Turn some new pages this summer
These summer-inspired reads showcase research and scholarship of faculty in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences.
Lazy summer days can be the perfect times to dive into good books. The College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences Bookshelf offers a diverse selection of reads that showcase faculty members' scholarship and research.
From poetry and nonfiction to memoirs and history, professors and instructors are writing books from nearly every genre. According to the University Data Commons in 2023, the college's faculty published 28 books, more than half of Virginia Tech's total for the year.
This summer, explore some of the following newly released reads and others that have been on the Bookshelf for a while.
"Make Me Rain" Nikki Giovanni
This profound poetry collection celebrates loved ones, Black heritage, and personal resilience while confronting racism and white nationalism. Known for her sharp, outspoken voice, Nikki Giovanni, emerita professor of English, addresses social injustices and shares intimate reflections on her life, including her rescue from an abusive home. Poems like “I Come from Athletes” and “Rainy Days” critique segregation and political figures, while “Unloved (for Aunt Cleota)” and “When I Could No Longer” offer personal elegies. This collection affirms Giovanni’s status as a vital American poet.
“All Of Us Together In The End,” Matthew Vollmer
Matthew Vollmer's book explores transformation after the loss of his mother to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Amidst flashing lights and mysterious orbs in North Carolina’s woods, Vollmer, professor and director of the Master of Fine Arts in creative writing and undergraduate creative writing programs, revisits his Seventh-day Adventist upbringing and grapples with grief. His journey includes correspondence about “ghost lights,” TikTok scrolling, and transcendental psychotherapy with a shaman. Jolene, a woman close to his father, reveals family secrets. Set against the pandemic’s backdrop, this memoir blends poignancy and humor, examining belief and the enduring presence of loved ones beyond death.
"Anon," Sophia Terazawa
A collection of love poems addressed to an adverb, “Anon” meditates on the temporal phrase similar to the feeling of two people, two languages, and two migratory histories meeting at once between desire and exile. The voices reflect on linguistic possibilities of resilience against the silence of ecocide, which is the destruction of the natural environment by deliberate or negligent human action. Terazawa is a visiting assistant professor of English.
"Loving Mountains, Loving Men," Jeff Mann
Appalachians are known for their love of place, yet many LGBTQ+ people from the mountains flee to urban areas in search of community and broader acceptance. Jeff Mann, associate professor of English, tells his story as one who left and then returned, who insists on claiming and celebrating both regional and sexual identities.
In memoir and poetry, Mann describes his life as an openly gay man who has remained true to his mountain roots.
"US History in 15 Foods," Anna Zeide
From whiskey in the American Revolution to Spam in World War II, food reveals a great deal about the society in which it exists. “US History in 15 Foods” takes everyday items like wheat bread, peanuts, and chicken nuggets, and shows the part they played in the making of America. Weaving food into colonialism, globalization, racism, economic depression, environmental change and more, Anna Zeide, associate professor of history and director of the food studies program, shows how America has evolved through the food it eats.
"Transcendent Gardening," Ed Falco
“Transcendent Gardening” is set in North Georgia's fictional Redvale and follows Angel Maso, a gardener and aspiring playwright, whose life falls apart after his wife Doll divorces him. While Doll thrives and their daughter Claire becomes a successful social media entrepreneur, Angel struggles, scraping by as a gardener and part-time poetry teacher. When his fragile stability collapses, the impact reverberates through Redvale and beyond. Falco is professor and director of the creative writing program in English.
"Flying the Coop," Lucinda Roy
In “Flying the Coop,” sequel to “The Freedom Race,” Lucinda Roy, Alumni Distinguished Professor of English, continues the Dreambird Chronicles. In a divided America, former Muleseed Jellybean "Ji-ji" Silapu, whose body can imagine flight, arrives in Washington, D.C., the heart of the historic civil rights movement. As Ji-ji grapples with her transformation, and her friends Tiro and Afarra confront their own struggles, the trio’s quest for freedom challenges societal norms and reality itself. The former U.S. capital must decide which dreams to uphold and which to suppress in this thought-provoking speculative fiction.
