Winter break offers a warm respite from the fall semester’s required reading.
As many students return home for the holidays, we asked professors across the university for their favorite books based on their area of expertise.
We found a page-turning spy thriller from a former CIA officer, a love story and family saga from NPR’s book critic, and a book of poetry that invites you to slow down from a Jesuit priest.
Discover their recommendations this winter break — but only if you want to.
by Kiran Desai
“I think many of our students could identify with aspects of the main characters in The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai. The novel opens on a college campus in Vermont where Sonia is homesick for her native India. Her depression makes her vulnerable to a visiting painter — an art monster! Meanwhile, Sunny has left India to work in New York, but finds himself stuck in his journalism career. Desai’s novel is a tangled love story that ruminates on exile from one’s home and one’s own sense of self.”
–Maureen Corrigan is the Nicky and Jamie Grant Distinguished Professor of the Practice in Literary Criticism in the Department of English and the book critic for NPR’s Fresh Air
***
by Colson Whitehead
“Sometimes referred to as ‘a zombie story with brains,’ Colson Whitehead’s novel Zone One immerses the reader in post-apocalyptic Manhattan, where a tight-knit team of survivors tries to eradicate zombies from the city. This beautifully written novel, however, is not really about zombies but about the boundaries between the human, almost human and inhuman. Whitehead’s understated wit and mastery of the form make this book a joy to read.”
–Kathryn Temple is a professor of law and humanities in the Department of English. She taught Zone One in her course Zombie Law & Literature in the spring of 2025.
by David McCloskey
“I’ve read each book David McCloskey has written, enjoyed them all, and now find in The Persian that he has elevated his storytelling into a yet more artistic level. The story is replete with suspenseful twists and turns and is hard to put down. But as a former CIA case officer, I found the magic lies in its characters, the relationships and their emotions. His delivery is filled with intriguing subcontext and messaging on life for those in the shadows.”
–Douglas London is an adjunct associate professor in the School of Foreign Service. He served in the CIA for 34 years and wrote the book The Recruiter: Spying and the Lost Art of American Intelligence.
by Deborah Harkness
“This is amazingly accurate historical fiction with witches, vampires and magic. The historical accuracy probably comes from the fact that the author is a history professor at the University of Southern California. And, for her doctoral degree, she ‘researched the history of magic and science in Europe, especially during the period from 1500 to 1700.’”
–Yoshi Kohno is the McDevitt Chair in Computer Science, Ethics, and Society and a professor in the Department of Computer Science and the Center for Digital Ethics. In his free time, he writes science fiction.
by Kazuo Ishiguro
“This won the Nobel Prize in literature in 2017, and I am currently reading it myself (it’s my winter reading!). It is set in post-Arthurian Britain, and the protagonists are an elderly couple in search of their son, of whom they have only fragmentary memories. It directly repurposes the common tropes of medieval romance for, in this case, philosophical reflection on cultural memory and loss.”
–Nathaniel Bump is an adjunct lecturer in the College of Arts & Sciences. He teaches the course Love in the Middle Ages.
by Denise Levertov
“After a long semester that, I am sure, included a fair amount of reading for all of us, spending some time with the poetry of Denise Levertov would be a great way to close out the year. This small volume features pieces that will ignite your religious imagination, invite you to look at familiar themes and stories with new eyes, and tempt you to buy a collection of all of her poems. The Stream & the Sapphire welcomes the novice poetry reader, accommodates the person who is too busy even for a short story, and lets everyone listen in on the divine music playing all around us.”
–Fr. Peter Folan, S.J., is a Jesuit priest and an assistant professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies.
by Jeff Guenther
“Big Dating Energy is a quick and fun, insightful read into relationships and dating. Each chapter ends with a series of questions meant to encourage the reader to reflect on how they imagine what love is, what dating looks like to them, what expectations they may have of their romantic relationships and how they might be more intentional in their dating practices. Most importantly, the book seeks to push readers to consider how their thoughts about love and how they act in romantic relationships might allow for building wider collectives and community, beyond the romantic dyad.”
–Amrita Ibrahim is an associate teaching professor and director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Anthropology.
by Jules Tygiel
“Tygiel chronicles the integration of Major League Baseball from a political, cultural and sociological perspective and explores how Robinson courageously paved the way for generations of African Americans to succeed in professional team sports. A timeless classic, Baseball’s Great Experiment taught me that the history of baseball is the history of 20th-century America.”
–Brad Snyder is an author and the St. Thomas More Professor in Law and History, Anne Fleming Research Professor at Georgetown Law. He teaches constitutional law, sports law and American legal history.
by Felisberto Hernández
“Uruguayan surrealist writer (and piano player) Felisberto Hernández’s Piano Stories is a collection of short, uncanny pieces shaped by the sensibility of a working pianist. The piano appears in each story, but it’s not a book about piano or even music. The instrument is there, sometimes centrally, sometimes only in passing. But what unifies the book is its attention to touch, repetition, memory and the inner life of objects.
When I read this, it makes me think about my own connection to the guitar, about what it feels like to inhabit a practiced body. Subtle, humorous and unsettling, Piano Stories reminds me of how some of us explore the world unseparated from our instrument.”
–Benjamin Harbert is a professor of music and chair of the Department of Performing Arts.
by Jefferson Fisher
“This book provides concrete communication strategies for dealing with challenging topics and framing conversations in productive ways. It discusses strategies to understand how to be clear about your message, harness your emotions and focus on connecting with the other person. The book highlights dialogue rather than persuasion, so as to move to learning conversations.”
–Jeanine Turner is a professor in the Communication, Culture & Technology program and the McDonough School of Business. She is the author of the book Being Present: Commanding Attention at Work and at Home by Managing Your Social Presence.
by Yael van der Wouden
“A book that took my breath away in 2025 was a gift from my youngest child, selected by them as we pored over tables in Hatchards after spending a June morning tracing Virginia Woolf’s steps and eyes in her circa 1930 Street Haunting. From seeking writers’ pencils in the morning, we became readers seeking a special read to share, landing on Yael van der Wouden’s The Safekeep.
A quiet but explosive story of a house and its intruders that welcomes unhurried readers to appreciate the unlayering of mysteries and secrets and deceptions. Ursula and Eva will burrow into your consciousness, their anguished relationship startling, surprising, and finally, affirming you.”
–Rebecca Boylan is an adjunct lecturer in the English Department.
Editor’s Note: Featured photo by Florencia Viadana on Unsplash.
