Inspired by the Book is a series of interviews with Connecticut College folks about their literary lives. Inspiration comes from The New York Times Book Review series called By the Book.

An interview with Hana Tanabe ‘22, who worked as a Shain Library intern for the Fall 2022 semester. Hana graduated from Connecticut College with a major in East Asian Studies and a minor in theater. She is currently working at a local public library while studying to earn her MLIS at the University of Rhode Island.

What books are on your night stand?

Oooh boy. Not on my nightstand, but here’s what’s on the little shelf next to my bed at the moment. We’ve got, among other things, a historical fiction classic I really need to get around to reading, a sci-fi classic I’m a bit scared to start, a prequel to a teenage favorite, a sequel to a childhood favorite that I was unaware existed until this year, and some fifty cent books I saw at a local used bookstore that had dragons on them, so of course I had to pick them up. I’ve got even more in my backlog elsewhere in my room, but let’s not dwell on that.

Describe your ideal reading experience (when, where, what, how).

Ideally? It’s snowing outside, I’m curled up underneath a blanket (or two), I have a cup of hot chocolate to nurse, there’s a fire crackling in the fireplace, and my cat is within petting distance. In reality? I’m probably sprawled out in some odd position in my bed at two o’clock at night, thinking “Just one more chapter” while the bags under my eyes get bigger and bigger. Also, my cat would probably try to eat my book if I tried to read next to him, so I’ve already given up on that dream.

Which genres do you especially enjoy reading? Any which you avoid?

I really enjoy speculative fiction: fantasy, sci-fi, dystopian fiction, that sort of thing. I’ve enjoyed books of almost every genre, but there’s something about diving into a completely fictional, fantastic world that keeps me coming back to those genres in particular. I appreciate it when you can tell an author poured their hearts into hand-crafting a new world, giving their readers a glimpse at its histories, cultures, and rules, magical, scientific, or otherwise. I’m not sure if there’s a specific genre I actively avoid, though I suppose I do get annoyed when I think romance has been shoehorned into a novel just for the sake of having a romantic subplot.

What kind of reader were you as a child? Which childhood books and authors stick with you most?

It was hard to find me without a book in my hands when I was little! I constantly jumped from one story to the next, looking for a new world and new characters to get attached to. Now, I find myself taking more time between each book, due to both a much more busy schedule and the feeling of not wanting to move on from a story I loved too fast. However, one thing remains the same: Watership Down was, and still is, my favorite book of all time.

How do you organize your books?

That’s the funny thing, I don’t! At least not consciously. When I look at my shelves, there is some rhyme and reason to it. I keep books in the same series together, and my small collection of graphic novels are all tucked into the same corner. The rest of my books I’ve stuck into my bookcase based on what fits where, or what I’ve been reading most recently. I’ve also got a few favorites on standby on a separate shelf, just in case I want to dive back into a familiar world.

Do you count any books as guilty pleasures, or comfort reads?

Like I said earlier, it often takes me a while to move on from a book and start a new one (I don’t want to feel like I’m betraying its characters, yes, I’m silly and irrational). Sometimes it takes me ages to pick up something new, but that’s not because I’m not reading – it’s because I’ve decided to reread, and stay in a world I’m familiar with. And more often than not lately, those rereads are my tween/teenage favorites. Hence why there’s a Dragon Rider and Hunger Games book on my bedside shelf. 

Do you prefer books that reach you emotionally, or intellectually?

Do I have to choose one? I guess if I had to, I’d say I prefer books that reach me emotionally. If I’m reading for my own entertainment, I’d much rather read a book that has me crying over its characters than a book that’s lecturing me. However, for a book to have really struck a chord with me, it generally also needs to have made me think. After all, even if the setting is fantastical, the best literary conflicts have a clear basis in reality, and an author that is calling for reflection.

Inspired by the Book is a series of interviews with Connecticut College folks about their literary lives. Inspiration comes from The New York Times Book Review series called By the Book.

Tereza Hadravová (TH) teaches aesthetics at Charles University in Prague. In 2021/2022, she was a Fulbright-Masaryk scholar at Connecticut College, where she studied the philosophy of Susanne K. Langer (1895 – 1985). She initiated an exhibition “Susanne K. Langer. A Kaleidoscope of Ideas”, currently on view at the Shain Library, that she co-curated with Carolyn Bergonzo and Linda Legassie.

Carolyn Bergonzo (CB) is a writer based in Watertown, MA. She holds an MFA in Literary Arts from Brown University, and is at work on various projects about women, thinking, and writing.

Linda Legassie (LL) teaches art history at Three Rivers Community College in Norwich, CT. She is the business manager for her family-owned business, Stepping Stones Antiques LLC, in Old Saybrook, CT. She was Susanne K. Langer’s research assistant from 1978 to 1985 participating in all aspects of the publication of Langer’s ninth book, Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling.

What books are on your night stand?

(TH) I do not have a night stand! I usually put the books that I am reading at night under my pillow and sleep on them. That limits the number of them and prioritizes soft covers. At the moment, there is Beloved by Toni Morrison under my pillow.

(CB) Jonathan Rée’s Witcraft: The Invention of Philosophy in English and Sina Queyras’s Rooms: Women, Writing, Woolf.

What’s the last great book you read?

(TH) JM Coetzee’s books have been long on my list, but I started reading them only a year ago. I found the first book I read – Waiting for the Barbarians – at a free books shelf at DuBois Beach in Stonington Burrough and was immediately “caught”. I bought some other ones – Disgrace, the Jesus trilogy, Elizabeth Costello – shortly after, also at a memorable place, at the Book Barn in East Lyme. I am fond of Coetzee’s complex provocations. The combination of a strong narrative voice and philosophical reflections is somewhat similar to Milan Kundera, a famous Czech-French author who I read enthusiastically when I was a young adult, right before I decided to study philosophy.

Whom do you consider the best writers—novelists, essayists, critics, memoirists, poets—working today?

(CB) Lisa Robertson. She has done it all, fearlessly, and with such an intoxicating style. I’m excited to read her recent project on Simone Weil, Anemones. 

Was there a book that particularly inspired you?

(TH) Philosophy in a New Key by Susanne K. Langer was the book that I came across relatively late in my being a “professional” philosopher. I was finishing my dissertation in which I wrote about recent empirical aesthetics – neuroaesthetics and experimental aesthetics – and tried to see in which respect the findings made in the field would be relevant for traditional philosophical aesthetic topics, mainly those related to the question of aesthetic judgment. It seemed to me that the experiments run in laboratories were poorly designed and usually based on some more or less idiosyncratic and underdeveloped notion of aesthetic judgment of the experimenter. I was, however, also skeptical regarding the way some professional aestheticians treated scientific experimentation and the sciences in general as, by their very nature, an inappropriate field for philosophers. 

Discovering Langer was a mind-blowing experience. I consider the way she incorporated scientific findings into her philosophical essays – critically, but also knowledgeably, with palpable curiosity – as a paradigm for current philosophers who wish to philosophize from a naturalists’ point of view. They are much more numerous nowadays than they used to be in Langer’s times! 

(LL) After Mind vol. III went to press, I realized I wanted to return to college to study. In 1992, I attained the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies, inter-field major art and anthropology, from Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT.

Was there an author who particularly inspired you?

(CB) I’m inspired by Susanne Langer’s far-ranging intellect, her ability to synthesize knowledge across disciplines, and her lucid and lyrical writing style. I stumbled on Feeling and Form in a used bookshop in Vancouver over a decade ago and was transfixed by her ability to describe the creative process in a way that reflected my own experience as a young poet. Until that point, I had only encountered philosophers concerned with beauty in art. Langer attends to what motivates humans to make art in the first place, which is endlessly more interesting to me. 

What books do you find yourself returning to again and again?

(CB) A book by another philosopher I admire, Anne Dufourmantelle: In Praise of Risk. I try to keep this book physically close to me at all times. It is a guide to expansive living and to opening up to the possibility of transformation. 

Which childhood books and authors stick with you most? 

(LL) The Amelia Bedelia books by Peggy Parish are stories of silly mix-ups that are wonderful proof of the power of language and gentle reminders of saying what you mean and meaning what you say.

What’s the last book you read that made you laugh? The last book you read that made you cry? The last book you read that made you furious?

(LL) The last book I read that made me laugh was Extra Virgin: A Young Woman Discovers the Italian Riviera, Where Every Month is Enchanted by Annie Hawes. This story is the biographical adventure of two English sisters who move (seasonally) to the Italian Riviera, (the other Riviera, not the Riviera they thought it was) at first to grow roses to sell at the English market, and learn all about olive culture while restoring their newly-acquired antique Italian farmhouse. 

Inspired by the Book is a series of interviews with Connecticut College folks about their literary lives. Inspiration comes from The New York Times Book Review series called By the Book.

Reginald White is the new vice president for Human Resources at Connecticut College. He earned a bachelors of science in psychology and human development from Cornell University and an executive masters in business administration from Boston University. He held positions at Bank of Boston, Citibank and KeyBank, before moving into executive leadership roles in human resources and marketing at both Fidelity Investments and Merrill Lynch. He also founded Toran Enterprises, a consulting firm, and later returned to his alma mater as senior director of human resources for Cornell’s research division.

In this interview we go off-script and Reginald shares a story about how books changed his life. What follows is Reginald’s story:

My story begins when I was about 10 years old. My family had moved from the Bronx to Fishkill, NY in search of a better quality of life. As part of its normal practice, the elementary school conducted a series of assessments to gauge my knowledge and competence in a wide range of academic areas. It was determined that I was reading just below grade level and I was assigned a tutor. As a 10 year old in a new school, I was not happy about the situation. However, in retrospect, Mrs. Reed literally changed my life! She was the shepherd who helped me navigate the important transition from learning to read to reading to learn.

In the coming months and years, my capacity and interest in reading would take quantum leaps. This was in part due to our local librarian. Our town library was one 750 square foot room. During my very first visit, she made it clear that I was welcomed. She expressed sincere interest in me as a curious child. She asked questions about my interests and my hopes and dreams. She shared the books that were in her possession and ordered ones she thought would be of interest.

Within months I realized that books could open new worlds. I could be transported into the mind of an author in a matter of seconds. I was hooked and my life was forever changed. As a teenager you could frequently find me in a corner reading a book. Libraries and bookstores became places of promise and solace. I remain in awe of the ways in which reading allows me to be lost and found simultaneously. By the time I was 12, I realized that reading was the path to transformation. The scripture, Romans 12:2 “be ye transformed by the renewal of your mind” took on a profound meaning and became my mantra for life.

Over the years, I would have many encounters with books that would open my mind and shift my perspectives on life itself. One such experience happened when I was 17. I was working with my father after graduating from high school a year early. On one of my visits to his place, I noticed Albert Camus, The Plague. Within seconds, I was captivated. The book was required reading for a college class that my father was taking. After he finished his assignment, I borrowed it. After reading it, I was determined to go to college. Over the coming months, I would do research on schools and by the Fall, I was enrolled.

In my freshman year, I became interested in the self help genre by reading Wayne Dyer’s, Your Erroneous Zones. As a result, I decided to study psychology. I was curious about what behaviors and mindsets differentiated successful people from others.

Throughout my life, reading has nurtured me, informed my curiosity and expanded my mind. At one point, I was ordering so many books from Amazon that the UPS driver knew my name. Books speak to me. By picking one up, I can get a glimpse into the mind of an author. In that moment, time stands still and my world expands. Today, you can still find me in a corner reading a book. I suspect that will always be the case. I am forever grateful to the teachers and librarians who gave me a lifelong passport to learning!

Inspired by the Book is a series of interviews with Connecticut College folks about their literary lives. Inspiration comes from The New York Times Book Review series called By the Book.

Lyndsay works in the library as the art librarian and director of digital scholarship, and teaches an art history class at Conn called “Art Crimes and the Value of Art.” The arrival of her son during the pandemic gave her a new perspective on free time, and she began to devote most of it to reading all the kinds of books she had missed out on while in graduate school for art history. When she’s not working on her daily page goals, she loves caring for her garden plants and house in New London.

What books are on your night stand?

I’m currently reading Ukraine in Histories and Stories: Essays by Ukrainian Intellectuals, edited by Volodomyr Yermolenko. My #tbr stack is an anxiety-provoking 21 books deep right now:

What’s the last great book you read?

There’s no way I can pick one! 

Lately I’ve read several books on Ukraine, and I’ve long been a fan of books on Russia. I highly recommend Andrey Kurkov’s Ukraine Diaries: Dispatches from Kiev–the diary format is really effective at giving you a palpable sense of the uncertainty and confusion inherent in the day-by-day experience of living through a major event–in this case, from the beginning of the Euromaidan in 2013 through Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the beginning of the war in Donbas. I also just finished Catherine Belton’s Putin’s People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Took on the West, which is an amazing-but-horrifying, meticulously researched account of the many schemes carried out by Russian oligarchs and people high up in the Kremlin since the fall of the Soviet Union, 1) to maintain unimaginable wealth and power, and 2) to funnel black cash into Europe and America with the aim of corrupting politicians and degrading the integrity of institutions. It’s a serious commitment of a book, but worth it. 

Other fantastic non-fiction I’ve read since the new year: Clint Smith’s How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America, Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, and Erika Fatland’s Sovietistan: Travels in Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan.

Fiction-wise, this year I’ve loved T.J. Klune’s The House in the Cerulean Sea and Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible. Klune is creating an exciting new array of memorable stories and really loveable characters. Kingsolver has an awe-inspiring command of her craft.

Whom do you consider among the best writers working today?

Masha Gessen, Gary Shteyngart, Olga Tokarczuk, Barbara Kingsolver, Madeline Miller, Erika Fatland.

Are there any classic novels that you only recently read for the first time?

I’m working on reading all of the Brontë sisters’ novels and a sampling of Russian classics.

If you could require the president to read one book, what would it be?

In this moment, maybe Masha Gessen’s Surviving Autocracy.

What’s your favorite book no one has heard of?

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk. She’s a Nobel Prize winning author, so she’s certainly well-known by many, but I haven’t heard other Americans talking about this book.

Which genres do you especially enjoy reading? Any which you avoid?

I like a constant rotation of nonfiction, classics, contemporary fiction, and travel writing. I haven’t had much interest in sci-fi or fantasy, but I’m willing to give those genres a try. I’ll take recommendations!

What kind of reader were you as a child? Which childhood books and authors stick with you most?

I grew up during the era of 90s YA pulp horror fiction–the Fear Street series, Christopher Pike, Richie Tankersley Cusick, etc.. I read every Fear Street book and still have my complete collection on my bookshelves.

How do you organize your books?

They’re loosely organized by genre and geographic region. I especially love the bookshelf devoted to language-learning textbooks and dictionaries, travel guides, and travel writing.

Do you count any books as guilty pleasures, or comfort reads?

Guilty pleasures: Joanne Harris’s Chocolat and some of her other books. I fell in love with her writing when I was a Francophile in high school.

Comfort reads: any travel writing or memoirs about living in the European countryside.

Disappointed, overrated, just not good: What book did you feel as if you were supposed to like, and didn’t? 

Recently, I really disliked Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls. The machismo is just too gross to read in the current sociopolitical climate. About halfway through, I began to hope that the main character would die by the end. And, well…

What question would you like to see added to this list? And what’s your response?

Do you have a Goodreads account?

Yes! Follow me there.

Inspired by the Book is a series of interviews with Connecticut College folks about their literary lives. Inspiration comes from The New York Times Book Review series called By the Book.

Chris Colbath. Born and raised in the greater Seattle area. Studied Russian literature for a long time, plus some other stuff. Lover of big riffs, good books. Dog lover. Family man. Renaissance man—if the Renaissance were born in a dive bar in Groton and not in, like, Florence.

What’s the last great book you read?

Alexander Herzen’s My Past and Thoughts

Who is your favorite novelist of all time?

Tolstoy at his best is pretty hard to beat. And I don’t just mean Resurrection.

Was there a book that particularly inspired you?

Witold Gombrowicz’s Ferdydurke. It works as fiction, creative non-fiction… A book for everybody, every time.

Was there an author who particularly inspired you?

Andrei Bely, who was a truly experimental writer. As alchemy and the other sciences teach us, most experiments result in failure. Most of Bely’s certainly did. But one success makes it all worthwhile.

What books do you find yourself returning to again and again?

Andrei Bely’s Petersburg

What books might we be surprised to find on your shelves?

Some bibliographic scars from grad school are still there: Foucault, Derrida, that kind of thing. I guess it’s I who am surprised they haven’t been removed yet.

Are there any classic novels that you only recently read for the first time?

Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. Good stuff.

What’s your favorite book no one else has heard of?

Maybe the “Copendium” by Julian Cope. His excellent taste in music makes up for any writerly excesses. In my house, the record shelves are as important as the book shelves, and his Head Heritage series has greatly enriched the former.

What book, if any, most influenced your decision to become… [fill in the blank]?

A Russian translation of Conan the Barbarian made me want to play bass in a rock band. And now I’m doin’ it. Books are magic.

Are there economists whose writing you especially admire?

Not really, but I am fond of President George H. W. Bush’s term “voodoo economics,” which I view as having the broadest possible applications. And so, I can imagine admiring any economist who dressed and acted the part of a proper witch doctor.

What’s the most interesting thing you learned from a book recently?

Captain Kopeikin is actually Napoleon!

You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three authors, dead or alive, do you invite?

I’d like to invite both drunk Stephen King and AA Stephen King, watch them fight. Someone like Philip K. Dick could referee.

What books are you embarrassed not to have read yet?

Being embarrassed by things I have done is a full-time job. No time to be embarrassed by things I haven’t done.

Do you think any canonical books are widely misunderstood?

Probably all of them.

How do you organize your books?

A combination of quality, subject matter, color and size.

What book should everyone read before the age of 21?

Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy

What book should nobody read until the age of 40?

Maybe Anna Karenina. Which is why I assign it to college students at every opportunity.

Do you count any books as guilty pleasures, or comfort reads?

There is no true pleasure without overwhelming guilt. I’m with my Catholic friends on that one. And on the demonic-possession thing, too.

Disappointed, overrated, just not good: What book did you feel as if you were supposed to like, and didn’t? Do you remember the last book you put down without finishing?

Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. What a colossal yawner. It’s hard not to indulge in lost-time jokes here. Everyone should start this monster 1) because the beginning is actually pretty good, and 2) to have the pleasure of quitting it. I read about 80% of it (like, ten thousand pages) and then retired it for good. And I almost always finish stuff. Retiring it forever was deeply satisfying.

What do you plan to read next?

My email, sadly.

Inspired by the Book is a series of interviews with Connecticut College folks about their literary lives. Inspiration comes from The New York Times Book Review series called By the Book.

Maggie Redfern is associate director of the Connecticut College Arboretum. She loves big old trees, growing trees from seed and leading walking tours focused on the importance of native trees. She hasn’t authored any books yet.

What books are on your night stand?

My “to read” list is a long one and people are always recommending more books! My current pile includes World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil; Rachel Carson’s The Sea Trilogy which compiles three of her books on maritime ecology; Cal Flyn’s Islands of Abandonment: Nature Rebounding in the Post-Human Landscape; and Kim Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future. The current issue of The New Yorker is also there.

Describe your ideal reading experience (when, where, what, how).

Winter is a great time to read. The days are so short, there isn’t much in the garden that needs tending and the water is too cold to go swimming. I love to sit in front of the fire in a comfortable chair and dive in. The fire is conducive to letting my mind focus on the book.

Which genres do you especially enjoy reading?

Anything that expands my knowledge of trees and the environment. Although there are many non-fiction books about trees, those that I am most interested in are the ones that are so well researched and read almost like a novel or memoirs that weave in natural history. Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, Andrea Wulf’s Brother Gardeners; Unbowed: A Memoir by Wangari Mathai, The Star Thrower by Loren Eisley, and most recently Tiya Miles’ All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake – which I just happened to be reading when it was announced as a National Book Award Winner. Last winter I saw Tiya speak through a Zoom program on pecan trees presented by the Arnold Arboretum. And then just recently I noticed her book on the new books shelf in Shain Library. It is such a delight to read, so many interests combined from textiles and pecans to women’s history and the missing voices in our archives.

 What’s the last great novel you read?

The Overstory by Richard Powers. Fiction set amongst the trees. Telling history over a long time, a tree’s time and connecting the human characters with the trees. Although fiction, it is based on several real life people and many species of real life trees.

Are there any classic novels that you only recently read for the first time?

I might be stretching the definition of classic but I finally read The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. It came up during an early pandemic reading group focused on Michelle Neely’s Against Sustainability. Published in 1993, it takes the form of a diary written beginning in 2024. I don’t usually read much science fiction but post-apocalyptic novels that project a future based on human impacts to the environment draw me in. Plus it’s set in a California where no one drives on the freeway, instead they walk. Although they are fleeing their homes and have lost nearly everything. And our protagonist, Lauren, fled her home with a survival pack including seeds to plant in the future and a land ethic to fertilize the soul. 

What’s the most interesting thing you learned from a book recently?

Canopy biologist Meg Lowman’s Arbornaut (like astronaut but in the trees not space) proclaims that half of land-based plants, insects and animals live in our treetops. Foresters used to only walk on the ground to study trees and they only knew what was on top when they cut the tree down so we never had thorough knowledge of the whole tree or what was living in it. Lowman developed techniques for getting to the tree tops to study life up there where there are still many more species to discover, most are microscopic but they all contribute to the web of life.

What’s your favorite book no one else has heard of?

Wild Gardener in the Wild Landscape of which very few print copies remain available. Fortunately the amazing reference staff at Shain Library helped me to digitize it and make it available on Internet Archive.

Which writers—novelists, playwrights, critics, journalists, poets—working today do you admire most?

Anyone who can change culture for the better. I’m thinking of Doug Tallamy and the few books he has written that have influenced a shift from planting exotic ornamental plants to growing native and restoring our landscape to be ecologically beneficial. He makes a compelling case for how an individual can make a difference. (Hint: everyone should plant an oak tree!)

You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three authors, dead or alive, do you invite?

Peter Del Tredici, botanist and author of Wild Urban Plants of the Northeast: A Field Guide; William A. Niering, ecologist who amongst other things spent his career at Connecticut College and created the Smaller American Lawns Today movement; and Rebecca Solnit, author, environmentalist, placemaker, and climate optimist.

Inspired by the Book is a series of interviews with Connecticut College folks about their literary lives. Inspiration comes from The New York Times Book Review series called By the Book.

An interview with Ashley Hanson, who works in Shain Library as a Research Support Librarian and is an Adjunct Faculty Member in the GSIS (Gender, Sexuality and Intersectionality Studies) Department. Born and raised in Connecticut. Lives in New London. Has two wonderful sons, 22 and 24.

What books are on your night stand?

I am very literal. These truly are on my nightstand right now.

Are there economists whose writing you especially admire?

Interesting question. I know very little about economics. I never took an economics class, but you can see from my nightstand that Rutger Bregman is someone I admire. Who doesn’t want a 15 hour work week?

What’s the best book you’ve ever received as a gift?

Mutant Message Down Under by Marlo Morgan is the best book I ever received as a gift. I received it as my mother was sick, and (which I did not know at the time) dying. The book truly helped me cope and gave me strength.

What kind of reader were you as a child? Which childhood books and authors stick with you most?

I was not a big reader as a child, but I loved books. I played “library” and made tiny library cards for many of my books. However, my favorite book as a child was Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion.

Has a book ever brought you closer to another person, or come between you?

The Cherry Orchard by Chekov brought me closer to another person and also it came between us. We both read it while we were on different coasts. Once we were living in the same house the tragedy at the end was apparent.

What books are you embarrassed not to have read yet?

Sadly, this list is way too long. I have never read anything by Jane Austen, but I will soon!

Inspired by the Book is a series of interviews with Connecticut College folks about their literary lives. Inspiration comes from The New York Times Book Review series called By the Book.

An Interview with Amanda Sanders ‘22, an English major and Government minor in the Media Rhetoric and Communications Pathway at Conn. She’s a member of the English SAB, is currently writing a thesis on the figure of the Jewish man in the early Modernist novel, and is the Editor-in-Chief of The College Voice.

What books are on your nightstand?

Joan Didion’s Play It As It Lays, The Buccaneers by Edith Wharton, and Salt Houses by Hala Alyan.

What’s the last great book you read?

The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich.

Who is your favorite novelist of all time?

John Irving.

What books do you find yourself returning to again and again?

The World According to Garp by John Irving, Emma by Jane Austen, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Joan Didion’s The White Album.

Are there any classic novels that you only recently read for the first time?

Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon. I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to read, it may be my new favorite Morrison novel.

What kind of reader were you as a child? Which childhood books and authors stick with you most?

I read and walked at the same time. It concerned all my teachers and my parents. I never tripped.

What moves you most in a work of literature?

A quality epilogue that spans a lifetime.

How do you organize your books?

By most classic to most unconventional alphabetically.

Do you count any books as guilty pleasures, or comfort reads?

Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women.

Disappointed, overrated, just not good: What book did you feel as if you were supposed to like, and didn’t?

Normal People by Sally Rooney.

What do you plan to read next?

Ocean Vuong’s debut novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. I just took it out from Shain Library!

Inspired by the Book is a series of interviews with Connecticut College folks about their literary lives. Inspiration comes from The New York Times Book Review series called By the Book.

An interview with Jackie Chalghin, an English major with a concentration in fiction writing. Jackie is a senior who is writing an honors thesis and plans to attend graduate school in the fall for an MFA in fiction. They can recite the alphabet backwards.

What books are on your night stand?

I like to keep a collection of poetry by my bed. Why I Wake Early by Mary Oliver holds the current spot, and it has become a habit to read one poem before I start my day. Also, the books I am currently reading: Kink, a collection of short stories edited by R.O. Kwon and Garth Greenwell; as well as A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara.

How do you organize your books?

It’s random and intuitive. I’m already not an organized person, and currently have about 70 books in my dorm room, so maintaining a fixed system would be unmanageable for me. I will say that I keep a handful of special books in a crossbody bag in case of fire. I grab it every time there is a drill. It contains Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous; Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina; Maragaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye; Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life; Eudora Welty’s One Writer’s Beginnings; and a beat up collection of Adrienne Rich poems. 

Was there a book that particularly inspired you?

I was particularly inspired by the novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, as well as its author, Ocean Vuong. He grew up in Hartford, CT, a city that feels very similar to mine of Bridgeport, CT—defined by sharp wealth gaps and, consequently, an uneven distribution of resources. My own parents are from Syria, and this novel was the first time I had seen such a careful exploration of the intergenerational effects of war on immigrant families. That, and of course there is always the writing itself. Each sentence is well crafted without being overwrought, and the form does not follow a linear timeline; the novel is propelled by the momentum of each individual sentence. 

Which writers—novelists, playwrights, critics, journalists, poets—working today do you admire most?

Rachel Syme and Jia Tolentino for The New Yorker. Playwright, and recently producer, Jeremy O. Harris—though I have not seen Slave Play—for the volume of conversation he has sparked, and for making theater that has gripped younger audiences. Poets Ocean Vuong and Danez Smith. Alexander Chee’s narrative essays. Recently, Dantiel W. Moniz and Bryan Washington for fiction.

What’s the most interesting thing you learned from a book recently?

From Heaven’s Breath: A Natural History of the Wind by Lyall Watson: winds have names, and each has long been known to trigger certain affects. Not too many centuries ago in Europe, if someone committed a murder, and could prove in court that a malevolent wind had blown that day, they would be acquitted. 

What kind of reading do you avoid while writing?

It’s hard for me to read great fiction while I’m trying to write fiction myself. I get choked off. 

What kind of reader were you as a child? Which childhood books and authors stick with you most?

In retrospect, I learned a lot about attention to detail from the Nancy Drew books. She solved crimes by noticing the smallest things. In one book, there was a character who would paint her nails each night at the same time, and had been doing so for decades. A murder happened one evening, and this woman would not have been a usual suspect, but her nails were chipped the day after the murder; that she had not been repainting her nails at the time of murder stripped her of an alibi. The facts of the story all lined up after the realization of this detail.

What’s the last book you read that made you laugh? The last book you read that made you cry? The last book you read that made you furious?

I had a reading experience unlike any other at the end of Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon—as in tremors and full body goosebumps—not because it was overly sentimental, but because it was so stunning. I didn’t know how to go about the rest of my day.

What do you plan to read next?

Venita Blackburn’s short story collection How to Wrestle a Girl, and Dantiel W. Moniz’s Milk Blood Heat.