Whether you’re looking to have a thoughtful or relaxing summer (or a good balance of both), here you’ll find a list of books worth your time to read and curated by your very own MIT Literature instructors to boot.
Lit Instructor Picks |
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The Fifth Season |
N.K. Jemisin | “Let’s start with the end of the world, why don’t we? Get it over with and move on to more interesting things.” The novel more than lives up to the promise of these opening lines. The only sci-Fi/fantasy trilogy to win three consecutive Hugo Awards for Best Novel. | Joaquín Terrones | One of my favorites! |
Ideas to Postpone the End of the World |
Ailton Krenak | Written by one of Brazil’s leading environmental activists and the first indigenous member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, these short essays and lectures make a strong case for turning to the peoples who have faced the end of the world before as a way out of our world’s current catastrophes. | Joaquín Terrones | Great read! |
The Wild Iris |
Louise Glück | Poems: the most popular book by the writer (who lived in Cambridge!)… Nobel Prize in Literature, 2020 | Stephen Tapscott | |
Metamorphoses / The Golden Ass |
Apuleius | The only surviving intact ancient Latin novel. A thrilling tale about a man who, by means of his curiosity, is turned into a donkey and must find a way to return to his human form. | Mitch Shiffer | One of my favorites! |
Fool’s Gold |
Maro Douka | Translated from Greek (Η Αρχαία Σκουριά) by Roderick Beaton, this coming-of-age novel tells of Myrsini’s quest for the meaning of life and identity against the backdrop of the military dictatorship in Greece, 1967-74. Explores the meaning of love, commitment, and privilege. | Eric Driscoll | |
What Can We Know |
Ian McEwan | Two young literary scholars living in a dystopian future England made virtually uninhabitable by war and climate change, attempt to recover the text of a lost poem recited in 2014. This work establishes literary history and biography as the vital acts of historical recovery that they are. | Noel Jackson | Great read! |
Rejection |
Tony Tulathimutte | Do you like your literature dark and super online? Try this collection of linked short stories about every form of contemporary mediated rejection, humiliation, and cruelty – including the controversial short story “The Feminist.” One of the most provocative things I read last year. | Eugenie Brinkema | Great read! |
Dear Earth: Art and Hope in a Time of Crisis |
Multiple authors and artists, including Andrea Bowers, Imani Jacqueline Brown, Agnes Denes, Otobong Nkanaga and Hito Steyerl, Rachel Thomas, Greta Thunberg, Rebecca Solnit, and Maja and Reuben Fowkes | An invigorating and inspiring collection of critical essays, artist’s statements and documentation for anyone attuned to the climate and other crises and inclined towards hope and practical imagination. | Jessica Ruffin | Great read! |
Culpability |
Bruce Holsinger | A page-turner family drama set within debates about autonomous vehicles, AI ethics, and the power of big tech. | Ben Mangrum | Great read! |
Time is a Mother |
Ocean Vuong | Try “Amazon History” first and let it sit, then read it again — then “Dear Rose” and “Woodcutting.” Students in my class taught these. | Mary Fuller | Will make you cry. |
Murderbot Diaries (multiple novellas) |
Martha Wells | The stories of a sarcastic cyborg in an only partially dystopian future. Solidly enjoyable sci-fi, better by far than the TV series. | Mary Fuller | One of my favorites! |
What you are looking for is in the library |
Michiko Aoyama | Sometimes a literature professor just wants to read something short, sweet, and enchanting about the life-enhancing power of reading books–no matter how many folks on Reddit seem to hate this one! | Sandy Alexandre | Great read! |
Brother, I’m Dying |
Edwidge Danticat | If, like me, you’re not necessarily a fan of memoirs, you might actually enjoy this one because it’s less about one person and more about family ties. You’ll also not only learn more but also feel more about a hidden aspect of the immigrant experience. | Sandy Alexandre | Will make you cry. |
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals |
Oliver Burkeman | I haven’t actually read this yet, but this is on MY summer reading list, so I’m really hoping this book can help me learn how to make the most of the rest of my time on this planet. Anyone else reading this or plan to? | Sandy Alexandre | I hope it’s good. |
Israel Potter |
Herman Melville | So you thought Melville wasn’t funny! While we are still in the semi-sesquicentennial of the American Revolution, try this sharp, satiric look at a survivor of the war who saves his country–but his country can’t save him. | Wyn Kelley | Great read! |
The Last White Man |
Mohsin Hamid | Fairly new and provides lots to think about. | Margery Resnick | Great read! |
Arcadia |
Tom Stoppard | When Sir Tom died last autumn, the casts in various productions recalled the perfection of performing this tragicomedy of love, loss, and why both poetry and iterated algorithms matter… | Diana Henderson | Will be teaching in fall 2026 |
A Room of One’s Own |
Virginia Woolf | The classic of feminist reflection and criticism that got it all going–lots to argue with as well as delight in now, including a wicked sense of humor in the face of the absurdities of discrimination & unconscious privilege. | Diana Henderson | Great read! |
The Third Hotel |
Laura van den Berg | The film/horror scholar recommending a thrilling, surreal, and often cinematic book that takes place at a Latin American film festival and features a mysterious horror scholar seemingly resurrected from the dead? Yes, indeed! | Alex Svensson | Great read! |
The Bean Trees |
Barbara Kingsolver | “A young woman from rural Kentucky heads west to escape poverty and pregnancy, unexpectedly becomes a mother in Tucson, and discovers surprising resources while learning about love, friendship, and belonging.” | Ruth Perry | Great read! |
Pigs in Heaven |
Barbara Kingsolver | “Picks up where her modern classic The Bean Trees left off and continues the tale of Turtle and Taylor Greer, a Native American girl and her adoptive mother who have settled in Tucson, Arizona, as they both try to overcome their difficult pasts.” | Ruth Perry | Great read! |