From books by and about the Obamas and preparation for coursework and marathons to fast-paced mysteries and thrillers and fascinating non-fiction, here are the books Pitt faculty and staff are looking forward to over the winter recess.

Center for Creativity

Kit Ayers

Director, Strategy and Partnership
“To Obama: With Love, Joy, Anger, and Hope” by Jeanne Marie Laskas
The Chief Inspector Ganache series by Louise Penny

“I find this book so moving,” Ayers said of Laskas’ (Distinguished Professor of English and founding director of the Center for Creativity) “To Obama.” “People pouring out their hearts, their anger, their fears to the President — that I’ve only been able to manage it a bit at a time. I’d like to sink into the sections about the White House staff, who have jobs that remind me in many ways of our work here at Pitt: shepherding processes while looking out for the individuals affected.” Additionally, Ayers said she’s loved series since reading Nancy Drew, so she’s looking forward to starting “gobbling up” the Chief Inspector Ganache series.

Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences

Jeanne Marie Laskas

Distinguished Professor of English and Founding Director, Center for Creativity
“The Fearless Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist” by Marcus Rediker 

“It’s my kind of book,” Laskas said of Rediker's book, which was published last year.

Jeff Oaks

Senior Lecturer, Assistant Director of the Writing Program, Department of English
“Perennial” by Kelly Forsythe
“Day Counter” by Sara Mumolo
“Notes from the Woodshed” by Jack Whitten
“The Best Small Fictions 2018” edited by Sherrie Flick

“Kelly was an undergraduate here and a former UTA [undergraduate teaching assistant] of mine. It's her first book, and I'm looking forward to diving into it over the break. The other book of poetry is one Kelly herself suggested to me: ‘Day Counter’ by Sara Mumolo. It's a book that moves between prose and poetry, which is a kind of book I love at the moment — a thing that doesn't exactly fit an easy genre definition. The last book is artist Jack Whitten's ‘Notes from the Woodshed,’ which are his collected studio logs, his artist notebooks, and on my bedstand is ‘The Best Small Fictions 2018,’ edited by Sherrie Flick, who lives in Pittsburgh and published by a local press Braddock Books. It is a compendium of short short stories from literary journals all over the country.”

Marcus Rediker

Distinguished Professor, Department of History
“Civilizing Torture: An American Tradition” by Fitzhugh Brundage
The sea novels of Herman Melville

Rediker called “Civilizing Torture: An American Tradition” a “difficult but essential book, which surveys the uses of torture — from the Indian wars through slavery, to Jim Crow and lynching, up to events at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq — and analyzes the complex debates about torture.” Meanwhile, Melville is research: “I am also rereading the sea novels of Herman Melville for a new book I am writing, ‘Melville and the Motley Crew: A Voyage through the Oceans of World History,’ under contract to Viking-Penguin, to be published in 2020.”

Peter Trachtenberg

Associate Professor, Director of the Writing Program, Department of English
The Neapolitan novels by Elena Ferrante
“Rats” by Robert Sullivan
“Men We Reaped” by Jesmyn Ward
“Proxies: Essays Near Knowing” by Brian Blanchfield

“I’ll spend the break binging on Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, which are every bit as good as their press, maybe better, for the astonishing way they depict character and track the smallest, swiftest shifts in love, loyalty, admiration and resentment,” Trachtenberg said.  “I’m also dipping back into the books I’ll be teaching this spring, including dense but irresistibly lively reporting that tells the story of a city through its vermin; a structurally brilliant memoir that in relating the deaths of five young black men shows systemic racism at work; and smart, aphoristic essays on literature, sex and consciousness,” Trachtenberg said of the books by Sullivan, Ward and Blanchfield, respectively.

John Twyning

Professor, Department of English, and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies
“Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials” by Malcolm Harris
“Babylon Berlin” by Volker Kutscher

Of “Kids These Days,” Twyning said “It’s an eye-opener in terms of understanding a generation very different from mine.” He was inspired to read “Babylon Berlin” because he thought the television series was great, but noted, “I wish I could read it in German, though.”

Graduate School of Public and International Affairs

Muge Finkel

Assistant Professor of International Development
“Killing Commendatore” by Haruki Murakami

“I am very much looking forward to being finished with grading and settling to some good reading over the break,” Finkle said.

Office of the Chancellor

Kathy Humphrey

Senior Vice Chancellor for Engagement and Secretary of the Board of Trustees
“Becoming” by Michelle Obama

Gregory Scott

Senior Vice Chancellor for Business and Operations
“The Obstacle is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph” by Ryan Holiday
“Die Empty: Unleash Your Best Work Every Day” by Todd Henry

“My wife likes to tease that I should read something lighter,” said Scott, but he’s enjoying both books and is getting a lot from them.

Eva Tansky Blum

Chairperson, Board of Trustees
“Leadership in Turbulent Times” by Doris Kearns Goodwin

“It delves into four presidents, starting when they’re children, and discusses what’s in somebody that leads to becoming a leader, particularly in times of crisis,” Blum said. “It’s really wonderful to see how they saved the country and got people together through a spirit of compromise.”

Geovette Washington

Senior Vice Chancellor and Chief Legal Officer
“The Ambassador’s Daughter” by Pam Jenoff
“Small Great Things” by Jodi Picoult
“Tripwire” by Lee Childs

Washington noted “The Ambassador’s Daughter” is the latest she’s delved into a series by Jenoff, and is “quite fond” of Childs’ Jack Reacher series of novels.

Office of Community and Governmental Relations

Paul Supowitz

Vice Chancellor for Community and Governmental Relations
“To Obama With Love, Joy, Anger and Hope” by Jeanne Marie Laskas
“Churchill: Walking with Destiny” by Andrew Roberts

Supowitz visited the Churchill War Rooms in London while visiting his daughter during her study abroad semester. “The dynamics between the Allies during World War II is fascinating to me,” he said. Of Laskas’ (Distinguished Professor of English and founding director of the Center for Creativity) book, he noted, “I try to read a few letters each night before I go to bed. I find it (mostly) encouraging and it lets me see the good in most people at a time when rancor and hate seem to be rising.”

Office of Institutional Advancement

Mark Nootbaar

Senior Writer and Editor
“When the English Fall” by David Williams
“Mr. Trump’s Wild Ride” by Major Garrett
“1984” by George Orwell

“I’ve always been a fan of post-apocalyptic books,” Nootbaar said, which attracted him to “When the English Fall,” “told from the perspective of the Amish after a magnetic wave takes out all electronics.” Of the book on Trump’s presidency, Nootbaar noted “I have always respected Major Garrett’s journalistic integrity, so I think this should be an insightful read.” Meanwhile, he’s going to re-read “1984” with is daughter for her high school English class. “I’m looking forward to some interesting dinner discussions in January.”

Office of the Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor

David DeJong        

Executive Vice Provost
“Dark Sacred Night (A Ballard and Bosch Novel)” by Michael Connelly

DeJong noted he’s a big fan of Connelly, so he’s put that on his Christmas wish list and hopes he’s “been sufficiently good this year to warrant consideration. Fingers crossed!”

Office of University Communications

Robyn Coggins

Senior Editor
“The Fifth Risk” by Michael Lewis
“Monster” by Sanyika Shakur
“The Girl Who Smiled Beads” by Clemantine Wamariya and Elizabeth Weil
“The World’s Most Powerful Leadership Principle” by James Hunter
“The No A**hole Rule” by Robert Sutton

When asked whether her final choice was about not being one or avoiding them, Coggins noted, “It’s implicitly about not being one, but it’s definitely about dealing with them.”

Will Entrekin

Writer
“The Fireman” by Joe Hill
“The Long Goodbye” by Raymond Chandler
“The Largesse of the Sea Maiden” by Denis Johnson
“Miss Subways” by David Duchovny

“Yes, that David Duchovny. Besides that one, I just finished Stephen King’s ‘Doctor Sleep,’ which was a sequel to ‘The Shining,’ so I thought I’d revisit his son Joe Hill’s work — so far, so good. As for Chandler and Johnson’s post-humous collection, there’s always room for a little more noir and a few more short stories, and I’m hoping to write more of both.”

Patrick McMahon

Executive Director
“Becoming” by Michelle Obama

“But it depends on how fast my wife finishes it,” McMahon said.

Bruce Steele

Senior Web Content Editor
“Dombey and Son” by Charles Dickens
“Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World” by Jack Weatherford

Steele likes to have two books going at once, and is alternating between these two. “Dombey and Son is the last remaining great, or at least really good, novel of Dickens that I haven’t read.”

Pitt–Bradford

Donald Ulin

Associate Professor of English, Director of the English Program, Division of Communication and the Arts
“TransAtlantic” by Column McCann
“I Can’t Talk About the Trees without the Blood” by Tiana Clark

Ulin got a third of the way through “TransAtlantic” before being overwhelmed by end-of-semester responsibilities. “I’m also looking forward to spending some time with a new collection of poetry by Tiana Clark called 'I Can’t Talk About the Trees without the Blood,' which was published by U of Pitt Press and won the Agnes Lynch Starrett prize (before I give it as a present to my son-in-law, who just started his career as an English teacher),” he said.

Pat Frantz Cercone

Executive Director of Communications and Marketing, University Spokeswoman
“Crisis in Higher Education” by Jeffrey R. Docking
“Marketing to Gen Z” by Jeff Fromm and Angie Read
The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King

Cercone said that she us “definitely hoping to get some serious reading down over the break,” but said she’ll “need to temper all of that serious reading with something fun. I may be the only person in the Western hemisphere who hasn’t read [the Dark Tower series] yet.”

Pitt-Johnstown

Eric Sloss

Executive Director for Communications and Public Relations
“The Overstory” by Richard Powers

School of Social Work

Betsy Farmer

Dean
“Becoming” by Michelle Obama
“Let Your Mind Run: A Memoir of Thinking My Way to Victory” by Deean Kastor
“Meb for Mortals” by Meb Keflezighi

Farmer is looking forward to finishing Obama’s memoir. “With the final two, I’m obviously getting myself psyched for winter/spring marathon training,” she added.