Nathan Abrams
Professor of film studies, Bangor University
I鈥檓 planning to reread Margaret Atwood鈥檚 The聽Handmaid鈥檚 Tale (Vintage). This has become more pressing given recent developments in the US (and here to some extent), and also because of the excellent adaptation currently being broadcast on Channel 4. In terms of new books, I鈥檓 looking forward to David Grann鈥檚 Killers of the Flower Moon: Oil, Money, Murder and the Birth of the FBI (Simon & Schuster), a true story that explores not only a strange site of murders of oil-wealthy native Americans in Oklahoma but also J. Edgar Hoover鈥檚 role in solving them and, in so doing, helping to establish the modern FBI.
Geoffrey Alderman
Senior research fellow, Institute of Historical Research
The upcoming centenary of the Balfour Declaration will no doubt be celebrated and mourned in equal measure by many in academia. I shall be preparing for this event by reading Leslie Turnberg鈥檚 recently published Beyond the Balfour Declaration: The 100-Year Quest for Israeli-Palestinian Peace (Biteback). This has been highly recommended as an insightful account that asks the subversive questions 鈥 which are, after all, the only questions worth asking. The possibility that Turnberg and I may differ 鈥 perhaps radically 鈥 in our explanations of why there is no Israeli-Palestinian peace is an additional incentive for me to understand what this celebrated medical professor (and Labour peer) has to say. I鈥檒l also be rereading Irshad Manji鈥檚 The Trouble with Islam Today (St Martin鈥檚 Griffin). First published in 2004, this page turner is a brave, astute and authoritative riposte to those Muslims who insist on denying still the historic link between Palestine and the Jewish people.
Susan Bassnett
Professor of comparative literature, University of Warwick
I shall be reading Bela Shayevich鈥檚 translation of a collection of interviews by the 2015 Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich, Second-Hand Time (Fitzcarraldo). This book, like her previous work, gives a voice to ordinary people living in the aftermath of the great seismic shifts that have changed the lives of citizens of the former USSR. I shall also be reading the latest Alex Rider book, Never Say Die (Walker), before my grandson gets hold of it, as I am big fan of Anthony Horowitz.
Heike Bauer
Senior lecturer in English and gender studies, Birkbeck, University of London
I鈥檒l be heading off to the Sallie Bingham Centre for Women鈥檚 History and Culture at Duke University this autumn for a new project on women鈥檚 graphic memoirs about violence. In preparation, I鈥檒l be rereading Joan Smith鈥檚 1989 classic Misogynies (Westbourne Press). Many of Smith鈥檚 insights into how 鈥渉atred鈥 against women is expressed in everyday life remain scarily, infuriatingly current. I鈥檓 very much looking forward to finally being able to settle down with Sara Ahmed鈥檚 Living a Feminist Life (Duke University Press), already a classic of intersectional feminism. Having only had the chance to dip into the book so far, I can鈥檛 wait to spend time with the 鈥渇eminist killjoy鈥 and her hope and resistance.
探花视频
Devorah Baum
Lecturer in English literature and critical theory, University of Southampton
This summer I aim to read the always brilliant Stephen Cheeke鈥檚 Transfiguration: The Religion of聽Art in Nineteenth-Century Literature before Aestheticism (Oxford University Press), a major study of key figures in the development of a modern sensibility, expressed in near-religious devotion to certain kinds of art. Critically aware of the historical and cultural changes underpinning this development, this is a book that thinks seriously about the spellbinding impact of beauty on us. I also aim to return to Leonora Carrington鈥檚 wry and uncompromising The聽Debutante and Other Stories (Silver Press), which has just been republished with a foreword by Sheila Heti and an afterword by Marina Warner. This year is the centenary of Carrington, whose remarkable but often unsung role within surrealism, as a writer and an artist, is the subject of two films coming out this year, both a documentary, The聽Lost Surrealist, and a psycho-thriller named after one of Carrington鈥檚 own works, Female Human Animal, a title that says it all.
Joanna Bourke
Professor of history, Birkbeck, University of London
Sun and sadism. As I catch the hydrofoil to a Greek island, my bag will contain a dozen or so books on sexual violence. One of these is a large volume titled Psychopathia sexualis (1886), written by Austro-German forensic psychiatrist Richard Von Krafft-Ebing. It is a classic text. Krafft-Ebing was the first major scientist to publish a comprehensive analysis of the sexual perversions. He also coined the word 鈥渟adism鈥. In Krafft-Ebing鈥檚 hands, sadism was concerned less with the fantasies of the Marquis de Sade but became tightly bound to the brutal crimes of extremely violent men (and a few women). In its first English translation, Krafft-Ebing devoted nearly 50 pages to sadism, 鈥渓ust-murder鈥, and 鈥渁ctive cruelty and violence with lust鈥. But what about 21st-century sexual violence? Anastasia Powell and Nicola Henry are about to publish Sexual Violence in a Digital Age (Palgrave). They explore technology-facilitated sexual violence, including virtual rape, image-based sexual abuse (such as 鈥渞evenge pornography鈥) and online sexual harassment. They focus on structural inequalities as well as the gendered harms caused by digital violence. In combination, these books remind me of how sexual aggression has changed over the past 130 years.
探花视频
Rebecca Bowler
Lecturer in 20th-century English literature, Keele University
Terri Mullholland鈥檚 British Boarding Houses in Interwar Women鈥檚 Literature: Alternative Domestic Spaces (Routledge) came out in September last year, and I鈥檝e been meaning to read it since then. A lot has been written about space and place in modernist literature, but the focus in this book is very specific: the boarding house is presented as a kind of median point between the safe domestic sphere and lodgings as new spaces for independent modern women. The blurb also promises coverage of three of my favourite writers: Dorothy Richardson, Jean Rhys and Virginia Woolf. I鈥檒l read it, hopefully, in the liminal and sub-domestic space of my garden, with a glass of wine. I also think it鈥檚 about time I read Hannah Arendt鈥檚 1951 work The Origins of Totalitarianism (Penguin). I鈥檝e heard it praised as a history and analysis of its own time, and I鈥檝e also seen it used as a tool for understanding some of the scary developments of our time. I feel, like many people, that I desperately need a toolkit.
Tara Brabazon
Professor of cultural studies, Flinders University
I鈥檓 not interested in desert island discs. I want books to read through the zombie apocalypse. I need to understand death, work, unemployment, underemployment and violent attacks on the self and society. Digitisation is not a metaphorical axe to a zombie鈥檚 head. Instead, the celebration of digitisation results in adding 鈥2.0鈥 to random nouns, as if a number offers an explanation. The two books that are carrying me through the zombie apocalypse are Nick Srnicek鈥檚 Platform Capitalism (Polity) and Carl Cederstrom and Peter Fleming鈥檚 Dead Man Working (Zero). Both probe the slithering, creeping collusion between public and private, work and exhaustion, capitalism and death. As cars transform into terrorist devices and public housing explodes into flame through neglectful policies, planning and practices, we require books to understand the loss of agency, the loss of choice and the permanent revolution of fear, confusion and ignorance.
Josh Cohen
Professor of modern literary theory, Goldsmiths, University of London
I intend to return, after nearly two decades, to Simone Weil鈥檚 Gravity and Grace (Routledge). Her enigmatic meditations on our proneness to fall into the lures of matter, to succumb to 鈥済ravity鈥, and on the possibilities of defying gravity and experiencing light or 鈥済race鈥, have come to mind as I鈥檝e been writing a book on inertia in psychic and cultural life. By way of apparent contrast, but in fact teeming with intriguing connections, I will be reading Chris Kraus鈥 novel Torpor (Tuskar Rock), a kind of prequel to her brilliant and notorious I聽Love Dick . I was late to the I聽Love Dick party but intend to make up for lost time and devour my way through the rest of this amazingly audacious writer and thinker鈥檚 back catalogue.
Sir Cary Cooper
50th anniversary professor of organisational psychology and health, University of Manchester
There are two books I will be reading by the pool in the Algarve in August, grandchildren permitting! The first is Monica Worline and Jane Dutton鈥檚 Awakening Compassion at Work (Berrett-Koehler). With 鈥渟tress鈥 now the leading cause of sickness absence and presenteeism in most workplaces, managers and others in organisations seem to have lost their capacity to be empathetic and compassionate. Often we see on the national news stories of the appalling treatment of patients in hospitals by nurses or among carers in care homes. The book explores issues of compassion and empathy, and what can be done to cultivate them. My next read is partly related because it goes back to 1937, just before the German annexation of Austria. Robert Seethaler鈥檚 The Tobacconist (Picador) explores the perceptions and feelings of a 17-year-old from the country who goes to Vienna to work in a tobacconist shop and sees at first hand the cruelty and inhumanity of the Germans. He meets Freud and develops a close relationship with him, and begins to understand (empathetically) what the Jews of Austria are going through. As someone from an Eastern European Jewish family, I am particularly interested in reading this book.
John Cornwell
Director, Science & Human Dimension Project, Jesus College, Cambridge
Ever since school I鈥檝e returned again and again to Coleridge鈥檚 Ancient Mariner. It is a poem of anguish, grandeur and complexity that invites the mind to wind and unwind again the golden thread that leads through so many mysterious places. Malcolm Guite, poet, literary critic and chaplain of Girton College, Cambridge, has written Mariner: A Voyage with Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Hodder). It promises a new departure on that strange journey. I can鈥檛 resist, even at 480 pages! Because of the Italian earthquakes, my thoughts have been much in Italy, not the Italy of Chiantiland, but of harsher, more sober, yet no less inspiring, realities. Every few years I return to Carlo Levi鈥檚 鈥–hrist Stopped at Eboli (Penguin), the poignant story of the author鈥檚 years in a southern hilltop village during the late 1930s. Levi, a physician, had opposed the fascist regime and was exiled to this poverty-stricken place where austerity and fear of earthquakes are a permanent condition. He sets up a medical practice. His love for the people, their courage and endurance, shines through. When he finally returns to the north, he is reminiscent of the Ancient Mariner, a sadder and a wiser man.
Sarah Cox
Senior media relations officer, Brunel University London
This summer I鈥檒l be delving into the latest morbid photography tome/tomb by Paul Koudounaris, Memento Mori: The Dead among聽Us (Thames and Hudson). No one else makes human remains look quite so beautiful, with such absolute respect. His writing and taboo-defying images are a real eye-opener to the different ways cultures around the world respond to death. It鈥檚 also a gorgeous object to have on my coffee table, bound in blue silk 鈥 a very generous gift from the brilliant medical historian Lindsey Fitzharris, while I eagerly await her first book, The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister鈥檚 Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine (out in October). I plan to return to the 1979 biography Allen Lane: King Penguin (Hutchinson) by Jack E. Morpurgo, having first picked it up years ago but I no doubt got distracted by something else with a nicer cover. Late last year, by coincidence, I moved into a wing of the publishing pioneer鈥檚 former home a few miles from my office at Brunel. My landlord reckons that they held a launch party for Lady Chatterley鈥檚 Lover there in 1960, and while I鈥檓 yet to find evidence, I won鈥檛 let that get in the way of a good story.
Nicola Dandridge
Chief executive, Universities UK, and recently appointed chief executive of the Office for Students
I am looking forward to reading a non-British perspective on the European Union in Yanis Varoufakis鈥 Adults in the Room: My Battle with Europe鈥檚 Deep Establishment (Bodley Head). The book should certainly make for an invigorating read, whatever you think about his politics and approach. I have just started Arundhati Roy鈥檚 wonderful The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. Reviews have compared Roy鈥檚 unflinchingly intelligent synthesis of the personal and the political to George Eliot鈥檚 Middlemarch. I read Middlemarch when I was in my teens and all I remember of it now is a rather depressing plot where everything goes wrong. I am looking forward to rereading it this summer and appreciating it in rather more depth.
Lennard Davis
Distinguished professor of liberal arts and sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago
This summer I took a trip to Lithuania where my Jewish grandfather and many generations lived. So I鈥檝e been reading rather downer books about the murder of the Jews in Eastern Europe. Not exactly beach reading material. But one of the books that I think is in the genre but totally readable, in fact a real page-turner, is the graphic novel by Rutu Modan called The Property (Jonathan Cape). I don鈥檛 generally read graphic novels, but this one is not only visually compelling but is both a love story and a tear-jerker. It鈥檚 about a granddaughter and grandmother who return to Poland to find the property owned by the rather cantankerous elder before the Second World War. The book is alternately funny, sad, poignant and, yes, emotional. Prepare to laugh and bring your Kleenex. Since I鈥檓 on a Zola jag, I鈥檒l also be reading one of the Rougon-Macquart series I haven鈥檛 read. It will be either (or both) The Belly of Paris about Les Halles, the food market, or Money, which is about the financial exchange. While neither subject seems appropriate for the days of wine and roses, I trust that Emile will spin out a tale of great interest from the rather mundane subject matter he researches, as he did with the coal mines of Germinal and the department stores of The Ladies鈥 Paradise.
探花视频
Sir David Eastwood
Vice-chancellor, University of Birmingham
My pile for summer reading grows, and I surreptitiously glance at my purchases anticipating immersive pleasure. At the top is Fritz Tr眉mpi鈥檚 The Political Orchestra: The Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics during the Third Reich (Chicago), a magisterial exploration of the impact of the Nazi regime on the role, repertoire and personnel of the two orchestras. This traumatic transformation had profound and enduring consequences for both orchestras and indeed for the German tradition. I will then return to Ivan Turgenev鈥檚 Fathers and Sons, whose lyricism and dramatic power make it one of the world鈥檚 greatest novels. Tears will overwhelm me as I read the closing paragraph with its incandescent images of beauty, love and hope, which ultimately endure, transcend and transfigure. I know of no more moving passage in literature.
探花视频
Alun Evans
Chief executive, British Academy
The book I鈥檓 returning to is Wuthering Heights. Over the past year I have started to walk all of the Pennine Way. One wet afternoon I came over the hillside near Haworth and reached Top Withens, the ruined house on which, supposedly, Emily Bront毛 based the home of the Earnshaw family. It is such a bleak place that I would like to remind myself of the story and think of why she chose this location on which to base her novel. The new book I am looking forward to is Lenin on the Train (Penguin) by British Academy fellow Catherine Merridale. I heard her give a compelling talk at the Hay Festival this year. The book tells the story of 100 years ago, when Lenin made the journey from Zurich to Petrograd (St Petersburg) through Germany in the famous 鈥渟ealed train鈥. The Germans facilitated the journey because they thought that helping Lenin foment revolution in Russia would help in their fight against the Russians on the Eastern Front. As preparation for writing the book, Merridale recreated Lenin鈥檚 3,000-mile plus journey through Germany, Sweden and Finland, a journey that 鈥 literally 鈥 changed the world.
Mary Evans
Centennial professor in the Gender Institute, London School of Economics
My new book is to be Susan Bordo鈥檚 The聽Destruction of Hillary Clinton (Melville House). I am not sure that I will agree with all her conclusions (the back cover suggests a central emphasis on sexism rather than a combination of factors), but this author is always interesting. I am just very sorry that she had to write this book. The book that I shall return to this summer 鈥 although I have to admit not all of it 鈥 is Georg Simmel鈥檚 The聽Philosophy of Money (Routledge). But I鈥檓 working on contemporary detective fiction, and there are sections of Simmel鈥檚 book (for example, 鈥淢oney in the Sequence of Purposes鈥) that I think are very relevant to my present subject. Not to mention, of course, more immediate UK politics.
Graham Farmelo
Fellow of Churchill College, University of Cambridge
I鈥檝e been slightly depressed to hear that so many of my author-friends are being steered towards writing not full-length books but short introductions to topics that publishers regard as 鈥渉ot鈥. But I have to admit that several of these mini-books really are rather good, and I can鈥檛 wait to get started on James Hawes鈥 promising The Shortest History of Germany (Old Street Publishing). Summer鈥檚 long evenings are perfect for reading classics that demand a lot of concentration and so are often more praised than read. But I know that rereading Leo Tolstoy鈥檚 short stories 鈥 especially those collected in The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories 鈥 will be a joy. The translators, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, have refreshed so many Russian classics for readers who have the time to tackle them.
Matthew Feldman
Professor of the modern history of ideas, Teesside University
I鈥檓 reading Sinclair Lewis鈥 1935 It聽Can鈥檛 Happen Here, reprinted this year (Penguin) 鈥 and selling like hotcakes following Donald Trump鈥檚 presidential inauguration. Offering a standard Marxist view of fascism long ago historiographically discarded, the novel imagines business as the reactionary hand behind a quasi-legal regime; a mix of Nazi racism and fascist economic corporatism, encrusted with paramilitary violence. Liberals, 鈥渃ramped by a certain respect for facts which never enfeebled the press-agents for Corpoism鈥, endure concentration camps and summary executions. Much of Congress is arrested and then Mexico invaded, climaxing in a second civil war. The journalist Doremus Jessup acts as dissident protagonist, watching with horror as a 鈥減rogram for revitalizing the national American pride鈥 turns into bloody tyranny. Jessup ruefully concludes: 鈥淚t can happen here.鈥 Yet not precisely that way here and now, surely. An enfeebled liberalism, perhaps, but turbo-capitalists in jackboots? A more fitting account could substitute 鈥淲estern鈥 Muslims today for American Jewry. This is a fluid subject, as I am discovering in Douglas Pratt and Rachel Woodlock鈥檚 collection Fear of Muslims? (Spinger), mooting the overdue counter-term 鈥淚slamoprejudice鈥. The contributions are among the most detailed and wide-ranging to date in this comparatively and, regrettably, new field of study. Old wine for new bottles 鈥 and that includes its sickening, 鈥渕ainstreaming鈥 discourse.
Felipe Fern谩ndez-Armesto
William P. Reynolds professor of history, University of Notre Dame
Summer鈥檚 lease hath so short a date that I hardly expect to look up from my keyboard before it鈥檚 over. Optimistically stacked by my bedside, however, La libert脿, per esempio: 颅Questioni mediterranee e idee liberali (Marcianum) by Paolo Luca Bernardini will be on top of the new books. His is one of the best-informed voices in contemporary Italian libertarianism, and he always has fresh things to say on Mediterranean topics. Rereading, except of poetry and scripture, is, to me, usually a waste of time, but relevance to a book I鈥檓 writing (on engineering in the Spanish empire 鈥 I know it sounds boring but I鈥檓 going to make it out to be the fulcrum of global history) is driving me back to a former favourite: Thornton Wilder鈥檚 perplexingly amusing disaster-novel, The Bridge of San Luis聽Rey.
Patrick Finch
Bursar and director of estates, University of Bristol
Having spent a lifetime in the land and property industry, I am always intrigued to uncover old title deeds and plans, with their wonderful descriptions of places, roads and byways often now lost in the passage of time. So I will be reading Robert Macfarlane鈥檚 Landmarks (Penguin), which seeks to document the lost language of place. The book promises a fascinating blend of nature, culture, language and history and includes a glossary of terms that were once held dear in far corners of the British Isles. A quick glance reveals 鈥渓etty鈥 from my own home in Somerset, meaning rain that impedes outdoor working. I hope that our estates office will not be experiencing too many letties this summer. I often return to P. G. Wodehouse and have in my bag The Code of the Woosters. I wonder whether our campus still harbours any Gussie Fink-Nottles, Madeleine Bassetts or Roderick Spodes? Fairy dust may be in short supply just now, but it remains a wonderful place to pursue the study of newts.
Adrian Furnham
Professor of psychology, University College London
I spend a good part of every day reading and writing. I have developed painful arthritis in both hands as a consequence of this. Perhaps it is God鈥檚 way of telling me to write less and that 鈥減ublish or perish鈥 is a myth. So reading books can be something of a busman鈥檚 holiday. And yet I particularly enjoy a few hours reading after an early morning swim in an agreeable subtropical resort. For years I read books that my wife had brought along: nearly always fiction, which I rarely indulge in. But a visit to Amazon generally leads me to buying more and more books. I go looking for one and buy half a dozen. So piled against my study wall is a three-foot-high pile of books. I plan to read two: very different from each other. The first is DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Publishing), the updated 2013 fifth edition of The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the American Psychiatric Association鈥檚 classification tool. It cost more than 拢90.00 and is a surprisingly good read. The other book is Other聽Men鈥檚 颅Flowers: An Anthology of Poetry by Lord Wavell, great general and sometime viceroy of India. I find a great deal of solace in great poems鈥nd look forward to 20 minutes a day with this classic.
Val茅rie Gauthier
Associate professor, HEC Paris
This summer I will read with particular attention a promise that has come true and is bringing a wave of joy and hope in France: Emmanuel Macron鈥檚 搁茅惫辞濒耻迟颈辞苍 (XO Editions). Written before the man turned around politics and became the inspirer of a new generation of change makers, Macron (pictured inset right) traces the premise of a revitalised France and a rejuvenated Europe. On a very different note and to bring music to my ears, I will dive into the Complete Poems of Elizabeth Bishop (Chatto and Windus), which were a great source of inspiration to me as a student in the US. The voice of Bishop and her incredible sense of observation have always been a driver for my research into human behaviours and the capacity for leaders to use their senses more effectively to capture the reality of their environment. Sounds, sights, touch, smells, taste, all senses melting in synaesthesia and correspondences to be more perceptive and effective, lead the way to understanding nature and people for who they are in their uniqueness. Respect for others in their differences is a source of wealth that I believe the revolution brought by La R茅publique en marche will also instil.
Eliane Glaser
Senior lecturer in creative writing, Bath Spa University
Recent attacks by billionaire property tycoons and Oxford-educated government ministers on 鈥渆xperts鈥, professionals and intellectuals have prompted me to write a defence of these so-called 鈥渓iberal elites鈥. The urban theorist Andy Merrifield denounces experts from a rather different perspective in his new book The Amateur: The Pleasures of Doing What You Love (Verso), associating them with 鈥渂ox-tickers鈥, 鈥渂ean counters鈥 and other guardians of paid employment and commercialised leisure. I鈥檓 on Merrifield鈥檚 side politically, so I look forward to his critique nuancing my own. I鈥檒l also be returning to the late 19th-century lectures and essays of William Morris, to see if his defence of high aesthetic standards for all can be updated for a digital age in which the levelling-down, or 鈥渄emocratisation鈥, of culture and education is used as a fig leaf to conceal soaring inequality.
Richard Joyner
Emeritus professor of chemistry, Nottingham Trent University
My choices show American politics at its worst and American journalism at its best. I鈥檓 hugely looking forward to P. J. O鈥橰ourke鈥檚 account of the 2016 presidential election, How聽the Hell Did This Happen? (Grove). I expect this practised satirist to skewer everything and everyone from the Iowa caucuses to the inauguration, with special reference to 鈥渃rooked鈥 Hillary and 鈥渇ake news鈥 Donald. Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward鈥檚 account of the Watergate affair, All the President鈥檚 Men (Bloomsbury), is a true classic. Even on a third or fourth reading, I know that I will be gripped and sometimes surprised.
John Kaag
Professor of philosophy, University of Massachusetts Lowell
I am going to spend my summer breezing through one book and toiling over another. The breeze 鈥 I suspect 鈥 will be Rebecca Solnit鈥檚 Wanderlust: A History of Walking (Granta). She鈥檚 such a lovely writer and walking such a natural, expansive subject, I鈥檓 sure I鈥檒l move through it quickly. Here is the toil: Nietzsche鈥檚 Also Sprach Zarathustra. Another great walker, but Nietzsche is never breezed through. I suspect it will take me many days, broken by my own wanderings around New England. I am writing a book called Hiking with Nietzsche 鈥 so both reads will be helpful. Summers are meant for reading, but also walking. I can鈥檛 wait.
探花视频
Read part two of our 2017 summer reads
Register to continue
Why register?
- Registration is free and only takes a moment
- Once registered, you can read 3 articles a month
- Sign up for our newsletter
Subscribe
Or subscribe for unlimited access to:
- Unlimited access to news, views, insights & reviews
- Digital editions
- Digital access to 罢贬贰鈥檚 university and college rankings analysis
Already registered or a current subscriber?
