Research and other projects are keeping Knox College faculty and staff busy over the summer—but many are trying to sneak in a little reading here and there. Some manage to read quite a lot! Curious about what piques their interest? Knox faculty and staff share their summer readings below (responses abridged for length):

Stuart Allison

Watson Bartlett Professorship of Biology and Conservation 

When I'm lucky, the material I'm reading for teaching or research is also a pleasure to read. One of the books that I have read met that standard—good for teaching and pleasure. As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning tells of the experiences of author Laurie Lee walking away from home in search of adventure. In the summer of 1934 he was 19 and left the village he grew up in rural England to walk to London for work and new opportunities. The book fits in very well with my FP (First-Year Preceptorial) on Walking as a Way of Knowing and my recent sabbatical in which I walked across northern Spain along the Camino de Santiago. I'll be drawing on it as I teach this autumn.

Peter Bailley '74

Associate Director of Communications

Reading: Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay. It's an odd, early 20th century sci-fi-fantasy. Re-reading: Various ​articles by philosopher Charles Peirce. A thinker way ahead of his time.

Joel Estes

Visiting Instructor and Chair of Educational Studies

I am half way through Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond. It won the Pulitzer prize for general nonfiction in 2017. The book is a heavily researched look at the low income housing crisis in America, specifically how it has played out in Milwaukee. It is a haunting, personal portrayal of the day to day struggles of some of our most challenged fellow citizens. Highly recommended but troubling and infuriating.

Maria Filippone '03

Senior Assistant Director of Admission

Circe by Madeline Miller tells the mythological witch Circe's story. Best known for turning men into pigs, Circe has been a small part of some Greek myths. This books gives her depth and voice. It also imagines some additional aspect of better known mythological characters. A forceful page turner that has some of the most accurate insights on postpartum anxiety I have ever read in fiction. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, which I am currently in the middle of. Sprawling multi-generational story about a Korean family who moves to Japan in the 30s and their lives. I picked it up because I lived in Japan and had some Korean neighbors.

Jennifer Foubert

Assistant Professor of Educational Studies

I just started Like a Mother: A Feminist Journey Through the Science and Culture of Pregnancy by Angela Garbes and I love it. Really, the title says it all!

Maggie Fultz

Assistant Director of the Knox Fund

Black Glass by Karen Joy Fowler... she's super smart and her creativity and intelligence comes through in her writing. She writes short evocative pieces in this awesome work that you can really read from the last story backward or from the middle to the front, or whatever—just cool, smart, fiction you can buy for $1 at your local Dollar Tree store or find on Amazon for under $5.

Kasi Henshaw

Associate Director of Donor Relations

Three books for me this summer: The Big Life by Ann Shoket (former editor-in-chief of Seventeen Magazine), Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World by Adam Grant and Sheryl Sandberg (Sheryl is COO of Facebook and activist with the Lean In movement for women) and Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg. 

Laura Lane

Professor of Music and Director of Choirs

Because Rich and I were taking a once-in-a-lifetime, dream-come-true month-long trip to France, I wanted to reread some of my favorite French novels. I loved All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, and The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas. I loved both and highly recommend them! I'm presently reading Barbara Ehrenreich's Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer. It's a fascinating book that I haven't quite yet finished, but which I have enjoyed immensely.

diana Mackin

Custodian

Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics by Cynthia Enloe. Recommended by activist, author, and Facebook friend, Gail Dines (she's right, it's good!) Just finished Paid For: My Journey Through Prostitution by Rachel Moran. I met her on Facebook, followed her activism, and finally bought and read her book—strongly recommended!

Stacia Mattan

Administrative Assistant

I am reading Where the Past Begins by Amy Tan.  Amy Tan is one of my favorite authors and I am excited to read her memoir!

Thomas Moses

Professor and Chair of Physics

I'm reading The Reivers by William Faulkner.  With this book, I'll have finished reading all Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha county novels--for me, the whole definitely seems larger than the sum of the individual novels—you get an understanding of the families, the history, and how the people are connected over generations.

Mitchell Parks

Assistant Professor of Classics

As a light read, I've just finished Madeline Miller's Circe, a new novel retelling a number of Greek myths from the point of view of an unusual character, the witch Circe, who is most famous for turning Odysseus' crew into pigs. Miller manages both to pay homage to the grandeur of Greek mythology and to provide a sharp critique of the systems of gender and power found in those texts (and in others works based on them through the ages). The result is charming, refreshing, and (I hope I can say this without irony) epic.

Amy Roth

Alumni Relations Coordinator

I am reading Be Safe, Love Mom by Elaine Lowry Brye with Nan Gatewood. Elaine is a military brat, military wife, and a military mom of four officers, one in each branch. She shares her stories and insights, and that of other military families, for the support and uplift for those new to the military lifestyle. I am reading it because my just-turned 18-year-old son, Hank, started Navy boot camp on July 11.

Jonah Rubin

Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology

First, I'm reviewing Zahira Aragüete-Toribio's ethnography, Producing History in Spanish Civil War Exhumations, which looks at Spanish efforts to recover the missing from that country's Civil War and dictatorship and find a way of telling their loved ones' story, which has long been neglected by dictatorship and ensuing democracy. I'll also be reading Alexander Hinton's recently published book, The Justice Facade which takes a critical looks at post-war courts in Cambodia. Finally, I'm hoping to get to Rihan Yeh's recent ethnography Passing: Two Publics in a Mexican Border City which looks at identity practice in Tijuana, after the U.S.'s increasing closing of the border.

Barbara Schulze

Administrative Assistant, George Davis Hall

I am currently reading Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls. It is a book I read in elementary school and wanted to re-explore as an "adult." Tragically, I remember the ending so I am bracing myself for tears :)

Meredith Witherell

Men's and Women's Tennis Coach

I'm participating in a book a week challenge, 52 in 52, and participating in the Galesburg Public Library (GPL) Summer Reading Program. My current reading is geared toward fulfilling the categories for the GPL program. Since mid-May I have read: The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn, Rules of Rain by Leah Scheier, Calypso by David Sedaris, To the Bridge by Nancy Remmelmann. Current read: Incarceration by Dominique DuBois Gilliard. The book details the history of the U.S. prison system from a Christian perspective. The first half of the book is quite interesting, describing the historical and present day status of prisons and inmates. The statistics are mindboggling and captivating. The second half, which I just began, appears to be an interpretation of how Christians should view incarceration.