Reading Recs
Recommender: Senior, female, basketball team
What is one of your favorite books?
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Briefly summarize the book.
The novel chronicles the life of Billy Pilgrim who is unstuck in time so the book jumps around a bit ignoring chronological order. Billy is a POW in World War II and returns home and gets married and has a pretty mundane life until he is supposedly abducted by aliens that make him unstuck in time. His daughter, however, thinks he is completely crazy, along with many others but the book makes you question his sanity.
Did you read it for class, leisure?
School
What audience do you think would like this book?
I think people who enjoy humor would like this book.
Is there anything about the book that could be a turnoff for some people?
People who do not like humor would not like this book. Also the fact that it is written anachronistically can be unappealing.
Recommender: Senior, Female, Japanese Club
What is one of your favorite books?
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Briefly summarize the book.
The play, set in Denmark, recounts how Prince Hamlet exacts revenge on his uncle Claudius, who has murdered Hamlet’s father, the King, and then taken the throne and married Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother. The play vividly charts the course of real and feigned madness—from overwhelming grief to seething rage—and explores themes of treachery, revenge, incest, and moral corruption.
What about the book was memorable/why is it your favorite?
I first read hamlet after I had read Richard the III in soph year, which was the first Shakespeare play that I had ever read. I really liked Richard, so I decided to read Hamlet and I thought that it was SUCH a good play. It was really cool that it even though it did not seem dated to me, I could still understand what was going because he focuses on such universal themes. Then I saw the 4 hour word-for-word Kenneth Branaugh movie and that was really fun. Basically if I had not read hamlet, I would not have continued to read Shakespeare, and I would not have found this group of plays that I really love and I would not gone to London this summer to work at Shakespeare’s globe.
Did you read it for class, leisure?
Leisure!
What audience do you think would like this book?
I think that everybody should read/ be forced to read this book at least.
Is there anything about the book that could be a turnoff for some people?
Yes.
Recommender: Senior, Female, Music
What is one of your favorite books?
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Briefly summarize the book.
The narrator and protagonist, Calliope Stephanides (later called “Cal”), an intersexed person of Greek descent, has 5-alpha-reductase deficiency. The bulk of the novel is devoted to telling his coming-of-age story growing up in Detroit, Michigan in the late 20th century. This story, however, is intertwined with elements of a family saga, meditations on the era’s zeitgeist and bits of contemporary history.
What about the book was memorable/why is it your favorite?
Did you read it for class, leisure?
For fun!
What audience do you think would like this book?
People who like books in Oprah’s Book Club or anyone who is interested in hermaphrodites.
Is there anything about the book that could be a turnoff for some people?
The incest in the beginning and the flowery writing.
Recommender: Senior, female, track
What is one of your favorite books?
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
Briefly summarize the book.
The novel follows the lives of the title characters, a Czech artist named Joe Kavalier and a Brooklyn-born writer named Sam Clay—both Jewish—before, during, and after World War II. Kavalier and Clay become major figures in the nascent comics industry during its “Golden Age.”
What about the book was memorable/why is it your favorite?
The novel is light hearted, funny, and fun-to-read. It won a Pulitzer Prize. It is able to take a theme like comic books, a low art form, and elevate it to a high art form by eloquently writing about them.
Did you read it for class, leisure?
For class.
What audience do you think would like this book?
I think that teenagers, people who like action, love stories, and humor would like this book.
Is there anything about the book that could be a turnoff for some people?
It goes into a lot of detail and tangents about superheroes and the like.
Recommender: Senior, Female, ARISTA
What is one of your favorite books?
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Briefly summarize the book.
Of Mice and Men is about two migrant farmers working at a ranch during the Great Depression in California.
What about the book was memorable/why is it your favorite?
I have read this book several times because it is one of my mother’s favorites. It is very emotionally engaging: one of the main characters is mentally challenged and dreams of raising rabbits but has a hard time staying out of trouble.
Did you read it for class, leisure?
Both.
What audience do you think would like this book?
I think a very wide audience would like this book.
Is there anything about the book that could be a turnoff for some people?
Not that I can think of.
Book recommendations by Stuyvesant students for Stuyvesant students and readers around the world. Also known as Stuy Bookshelf/Book Box. Submissions are open—click on register below!