Alex Harrington ’19

As fall comes to a close and the cold nights get longer, so begins the search for warmth. Whether that’s found in a steaming cup of coffee from the Grille or a favorite cozy sweater, everyone has something to warm them in the winter months. For literature lovers, a good book can be just as comforting as our favorite sweaters or hot coffee. In case you are on the hunt for the perfect by-the-fireplace read, we at The Words have brought you a list of recommendations from our esteemed English department faculty and students.

Moonglow by Michael Chabon

Sam Greenstein ‘19 says one of their favorites from last winter is Moonglow. “There’s warmth from familial bonds and human emotion,” as well as a more physical warmth.

From Goodreads: “Moonglow unfolds as the deathbed confession, made to his grandson, of a man the narrator refers to only as ‘my grandfather.’ It is a tale of madness, of war and adventure, of sex and desire and ordinary love, of existential doubt and model rocketry, of the shining aspirations and demonic underpinnings of American technological accomplishment at mid-century and, above all, of the destructive impact—and the creative power—of the keeping of secrets and the telling of lies. A gripping, poignant, tragicomic, scrupulously researched and wholly imaginary transcript of a life that spanned the dark heart of the twentieth century, Moonglow is also a tour de force of speculative history in which Chabon attempts to reconstruct the mysterious origins and fate of Chabon Scientific, Co., an authentic mail-order novelty company whose ads for scale models of human skeletons, combustion engines and space rockets were once a fixture in the back pages of Esquire, Popular Mechanics, and Boy’s Life. Along the way Chabon devises and reveals, in bits and pieces whose hallucinatory intensity is matched only by their comic vigor and the radiant moonglow of his prose, a secret history of his own imagination.”

Gate of the Sun by Elias Khoury

The Words’ s own Zeena Fuleihan ‘18 describes Gate of the Sun as “the most beautiful book [she] has ever read.” She says, “every sentence is stunningly gorgeous . . . I read it a few months ago but still dream about it.”

From Goodreads: “Drawing on the stories he gathered from refugee camps over the course of many years, Elias Khoury’s epic novel Gate of the Sun has been called the first magnum opus of the Palestinian saga.

Yunes, an aging Palestinian freedom fighter, lies in a coma. Keeping vigil at the old man’s bedside is his spiritual son, Khalil, who nurses Yunes, refusing to admit that his hero may never regain consciousness. Like a modern-day Scheherazade, Khalil relates the story of Palestinian exile while also recalling Yunes’s own extraordinary life and his love for his wife, whom he meets secretly over the years at Bab al-Shams, the Gate of the Sun.”

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

Charlie Pham ‘20 recommends The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle because “it’s very long.” She says, “in the colder months when you’re home for break, it engages your imagination . . . it’s surrealistic and has very beautiful imagery.”

From Goodreads: “In a Tokyo suburb a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife’s missing cat. Soon he finds himself looking for his wife as well in a netherworld that lies beneath the placid surface of Tokyo. As these searches intersect, Okada encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists: a psychic prostitute; a malevolent yet mediagenic politician; a cheerfully morbid sixteen-year-old-girl; and an aging war veteran who has been permanently changed by the hideous things he witnessed during Japan’s forgotten campaign in Manchuria.”

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

Professor and Department Chair Andrea Kaston Tange “loves detective novels” for the winter. She says, “If you liked The Woman in White, read The Moonstone.” Professor Kaston Tange has turned many students onto Collins’s The Woman in White, which is considered one of the first examples of sensation fiction.

From Goodreads: “Wilkie Collins’s spellbinding tale of romance, theft, and murder inspired a hugely popular genre—the detective mystery. Hinging on the theft of an enormous diamond originally stolen from an Indian shrine, this riveting novel features the innovative Sergeant Cuff, the hilarious house steward Gabriel Betteridge, a lovesick housemaid, and a mysterious band of Indian jugglers.”

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Beloved English Department Coordinator Jan Beebe says she “really loved The Goldfinch.” She recommends it for late fall because “it’s long and keeps you with it.”

From Goodreads: “It begins with a boy. Theo Decker, a thirteen-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don’t know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art.

As an adult, Theo moves silkily between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty labyrinth of an antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love—and at the center of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.”

Novels and Stories by Shirley Jackson

“It’s cold, you’re stuck indoors, haven’t seen the sun in a while, starting to go crazy—perfect conditions for the delightfully creepy stories in the Library of America edition of Shirley Jackson’s Novels and Stories,” says Professor Matt Burgess.

From Goodreads: “‘The world of Shirley Jackson is eerie and unforgettable,’ writes A. M. Homes. ‘It is a place where things are not what they seem; even on a morning that is sunny and clear there is always the threat of darkness looming, of things taking a turn for the worse.’ Jackson’s characters—mostly unloved daughters in search of a home, a career, a family of their own—chase what appears to be a harmless dream until, without warning, it turns on its heel to seize them by the throat. We are moved by these characters’ dreams, for they are the dreams of love and acceptance shared by us all. We are shocked when their dreams become nightmares, and terrified by Jackson’s suggestion that there are unseen powers—‘demons’ both subconscious and supernatural—malevolently conspiring against human happiness.”

From all of us at The Words, happy reading, and stay warm.