Take a Break With Barnard Storytellers

Fiction

After Annie by Anna Quindlen ’74

Read Quindlen’s latest or, better yet, listen to the audiobook that brought three Barnard alumnae together. Quindlen’s story — narrated by actor Gilli Messer ’10 and recorded by Molly Lo Ray ’17 — follows Annie’s husband, oldest child, and best friend as they grapple with her sudden death. (Random House)

We’re Alone by Edwidge Danticat ’90

Danticat’s collection of personal essays includes reflections on her childhood, the COVID-19 pandemic, recent events in Haiti, and tributes to other literary giants who have inspired her, such as Toni Morrison, Paule Marshall, Gabriel García Márquez, and James Baldwin. She addresses themes of environmental catastrophe, colonialism, motherhood, and the complexities of resilience with heart and humor. (Graywolf Press)

Murder Buys a One-Way Ticket by Laura Levine ’65

In the latest (and 20th!) installment of Levine’s Jaine Austen mystery series, the freelance writer — accompanied by her cat, Prozac — accepts a new job with a long train-ride commute and a tyrannical, gym-owning client, Chip “Iron Man” Miller. But when Jaine suddenly discovers Chip dead in his cabin, she finds herself racing to clear her name and unmask the real killer. (Kensington Books)

Nonfiction

Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America by Paola Ramos ’09

Ramos profiles various conservative figures in the Latino American community — a Republican politician, a border vigilante, an Evangelical pastor — and traces the influences that inform their policies and values. Her research provides a sympathetic but critical look at a powerful voting base that has a major impact on American democracy. (Penguin Random House)

Raising Resilience: How to Help Our Children Thrive in Times of Uncertainty by Tovah Klein, written with Billie Fitzpatrick

Klein, the director of Barnard’s Toddler Center, dove into her deep expertise in parent-child relationships to create a parenting primer full of nuance, empathy, and hope. The key to raising resilient children, she writes, is for parents to serve as both a container and an anchor for their kids, offering a safe harbor where they feel fully accepted, from childhood through the teen years. (Harper)

The Way You Make Me Feel: Love in Black and Brown by Nina Sharma ’05 

The book is centered around a fated Fourth of July, the day Sharma met her now-husband, the poet Quincy Scott Jones, who is also a term associate in English at Barnard. Their courtship, marriage, and creative partnership are the backdrop against which Sharma navigates Afro-Asian solidarity (Sharma is South Asian; Jones is Black), breaking down its complexity by weaving in discussions of pop culture, politics, and police brutality in the United States. (Penguin)

Poetry

Phantom Captain by Kim Rosenfield ’87

Winner of the Ottoline Prize, Phantom Captain draws on the author’s experience as both a poet and psychotherapist to contend with the difficulty of being human in a world that sometimes feels headed toward apocalypse. (Fence Books) 
 

The World Is a Muddy Place by Ann Spier ’63

In this deeply optimistic book of poems, Spier faces the specter of climate change and the damage to the planet caused by corporate greed. She finds guidance in the late Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh’s words “No mud, no lotus,” and the work reflects her determination not to wallow in pain but to find joy and hope in beauty and creativity. (Outskirts Press)

Young Adult

Becoming Carly Klein by Elizabeth Harlan ’67

In gritty, 1980s New York City, readers are introduced to Carly Klein, a high schooler suddenly bored with life after her neglectful parents divorce and her best friend moves away. Her solution is a new obsession with one of her mother’s therapy patients: Daniel, a blind student at Columbia College, who is unaware that Carly is only pretending to be a student at Barnard. Carly comes of age via heartbreak and rebellion and learns how to find herself even amid dubious life choices. (Simon & Schuster)

The Friend & The Room Next Door, adapted from novels by Sigrid Nunez ’72

The Friend (August) — starring Naomi Watts (right), Bill Murray, and a dog named Bing — is about a New York writer living in a tiny apartment with her inherited Great Dane. Acclaimed Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar has made his English-language directorial debut with The Room Next Door (December), a story told from the perspective of a narrator whose friend has a terminal illness and asks the narrator to be with her until she’s ready to take a fatal dose of pills. (3dot Productions; Big Creek)