by Camila Perez ’26 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz I cried the first time I read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and you will too. Through the use of colorful, Dominican Spanglish and profound historical insight, Junot Díaz invites us into the vibrant lives of Oscar, Lola, and their…
Category: DOWN Reads
DOWN Reads
By Kaity Chandrika Babel by R.F. Kuang I like books that live up to what the back cover promises—this is absolutely one of them. It’s a new-age dark academia tour-de-force (560 pages, but worth it) that focuses its commentary on the conquest of languages. R.F. Kuang’s Yale PhD research in East Asian Studies beautifully informs…
DOWN Reads
This week features recommendations from Chidima Anekwe ’24, our wonderful Co-Editor-in-Chief. Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur If you’ve given up on appealing to moral sense…One of the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorists,” Assata Shakur writes of her personal history and her rise as a political activist with ties to the Black Panther Party and the…
DOWN Reads
This week features recommendations from Tyler Watts ’25, our wonderful Creative Director. Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin This book is gonna hurt. Short enough to read it in a day, but trust that in the weeks that follow you won’t be able to get it out of your head. So much is revealed about relationships,…
DOWN Reads
This week features recommendations from Nora Hylton ’25, our wonderful Criticism Editor. The Idiot Summary: A spiraling presentation of the first year of college told from the perspective of Selin, a Turkish-American student at Harvard Univeristy. The novel follows the narrator as she rambles her way through making friends, struggling in classes, and becomes involved…