Your source for what's new at Mizzou Libraries
Looking to take a break from studying or wanting a comfy chair to sit on while you study? We got you covered.
We recently reconfigured Room 115 as our new lounge area, located by the north entrance and behind the safety desk.
With plenty of natural light and various types of furniture, you will be sure to find the best space for all your studying needs.
A portion of this project was funded by the Enhance Mizzou Student Fee.
From the intricacies of the immune system to the first year of residency, these books cover the compelling, the strange, and the meaningful aspects of medicine — as well as the personal triumphs and tragedies of life as a doctor.
What’s it like to hold a heart in your hand, cut open a skull, scramble to save your husband’s life, face deep-seated sexism or racism in medicine, or make split-second, high-stakes decisions for patients?
Below are a few from the list that you can request from the Health Sciences Library or from Mobius.
Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande, MD, MPH
Performing surgery can be an exhilarating opportunity to heal and an intense gamble with dangerously high stakes, notes Atul Gawande, MD, MPH, a New Yorker columnist and surgeon at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital. In Complications, Gawande shares chilling tales of physician errors and complex stories of medical mysteries. He holds up a mirror to both doctors and patients, from the burned-out doctor who regrettably refuses to quit to the boy with a football-sized tumor enveloping his lung. Gawande also explores major issues in medicine, including how hospitals can train young doctors while protecting patients from inexperience. Throughout, he makes clear that, with a closer look, one can see just “how messy, uncertain, and also surprising medicine turns out to be.”
Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery by Henry Marsh, CBE, FRCS
Henry Marsh, CBEM FRCS, one of Britain’s foremost neurosurgeons, has spent decades operating on the human brain: the home of all thought, feeling, reason, and memory. In Do No Harm, Marsh reviews some of his greatest triumphs and most painful failures, honestly sharing the stress of surgeries — sometimes lasting 10 hours or more — in which a minor misstep can cause horrible damage. This New York Times bestseller is an intimate look inside the organ Marsh calls “as great as the stars at night.” But it’s also a glimpse into the hearts of the physicians who have the blessing and the burden of tinkering inside it.
Letter to a Young Female Physician: Notes from a Medical Life by Suzanne Koven, MD
Watching a new class of interns, Suzanne Koven, MD, a primary care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, felt an urge to pen them a missive describing what she wished she had known early in her career. “Even more, I yearned to tell my younger self what I wished I’d known,” she notes in Letter to a Young Female Physician. Koven’s decades of experience include varied forms of sexism, including being told that “no self-respecting man would go to a lady urologist.” But her dedication to medicine is staunch, manifest in her decision to volunteer in a COVID-19 clinic despite concerns about her own health. Koven also honestly reveals her many moments of insecurity as a provider, as a mother, and as a daughter who failed to recognize her mother’s heart disease. From burnout to body image, she shares her personal journey toward a deeper appreciation of her gifts and a greater acceptance of her imperfections.
Given the impact of the coronavirus and COVID-19 vaccines on the immune systems of millions of people around the world, few topics may be as compelling or timely as immunology. Written before the pandemic but powerfully describing the intricate mechanism that can heal cuts, fight cancer, and battle viruses, An Elegant Defense weaves together biology, research, and medical history with four patients’ personal experiences — including a childhood friend of author Matt Ritchel. Ritchel, a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist, takes readers on an intimate exploration of the body’s primary defense mechanism and its ability to heal or hurt.
June is Pride Month and to help celebrate this month of love and acceptance, here are some books available at Mizzou Libraries that tell stories of triumphs and struggles of the LGBTQ community.
These are just a few recommendations, so be sure to search the library catalog to see what else we have.
Have book recommendation? Let us know here.
Boy Meets Boy by
This is the story of Paul, a sophomore at a high school like no other: The cheerleaders ride Harleys, the homecoming queen used to be a guy named Daryl (she now prefers Infinite Darlene and is also the star quarterback), and the gay-straight alliance was formed to help the straight kids learn how to dance. When Paul meets Noah, he thinks he’s found the one his heart is made for. Until he blows it. The school bookie says the odds are 12-to-1 against him getting Noah back, but Paul’s not giving up without playing his love really loud. His best friend Joni might be drifting away, his other best friend Tony might be dealing with ultra-religious parents, and his ex-boyfriend Kyle might not be going away anytime soon, but sometimes everything needs to fall apart before it can really fit together right. This is a happy-meaningful romantic comedy about finding love, losing love, and doing what it takes to get love back in a crazy-wonderful world.
http://merlin.lib.umsystem.edu/record=b5027477~S1
The Book of Salt by
A novel of Paris in the 1930s from the eyes of the Vietnamese cook employed by Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, by the author of The Sweetest Fruits. Viewing his famous mesdames and their entourage from the kitchen of their rue de Fleurus home, Binh observes their domestic entanglements while seeking his own place in the world. In a mesmerizing tale of yearning and betrayal, Monique Truong explores Paris from the salons of its artists to the dark nightlife of its outsiders and exiles. She takes us back to Binh’s youthful servitude in Saigon under colonial rule, to his life as a galley hand at sea, to his brief, fateful encounters in Paris with Paul Robeson and the young Ho Chi Minh.
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel
Alison Bechdel’s groundbreaking, bestselling graphic memoir that charts her fraught relationship with her late father. Distant and exacting, Bruce Bechdel was an English teacher and director of the town funeral home, which Alison and her family referred to as the “Fun Home.” It was not until college that Alison, who had recently come out as a lesbian, discovered that her father was also gay. A few weeks after this revelation, he was dead, leaving a legacy of mystery for his daughter to resolve. In her hands, personal history becomes a work of amazing subtlety and power, written with controlled force and enlivened with humor, rich literary allusion, and heartbreaking detail. More recently, this memoir was turned into a Tony award winning musical and you can check out the book and lyrics as well.
http://merlin.lib.umsystem.edu/record=b7753395~S1
Black on Both Sides by
The story of Christine Jorgensen, America’s first prominent transsexual, famously narrated trans embodiment in the postwar era. Her celebrity, however, has obscured other mid-century trans narratives–ones lived by African Americans such as Lucy Hicks Anderson and James McHarris. Their erasure from trans history masks the profound ways race has figured prominently in the construction and representation of transgender subjects. In Black on Both Sides, C. Riley Snorton identifies multiple intersections between blackness and transness from the mid-nineteenth century to present-day anti-black and anti-trans legislation and violence. Drawing on a deep and varied archive of materials–early sexological texts, fugitive slave narratives, Afro-modernist literature, sensationalist journalism, Hollywood films–Snorton attends to how slavery and the production of racialized gender provided the foundations for an understanding of gender as mutable.
http://merlin.lib.umsystem.edu/record=b12124869~S1
A Queer History of the United States for Young People by 
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) Pride Month is currently celebrated each year in the month of June to honor the 1969 Stonewall riots.
With Pride Month, we wanted to highlight a few of our guides dedicated to LGBTQ resources. These guides are updated throughout the year.
Our guide, LGBTQ Resources, provides useful resources for research on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer issues, and for members, family, and friends of the LGBTQ community. Whether you are a student looking for help with your papers and projects or you are looking for reading recommendations, this guide is a good resource.
If you are interested in LGBTQ health resources, we have a guide that links to community and nationwide resources, as well as books & media recommendations in Mizzou Libraries and beyond.
Not everything on these guides are behind a paywall. If there is a resource you cannot access, we encourage you to look at your local and university library or local bookstore.
Summer 2021 required and recommended textbooks for classes in the School of Nursing, School of Health Professions and the Department of Health Management and Informatics are now available at the library. Each course has its own corresponding tab.
Paper copies are available on Health Sciences Library Reserve for a 24 hour checkout time. Any duplicate copies of textbooks are available and subject to regular check out times.
Be aware of the user limits on electronic textbooks. They are different depending on textbook and platform. We make note of any user limits.
Unfortunately, we don’t have all the books required for every class. If we don’t have your textbook, there are several avenues you can use to find a copy, which are all clearly labeled on each class page.
Textbook Guides:
If you need help accessing any of the textbooks, email asklibrary@health.missouri.edu.
There are two new digital exhibits in Special Collections, curated by our spring 2021 interns: John T. McCutcheon: A Cartoonist in his Prime, 1930s, curated by Allison Cathey, and The Art of Cartography, Cartes-à-figures, curated by Lily McEwan. Our students have worked very hard over the past semester on these exhibits and now we’re ready to share them with you. Read on below for our interns’ descriptions of their projects. We hope that you enjoy the exhibits!
by Allison Cathey
My exhibit is formed around American cartoonist John T. McCutcheon and his work during the peak of his career at the Chicago Tribune. The exhibit showcases 11 of the cartoons that MU Digital Library has access to. The others can be found in the John Tinney McCutcheon Collection of Editorial Cartoons in the MU Digital Library or in person at the Special Collections if you wish to use them for further information.
The exhibit is focused on the use of cartoons in the 1930s during which some consider to be the prime years in John T. McCutcheon’s career as a cartoonist. Amidst the economic struggles of the 1930s, McCutcheon brought light to political, social, and economic issues. His ability to cover a variety of subjects showed his versatility and the reason that people refer to him as the American dean of cartooning. Additionally, in the 1930s McCutcheon was awarded an honorary doctoral degree and Pulitzer Prize for his exceptional work. He spent the last years of the decade beginning his autobiography that reflects on his personal and work life. The exhibit includes cartoons pertaining to McCutcheon’s view on: economics, American holidays, global politics, marriage and divorce, automobile crashes, administrative programs, local news, war, technological advancement, and treaty breaking.
by Lily McEwan
I chose to create the digital exhibit The Art of Cartography: Cartes-à-figures as a passion project for my interest in art history. As a student studying Art History and Anthropology, I loved the hands-on opportunity to conduct research and over the course of the semester have gained valuable interpretive critical-thinking skills. The creative process and the designing element of an exhibit was a new experience that was thoroughly delightful. I have a new appreciation for librarianship and researchers – as there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes.
My favorite aspect of this experience was visiting the reading room! Seeing with my own eyes these wonderfully old and preserved maps has reconfirmed my interest in Art History and preservation work. I am grateful to have this opportunity as it will help prepare me for a life of research. In fact, this summer I will be attending archaeological field school in Pompeii under the direction of Dr. Kate Trusler for a month-long research endeavor in public sanitation.
I have thoroughly enjoyed my time as in Intern for Ellis Library’s Special Collections Department. I am so grateful to have had the experience in digital exhibition research, writing, and publication. I want to thank John Henry Adams, Kelly Hanson, Anne Stanton, and the entire department of Special Collections for assisting with research, guidance, and allowing me to have this opportunity in exhibition research.
May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, and at Mizzou Libraries we are celebrating Asian and Pacific American stories and authors! Join us in celebrating these stories and authors by picking up one of these books at your Mizzou libraries!
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan:
The Joy Luck Club is a story that focuses on the relationship between mothers and daughters and the deep feelings that connect us all. We follow four Chinese women in 1949 after their recent immigration to San Francisco. As these women begin a routine of meeting up to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk with one another, the reader and the women see how between their shared history, loss, and hopeful optimism, these women share a connection and, through this connection, they create the “Joy Luck Club”. Amy Tan writes a tender and immersive story that highlights the beauty and deep feelings that connect all mothers and daughters that will hopefully leave everyone feeling understood by these characters and stories.
http://merlin.lib.umsystem.edu:80/record=b4049057~S1
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki:
In this unforgettable novel, we follow two stories: the first takes place in Tokyo, where we meet sixteen-year-old Nao, who, after being bullied by her classmates, contemplates taking her life. However, before she does anything drastic, she wants to document her great grandmother’s eventful life as a Buddhist nun. Recording everything in her diary, Nao writes without understanding how important her words will eventually become. Across the ocean on a remote island, a novelist discovers a washed-up Hello Kitty lunchbox containing a collection of artifacts and believes it to be debris from the 2011 tsunami. However, as the story develops and these artifacts’ contents are uncovered, we learn how these two characters overlap and how their stories can hopefully help each other. http://merlin.lib.umsystem.edu:80/record=b9598306~S1
American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang:
In this action-packed graphic novel, we follow the lives of three very different characters: Jin Wang, the new kid in town, who quickly realizes he is the only Chinese-American student; a character named “Monkey King”, who is the subject of one of the oldest Chinese fables; and Chin-Kee, a personification of negative Chinese stereotypes, who ruins his cousin Danny’s “popular” image every year when he comes to visit. This modern fable is filled with twists and turns perfect for young adult readers or anyone curious to see how these three characters’ stories unfold. http://merlin.lib.umsystem.edu/record=b5854219~S1
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri:
From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri, Unaccustomed Earth consists of eight stories that range from Seattle to India to Thailand. In these stories, we follow a diverse cast of characters as they navigate different relationships in their lives. In the titular story, a mother has just moved to a new city and watches the bond between her father and son grow, but is unaware of her own father’s secrets. In “A Choice of Accommodations,” a husband attempting to turn a friend’s wedding into a romantic getaway finds the night taking dark and surprising turns. In “Only Goodness,” a sister eager to give her younger brother the picture-perfect childhood she never had must now wrestle her guilt and anger when his alcoholism threatens her family. Filled with rich stories and stunning writing, Unaccustomed Earth is a powerful piece of work you have to check out! http://merlin.lib.umsystem.edu:80/record=b6304064~S1
Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong:
Author Cathy Park Hong, daughter of Korean immigrants, didn’t understand why she grew up feeling ashamed, suspicious, and sad. Later in life, she would coin these feelings as “minor feelings” that often occur when American optimism deeply contradicts and affects your realities. Using her own story, Hong examines racial consciousness in America and unpacks each of her relationships, from her family to her feelings towards the English language. Minor Feelings is a unique and eye-opening memoir that will blow you away with Hong’s honest and critical writing! You can request a copy here: http://merlin.lib.umsystem.edu:80/record=b13651982~S1
Danielle Gorman / English Intern / Spring 2021
Did you know that April is National Arab American Heritage Month? This month, we celebrate and recognize Arab American heritage and culture and pay tribute to contributions made by Arab Americans. Join Mizzou Libraries in celebrating this month by supporting Arab American voices and stories with these books!
Palace Walk, Naguib Mahfouz
This novel is the first novel in the Cairo Trilogy written by Nobel Prize-winning author Naguib Mahfouz. The Cairo Trilogy follows the family of a tyrannical patriarch, who keeps a strict ruling household while he lives a secret life away from those pressures and expectations. Throughout this novel, we follow the stories of Amina, his oppressed wife, Aisha and Khadija, his sheltered daughters, and his three sons, Fahmy, Yasin, and Kamal. As you turn each page, you begin to see how the family’s own struggles mirror the world around them, as we follow their stories through two world wars and a changing country.
http://merlin.lib.umsystem.edu:80/record=b2327182~S1
The Words of My Father: Love and Pain in Palestine, Yousef Bashir
In this candid memoir, author Yousef Bashir details his life growing up next to an Israeli military base and his childhood in Gaza during the Second Intifada. Bashir expresses his commitment to peace in the wake of devastation and brings insightful stories to the reader that highlight the importance of moving past anger, fear, and prejudices. http://merlin.lib.umsystem.edu:80/record=b13062042~S1
Amreekiya: A Novel, Lena Mahmoud
This novel follows the story of twenty-one-year-old Isra Shadi, who, after the death of her mother, is forced to move to California with her uncle and aunt. Remaining an outcast in her house, her family strongly encourages Isra to get married and move out. She believes it is hopeless among the multiple suitors she rejects until she finds Yusef, a man she loved from her past, and marries him. Amreekiya switches between the two storylines of Isra’s adolescence and her present-day married life as we watch her struggle between two cultures and how she can define herself.
http://merlin.lib.umsystem.edu:80/record=b13217031~S1
Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, Laila Lalami
In her debut novel, Laila Lalami tells the gripping story of four Moroccans illegally crossing the Strait of Gibraltar in a boat heading to Spain. We follow the characters of Murad, an educated man who has been forced into hustling tourists for money; Halima, a woman fleeing her alcoholic husband; Aziz, a man forced to leave behind his wife to find work in a new country; and Faten, a young, religious student who finds herself at a crossroads between her faith and an influential man who is determined to destroy her future. This novel has the reader on the edge of their seat, as you wonder will they survive this risky journey, and if they do, will it have been worth it?
http://merlin.lib.umsystem.edu:80/record=b5371575~S1
Sex and Lies: True Stories of Women’s Intimate Lives in the Arab World, Leila Slimani
In this eye-opening and heartbreaking expose, Slimani documents the lives of Moroccan women and the struggles they face toward sexual liberation. In Morocco, adultery, abortion, homosexuality, and sex outside of marriage are punishable by law, which creates a difficult standard for the women who live there. Women must decide between being a wife or remaining a virgin. Sex and Lies shines a light on the best-kept secrets of women’s sexual lives in Morocco and makes a strong case for a sexual revolution in the Arab world. This book isn’t yet available to check out from MU Libraries, but you can request it here: http://merlin.lib.umsystem.edu:80/record=b13695020~S1
Danielle Gorman / English Intern / Spring 2021
Signed up for the June diversity, equity and inclusion book discussion on White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo? Several print copies are available for check out through MOBIUS. You can request a copy be sent to the health sciences library for easy access. Request your copy here
Looking for a digital copy? There are two copies available for online viewing.
The Women in Medicine and Medical Sciences (WIMMS), in partnership with the SOM Office of Diversity and Inclusion, invites anyone interested to join in reading and discussing “White Fragility” by Robin DiAngelo. The discussion, a Caroline McGill Society event, will be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 15, via Zoom. Register for the discussion
National Women’s Month may be coming to an end, but there are still many ways you can support female voices throughout the rest of this month and beyond! Whether you chose to donate to a nonprofit organization or decide to learn more about women’s history through sites such as https://womenshistorymonth.gov/, here at Mizzou Libraries, we encourage you to continue showcasing and uplifting women’s voices however you can. One of our favorite ways to celebrate anything at our libraries is by supporting our favorite books and authors! To celebrate National Women’s Month, we asked some library staff members who their favorite female authors are!
Rachel Brekhus (Librarian III, Humanities/Social Sciences Librarian, Instruction Department): Octavia Butler, Sheri S. Tepper, and Harriet Washington.
William Morgan (Library Information Specialist, E-Learning): Marilynne Robinson and Jesmyn Ward.
Gwen Gray (Librarian III, Business, Economics, & Entrepreneurship): Donna Leon, Agatha Christie, Carol Carnac, Sujata Massey, Anne Perry, and Charles Todd.
Corrie Hutchinson (Associate University Librarian for Acquisitions, Collections, and Technical Services): Jane Austen and Agatha Christie.
Rebecca Graves (Educational Services Librarian, Health Sciences Library): Ursula Le Guin and N. K. Jemisin.
Erin Merrill (Library Info Specialist): Sophie Kinsella and Gail Carriger.
Dorothy Carner (Head, Journalism Libraries): Deborah Willis (here is an online exhibit curated by Journalism Libraries showcasing Willis’ work https://spark.adobe.com/page/ZYMtHBO9rPcTn/ )
You can check out many of these authors at your Mizzou Libraries: http://merlin.lib.umsystem.edu/search/X.
Along with reading from your favorite authors, it is also important to remember why supporting female voices is essential when consuming literature. Here is why Mizzou Libraries’ staff members believe reading work by women is important to them!
Corrie Hutchinson: I think it’s important to read female authors so that you have a balanced viewpoint. Books and stories are how people share viewpoints and experiences, so why limit yourself to only one perspective? Why escape to a world that only men created? That’s just silly. No limits.
William Morgan: Because male authors were so much of my own education as well as what I had to teach in World Literature as a high school teacher, I feel I need to focus more on female authors so that I have a more well-rounded view of both historical and modern literature.
Rebecca Graves: Their writing is rich and deep. It is not so filtered through the lens of “I” of being the focus of attention when walking into a room. There’s more depth to even the minor characters. I.e., the characters are there for the story and have their own backstory. They aren’t just there to prop up the lead. I find more variety in their writing. True, all genders of writers have tackled the hero’s journey, but there are more stories to be told than simply the hero’s. I also find it confirming that women have written brilliant stories. To read Le Guin or Jemisin is to have excellent language, rich worlds, and well-crafted plots. They are masters of the craft.
Whatever way you decide to celebrate the duration of Women’s History Month, we hope you visit one of our Mizzou Libraries and pick up a book to support female authors!
Danielle Gorman / English Intern/ Spring 2021