Summer Reading Recommendations: 2025

For seven years, science librarian and ultimate book-lover Meg Spencer organized a list of reading suggestions from faculty and staff to highlight some good books to read over the summer. The Swarthmore Libraries continue this wonderful tradition in Meg’s memory.

Want to add your recommendations? Email us!

Down with the System: A Memoir (Of Sorts) by Serj Tankian

If you've ever listened to System of a Down, you know that Serj Tankian's voice can do anything, from deep guttural growls to soft melodic vocals. As such, this was possibly the best audiobook I've ever listened to thanks to Serj's narration. In addition to giving a deep dive on the band from their formation to their current somewhat contentious hiatus, Serj shares his family history, giving the reader a brief primer on the Armenian genocide in the process. Serj has been and continues to be one of the most visible activists in campaigning for recognition of the Armenian genocide. His recent activism includes support for the Armenia Fund’s Artsakh Refugee Initiative (https://www.armeniafund.org/). His memoir is a must-read for anyone wanting to learn more about the Armenian genocide who may not be able as wiling to dive into a thick history tome. And don't worry--there are plenty of rock and roll antics to balance out the mood. Serj is a masterful writer, and absolutely shines in this memoir.

Want to read:

Evil in Me by Brom

I have a "bad" habit of buying books and then, comforted by their presence, never reading them. As such, Brom's last three releases (Evil in Me, Slewfoot, and Lost Gods) grace my shelves unread, nestled among favorite reads (The Plucker, Krampus, The Child Thief). Consider this my commitment to digging into the endlessly growing stack of unread books!

Maria Aghazarian, Scholarly Communications Librarian
McCabe Library

I recommend A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck. As a library worker, I love what I do and being surrounded by books. However, what if a library became my hell? And books are a part of my torment? Well, that certainly changes things. Welcome to the Library of Babel. Where every book that could ever exist is contained, and where you must find your life story to transcend into nirvana. As an avid horror fan, I can say with certainty that this is the scariest thing I've ever read. 

A book I plan on reading this summer would be: The God of the Woods by Liz Moore.

Rhonda Alford

Access + User Services Night Supervisor

McCabe Library

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

I never expected to read a book with an octopus as one of the main characters on my own (although I've read a few with my kids). This charming novel is about a widowed mother who works the night shift at an aquarium. I thought this was a beautifully written story of unexpected friendships. 

I'm planning to read Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy (available through Delaware County Libraries). 

Sara Hesdon Buehler

Art Collection Manager 

Here is my recommendation:  This is Happiness. This book, about rural Ireland in the 1950s, made me laugh, cry and reflect. It's incredibly well written (but also a bit meandering, if that's not your thing), so poetic, poignant and hilarious at points. As soon as I finished reading it, I started reading it again. I'm not sure I've ever done that with a book.

To read this summer: The Frozen River.

Calista Cleary

Tri-College Philly Program Director

A book I'd recommend: Creation Lake, Rachel Kushner. I enjoyed this novel's blend of spy thriller and critical theory, with detours into cave systems, anarchist communes, human evolution, and French agricultural policy. The narrator may not be sympathetic but I loved her crafty and philosophical voice.

A book I plan to read this summer: Beauty is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan.

Michelle Crouch '07

Associate Director, Proposal Development

I would like to recommend The God of the Woods, by Liz Moore. This book is set in the Adirondacks (my favorite vacation destination) and gripped me right from the beginning. I enjoyed the timeline bouncing back and forth and being held in suspense until the end. It reads much shorter than the 496 pages would suggest.

A book I am planning to read this summer is The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson.

Mike Doody

Academic Support Coordinator

Engineering

The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell: A Novel by Robert Dugoni (available from Delaware County Libraries) 

Dugono has a gift for creating compelling characters that seem straightforward. His writing is quick, simple, and you will  immediately empathize with young Sam. It's a story about someone who is different and finding your strength and power to come to terms. It will have you crying and laughing at the same time. A treasure. 

What I will be looking forward to is Wally Lamb's new book The River is Waiting (available from Delaware County Libraries) 

Betsy Durning

Administrative Coordinator

Psychology Department

I randomly discovered Volume I of Solvej Balle’s On the Calculation of Volume (translated by Barbara J. Haveland) in my local bookstore over winter break. Little did I know, the Danish author actually wrote (and is writing) seven volumes of the book of which only the first two have been translated into English. Think Groundhog’s Day but with more interesting inconsistencies.

Thankfully the next two volumes (III and IV) of Calculation are coming out in November but to hold me over until then my summer reading list includes:

• Ellmann's Joyce: The Biography of a Masterpiece and Its Maker by Zachary Leader

• The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk (trans. Jennifer Croft)

• Children of the Ghetto, Star of the Sea by Elias Khoury (trans. Humphrey Davies)

• Satantango by László Krasznahorkai (trans. George Szirtes)

Hope Dworkin

Class of 2026

I recommend Ducks, Newburyport,a stream of consciousness novel spanning over 1100 pages told from the perspective of a middle-aged woman in southeastern Ohio with four kids and a home baking business and a husband who teaches engineering at a local college, the fact that I am from that region of the country perhaps is why this novel spoke to me but the fact that I laughed out loud more times per page than most books I have read, even funny ones or intended-to-be-funny ones, is probably a reason why other people should read it, regardless of where you are from or where you grew up or live right now, also because there is a story in there which is so deftly told within the context of its idiosyncratic for of expression, so unlike most other novels or maybe any other novel 

David M. Foreman

Executive Director

Grants & Awards

Even though it is a children's picture book, I found A Stone Sat Still (available from Delaware County Libraries) incredibly moving and thoughtful.  To me it captures the timelessness and ever changing world of geology, biology, and nature.  As one of my son's favorites I have read this book many many times and I find new nuance and meaning in its pictures and meditative text still.  A bit of sensory biology, zen perspective, conservation philosophy, climate change thinking, and a deeper appreciation for the power of place.  If Mary Oliver's "Wild Geese" had a kid sister it would be A Stone Sat Still.

Vince Formica

Chair of the Biology Department

Associate Professor

A book I read this year that I'd recommend is Plunder: Private Equity's Plan to Pillage America by Brandon Ballou. 

"In Plunder, Brendan Ballou explains how private equity has reshaped American business by raising prices, reducing quality, cutting jobs, and shifting resources from productive to unproductive parts of the economy." It explained a lot of the ways I have seen businesses and industries die, or get a lot worse, seemingly out of nowhere. Though it was alarming to read, the author addresses ways we can change this trend which gave me hope for the future!

A planned summer read: Stag Dance by Torrey Peters

Jillian Fulton

McCabe Library Access & User Services Specialist

Two suggestions I have are Boys in the Boat and Lessons in Chemistry! If you haven't read either, they are both amazing

Beth Glassman

Vice President for Human Resources

The Invention of Nature:  Alexander von Humboldt's New World by Andrea Wulf

Lively biography of a massively influential figure who lived a life of adventure and exploration that fused Romantic ideals with scientific discovery.

Planning to read: 

Clouds: How to identify nature's most fleeting forms by Edward Graham

Joshua H Goldwyn

Associate Professor

Department of Mathematics & Statistics

Only This Beautiful Moment by Abdi Nazemian (available from Delaware County Libraries). It's a story about three generations of an Iranian family: The grandfather was a child star in old Hollywood, the father was a student protester during the Iranian Revolution, and the son lives in current times and is trying to balance his commitments to his family in Tehran with his commitment to his white boyfriend in the U.S. It's super well-written and will maybe even help you understand your own parents better.

A book I plan to read this summer: 

The Upcycled Self: A Memoir on the Art of Becoming Who We Are by Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter

Nia King

Editorial Specialist

Communications

The Southern Reach series by Jeff Vandermeer

(In order - Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance, Absolution)

I was turned onto this series from watching the 2018 film version of Annihilation, and if you’re into eco-horror and swamps, you’ll love this series. Set in a fictional state similar to Florida, the series focuses on the Southern Reach, a government agency set out to explore Area X, an unknown, mysterious zone that seems to be…. intelligent? The series follows expeditions into and outside of Area X, and it’s honestly one of my favorite sci-fi/thriller series.

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

This was my first dip into horror genre and it’s similar to a summer slasher film. It’s relatively fast paced and has amazing character development. Follows the lives of four Blackfeet Native American men after they share a traumatic experience in their youth. With the use of Native American storytelling, this read is both spooky fun and a great dive into modern Native American experience.

Other Honorable Mentions:

Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder

The Silo Series by Hugh Howie 

Kait Lawrence

Gardener II 

Grounds and Horticulture

Thoughtful, deft, and juicy—Min renders a privileged transnational Asian family of the near future (not unlike the kind that might grace an East Coast institution), and the dramas—you'll have to read them to believe them—that befit this family and the people who work with and for them. Min's sharpness suits Swarthmore readers, but her writing is also easy to follow— Shanghailanders strikes that balance of being both entertaining and thought-provoking. 

Red String Theory by Lauren Kung Jessen (available from Delaware County Libraries), this book was a lovely novel about art, culture, and beliefs about love. 

The second book is called When Women Lead by Julia Boorstin (available from Delaware County Libraries). This is a really good evidence-based book! I highly recommend everyone read it. It talks about different women in and their different careers and how they succeeded, about the barriers that society created, and how they have overcome those barriers. 

I am not sure what I plan to read this summer. My TBR list is currently 58 books long (not including the 5 physical books I have bought in the past few months from local bookstores). I am not sure which to choose nor am I sure which of these books I will be reading this summer. I tend to choose based on mood. 

Julia Linden-Chirlian

Research Manager/Administrative Assistant

Psychology Department

The book I recommend is Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. This book was an amazing blend between truth and science fiction. Butler's worldbuilding ability makes you feel immersed in the story. If you are interested in dystopian novels with elements of climate change/racial injustice, I highly recommend you check this out!

A book I plan to read is Assata: An Autobiography

Nela Loftin

Class of 2028

Read this past year: Children of Dune by Frank Herbert: Political intrigue, religious power, and ecological transformation collide all at once. As the heirs of House Atreides struggle with destiny and rebellion, they’re forced to confront what kind of future they actually want for Arrakis.

Will read this summer: Shahnameh by Ferdowsi.

Eduardo Martin Macho

Lecturer

Spanish

Book that I read:

Playground by Richard Powers

I loved Powers' The Overstory and when I read the blurb about Playground, I knew this was a book I had to read. Characters include a dying tech billionaire proposing a "seasteading" project on a Polynesian island ravaged by phosphorus mining, his married best friends from his youth who live on the island with their adopted children, and a trailblazing female oceanographer and her struggles to balance her marriage and career. Themes include our dying oceans, race and class tensions, family dysfunction, and AI. The writing is superb, especially when describing abundant sea life at risk. Highly recommended.

Planning to read: 

Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Amy M. McColl

Associate Director for Collection Management & Discovery

Swarthmore College Libraries

Love After the End : An Anthology of Two-spirit & Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction

I've never read anything like it. The stories are bold, idealistic, and full of love. Each story is completely different from the last, but they are all bound together as they build utopias out of the genocide that has already happened. Highly recommended to people who want creative science fiction (especially with post-apocalyptic themes). Read this if you've read Parable of the Sower or The Fifth Season!

Planning to read:

Continuing on those themes, this year I put Moonshot: The Indigenous Comics Collection on my birthday wish list.

Laura Melbourne, Public Services Archivist

Swarthmore College Peace Collection

Book I’ve Read:

Birds of Maine by Michael DeForge

This collection of daily comics about birds who migrated to the moon in the midst of the human-caused climate crisis on earth was one of the funniest and most enjoyable books I read this past year. I read it in February 2025 and it’s the only thing I’ve read this year that made me feel truly hopeful about the world. Bonus — if you like birds there’s some great jokes in there!

Book I plan to read:

Il nome della rosa (The Name of the Rose) by Umberto Eco

With the exception of book-club books, this year I'm trying to only read in Italian. I read the Name of the Rose years ago and it's one of my favorite library-centric books. I've put off trying it in the original Italian for 5 years but I think it's finally time. 

Rebecca Michelson-Ziegler

Electronic Resources Specialist

McCabe Library

A book I read this past year that I'd recommend, and why: Here After by Amy Lin. Probably not a summer read, as the memoir covers a young spouse's sudden and unexpected loss of their partner. Overall it's beautiful, reflective, and an insight to one person's grief processing. 

A book I plan to read this summer: Whale Fall.  

Jen Moore

Course Content Accessibility Manager, Swarthmore College

Book I've read: The Dictionary People by Sarah Ogilvie. Ogilvie shares the delightful, intriguing, and sometimes outright perturbing stories of the volunteer contributors behind the publication of the Oxford English Dictionary. Particularly memorable contributors include an incestuous lesbian couple who published popular fiction together under a pseudonym, several patients of mental hospitals (including one murderer), and the daughter of Karl Marx. Ogilvie depicts these and other misfits--all united by their love for words and commitment to the OED--with sympathy and wit.

Book I want to read: Chronicles Volume I by Bob Dylan. A gift from a friend that has been lingering by my bedside for some months now.

Claire Pettit 

Class of 2025

My recommendation:

A Psalm for the Wild-Built and A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers

These books are usually categorized as "cozy sci-fi," but I think they are very accessible to people who don't normally enjoy sci-fi books. These books are a beautiful, relatable, and fulfilling exploration of two beings trying to deal with the things we all experience: how to better understand who they are, how to deal with burn-out, and how to find meaning and happiness in life. Becky Chambers is quickly able to describe a world we all want, where we all have the time and space to do these things, and where we all treat each other with kindness and respect. If you're looking for a hopeful view of the future and some feel-good vibes, these are the books for you!

Also recommend: The Once and Future Witches by Alix Harrow. This book combines magic with women's suffrage in a fun and creative way - a good mix of fantasy escapism and social commentary.

Planning to read next: The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djèlí Clark

Kristen Recine 

Laboratory Lecturer

Physics & Astronomy

My recommendation: The Dutch House by Anne Patchett

I couldn't put this book down. Of course, its placement in Philadelphia was an immediate draw, but Patchett's grounded writing and complex characters kept me coming back. It's a gorgeous examination of family relationships and haunted pasts. 

To read this summer: Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner 

Rachel Semigran

Director of Enrollment Marketing & Communications

Communications Office

Recommendation: Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins

With a well-crafted plot, complex characters, gut-wrenching emotion, and vivid commentary, Sunrise on the Reaping is what fiction is for---to remind us that no matter the cost, change is possible.

Plan to Read: Babylonia by Costanza Casati

Abigail Sterner

Class of 2028

One book I recommend is On Earth, We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong. I'd read that he was a poet before he wrote this first novel and it shows. How he describes immigration, language, sexuality, family, gender is both beautiful and often heartbreaking.

A book I'm looking forward to reading this summer is Flirting Lessons by Jasmine Guillory (available from Delaware County Libraries).

Barbara Thelamour

Associate Professor

Psychology

I'm going to cheat a little and give you two books I re-read this past year. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr deserves all of the praise it's received over the years. It's beautifully written, heart-wrenching, and a book I'm happy to read a million times over. Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik is a delightful, historically-inspired fantasy novel with seamless worldbuilding that never fails to impress me. (Plus, it features a fantastic enemies-to-lovers romance without any NSFW moments! A rare treasure indeed.)

Unfortunately, my reading list for the summer is almost entirely academic books. My younger self would be horrified! I'll give you two titles and let you pick the one you find more interesting. A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire (available from Delaware County Libraries) by Amy Butler Greenfield is a textile history book about cochineal, a red dye made from beetles found in Central America. The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu (And Their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts) by Joshua Hammer tells the story of Abdel Kader Haidara, an archivist from Timbuktu, who smuggled around 350,000 texts out of the city to save them from destruction by Al-Qaeda. 

Elsa Toland

Class of 2025

Favorite book I read this year: 

Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte. A bizarre, funny, grotesque, and ultimately devastating series of linked short stories about how loneliness can metastasize into anger and hatred, and how the internet creates the perfect conditions for this process. Images from this book will stick with me for a long time, whether I like it or not!

Book I plan to read this summer:
Matriarch by Tina Knowles (available from Delaware County Libraries)

Abbie Weil

Outreach Librarian

Swarthmore College Libraries

Book I read recently and highly recommend: The Transit of Venus Shirley Hazzard.  I was entranced by the beautiful writing and creative metaphors.  The characters are developed with depth.  The plot premise is engaging - two orphaned Australian young women starting their adulthood in 1950s England.  Caro (short for Caroline) takes an untraditional course with complicated relationships while her sister Grace marries and has children.  

Book I plan to read this summer: Metaphors We Live By George Lakoff & mark Johnson

Roderick H. Wolfson

Senior Planner/Project Manager 

Capital Planning and Project Management Department