home Engineering Library, Gateway Carousel ELTC, Resources and Services Reading Revelry: January 2025

Reading Revelry: January 2025

By Amanda May Posted in Engineering Library Gateway Carousel ELTC Resources and Services

Posted on January 2, 2025January 13, 2025

Howdy!

Happy New Year everyone! We hope everyone has had a restful break. Here are two books to ease you back into the semester. You can request them by clicking on their hyperlinked titles below. If you have issues requesting the titles, please reach out to Amanda May at asmx67@umsystem.edu

Our picks for January:

The Archive of Alternate Endings by Lindsey Drager

Tracking the evolution of Hansel and Gretel at seventy-five-year intervals that correspond with earth’s visits by Halley’s Comet, The Archive of Alternate Endings explores how stories are disseminated and shared, edited and censored, voiced and left untold.

In 1456, Johannes Gutenberg’s sister uses the tale as a surrogate for sharing a family secret only her brother believes. In 1835, The Brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm revise the tale to bury a truth about Jacob even he can’t come to face. In 1986, a folklore scholar and her brother come to find the record is wrong about the figurative witch in the woods, while in 2211, twin space probes aiming to find earth’s sister planet disseminate the narrative in binary code. Breadcrumbing back in time from 2365 to 1378, siblings reimagine, reinvent, and recycle the narrative of Hansel and Gretel to articulate personal, regional, and ultimately cosmic experiences of tragedy.

Through a relay of speculative pieces that oscillate between eco-fiction and psychological horror, The Archive of Alternate Endings explores sibling love in the face of trauma over the course of a millennium, in the vein of Richard McGuire’s Here and Lars von Trier’s Melancholia.

~~~

Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy

Franny Stone has always been the kind of woman who is able to love but unable to stay. Leaving behind everything but her research gear, she arrives in Greenland with a singular purpose: to follow the last Arctic terns in the world on what might be their final migration to Antarctica. Franny talks her way onto a fishing boat, and she and the crew set sail, traveling ever further from shore and safety. But as Franny’s history begins to unspool—a passionate love affair, an absent family, a devastating crime—it becomes clear that she is chasing more than just the birds. When Franny’s dark secrets catch up with her, how much is she willing to risk for one more chance at redemption?

Epic and intimate, heartbreaking and galvanizing, Charlotte McConaghy’s Migrations is an ode to a disappearing world and a breathtaking page-turner about the possibility of hope against all odds.

~~~

Do you have a book recommendation you want to see in a future Reading Revelry? Reach out to Amanda May at asmx67@umsystem.edu

home Engineering Library, Resources and Services Reading Revelry: December 2024

Reading Revelry: December 2024

By Amanda May Posted in Engineering Library Resources and Services

Posted on December 2, 2024January 2, 2025

Howdy everyone!

We hope everyone has had a wonderful semester! For post-finals reading, we have two books to recommend this month. Want other recommendations? Go back to the previous Reading Revelries! Have a book you want to recommend for a future Reading Revelry? Contact Amanda May at asmx67@umsystem.edu.

We hope everyone has a fabulous winter break!

Our picks for December:

One Day in December by Josie Silver

Laurie is pretty sure love at first sight doesn’t exist anywhere but the movies. But then, through a misted-up bus window one snowy December day, she sees a man who she knows instantly is the one. Their eyes meet, there’s a moment of pure magic… and then her bus drives away.

Certain they’re fated to find each other again, Laurie spends a year scanning every bus stop and cafe in London for him. But she doesn’t find him, not when it matters anyway. Instead they “reunite” at a Christmas party, when her best friend Sarah giddily introduces her new boyfriend to Laurie. It’s Jack, the man from the bus. It would be.

What follows for Laurie, Sarah and Jack is ten years of friendship, heartbreak, missed opportunities, roads not taken, and destinies reconsidered. One Day in December is a joyous, heartwarming and immensely moving love story to escape into and a reminder that fate takes inexplicable turns along the route to happiness.

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.

home Engineering Library, Resources and Services Reading Revelry: November 2024

Reading Revelry: November 2024

By Amanda May Posted in Engineering Library Resources and Services

Posted on November 1, 2024December 2, 2024

Howdy! This month’s Reading Revelry include three short, uncanny books perfect for Fall reading! If you are interested in requesting these books, click on the hyperlink in the title, and on the blue “Place Request” button on the left side of the page.

Our picks for November:

Comfort Me with Apples by Catherynne M. Valente
ISBN: 9781250816214
Publication Date: 2021

Sophia was made for him. Her perfect husband. She can feel it in her bones. He is perfect. Their home together in Arcadia Gardens is perfect. Everything is perfect.

It’s just that he’s away so much. So often. He works so hard. She misses him. And he misses her. He says he does, so it must be true. He is the perfect husband, and everything is perfect.

But sometimes Sophia wonders about things. Strange things. Dark things. The look on her husband’s face when he comes back fr

om a long business trip. The questions he will not answer. The locked basement she is never allowed to enter. And whenever she asks the neighbors, they can’t quite meet her gaze…

But everything is perfect. Isn’t it?

Bunny by Mona Awad
ISBN: 9780525559757
Publication Date: 2019

Samantha Heather Mackey couldn’t be more of an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at New England’

s Warren University. A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort–a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other Bunny, and seem to move and speak as one.

But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies’ fabled Smut Salon, and finds herself inexplicably drawn to their front door–ditching her only friend, Ava, in the process. As Samantha plunges deeper and deeper into the Bunnies’ sinister yet saccharine world, beginning to take part in the ritualistic off-campus Workshop where they conjure their monstrous creations, the edges of reality begin to blur. Soon, her friendships with Ava and the Bunnies will be brought into deadly collision.

The spellbinding new novel from one of our most fearless chroniclers of the female experience, Bunny is a down-the-rabbit-hole tale of loneliness and belonging, friendship and desire, and the fantastic and terrible power of the imagination.

We Have Always Lived In The Castle by Shirley Jackson ISBN: 0143039970
Publication Date: 1962

Taking readers deep into a labyrinth of dark neurosis, We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a deliciously unsettling novel about a perverse, isolated, and possibly murderous family and the struggle that ensues when a cousin arrives at their estate.

home Ellis Library, Resources and Services Morbidly Curious Books

Morbidly Curious Books

By Taira Meadowcroft Posted in Ellis Library Resources and Services

Posted on October 1, 2024September 6, 2024

Welcome, curious friends….

We have a new guide full of book recommendations for those who prefer the darker side of non-fiction.

Our resident goth librarian, Mara, has curated a delightfully spooky list of books to satisfy your spooky book cravings.

Below are just a few of the books Mara has found, so be sure to check out the whole guide for more.

Stiff by Mary Roach

Stiff is an oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem.

Dark Archives by Megan Rosenbloom

On bookshelves around the world, surrounded by ordinary books bound in paper and leather, rest other volumes of a distinctly strange and grisly sort: those bound in human skin. Would you know one if you held it in your hand?

Goodbye Hello by Adam Berry

From paranormal investigator and host of Kindred Spirits Adam Berry comes Goodbye Hello, which blends supernatural and psychological research to explore the paranormal and afterlife to try and help answer big questions about the end.

Gardening Can Be Murder by Marta McDowell

This fun, engrossing book takes a look at the surprising influence that gardens and gardening have had on mystery novels and their authors. With their deadly plants, razor-sharp shears, shady corners, and ready-made burial sites, gardens make an ideal scene for the perfect murder.

home Engineering Library, Resources and Services Reading Revelry: October 2024

Reading Revelry: October 2024

By Amanda May Posted in Engineering Library Resources and Services

Posted on October 1, 2024January 2, 2025

Happy October everyone! We hope your classes are going well! For this month’s Reading Revelry, we have three sinisterly scary books to get you in the mood for Halloween.

To learn more about the books, click on the hyperlink in the title. If you have questions or issues requesting items, please contact us at (573) 882-2379.

Happy reading!

Our picks for October:

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
ISBN: 9780321398925
Publication Date: 1764

This book is often considered the first “gothic” novel.
Despite its short length, Walpole expertly crafts an uncanny and unforgettable story about a wedding gone wrong.

Tender Is The Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
ISBN: 9781982150921
Publication
Date: 2017 (English translation 2020)

In a world where animals carry a virus that makes them
poisonous and deadly for human consumption, society has moved on to a new protein source…humans.
This book is NOT for the faint of heart.

The Harpy by Megan Hunter
ISBN: 9780802148162
Publication Date: 2020

This book follows Lucy, a loving wife and mother to two children.
When her husband, Jake, is found to be having an affair,
Lucy decides to stay with Jake on one condition:
she gets to have her revenge three times.

home Ellis Library, Engineering Library, J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library, Journalism Library, Resources and Services Books to Celebrate Disability Culture Month at Mizzou

Books to Celebrate Disability Culture Month at Mizzou

By Taira Meadowcroft Posted in Ellis Library Engineering Library J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library Journalism Library Resources and Services

Posted on September 6, 2024September 13, 2024

Mizzou began a tradition of celebrating Disability Culture Month, formerly Celebrate Ability Week, every September! Learn about Mizzou events happening the month of September to celebrate Disability Culture Month.

Below are a few we have available for check out. You can view the whole list of recommendations here.

Have a purchase recommendation? Use our book recommendation form

Being Heumann : An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist by Judith Heumann

Being Heumann recounts Judy Heumann’s lifelong battle to achieve respect, acceptance, and inclusion in society. Paralyzed from polio at eighteen months, Judy’s struggle for equality began early in life. From fighting to attend grade school after being described as a “fire hazard” to later winning a lawsuit against the New York City school system for denying her a teacher’s license because of her paralysis, Judy’s actions set a precedent that fundamentally improved rights for disabled people.

Blackness and disability : critical examinations and cultural interventions by Christopher Bell

“Disability Studies diverge from the medical model of disability (which argues that disabled subjects can and should be “fixed”) to view disability as socially constructed, much in the same way other identities are. The work of reading black and disabled bodies is not only recovery work, but work that requires a willingness to deconstruct the systems that would keep those bodies in separate spheres. This pivotal volume uncovers the misrepresentations of black disabled bodies and demonstrates how those bodies transform systems and culture. Drawing on key themes in Disability Studies and African American Studies, these collected essays complement one another in interesting and dynamic ways, to forge connections across genres and chronotopes, an invitation to keep blackness and disability in conversation.

Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

In this collection of essays, Lambda Literary Award–winning writer and longtime activist and performance artist Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha explores the politics and realities of disability justice, a movement that centers the lives and leadership of sick and disabled queer, trans, Black, and brown people, with knowledge and gifts for all. Care Work is a mapping of access as radical love, a celebration of the work that sick and disabled queer/people of color are doing to find each other and to build power and community, and a tool kit for everyone who wants to build radically resilient, sustainable communities of liberation where no one is left behind. Powerful and passionate, Care Work is a crucial and necessary call to arms.

Defying Disability : The Lives and Legacies of Nine Disabled Leaders by Mary Wilkinson

This book tells the stories of nine disabled leaders who, by force of personality and concrete achievement, have made us think differently about disability. Whatever direction they have come from, they share a common will to change society so that disabled people get a fair deal.

Demystifying Disability : What to Know, What to Say, and How to Be an Ally by Emily Landau

People with disabilities are the world’s largest minority, an estimated 15 percent of the global population. But many of us—disabled and nondisabled alike—don’t know how to act, what to say, or how to be an ally to the disability community. Demystifying Disability is a friendly handbook on the important disability issues you need to know about

Disfigured : on fairy tales, disability, and making space by Amanda Leduc

Fairy tales shape how we see the world, so what happens when you identify more with the Beast than Beauty? If every disabled character is mocked and mistreated, how does the Beast ever imagine a happily-ever-after? Amanda Leduc looks at fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm to Disney, showing us how they influence our expectations and behaviour and linking the quest for disability rights to new kinds of stories that celebrate difference.

Disability aesthetics by Tobin Siebers

Disability Aesthetics is the first attempt to theorize the representation of disability in modern art and visual culture. It claims that the modern in art is perceived as disability, and that disability is evolving into an aesthetic value in itself. It argues that the essential arguments at the heart of the American culture wars in the late twentieth century involved the rejection of disability both by targeting certain artworks as “sick” and by characterizing these artworks as representative of a sick culture

Women, Disability, and Culture by Anna Siri

Women and girls with disabilities find themselves constantly having to deal with multiple, intersectional discrimination due to both their gender and their disability, as well as social conditioning. Indeed, the intersection made up of factors such as race, ethnic origin, social background, cultural substrate, age, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, gender, disability, status as refugee or migrant and others besides, has a multiplying effect that increases discrimination yet further. The book seeks to pay the right attention to the condition of women with disabilities, offering points for reflection, also on the different, often invisible, cultural and social undertones that continue today to feed into prejudicial stereotypes.

home Engineering Library, Resources and Services Reading Revelry: September (2024)

Reading Revelry: September (2024)

By Amanda May Posted in Engineering Library Resources and Services

Posted on September 5, 2024October 21, 2024

Hello everyone! We hope you’ve has had a wonderful start to the semester! This month we have two book recommendations for when you need a break from homework.

If you are interested in requesting these books, click on the hyperlink in the title, and on the blue “Place Request” button on the left side of the page. If you have questions or issues requesting items, please contact us at (573) 882-2379

Happy reading!

Our picks for September:

Biography of X By Catherine Lacey ISBN: 9780374606176
Publication Date: March 21, 2023

This suspenseful literary masterpiece follows C.M, widow of the eclectic artist known as X, as she tries to unravel the threads of mystery left behind in X’s death. C.M. sets out on an unforgettable quest to find out who her late wife really was. Told in an alternate timeline of history, with lots of pop culture references, this book will leave you enthralled until the very last page!

Martyr! By Kaveh Akbar
ISBN: 9780593537619
Publication Date: January 18, 2024

Cyrus Shams is obsessed with martyrs, so much so he is writing a book about them. His life has been plagued with senseless violence and loss, and martyrs are a unique comfort for him. He becomes drawn to Orkideh, an artist who is spending her final days as a live art piece at the Brooklyn Museum. Determined to include her in his book of martyrs, Cyrus travels from Indiana to New York to meet her. The journey leads him to discover answers to his past. Told in multiple perspectives, this debut novel is as hilarious as it is devastating.

home Ellis Library, Engineering Library, J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library, Journalism Library, Resources and Services, Uncategorized, Zalk Veterinary Medical Library Summer Reading Favorites from Mizzou Librarians

Summer Reading Favorites from Mizzou Librarians

By Taira Meadowcroft Posted in Ellis Library Engineering Library J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library Journalism Library Resources and Services Uncategorized Zalk Veterinary Medical Library

Posted on August 22, 2024September 5, 2024

We asked Mizzou Librarians to tell us what their favorite read of the summer was and asked them to explain why it was their favorite. They could:

Write a few sentences OR
Provide 3-5 descriptive words OR
What emojis would describe the book?

The books could be published in any year and any genre as long as they were available at Mizzou Libraries or in Mobius.

We know it’s hard to pick a favorite book, but we have some great selections to add to your tbr.

Heartstopper Vol. 3 by Alice Oseman

“The Heartstopper graphic novel series is A+. It’s about young love and finding yourself. My jaw hurt from smiling the entire time reading this,” -Taira M.

The Swans of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin

“Truman Capote spills the tea on New York socialites,”- Diane

Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-Reum

“A woman reinvents herself and her life by starting a bookshop in her beloved local community. A lovely, heartwarming read about identity, goals, dreams as well as finding community,” Stara H.

Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune

“Hopeful, a new way to think about loss and death,” – Megan

Goodbye Hello: Processing Grief and Understanding Death Through the Paranormal by Adam Berry

“This is not a self-help book. It is Adam’s personal take on grief and dying from both a supernatural and psychological standpoint, peppered with stories and interviews from his career in the paranormal. You might find out you’re not crazy/it’s not just you after all.” – Mara, your morbidly curious librarian

A Pirate’s Life for Tea: a Cozy Fantasy with Ships Abound by Rebecca Thorne

“I just discovered the cozy fantasy subgenre, which this novel falls into. It also has many of my favorite things: tea, adventure, good people, and a little romance.” – Noel K.

home Ellis Library, Engineering Library, J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library, Resources and Services National Book Lovers Day August 9th

National Book Lovers Day August 9th

By Taira Meadowcroft Posted in Ellis Library Engineering Library J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library Resources and Services

Posted on August 7, 2024September 5, 2024

Reading reinforces our humanity by helping us to see others and be seen. We love this unofficial holiday where we can celebrate our love of reading. Not that we ever need an excuse to celebrate reading.

Below are some of our book lists to help you add to your TBR:

Books to Celebrate Pride

Summer Reading Revelry

Books to Read on the Beach (or Couch!) This Spring Break

Mizzou Librarians Share Their Favorite Reads of 2023

Summer Reads for Doctors — or Anyone Interested in the World of Medicine

Take A (Reading) Bite Out of Shark Week

Books to Celebrate Disability Culture Month at Mizzou

National Hispanic Heritage Month Book Recommendations

Native American Heritage Month Book Recommendations

home Resources and Services, Staff news Books to Celebrate Pride

Books to Celebrate Pride

By Taira Meadowcroft Posted in Resources and Services Staff news

Posted on June 13, 2024September 5, 2024

It’s officially Pride Month and to help celebrate this month of love and acceptance, we asked our Mizzou Librarians what stories they’d like to celebrate.

Below are just a few of the recommendations that tell stories of triumphs and struggles of the LGBTQ community, all of which are available to request. You can view the whole list of recommended reads here.

Be sure to search the library catalog to see what else we have.

Have book recommendation? Let us know here.

Birthday

Eric and Morgan decided they were best friends for life. They’ve stuck by each other’s side as Morgan’s mom died, as he moved across town, as Eric joined the football team, as his parents started fighting. But Morgan feels trapped in a mixed-up body, in a wrong life, in Nowheresville, Tennessee, on repeat. With a dad who cares about his football team more than his son, and a best friend who can never know his biggest secret. Six years of birthdays reveal Eric and Morgan’s destiny as they come together, drift apart, fall in love, and discover who they’re meant to be– and if they’re meant to be together.

Golden Boy

The Walker family is good at keeping secrets from the world. They are even better at keeping them from each other. Max Walker is a golden boy, with a secret that the world may not be ready for. This novel is a riveting tale of a family in crisis, a fascinating exploration of identity, and a coming-of-age story like no other.

I am Your Sister: Collected and Unpublished Writings of Audre Lorde

I Am Your Sister is a collection of Lorde’s non-fiction prose, written between 1976 and 1990, and it introduces new perspectives on the depth and range of Lorde’s intellectual interests and her commitments to progressive social change. Presented here, for the first time in print, is a major body of Lorde’s speeches and essays, along with the complete text of A Burst of Light and Lorde’s landmark prose works Sister Outsider and The Cancer Journals. Together, these writings reveal Lorde’s commitment to a radical course of thought and action, situating her works within the women’s, gay and lesbian, and African American Civil Rights movements.

Legends & Lattes

After a lifetime of bounties and bloodshed, Viv is hanging up her sword for the last time. The battle-weary orc aims to start fresh, opening the first ever coffee shop in the city of Thune. But old and new rivals stand in the way of success — not to mention the fact that no one has the faintest idea what coffee actually is. If Viv wants to put the blade behind her and make her plans a reality, she won’t be able to go it alone. But the true rewards of the uncharted path are the travelers you meet along the way. And whether drawn together by ancient magic, flaky pastry, or a freshly brewed cup, they may become partners, family, and something deeper than she ever could have dreamed.

Out at the Movies: A history of Gay Cinema

Over the decades, gay cinema has reflected the community’s journey from persecution to emancipation to acceptance. Politicised dramas like Victim in the 60s, The Naked Civil Servant in the 70s, and the AIDS cinema of the 80s have given way in recent years to films which celebrate a vast array of gay life-styles. Gay films have undergone a major shift, from the fringe to the mainstream and 2005s Academy Awards were dubbed the Gay Oscars with gongs going to Brokeback Mountain, Capote and Transamerica. Producers began clamouring to back gay-themed movies and the most high profile of these is Gus Van Sant’s MILK, starring Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, the first prominent American political figure to be elected to office on an openly gay ticket back in the 70s. The book also includes information on gay filmmakers and actors and their influence within the industry. Interspersed throughout the book are some of the most iconic scenes from gay cinema and the most memorable dialogue from key films.

Stella Brings the Family

Stella’s class is having a Mother’s Day celebration, but what’s a girl with two daddies to do? It’s not that she doesn’t have someone who helps her with her homework, or tucks her in at night. Stella has her Papa and Daddy who take care of her, and a whole gaggle of other loved ones who make her feel special and supported every day. She just doesn’t have a mom to invite to the party. Fortunately, Stella finds a unique solution to her party problem in this sweet story about love, acceptance, and the true meaning of family.

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