As a double major in sociology and biology, I wanted to choose a book that reflects the intersection of my two seemingly distinct majors. In reality, I see these subjects as complementary; both are essential to address the root causes of health inequities. 

Under the Skin by Linda Villarosa exemplifies this connection, exposing how systemic racism, not biology, drives health disparities in the US. Moreover, this book affirms my commitment to pursuing a career in public health that is grounded in both scientific understanding and the social determinants of health.

- Emily Katherine Aldous

The True Deceiver is a novel that stands out to me because it always ends up reminding of my mom. There are no characters or lines that resemble her in any way, but what reminds me of her is the kind of tone or atmosphere the book creates: cynical, yet charged with warmth. This mood is achieved by the at-once brutal and beautiful prose that Tove Jansson creates, and with it, she describes a wealth of landscapes that span art, reality, and nature--illusion and truth, both brought to life. 

- Jenny Yoojin Oh

Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall is a satire about a university student who takes himself very seriously but finds that unserious things keep happening to him. 

Reading it at Dartmouth was a much-needed reminder of how little we control and how important it is to take things lightly. I’ve often returned to it to remember that life, as Waugh writes, is “scrambling and excitement and bumps and the effort to get to the middle, and when we do get to the middle, it’s just as if we never started.”

- Jonas Rosenthal

I chose Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth by Warsan Shire because her writing captures what it feels like to leave home, to carry grief, and to navigate identity.

Her words remind me of my own journey from Kenya and the complicated feelings that come with it. The way she writes about pain and love feels so personal. 

This book means a lot to me because it makes me feel seen and reminds me of the power of storytelling.

- Maryanne Njeri Barasa

What authority does writing grant? How does one participate in a literary canon that demands their erasure? As one of the first women to write in medieval Europe, Marie de France invites us into an alternative moral code. In a literary world of knightly adventures and public jousts, Marie shows us that the greatest of strengths is not found in open displays or masculine triumphs but in the private and clandestine: in oaths recited in hushed whispers, in anguished pleas ripping from lovers’ lips, in secret letters rustling in the dark.

- Michaela Gregoriou

I read The Idiot at the perfect time, the beginning of my freshman year at Dartmouth when I, like the novel's main character, felt out of place and unsure of who I wanted to be. 

Selin is Turkish-American and a freshman at Harvard in the ‘90s. Nothing gets past her. She has razor-sharp wit, thinks about Anna Karenina a lot, and takes five classes instead of four because the fifth one is free. She likes linguistics and considers the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. She has a crush on a boy and goes to Hungary, where he lives.

- Molly Stevens

This book, an examination of the history of colonial regulations of disease that privilege Western capitalist interests, was an instrumental part of my senior thesis. 

I wrote about Orientalist rhetorics of disease applied across space and time — in San Francisco’s 20th century bubonic plague outbreak and during the COVID-19 pandemic — and Epidemic Orientalism was key to that analysis, reinterpreting Edward Said’s Orientalism in the specific context of racialized disease.

- Shena L. Han

She's one of my favorite poets. 

I hope another student can find some joy in her work.

- Sumreet Kaur Sandhu

Babel by R.F. Kuang is a book I picked up over Winterim break of my junior year. Set in an alternate 1830s Oxford, it follows a group of translators navigating the complex relationship between language and power. 

Beyond being a captivating read, it challenged me to reconsider whether violence can ever be a necessary response to imperialism. 

This novel was one of the most impactful reads of my time at Dartmouth, and I hope someone else will be able to enjoy it as much as I did!

- Tanyawan Wongsri