Winter is the time of the year when you can spend time reading a book or binge-watch films and series at home, away from the cold.
To help you achieve this mission the Library staff selected books, films and series available in the library.
Selection by the Library team:
Selected poems, by Octavio Paz
One thing leads to another and sometimes to a beautiful discovery: walking into the exhibition of Giselle Freund’s photos of Latin America, a portrait of the Mexican poet Octavio Paz inspired me to read his essay The Labyrinth of Solitude. An impressive and singular look at “the country hidden behind the mask.” The library does not hold this book, but you can always request it on interlibrary loan!
I’m recommending Selected Poems from the library collection, and for those of you who speak or attempt to learn Spanish, this edition is bilingual! Enjoy the reading!
January First
The year’s doors open
like those of language,
toward the unknown.
Last night you told me:
Tomorrow
we shall have to think up signs,
sketch a landscape, fabricate a plan
on the double page of day and paper.
Tomorrow we shall have to invent,
Once more,
the reality of this world.
[…]
A Christmas Carol, a Ghost Story of Christmas, by Charles Dickens
Discover or rediscover, Charles Dickens classic.
It is one book that every year will warm our hearts with favourite memories of Ebenezer Scrooge.
Description: “Ebenezer Scrooge is a mean, miserable, bitter old man with no friends. One cold Christmas Eve, three ghosts take him on a scary journey to show him the error of his nasty ways. By visiting his past, present and future, Scrooge learns to love Christmas and the people all around him.”
Le Rayon vert, directed by Eric Rohmer
Discovering Rohmer has been a revelation for me and Le Rayon Vert was my point of entry to his world. Who knew there were characters out there of such depth and sensitivity? If you catch the bug like I did, the library at AUP has a trove of his works to explore.
Description: “It’s July, and Delphine has nowhere to go for the summer. She feels very bored and “empty”, but this won’t last; one day she accidently meets someone who seems to be totally made for her…”
Midnight’s children, by Salman Rushdie
A wonderful story, full of twists and turns. Easy to read and enjoyable from beginning to end.
Description: “Born at the stroke of midnight at the exact moment of India’s independence, Saleem Sinai is a special child. However, this coincidence of birth has consequences he is not prepared for: telepathic powers connect him with 1,000 other ‘midnight’s children’ all of whom are endowed with unusual gifts. Inextricably linked to his nation, Saleem’s story is a whirlwind of disasters and triumphs that mirrors the course of modern India at its most impossible and glorious”
The Wire, directed by David Simon*
Discovered during the first confinement, it quickly became impossible to not binge-watched the entire series.
Set in Baltimore, the series follow the lives of every part of the drug “food chain”, from junkies to dealers, and from cops to politicians.
Powerful stories, strong characters, in my point of view this show has everything.
“one of the greatest — not just television shows, but pieces of art in the last couple of decades” according to Barack Obama.
*Students are limited to view on site only
Vernon Subutex. One, by Virginie Despentes Translated by Frank Wynne
Description: “Vernon Subutex was once the proprietor of Revolver, an infamous music shop in Bastille. His legend spread throughout Paris. But by the 2000s his shop is struggling. With his savings gone, his unemployment benefit cut, and the friend who had been covering his rent suddenly dead, Vernon Subutex finds himself down and out on the Paris streets. He has one final card up his sleeve. Even as he holds out his hand to beg for the first time, a throwaway comment he once made on Facebook is taking the internet by storm.”
After all the reading during the semester, some music from The Black Keys to get energized for the Winter break! Enjoy the music 😁
If then, you are interested in reading about the Black Keys, check out their entry in the Music Innovators Dictionary or this book chapter in Rebels and Underdogs: The Story of Ohio Rock and Roll!
To stay in Winter spirit:
A Christmas Memory, by Truman Capote.
“A reminiscence of a Christmas shared by a seven-year-old boy and a sixtyish childlike woman, with enormous love and friendship between them.”
https://aup.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/33AUP_INST/1n1ctv/alma99468823406026
Black Mirror, White Christmas, directed by Carl Tibbetts*
“Black Mirror White Christmas is a chilling feature-length seasonal special of the critically-acclaimed drama series, and it’s the most mind-bending episode yet, consisting of three interwoven stories brimming with near-future madness.”
https://aup.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/33AUP_INST/1n1ctv/alma991844653406026
*Students are limited to view on site only
Snow, by Orhan Pamuk
“Returning to Turkey from exile in the West, Ka is driven by curiosity to investigate a surprising wave of suicides among religious girls forbidden to wear their head scarves in school. But the epicenter of the suicides, the eastern border city of Kars, is also home to the radiant and newly divorced Ipek, a friend of Ka’s youth, whom he has never forgotten and whose spirited younger sister is a leader of the rebellious schoolgirls. As a fierce snowstorm descends on Kars, violence between the military and local Islamic radicals begins to explode, and Ka finds his sympathies drawn in unexpected and dramatic directions.”
https://aup.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/33AUP_INST/1n1ctv/alma991790883406026
Fargo, directed by Joel and Ethan Cohen*
“Jerry Lundegaard’s inept crime falls apart due to his and his henchmen’s bungling and the persistent police work of the quite pregnant Marge Gunderson.”
https://aup.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/33AUP_INST/11556pr/alma991792103406026
*Students are limited to view on site only
The Hanukkah anthology, by Philip Goodman
“The Hanukkah Anthology delves into the stories and messages of Hanukkah as they have unfolded in Jewish literature over the past two thousand years: biblical intimations of the festival, postbiblical writings, selections from the Talmud and midrashim, excerpts from medieval books, home liturgies, laws and customs, observances in different nations, stories and poems, art, and recipes.”
https://aup.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/33AUP_INST/1n1ctv/alma992077503206026
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