Jessup Journal

  W inter is upon us and the cold makes for excellent reading weather! ❄️ We have fictional books like the fantasy A Winter's Promise about a headstrong heroine that must adapt to stay alive in a hostile new and icy environment, or if you prefer something a little more festive, we have the Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories , or Judith Flanders' Christmas: A Biography . Warm reads abound from The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien to Joanne Harris's Chocolat about a girl and her unusual mother who settle in a small French village and don't quite fit in at first.  If you are more interested in learning about winter in a scientific way, check out Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival , which delves into the way in which animals (and other creatures) survive throughout the harsh winters. Or, explore the world of snow in Giles Whittell's Snow: A Scientific and Cultural Exploration , floating from the historical to the logical on the weather phenomenon...

  I n November we observe Native American Heritage Month--a time to celebrate the current achievements of the Native American community, but also a time to remember the culture and history of the past. At Jessup Library, we want to share the fictional works of Native American authors, such as Tommy Orange's There There , about twelve different folks who travel to a powwow, all with their own reasons and complex background stories. Or, check out Louise Erdrich's The Round House , which follows the story of a family rocked by the assault on a mother and how her son tries to find answers beginning in the sacred space of the Round House. Leslie Marmon Silko's novel Ceremony follows the story of a young Native American man who was held captive by the Japanese in World War II and his journey to heal through the ceremony, traditions, and stories of his ancient culture.  The nonfiction collection includes the seminal Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown, a book that explores...

  Happy Spooky Season! Fall has arrived and with it comes cozy reading weather! The New Books section is all about learning more about the great outdoors, with a special focus on the Appalachian region.  Interested in oral history? Check out   Young men and fire by Norman Maclean. This book  describes the events of August 5, 1949, when a crew of fifteen of the US Forest Service's elite airborne firefighters, the Smokejumpers, were sent to tackle a remote forest fire in the Montana wilderness. A beautiful and haunting work of nonfiction, this book allows readers a glimpse into a world simultaneously familiar and alien.   Or perhaps you want to learn how to forage and cook?  The Foxfire book of Appalachian cookery  edited by T.J. Smith has got you covered . With Appalachian culinary culture at the forefront, this revised edition is a must-read for food-lovers with an interest in cultural-specific cooking. Have you ever been curious about the wi...

     T he time has arrived for creepy stories, and embracing the monsters that walk the pages of our books and roam in the supernatural world. October is the time for  crunchy fall leaves, Halloween costumes, and staying indoors and reading a horror book or two.  Immerse yourself in the spooky, from the gothic novel by Shirley Jackson We Have Always Lived in the Castle , which follows the tale of a young girl and her rather dark and creepy family, to the classic horror of Edgar Allan Poe in his tale The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Writings . There is the horror in Junji Ito's graphic novel Lovesickness about the mysterious deaths of young girls after meeting a charismatic young man. In Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Mexican Gothic , enjoy reading a modern gothic horror novel set in a mansion in 1950s Mexico.  If non-fiction is more palatable to you, Whitley Strieber and Jeffrey J. Kripal's book The Super Natural is an exploration of the strangeness that ...

Happy Fall 2025! Whether it is your first or thousandth time on campus, we are glad to see you here!  In the spirit of a new semester, the New Books section is all about learning new skills and hobbies.  Maybe you're interested in AI or programming? Check out   Hands-on large language models: language understanding and generation  by Jay Alammar and Maarten Grootendorst. This book is designed to help you u nderstand the architecture of Transformer language models that specialize in at text generation and copywriting. Through a mixture of pictures, diagrams, and text,  readers will learn all the practical tools and concepts needed to excel at large language model programming. Or perhaps you want to expand your cooking knowledge?  Tanoreen: Palestinian home cooking in diaspora: a new and expanded edition of Olives, Lemons and Za'atar by Rawia Bishara; photography by Peter Cassidy, can help  with traditional middle eastern recipes and dishes that have a ...

Andrew Wyeth       American art, like all things, has evolved over the centuries from classical to modern, and everything in-between. This August we would like to celebrate the artists that come from the American tradition and have created a new way of seeing the world through their art.  To start with we have a few American writers who use fiction to transport us to the artists of the past, in Tracy Chevalier's Girl With A Pearl Earring , a novel about the young woman who posed as the model for Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. This is an imagining of what the young woman's life may have been like in the 1600s Netherlands as she works for a tempestuous artist and his wife. Irving Stone's The Agony and the Ecstasy is a New York Times Best Seller that follows the life of artist Michelangelo Buonarroti and his interactions with the famous leaders of the day, including the de Medici family. On the nonfiction side, we have The Practical Handbook for the Emerging Artist , ...