his own experiences. He walked or biked to school on his own at a young age, and he and his brother often explored the woods without parental supervision. While the book does go on for a little too long, something she wrote in the final chapter stayed with me: “The biggest lesson I learned in Germany is that my children are not really mine. They belong first and foremost to themselves.” As a new mother trying to navigate a world full of parenting advice, this book was the first I’ve read that really made me stop and think deeply about my role in my son’s life. I only hope that I am brave enough to step back when the time is right and squash my urge to shout “Achtung”!

Liz Klein

Sarah Knowles

Hank and Jim Scott Eyman During the junior class trip, I spent some of my free time reading Hank and Jim by Scott Eyman. This book recounts the close relationship between Henry Fonda and James Stewart and was recommended to me by a friend of my father because of the close connections my father had to Jimmy Stewart - they both attended Princeton University and studied architecture, they were a part of the University Players in West Falmouth, and they served together in World War II flying B-24 Bombers. In fact, Jimmy Stewart was the co-pilot for one of my father’s 31 missions flying over Germany. I found the details of the lives of these two famous actors to be interesting and enlightening, but I particularly enjoyed reading about the experiences that directly related to my father’s life.

An Odyssey Daniel Mendelsohn

Science

Associate Director of Admissions

2017 Achtung Baby: An American Mom on the German Art of Raising Self-Reliant Children Sara Zaske

The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit Michael Finkel

A friend who spent time growing up on military bases in Germany lent me this book, telling me “it’s a trip.”

This friend is also a new mom, and we have spoken often about the difficulties of motherhood and our hopes for our children’s futures. With a German spouse, I was curious to learn what advice the author had to offer and see how it related to his experiences growing up.

Zaske, the author, moved to Berlin with her husband and young daughter when he received a position at a university there. As a journalist, Zaske was flexible and able to keep working in Germany, and she ended up

Can you imagine living alone in the woods and not speaking to another person for more than 20 years? I was intrigued to read this work of nonfiction after reading a news article about how a man had lived in solitude in the woods of Maine for 27 years before being caught by police while burglarizing a local camp for supplies.

At first, I thought the story would be similar to that of Christopher McCandless from Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer, where the young man looked to live off nature in the Alaskan wilderness before succumbing to the harsh reality of survival. Christopher Knight is not Christopher

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McCandless. Knight did not actually remove himself from civilization and actually required it in order to survive; Knight would steal everything he needed to survive the harsh Maine winters from the cabins surrounding the area where he made camp. His story is fascinating and left me wanting to know more about Knight’s background, why he decided to live alone in the woods, and how he was able to circumvent the authorities for so many years. While Finkel tries to answer these questions by talking directly to a reserved Knight, Knight keeps most of the reasoning of his lifestyle close to his chest.

I loved this, too! Supposedly he never once lit a fire.

- Mike Earley

Artemis Andy Weir Artemis, the second science fiction novel by Andy Weir, came out late in 2017 and I couldn’t wait to start reading it having loved The Martian. As in his previous book, Weir uses comedy, sarcasm, and puns to make the story a light read. The book takes place on the first lunar colony and follows a 26-year-old porter whose impulsiveness gets her into the middle of a lunar conspiracy. I enjoyed the fast-paced plot and Weir’s use of scientific descriptions of chemical and engineering processes discussed by the main character throughout the book. After the success of The Martian and its likable protagonist, many readers may find it hard not to want to compare the two books.

While Artemis’ characters may not be as compelling, enjoy the ability to transport yourself to the moon. It was also announced this past summer that there is a screenplay in the works based on this novel.

Dan Ledoux

Science

Dune Frank Herbert “’A man’s flesh is his own; the water belongs to the tribe’” (Herbert 346). Ten thousand years from now, on the seemingly inhospitable planet, Arrakis, royal houses war over the control of a precious commodity, mélange.

An indigenous people, the Fremen, are primed to become religious zealots if only a prophet would reveal himself.

Paul Atreides, the son of Duke Leto Atreides, finds himself relocated to this planet and realizes he has been bred for a more glorious purpose than the ducal throne.

I picked up this book after hearing claims that it is “the greatest science fiction novel ever written.” I imagined that Dune would entrance me like The Hobbit does for many fantasy readers, and it did, but not for the reasons you might expect. The novel revolves around Paul’s journey from childhood to adulthood and eventually to messiah. Nevertheless, his quest is a platform upon which the book’s themes take center stage. Frank Herbert

emphasizes the political and economic tensions among feudal houses while highlighting the ecology of a desert wasteland where water is valuable currency and mélange drives the universe. How does a civilization survive and eventually thrive where basic necessities are scarce? What happens when beliefs drive people to act when presented with the opportunity for salvation? Explore these questions and more if you are interested in an epic story focused on ecology, religion, philosophy, and politics.

Elisabeth Munro Ledwell

English Chair

Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer Barbara Ehrenreich I have always admired Ehrenreich’s writing. In articles and books, she tackles subjects that help us understand our choices and beliefs. Her Nickel and Dimed, an exploration of the jobs of the working poor, where Ehrenreich herself secured jobs for herself as a house cleaner and stock person at Walmart, among other jobs, and attempted to live on the salaries she earned there, was eye opening for anyone who had never faced such a struggle. Natural Causes, despite its subtitle, is a more hopeful book and is a philosophical exploration of how we face the decline of our bodies when we age. The series of essays examine the science of aging as well as the attitudes toward it. What I like most about Ehrenreich is the honesty with which she examines her own beliefs— and her doubts, which provoke us to explore our own.

Riptide David Lindsay-Abaire This play came my way through a delightful situation.

A former student, now an actor and director, was planning to do a staged reading of the play at Cotuit Center for the Arts. He invited me to play a role in a thoroughly family affair—a cast that included his parents and several close family friends. I was honored to be included. The play focuses roommates in an assisted living community, one grumpy and one cheerful. A bet between the two wreaks havoc with their preconceived notions about each other. Hilarious, thoughtful, and poignant, this is a fabulous play.

Excellence without a Soul Harry R. Lewis Lewis, a former dean of Harvard College, has written a fascinating book about American universities and their ever-changing missions. Giving historical insight into several elements of the college experience, from the organization of dormitories to the rise of the tenured professor free to teach any subject no matter how obscure, Lewis clearly worries about some trends in higher education. I find myself reading this book in small chunks, 9

pondering each idea, ideas that often raise more questions than they answer. The central question that arises again and again is one worth examining further: what do we, as Americans, think a college educated person should know? Other questions he explores: Should colleges offer a stricter core curriculum? How should universities define their intellectual and moral purpose? Whose needs should come first—professors or students? All good questions in the ever-changing environments of higher education.

Ed Lott

Math

The Financial Rules for New College Graduates: Invest before Paying Off Debt--and Other Tips Your Professors Didn’t Teach You Michael C. Taylor ’90 Over the last 10 years, I have spent a large portion of the fall term in my senior math class covering financial literacy topics. We look at how loans work, how credit cards work, how to read a financial aid letter, and the basics of investing. Most of the inspiration for covering this material came from my frequent conversations with Julia Taylor about the lack of knowledge students have about these important life topics. This summer she handed me an early copy of her son’s book on some basic financial guidelines for new college graduates. While this book could be a technical textbook for a financial literacy class, it is an entertaining read that has a powerful message woven into it. I appreciate that the book is set up in a way that readers can choose how in depth they want to get into the math of investing. It is a book every college-age student should read, as it will definitely better prepare them for the important money decisions that they are just beginning to make.

I highly recommend this book–especially for readers who are not well-versed in math. This book makes an important topic accessible and fun. Since reading it, my interest in financial literacy has compounded. - Allyson Manchester

Allyson Manchester

College Guidance and English

Can’t Help Myself Meredith Goldstein For many years, I have been an ardent reader of “Love Letters,” Meredith Goldstein’s advice column in The Boston Globe. When I was living in Boston during graduate school, I loved attending Goldstein’s live events around the city. One Valentine’s Day, she held a screening of the film Serendipity at a hotel in the theater district. As Goldstein shared her insightful commentary on the film, my friends and I instantly connected with her warm sense of empathy and humor. In person, she is exactly as wise and approachable as her writing suggests.

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I was overjoyed, then, when I learned this summer that Goldstein would be publishing a memoir entitled Can’t Help Myself. In the memoir, she addresses her curious position of writing “professional” advice while still struggling to find answers in her own life. This tension, which Goldstein gracefully comes to reconcile, is the heartbeat of the memoir. I was especially moved by the sections where she discusses her mother’s battle with leukemia that took place just as she was launching “Love Letters.”

In Can’t Help Myself, Goldstein also explores advice column culture more broadly. She concludes that the best advice columns do not “tell readers what to do.” Instead, they help readers to consider other perspectives, see hidden meaning, and make connections between unlikely aspects of their lives. Advice columns provide us with an invitation for analysis, and this is exactly why I find them to be so exciting.

Scottie Mobley

Math and Science

The Lost City of the Monkey God Douglas Preston Preston takes you on an exciting, true-life adventure that will make you feel like you’re in an Indiana Jones movie. The story is set in the Honduras jungles of La Mosquitia, home to some of the last unexplored places on earth. Deep within these vast jungles lie the remains of ancient civilizations filled with treasures and artifacts. But what could have caused the abrupt destruction of these people’s way of life?

Along his journey, Preston and his team are faced with deadly snakes, jaguars, flesh-eating parasites, and the drug cartels that rule much of the surrounding areas. He becomes one of many members of his team that contract leishmaniasis, a deadly disease. In learning more and more about the disease, it becomes clear that with the rise of global temperatures we could see an increase in outbreaks of similar diseases in the United States.

Preston hypothesizes that disease could be a source of the destruction of the La Mosquitia civilizations. He cautions us that our world will need to adapt to our changing environment, lest we meet a similar fate, reminding us that no civilization has survived forever.

Susan Moffat

Arts

God’s Middle Finger Richard Grant Being a fan of travel, I read an article in National Geographic about Mexico’s Copper Canyon and was intrigued. So when a Mexican acquaintance suggested I read God’s Middle Finger, I dove in.

Written about the harrowing experience of a British journalist who has a zest for adventure and risk taking,

the book takes the reader through the Sierra Madre where, at every corner, he meets drug lords, murderers, bandits, cave-dwelling Tarahumara Indians, and lots of Mexican machismo, and is completely consumed in this land of the lawless. The area is ruled by competing drug traffickers who deal in staggering amounts of cocaine, marijuana, and opium. Law enforcement is so corrupt that it only adds to the problem. God’s Middle Finger is a wild adventure as the author first travels to garner ideas for his next book and ends up running for his life. It begins humorously and progressively turns violent. After pushing his luck too many times, he ends up being hunted for sport by a couple of drug-crazed men; it was only then that he finally decides to return to the USA. Until I read this, I wanted to travel to that part of the world, and I can honestly say that I won’t be going anytime soon. But I did, in an odd way, appreciate the book. It kept me on the edge of my seat and, while not exactly an easy read, it’s eye opening and worth the heart-stopping experience.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine Gail Honeyman It’s slow to start—as in I almost put it down—but after 30 pages, I was completely consumed by Eleanor and the other beautifully framed oddballs in the story. At the age of ten, Eleanor Oliphant, the quirky and sheltered heroine, experienced a horrible family trauma, which led to moving from foster home to foster home, then college, followed by her second destructive relationship. She works in accounts receivable in an office in Glasgow and is both brilliant and socially inept, cynical of everyone, and friendless. At the age of 30, she leads a simple and quiet existence. Enter Raymond… an awkward and goofy guy with a heart of gold from the IT department, who might be the first to see Eleanor as someone who is not to be ignored or teased behind her back. After two extremely abusive past relationships, she learns that her past doesn’t have to define her future. Through funny and heart-breaking antics, Raymond brings Eleanor out of her shell.

It’s comical and complicated, and, through Eleanor, we learn that it’s possible to fight against loneliness by engaging in random acts of kindness. It’s a moving tale with a combination of love story, drama, thriller, and comedy. Definitely worth a read.

Quirky, heart-wrenching, and ultimately hopeful, this book is wonderful. - Pam Hinkle

Lucy Nelson

Arts

A Piece of the World Christina Baker Kline Set in Maine during the mid-20th century, A Piece of the World introduces us to Andrew Wyeth via his unlikely muse, Christina Olson. She is the subject of his most famous painting, Christina’s World, and the book is written from her perspective. It details her degenerative disease that left her unable to walk as well as her relationship with Wyeth. While factually accurate, the personal narratives and interactions are fictitious. As a huge fan of Wyeth’s work, I loved reading about his imagined relationships and studio time at the Olson farmstead.

Gilead, Home, and Lila Marilynne Robinson While not intended as a trilogy, this trio of books follows the same cast of characters across decades in rural Iowa. Robinson won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005 for Gilead and The Orange Prize for Home in 2009. Gilead is a beautiful book written in the form of letters or journal entries from a dying father to his young son. It is a slower read in the sense that each entry requires time to savor the gentle and wise advice of the father, John Ames. The regret he feels at missing his son’s journey to adulthood and the undercurrent of mistrust he feels towards his best friend’s son intertwine delicately. Home concurrently takes us into the story of Ames’s best friend, Robert Boughton, and two of his adult children. Lila is written from the perspective of Ames’s wife. All three are keenly observed stories of complicated family relationships as well as the redeeming power of love.

The Dancing Wu Li Masters Gary Zukov Quantum mechanics meets Eastern religion in The Dancing Wu Li Masters. Written by a self-proclaimed liberal arts guy, this book is written for the non-scientist to explain the mysteries of the miniscule. I enjoyed this book with the awareness that much of what he explained went completely over my head. I was heartened by one of the footnotes though, “in mathematics you don’t understand things, you just get used to them.” From Einstein’s theories of relativity to Bell’s theorem, the fantastical world of quantum mechanics is fascinating and Zukov draws convincing parallels with Eastern mysticism. This book was written in the 1970s, and I was eager to read about contemporary developments in theoretical physics which led me to the following book.

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The Universe in Your Hand: A Journey Through Space, Time, and Beyond Christophe Galfard Written in 2016, this book explains many of the 20th century discoveries described in The Dancing Wu Li Masters and updates it to the present day with the particle accelerators in Switzerland. For me, it was much easier to understand the concepts of theoretical physics in this book because Galfard uses a more informal tone. Galfard was a PhD student under Stephen Hawking at Cambridge University, and he discusses some of the most complex theories with humor, clever metaphors, and an obvious joy in the content.

Ben Parsons

has died and he is now in a purgatory-esque state between lives. In Bardo, we meet a wild assortment of ghostly characters, who guide Willie (and Lincoln) on a quest to help both father and son find peace. The last in this thematic summer was Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad. Whitehead uses magical realism to recreate an underground railroad that was just that, a real physical underground railroad. Its tracks tunnel their way through the South and sympathizers and slave catchers vie for control of its stations. It’s a story of slavery in all its brutal forms, so be warned that there is violence as graphic as any encountered in Toni Morrison’s Beloved.

Bronwen Prosser Modern Language and English

Homegoing Yaa Gyasi

Arts

The Mars Room Rachel Kushner

Lincoln in the Bardo George Saunders

A brutal, delicate, agonizing look at one woman’s story of how she has come to serve a life of imprisonment.

Rachel Kushner’s phenomenally compelling writing will take your breath away. Beware: painful subject matter, but worth every word.

Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress Dai Sijie

I’d have to look back to graduate school to remember a summer of “thematic reading,” but (completely unintentionally) I’d have to say that the summer of 2018 proved to be just that: a circuitous journey through the West’s most ignominious of narratives, slavery.

The first novel in this series was Homegoing, by a brilliant new voice, Yaa Gyasi. Gyasi’s vignettes span eight generations of a single Ghanaian family, definitely becoming clearer and more poignant in their telling as Gyasi gets closer to the present. The narrative pivots back and forth between her family tree’s two branches, one that remains free in Ghana and the other sold into slavery in the American South. For me, the American stories of Ness, Jo, H., Willie, Sonny, and Marcus set in slaveholding, Jim Crow, and segregated America, resonated the loudest. The second was A Long Way from Home by the masterful Peter Carey. Carey, Australia’s literary chronicler extraordinaire, sets his latest tale in the wild and shadowy Australia of 1953 and ’54. The novel is narrated with alternating points of view (there are three characters–most of the time–in a car racing in the famous Redex time trial around Australia). It’s part Cannonball Run, part Sartre’s’ Huis Clos, and part colonial apology.

I couldn’t put it down. Next up was George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo. This is about as experimental a narrative as you can get, but Saunders’ “tale from the crypt” succeeds in hauntingly poetic fashion. He captures death, grief and love with almost Dante Alighieriesque gravitas. The plot (maybe not the right word) is fictionalized history: Willie, Abraham Lincoln’s young son,

A tiny gem of a novel I just happened upon... An enchanting journey of one boy’s experience during China’s “cultural revolution” as he is sent from his home in the city to a tiny hill village in the far north. A compelling look at what it actually meant to be “re-educated” as the narrator risks his life to read French literature. A beautiful tribute to literature and unrequited love, an exquisite coming of age story.

A Long Way from Home Peter Carey

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A wonderful book affirming the transformative power of reading! - Britta Santamauro

Helen Reuter

Learning Specialist

Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters Anne Boyd Rioux Anne Boyd Rioux’s Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters is an engaging read both for those who loved Little Women and, perhaps even more so, for those could never make it through the novel. Somewhat ashamedly falling into the later category, I devoured Rioux’s study of Louisa May Alcott and the wide and lasting appeal of her most well-known book. Rioux deftly weaves what I had always considered Alcott’s sanitized story with the realities of Louisa’s own life that, although it broadly parallels the life of Jo Marsh in the novel, is fraught with much harsher realities than portrayed in the fictionalized account. These realities,

however, were not met with either pity or submission but with wit, pragmatism, and a maverick spirit one would expect from Alcott. And although these qualities are clearly evident in Little Women, Alcott’s words ring out in unabashed truth and hilarity in Rioux’s book. Rioux allows us to experience the uncensored author and, if for nothing else, makes her study well worth reading.

Jill Reves

Science Chair

Born To Run Christopher McDougall This was an amazing read. After a botched knee surgery, I picked this up on a recommendation to learn how to heal the body and run again. It ended up being my first favorite of 2018 for reasons completely unrelated to running. I can’t write much without spoiling the story, but the author embarks upon a journey to find the littleknown Tarahumara tribe and discover their secrets of health, happiness, and ability to run hundreds of miles a day in what amounts to homemade flip-flops without injury. It’s a must-read for any runner!

Britta Santamauro

Director of Library and

Media Services Children of Blood and Bone Tomi Adeyemi This book is fantasy at its best. It evokes comparison to such classics as Lord of the Rings and Mists of Avalon.

In the world of Children of Blood and Bone the Orisha kingdom is ruled by a cruel and violent king who belongs to the “k’osidán” culture and who suppresses the “maji” culture, for they have the ability to perform magic. You will meet the likeable character of Zéli, who inadvertently becomes the runaway Princess Amari’s companion on their quest to restore magic in the kingdom. Unexpected twists in the plot, quiet pensive moments, and creative scenes of battles and wonder keep the story moving.

Children of Blood and Bone is epic storytelling with a fantasy world full of extraordinary details.

Daring Democracy: Igniting Power, Meaning, and Connection for the America We Want Frances Moore Lappé and Adam Eichen There is more that unites us than what sets us apart.

We honor human rights, fair elections, a fair economy and a healthy environment. Our democracies should mirror our core values, and we vote for our political leaders because we trust that they will act in the interest of the people they govern. So what happened? This book opened my eyes to the tragedy of big money in government.

I honestly did not know, until I read this book, how incredibly systematically a few wealthy Americans have influenced the American political system. You may want

to believe that I fell for a far flung conspiracy theory, and part of me wishes I had, but Daring Democracy presents irrefutable evidence and facts that hardly ever make it into our broken news system. Just as much as we never discuss a few concrete solutions, as presented by the authors, that could fix some of the problems, such as choice-ranked voting, National Popular Vote bills, federally-funded congressional races, and removing barriers that make it difficult to vote. Daring Democracy encourages people to see their common ground across party lines and to pursue our common goal together: to live in a free democratic society.

Carla Surette

Executive Assistant to the Head of School

Friendship Cake Lynne Hinton I was browsing through the books at Falmouth Library when I came upon this book. As I thumbed through it, I realized it contained recipes, too, so I decided to read it. It is about a church committee charged with creating a church cookbook. Even though it is a short book, the reader quickly gets caught up in the lives of the characters. It was a great summer read.

Christmas Cake Lynne Hinton I enjoyed Friendship Cake so much that I decided to read this one, too. Once again the church committee decides to publish a cookbook, but this time featuring only cake. The ladies of the committee stand by each other through difficult times with their usual antics. When the characters refer to the “cake lady,” I affectionately thought of our own Martha Borden, a talented and generous baker.

Don Swanbeck

History

Reading Lolita in Tehran Azar Nafisi From time-to-time in history, leaders of various societies try to create heaven on earth. They start out with a noble ideal, but eventually they need to resort to cruelties and draconian laws to force people to behave in a saintly way. Author Azar Nafisi in her book, Reading Lolita in Tehran, reveals the Iranian version of such an effort during the late 1970s through the 1990s. As a university teacher of Western literature, Nafisi comes into conflict with the authorities on numerous occasions.

Eventually she forms her own class inside her home, inviting some former students to share her exploration of four authors: Vladimir Nabokov, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, and Jane Austen. Nafisi uses the authors to provide her students with perspective on their current 13

predicament as they confront the restrictions of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The values of the Western novels conflict with those of their own society where people endure heinous atrocities perpetrated in the name of God. Through their analysis of the novels the class comes to realize the connection between empathy and imagination, both of which the group of women struggle to find in their stultifying culture. Imbued with the individualism of the West, the author and some of her students share each other’s struggles and contemplate emigrating in order to fulfill their personal ambitions and find happiness.

Julie Swanbeck

History and Math

Baracoon Zora Neale Hurston “The thoughts of the ‘black ivory,’ the ‘coin of Africa,’ had no market value. Africa’s ambassadors to the New World have come and worked and died, and left their spoor, but no recorded thought.” This observation from anthropologist and author Zora Neale Hurston underlines the importance of Baracoon, a posthumous 2018 book edited by African American literary scholar Deborah G. Plant, based on Hurston’s 1927 interviews with 86-yearold Cudjo Lewis. Fifty years after the American slave trade was outlawed, Lewis was kidnapped from his village in Africa and brought to America aboard the Clotilda, the last known transatlantic slaver. Lewis’ first hand recollections of this past—from his free African roots to his five and a half years as a slave to his life as a freedman—are the rare perspectives of a survivor. Hurston, a cultural anthropologist, befriends Lewis over a period of three months with gifts of watermelon and peaches and ham, and she faithfully records his memories in his vernacular, a controversial choice that undermined earlier publication of this work. Less dramatic than many slave narratives, Lewis’ story is unmotivated by political ends; instead Hurston provides a window to Lewis’ journey across two continents and nearly 70 years by honoring his own voice.

Island Beneath the Sea Isabelle Allende Against the historical backdrop of the late 18th century French Revolution and slave revolts in French-occupied Haiti, Isabelle Allende creates another, more sensational, depiction of slavery in America. Her novel, Island Beneath the Sea, tells the story of Zarite, a mulatto maidservant who, at age 11, becomes the concubine of her French master, Toulouse Valmorain. The first half of the book, which takes place in Haiti, felt more compelling and realistic than the last half in Louisiana, when the plot relied too heavily on coincidence and the author’s hurried subplots with minor characters (to include acceptance of interracial and homosexual unions) seemed too contrived.

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Still, Zarite’s strength in the face of racism, her solace in voodoo loas, and her determination to exact her freedom make this story worth the read.

I found this book very interesting, too. - Alison Ament I love Isabel Allende, but this book made me very, very sad. If you can read it in Spanish, I recommend you do.

- Crissy Torruella

Cristina Torruella

Associate Director of Annual Giving and Development Operations

Both of the books I am recommending this year share in common strong women and the bond of unlikely friendships, yet they are very different books. The first takes place in Paris in the world of high fashion and alternative lifestyles, and the second takes place mostly in a small village in India where strict social norms for society must be observed, and where even trying to break away or change can have tragic circumstances. The women in both books forge their paths (traditionally and non-traditionally) to find their own version of happiness.

The Designer Marius Gabriel This book is set in 1944 Paris, soon after the liberation.

A newlywed young American woman, Cooper Reilly, comes to Paris with her very handsome but philandering husband. There she befriends a shy, reclusive designer named Christian Dior. He introduces her to a side of life she had never experienced and eventually forges a path that leads to her happiness.

The Storyteller’s Secret Sejal Badani Jaya, our protagonist, is grieving several miscarriages and the breakup of her marriage, when she travels to a small village in India where her mother and grandmother grew up. There, she befriends her grandmother’s faithful and beloved servant, Ravi (an untouchable) and through Ravi’s retelling of her grandmother’s stories, she learns of her grandmother’s life, her mother’s life, and eventually finds the peace she so desperately was looking for. Yes, there is a happy ending for Jaya—but there is also great tragedy and sadness in this book.

Emily Turner

English and Modern Language

A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter William Deresiewicz It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a recent college graduate in possession of an English degree

must be in want of an intellectually stimulating book to boast about having read. If said book has “Jane Austen” in the title, all the better. I first stumbled upon William Deresiewicz’s A Jane Austen Education at the Falmouth Public Library this summer while mourning the fact that my student ID had expired, and I no longer laid claim to a personal thesis carrel. Begrudgingly, I navigated my way through shelves of books that didn’t seem quite as intellectual as those in my college library. I finally settled on A Jane Austen Education, figuring that a book about a classic author written by a professor at Yale had to contain at least a small grain of valuable wisdom.

Deresiewicz wasted no time in showing me that I was thinking about literature all wrong. He, too, was once a twenty-something year old book snob who refused to read a book unless his “need to study prestigious literature was being satisfied.” With contagious humility and engaging humor, Deresiewicz recounts his transformation from wannabe Modernist into Austenite. The memoir features a chapter about a lesson that can be learned from each of Austen’s six novels. For example, Pride and Prejudice teaches us that “growing up has nothing to do with knowledge or skills, because it has everything to do with character and conduct.” Similarly, Emma is an homage to everyday experiences and Persuasion emphasizes true friendship. A Jane Austen Education taught me to laugh at myself and reminded me that there’s more to literature than themes and metaphors—if a book is really worth it, it might just teach you something about yourself.

For a book that inspires you to revisit Jane Austen and to become a better person, look no further than A Jane Austen Education.

Rob Wells

History

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Yuval Noah Harari At the outset of the last chapter of this terrific work, Harari writes, “This book began by presenting history as the next stage of the continuum of physics to chemistry to biology,” and all of the above disciplines and more are touched upon and connected in this extremely readable, 416-page history of humans on earth. Harari writes with a powerful intellect and wit that offer insights, answers, and questions on topics ranging from evolution to religion to laissez-faire capitalism, and likely any other human theory or construct one can name. A sampling of sub-chapter titles includes: “The Cost of Thinking,” “The Benefits of Idolatry,” and “The Meaning of Life” to name but a few; the book is far from a traditional historical or anthropological survey of humans. This is a work that challenges, stimulates and excites; it is a book that changes how one sees and understands the world.

As Doug Jones noted in these pages last year, Sapiens is best enjoyed in small, delightful bites that give one time

to savior the joy and power of Harari’s strongly-held and cleverly presented assertions. This is a book that I anticipate reading again and again.

In Sunlight and in Shadow Mark Helprin Last spring, my colleague, Ruth Slocum, told me that she was enjoying a book that she knew to be one of my all-time favorites, Helprin’s novel, A Soldier of the Great War. As I joyfully chatted with Ruth about that book, I found myself wondering why I had never sought out any other works by this very talented author. In Sunlight and in Shadow is a charming love story that reminds us of the magical feeling of falling in love, and a moving, if somewhat romanticized, tribute to the spirit of the young men who fought and died in World War II. Most of all, however, it is a love letter to the New York of Helprin’s youth in the 1940’s. It is a tribute to Helprin’s gifts as a writer that despite the fact that a central premise of the plot fails to make logical sense, I was swept away by the majesty of this novel and drawn into a caring relationship with its characters. This is a beautifully written and enjoyable work of art.

Jacqueline Yanch

Science

The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr E.T.A. Hoffmann I had never read anything written by E.T.A. Hoffmann, but I had seen two classical ballets based on Hoffman’s stories (The Nutcracker and Coppelia), so when I came across The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr I was eager to try it. [I don’t know German so I read a translation of the original by Anthea Bell.]

Hoffmann was a lawyer, a musical conductor and composer, and later on in life he also became a writer of short stories (primarily) and novels. The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr was his second novel and was written at the very end of his life. The book’s literary device is very unusual: musician Johannes Kreisler writes his biography and leaves it in his library. His cat, Murr, also decides that it is time he shared his thoughts and ideas with the world and begins to write these opinions down on some paper he finds in Kreisler’s library. He uses the back of Kreisler’s biography so that when the manuscript is ultimately sent to the printer, the two documents get erroneously merged together. The result is the interweaving of text by two “different writers”. After reading several pages of Kreisler’s history, the narrative stops in mid-sentence, and we find we are now reading the opinions of Murr. After several pages of this, we abruptly switch back to Johannes Kreisler. The switching back and forth continues for the duration of the novel.

The musical Kreisler is a thinly disguised representation of Hoffmann himself, so the Kreisler 15

portions, although written in the third person, are loosely autobiographical and therefore very interesting to read from that perspective. But the portions written by Murr are very funny. The cat, writing in the first person, is exceedingly vain and very full of himself. Through Murr’s own first-hand account of events, full of selfcongratulatory descriptions of all kinds, Hoffmann is cleverly adept at showing us what’s really going on. This juxtaposition of the truth and Murr’s glowing account of himself is delightful. It is unusual for me to laugh out loud while reading any book, but I did so many times with this one. Although this book was written almost 200 years ago (1819), the humor is timeless.

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World Jack Weatherford The author of these books is professor of anthropology at Macalester University in Minnesota and an expert in the role of tribal peoples in the evolution of world commerce.

In the 1990s, two developments converged and finally allowed, after several centuries, an in-depth exploration of the rise of Genghis Khan and the Mongol people in the 12th and 13th centuries. The first development was the translation and deciphering of the manuscript containing the ‘lost history’ of Genghis Khan, which has been dubbed The Secret History of the Mongols. This document records the words of Genghis Khan throughout his life as he formed the Mongol nation, established its basic laws and administrative structure, and delegated powers to individuals and families. The second development was the collapse of communist rule and the departure of the Soviets from Mongolian territory and, specifically, from the region surrounding the home of Genghis Khan, a region the Soviets had labeled a” Highly Restricted Area.” They had surrounded this by 1 million hectares of “Restricted Area,” thereby completely eliminating access by the public or by scholars interested in Mongol history.

Professor Weatherford worked with a team comparing what was recorded in the Secret History with primary and secondary texts from a dozen languages and traveled through Mongolia matching descriptions with physical locations until they had pieced together the story of Genghis Khan, his childhood and the forces that shaped his personality, his rise to power, and the expansion of the Mongol army throughout large parts of Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.

In only 25 years, the Mongol army subjugated more lands and people than the Romans had conquered in four hundred years. In the words of the author, “Whether measured by the total number of people defeated, the sum of the countries annexed, or by the total area occupied, Genghis Khan conquered more than twice as much as any other man in history.” While the Mongols invented little that was new, founded no new religion, and had few technological skills beyond horse-riding and 16

strategic warfare, they were responsible for collecting and disseminating aspects of all cultures they conquered and spread skills and ideas from one civilization to the next.

I enjoyed reading about the life of Temujin (‘Genghis Khan’ is a title meaning ‘universal leader’) and about how hardship and betrayal in his youth formed his personality and his tactical approach to growing his empire in later years. He had a strong sense of morality, one based on the importance of home and family, and believed in and implemented the idea of religious freedom. He had a good, long life, dying peacefully in his bed at age 70, surrounded by family and faithful friends.

The Mongols were openly and even ardently admired by writers and thinkers of the Renaissance. It was eyeopening to learn that our traditional Western view of the Mongols as barbarians, as people with inferior intelligence and culture, originated with Voltaire in his 1753 play, The Orphan of China. Voltaire used the figure of Genghis Khan as a stand-in for his real target of criticism, the French King, whom he was too afraid to criticize directly. In Weatherford’s words, Voltaire’s revisionist history “began the modern cursing of the Mongols.” This book, it seemed to me, did an excellent job of counteracting the curse.

The Secret History of the Mongol Queens Jack Weatherford In the late 13th century, someone cut away part of the text from The Secret History of the Mongols. It was from the portion that recorded the words of Genghis Khan in 1206, at the time he was creating the Mongol Empire and forming the governmental structure. The text immediately preceding the removed portion listed the honors, titles, and territories provided for each of the Khan’s sons, brothers, and other male relatives. The extant portion ends with the line: “Let us reward our female offspring.” It was here that a large portion of text was cut away.

Genghis Khan had four sons, all of whom were disappointments: drunkards, mediocre fighters, and poor leaders. And, although it is clear that there has been an effort over time to remove all mention of any female Mongol ruler, we now know that Genghis Khan had seven or possibly eight daughters. The title of Weatherford’s 2010 book, The Secret History of the Mongol Queens, reflects the fact that the concentrated effort over centuries to remove all reference to any powerful female Mongol was nearly successful. It was fascinating to read how, and by whom, this sabotage was implemented, and also to learn how Weatherford and colleagues pieced together the dynastic history of Genghis Khan’s daughters and daughters-in-law. The subtitle of the book, How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued his Empire, indicates just how critical they had been at maintaining and safeguarding the Empire, both in the generation immediately after Genghis Khan’s death and for many decades to come.

Falmouth Academy Authors Students

Faculty Maya Peterson ’21

Susan Moffat

Early Bird: The Power of Investing Young, Independently published, 2017

Kids Explore Boston, Adams Media Corp., 1992 Kids Explore Florida, Adams Media Corp., 1995 Kids Explore Chicago, Adams Media Corp., 1996

Marina Weber ’21

Clare Beams

Globe Warming Express, Terra Nova Books, 2017

We Show What We Have Learned and Other Stories, Lookout Books of UNC Wilmington, 2016

Selections from Published Alumni Raymond Bartlett ’88 Sunsets of Tulum, Barrel Fire Press, 2015

Edward Melillo ’92 Strangers on Familiar Soil: Rediscovering the Chile-California Connection, Yale University Press, 2015

Kurt Mills ’83 Monika Bang-Campbell ’94 Little Rat Sets Sail, Harcourt, Inc., 2002 Little Rat Makes Music, Harcourt Books, 2007 Little Rat Rides, Harcourt, Inc., 2004

International Responses to Mass Atrocities in Africa: Responsibility to Protect, Prosecute, and Palliate, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015 Kristen Roupenian ’99

Katherine Bergren ’00

You Know You Want This, Gallery/Scout Press, 2019

The Global Wordsworth: Romanticism Out of Place (Transits: Literature, Thought & Culture 1650–1850), Bucknell University Press, 2018

Robert Silvers ’86

Jenna Bernstein ’11 (with Mary Lou Piland)

Photomosaics, Henry Holt & Co, 1997 Disney’s Photomosaics, Disney Editions, 1998 Photomosaic Portraits, Studio, 2000

For the Love of Spumoni, TheHeartKnowsNoColor, 2018 Michael Taylor ’90 Yuki Honjo ’90 Japan’s Early Experience of Contract Management in the Treaty Ports, Japan Library, 2003

The Financial Rules for New College Graduates: Invest Before Paying off Debt—and Other Tips Your Professors Didn’t Teach You, Praeger, 2018

Thomas Watson ’83 Tommy’s Mommy’s Fish, Viking Books for Young Readers, 1996

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