A Book Recommendation from Me (and Many from My Colleagues)

A faculty tradition at the University of Chicago is recommending various books that we recently read and recommend. (Usually these are recent books, but this year my colleague Martha Nussbaum also recommended Moby Dick, remarking that "[i]t is definitely a book people need to read today, when we have hunted some species of whales to the brink of extinction.")

I recommended:

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

The moving story of three college friends who create a video game empire. Of course, this entails setbacks, betrayals, and ultimately rehabilitation, but with many unexpected themes along the way, such as life with a physical disability, the selfishness of creativity, and a dose of magical realism.

A runner-up for me was Helen DeWitt's very short The English Understand Wool, as well as a couple of slightly older books like Adam Johnson's The Orphan-Master's Son and Madeline Miller's Circe.

You can read many more suggestions from my colleagues here.