Here are 100 books that Yale Needs Women fans have personally recommended if you like
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I find the archaeology of here to be just as interesting and enlightening as any faraway land. For those of us at universities, that means that the campus itself is worthy of historical, archaeological, and anthropological study. I have been San Diego State’s University History Curator for decades and never tire of uncovering new insights into an institution with a 125-year history, nearly 500,000 alumni, and a bevy of bizarre tales. Whether it be hidden student murals, supernatural claims from the gridiron, or disputed dinosaur footprints, the immediate landscape of our workplace is often full of historical treasures.
Campus Traditions is a complete study of college culture that spans centuries and all of the United States. It is thorough, entertaining, and presents a clear evolution of post-secondary education from old-time colleges to today’s mega-university. Professors and students from all fields will recognize their university in this book and marvel at traditions that were thought to have been unique to their school but are, in fact, part of a much greater national trend.
From their beginnings, campuses emerged as hotbeds of traditions and folklore. American college students inhabit a culture with its own slang, stories, humor, beliefs, rituals, and pranks. Simon J. Bronner takes a long, engaging look at American campus life and how it is shaped by students and at the same time shapes the values of all who pass through it. The archetypes of absent-minded profs, fumbling jocks, and curve-setting dweebs are the stuff of legend and humor, along with the all-nighters, tailgating parties, and initiations that mark campus tradition--and student identities. Undergraduates in their hallowed halls embrace distinctive traditions because…
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
I find the archaeology of here to be just as interesting and enlightening as any faraway land. For those of us at universities, that means that the campus itself is worthy of historical, archaeological, and anthropological study. I have been San Diego State’s University History Curator for decades and never tire of uncovering new insights into an institution with a 125-year history, nearly 500,000 alumni, and a bevy of bizarre tales. Whether it be hidden student murals, supernatural claims from the gridiron, or disputed dinosaur footprints, the immediate landscape of our workplace is often full of historical treasures.
Whereas many books research the history of higher education are full of lofty ideals and collegiate high jinks, Alan Taylor’s book Thomas Jefferson’s Education is an insightful yet sobering look at the historical context and inception of the University of Virginia. This text is no hagiography and details how Jefferson’s university was deeply intertwined with slavery and many of the elitist vices common to Virginia gentry.
By turns entertaining and tragic, this beautifully crafted history reveals the origins of a great university in the dilemmas of Virginia slavery. Thomas Jefferson shares centre stage with his family and fellow planters, all dependent on the labour of enslaved black families. With a declining Virginia yielding to commercially vibrant northern states, in 1819 Jefferson proposed to build a university to educate and improve the sons of the planter elite. He hoped they might one day lead a revitalised Virginia free of slavery-and free of the former slaves.
Jefferson's campaign was a contest for the future of a state…
I find the archaeology of here to be just as interesting and enlightening as any faraway land. For those of us at universities, that means that the campus itself is worthy of historical, archaeological, and anthropological study. I have been San Diego State’s University History Curator for decades and never tire of uncovering new insights into an institution with a 125-year history, nearly 500,000 alumni, and a bevy of bizarre tales. Whether it be hidden student murals, supernatural claims from the gridiron, or disputed dinosaur footprints, the immediate landscape of our workplace is often full of historical treasures.
Laurie Wilkie uses multiple lines of evidence, including recently uncovered archaeological artifacts, oral histories, old photographs, and the campus landscape, to examine daily life at UC Berkeley’s first fraternity. Her intriguing study offers insights into the notion of the early modern university as well as changing definitions of masculinity during the early 20th century.
"The Lost Boys of Zeta Psi" takes us inside the secret, amusing, and sometimes mundane world of a California fraternity around 1900. Gleaning history from recent archaeological excavations and from such intriguing sources as oral histories, architecture, and photographs, Laurie A. Wilkie uncovers details of everyday life in the first fraternity at the University of California, Berkeley, and sets this story into the rich social and historical context of West Coast America at the turn of the last century. In particular, Wilkie examines men's coming-of-age experiences in a period when gender roles and relations were undergoing dramatic changes. Her innovative…
In 1913, a 15-year-old pregnant girl was found dead of apparent suicide. Dr. James Wilson, a new graduate and the first doctor ever to start a practice in this rural town, feels guilty over her death because of his delayed intervention.
I find the archaeology of here to be just as interesting and enlightening as any faraway land. For those of us at universities, that means that the campus itself is worthy of historical, archaeological, and anthropological study. I have been San Diego State’s University History Curator for decades and never tire of uncovering new insights into an institution with a 125-year history, nearly 500,000 alumni, and a bevy of bizarre tales. Whether it be hidden student murals, supernatural claims from the gridiron, or disputed dinosaur footprints, the immediate landscape of our workplace is often full of historical treasures.
Elizabeth Tucker’s highly entertaining and informative Haunted Halls: Ghostlore of American College Campuses is an intricate study of college-campus folklore centered on the supernatural. She painstakingly breaks down the patterns and meanings behind these ghost stories, which reveal important societal lessons for a volatile student body entering the liminal state that is post-secondary education.
Why do so many American college students tell stories about encounters with ghosts? In Haunted Halls, the first book-length interpretive study of college ghostlore, Elizabeth Tucker takes the reader back to school to get acquainted with a wide range of college spirits. Some of the best-known ghosts that she discusses are Emory University\'s Dooley, who can disband classes by shooting professors with his water pistol; Mansfield Uni-versity\'s Sara, who threw herself down a flight of stairs after being rejected by her boyfriend; and Huntingdon College\'s Red Lady, who slit her wrists while dressed in a red robe. Gettysburg College students…
Fantasy, mystery, magic, and otherworldly realms—these have fascinated me since childhood. Growing up in Landshut, a town straight out of a fairytale, with misty hills and an ancient castle, I’ve always felt surrounded by magic. It makes you wonder what secrets lie in the woods or castle grounds. I crave fast-paced, suspenseful, fantastical books with a dash of romance and just enough weirdness to keep things exciting. If you’re like me and love stories that keep you guessing, check out my list of the best fantasy books that do just that. Plus, my debut Epic Fantasy novel is coming out this year, and it fits right into that category!
This story follows Alex, a girl haunted by ghosts only she can see. Because of this extraordinary ability, she gets—despite being a crime suspect—chooses to go to Yale and oversee their secret societies that meddle with magic. As she tries to rebuild her life, the death of a girl and her suspicions about the societies pull her back into danger.
The book’s intricate plot and suspense have made me read it multiple times, with its vividly real world, societies, and characters making me eager to visit New Haven and see if it matches the story. Its twists and turns ensure you'll be hooked and constantly wondering what comes next. Also, I've loved Yale since I first saw Gilmore Girls.
*The adult debut from the author of SHADOW AND BONE - now a Netflix Original series!*
The instant SUNDAY TIMES and NEW YORK TIMES bestseller that Stephen King calls 'Impossible to put down'.
Galaxy 'Alex' Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale's freshman class. A dropout and the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved crime, Alex was hoping for a fresh start. But a free ride to one of the world's most prestigious universities was bound to come with a catch.
Alex has been tasked with monitoring the mysterious activities of Yale's secret societies - well-known haunts of the…
Ever had anyone say something about you with utter conviction that isn’t true? Have you ever looked at someone famous and thought their life looked perfect? Ever felt not enough because of the way you look? As a former Miss Universe, international model, fashion editor, and entertainment journalist with a degree in psychology, I’ve lived these truths vicariously. I’m fascinated with image, perception, and truth. What’s behind the smile? What happens when the lights dim? Who are you when no one is watching? What secrets do you hide, how do they damage you, and what will you do to keep them hidden? I’ve been the target. I know the cost.
Illusion. Women’s framing. Adrift in a world everyone thinks is perfect. Living the glamorous life others want. Being the thing men desire to have, to own, as long as the veneer holds. Dealing with mental illness that people explain away because all the tinsel is just dressing and sparkles, but if you lean on it, it parts, and you find yourself falling through the space.
Although ‘they’ say they care, they don’t, and no one wants to hear the truth, they only want pretend. Within the first five pages, we understand what’s going on inside her, that she has something to hide, and that she’s willing to lie about who she really is. In chapter one, we discover that her best friend, Doreen, doesn’t really know her name. We see the world through her eyes, interspaced with an actual conversation that calls the world a lie and her own framing…
When Esther Greenwood wins an internship on a New York fashion magazine in 1953, she is elated, believing she will finally realise her dream to become a writer. But in between the cocktail parties and piles of manuscripts, Esther's life begins to slide out of control. She finds herself spiralling into depression and eventually a suicide attempt, as she grapples with difficult relationships and a society which refuses to take women's aspirations seriously.
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath's only novel, was originally published in 1963 under the pseudonym Victoria…
Voyager 1 was launched on September 5, 1977, and Voyager 2 was launched on August 20, 1977. Both began a historic journey with unique 'time capsules' on board intended to communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials. The Voyager message is carried by a phonograph record 12-inch gold-plated disk…
So many people want perfection. There are so many books out there where boy meets girl, they fall in love, get married, and have a happily ever after. But the books on my list show you that not everything is perfect. Life isn’t perfect. Things aren’t always good or happy. I like when something beautiful is born from something ugly, and every book on this list is exactly that. Perfect with imperfections.
Wait for You by Jennifer L. Armentrout was a book I read long ago, and it's one that still sticks with me to this day. It's a book I've read and reread.
I love how the main character, Avery, is flawed–making her feel real. And I love Cam and how patient he is with her. Avery is a character who's had some trauma, and she's running. Little does she know she's running right into the arms of the man she's supposed to be with. These characters felt so real.
The writing was good, but not over the top to where I had to stop and think, "Who talks like this?" And it was paced perfectly–the couple grew to be closer over a longer amount of time rather than to meet, fall in love, and overcome everything in a matter of days or weeks. It's another example of something beautiful coming…
“J. Lynn creates a wonderful cast of characters that will make you laugh, swoon, and cry. Cam stole my heart.”
—Cora Carmack, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Losing It
Some things are worth waiting for...
Traveling thousands of miles from home to enter college is the only way nineteen-year-old Avery Morgansten can escape what happened at the Halloween party five years ago--an event that forever changed her life. All she needs to do is make it to her classes on time, make sure the bracelet on her left…
After more than two decades of practice in the “corporate divorce” arena, I understand the challenges that arise from internal dissension within the management, operations, and ownership of a closely held business. Business is about relationships; relationships with customers, vendors, lenders, landlords, and often, relationships with business partners. Sometimes, business relationships stop being productive and start to impede business growth and success. That’s where I come in. I work with business owners to bring a successful resolution to disputes concerning the management and control of the business.
Before Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin were titans of tech and venture capital, they were college friends, and this book tells the partially fictionalized origin story of Facebook and its founders. Like many business partnerships, Facebook started as a friendship. In page-turning fashion, the book tracks the progression, and later regression, of the relationship between Zuckerberg and Saverin from friends to business partners to bitter rivals.
This book is simultaneously an entertaining beach read and a cautionary tale for startup co-founders.
The New York Times bestseller and inspiration for the Oscar-winning movie, The Social Network
Eduardo Saverin and Mark Zuckerberg - an awkward maths prodigy and a painfully shy computer genius - were never going to fit in at elite, polished Harvard. Yet that all changed when master-hacker Mark crashed the university's entire computer system by creating a rateable database of female students. Narrowly escaping expulsion, the two misfits refocused the site into something less controversial - 'The Facebook' - and watched as it spread like wildfire across campuses around the country, and their popularity exploded in the process.
I am a former true believer in school, but lost my faith. Yet I'm still teaching in universities, more than three decades on. I have been trying to figure this all out—all the problems, reasons, and solutions—for most of the last twenty years, and since I think by writing, I've written/edited four books about higher education in that time. (I had a prior career as a China anthropologist, which is important to me, but a story for another day.) I also read like a fiend, and on this list, which is a distillation of hundreds and hundreds of books, I have presented a few of my formative favorites.
I love this book for two reasons: First, Nathan showed (me) how to turn an anthropological eye on our everyday context, revealing its strangeness. And second, my students love this book, which might be all the recommendation you need to hear!
Anthropologists often go “to the field,” but what if “the field” is your actual place of work? And what if that place of work is basically a “total institution,” in Goffman's sense? Then you have to live there. Nathan's year living in dorms and taking classes was modeled on traditional fieldwork, but it's ethically and even logistically complicated in different ways.
As I reread this book every few years, I am reminded that even though I interact with students all the time, there is much about their lives that remains out of reach for me. It's a reminder, all the time, that students are fully embodied, social, emotional…
After more than fifteen years of teaching, Rebekah Nathan, a professor of anthropology at a large state university, realized that she no longer understood the behavior and attitudes of her students. Fewer and fewer participated in class discussion, tackled the assigned reading, or came to discuss problems during office hours. And she realized from conversations with her colleagues that they, too, were perplexed: Why were students today so different and so hard to teach? Were they, in fact, more likely to cheat, ruder, and less motivated? Did they care at all about their education, besides their grades?Nathan decided to put…
Deputy Jenna Hart has only been working in her sleepy hometown of Pearl Springs for seven months when city officials begin to be targeted by a killer. Twenty years ago, the construction of a dam caused people to lose their land to eminent domain. That wound has not healed with…
I have always been a voracious reader and was blessed with parents who filled my home with books, who read to me, and who exposed me to both true and fictional stories that expanded my heart and nourished my imagination. I grew up on Christian biographies, along with devouring history and novels. I was shaped, nourished, and strengthened by the stories of real men and women who lived lives that mattered, and who understood that God never puts His children in times, in places, or in circumstances where He cannot enable them to shine brightly, and where they cannot speak truth and compassion into the darkness.
I’ve always wanted to study literature at Oxford University. I never have and almost certainly never will, but Carolyn Weber is the friend I would have made if I had that opportunity, and thanks to this powerful, luminous memoir I still got to “meet” that friend and experience what our long conversations over tea might have been like.
Weber’s deeply honest story of discovering Christianity while stumbling upon the footsteps of other seekers after truth and beauty at an ancient university made both an old, old town and the ancient truth of the Gospel seem bright and fresh.
When Carolyn Weber set out to study Romantic literature at Oxford University, she didn't give much thought to God or spiritual matters-but over the course of her studies she encountered the Jesus of the Bible and her world turned upside down. Surprised by Oxford chronicles her conversion experience with wit, humor, and insight into how becoming a Christian changed her.
Carolyn Weber arrives at Oxford a feminist from a loving but broken family, suspicious of men and intellectually hostile to all things religious. As she grapples with her God-shaped void alongside the friends, classmates, and professors she meets, she tackles…
