December is national read a new book month. To celebrate this fun tradition, we are going to share some book ideas for you to enjoy over winter break. Here are some suggestions from avid book readers around campus. Enjoy 🙂
Holly Lorenz – Residence Education and Housing Services
What book do you suggest for Michigan Tech students?:
The Scholomance Series (A Deadly Education and The Last Graduate)
These felt like reading the Harry Potter books all over again but if the enemy were the magical school the students were sent to and the main character was an unknown nobody who couldn’t make the friends they desperately needed to survive. *Note: it DOES end on a cliffhanger in the second book and you’ll have to wait almost a full year for the next and final installment.
What is your all-time favorite book?:
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The narrator and main character of this book is Death themself. It’s an interesting and different take on a World War II setting that I feel any reader would be able to connect with in some way or another.
Reading Buddy: Yuppsie
Liz Fujita – Electrical and Computer Engineering
What book do you suggest for Michigan Tech students?:
The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin
I think this will be classic sci-fi in the way that some of the books by Asimov, Herbert, or Leguin defined their eras. Maybe that’s thinking too big, but it’s a fantastic story, and it’s a good experience to read in a different storytelling/narrative style than we’re used to.
What is your all-time favorite book?:
The Lord of the Rings trilogy
It’s not as dense as people say it is – really. The world is so rich and beautiful! LotR is the first book I remember being read as a child other than Dr Seuss. Returning to Middle Earth is returning home.
Reading Buddy: Milano
Advice:
At the end of the day, don’t let anyone gatekeep your reading. I think sometimes there is pressure to read “good” books – classics, or books that are popular in the moment, or ones that are on so-and-so’s book list – and that if you don’t read those things you’re “not really reading anything worthwhile.” Do not let this attitude fool you! Reading is valuable, no matter the genre, the medium, the story.
Ashley Eschbach – Residence Education and Housing Services
What book do you suggest for Michigan Tech students?:
The Fire Keepers Daughter by Angeline Boulley
This book was enjoyable because it had a bit of everything. It was well written, had a mystery, some action and even some romance. One of the most enjoyable parts was that it is based in the Upper Peninsula. As a resident of the UP, it was fun to learn about places that I’ve been and learn more about the culture of the UP and the Ojibwe reservation.
What is your all-time favorite book?:
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
This is my favorite book because it is about the choices that we make and how those choices can shape and haunt our futures. In all of his books, Hosseini takes the reader to Afghanistan and really explores the culture and traditions. Some major themes that I made it enjoyable to me were friendship (and what it means to be a friend), guilt and redemption. The Kite Runner is not the happiest of stories but stays with you for a long time.
Erin Eberhard – Graduate Student
What book do you suggest for Michigan Tech students?:
The Lost Apothecary – Sarah Penner
It is a mix between present day and traveling back in time. So you have a main character going through problems in the present day and trying to deal with that by exploring mysteries of the past.
What is your all-time favorite book?:
Harry Potter Series – JK Rowling
Honestly, these are the books I return to the most. It is like returning to a familiar world when I go back to read them and the nostalgia of remembering reading them for the first time. I get lost in the wizarding world every time.
Last Thoughts:
Reading is the best! Escaping into the world the book creates in your head has been a way for me to get through grad school.