It’s a mass of black gowns and caps in front of the library today, so we’re going to kick off summer with our first installment of Staff Summer Reading posts! We’ll tell you what we’re looking forward to reading this summer, or what we’ve read that you might like. Grab a book and get cozy. Summer’s just beginning.
A Girl in a Band by Kim Gordon
I want to read about this girl’s life. How she went from lounging by her typewriter to making art and experimental, post-punk, noise rock on a stage in front of thousands. Kim 
Gordon’s new memoir, A Girl in a Band, takes us from her art school days in Los Angeles to the No Wave music scene in New York, to the break up of her marriage and Sonic Youth. To me, Kim Gordon has always seemed to be unapologetically herself. She’s creative, noisy, and answers to no one. I think I’m gonna pop in my cassette tape of Sonic Youth’s 1994 album “Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star,” and Kim’s gonna be my anthem for the summer.
— Gina Solares, Head of Cataloging and Metadata Management
Two-Way Mirror: A Poetry Notebook by David Meltzer
David Meltzer’s Two-Way Mirror: A Poetry Notebook has long been a favorite book of mine. Hearing in the last year that City Lights would soon be reissuing an expanded and updated edition was one of the best poetry surprises to come my way. This is a book that decidedly more people should be reading; digging and appreciating all it has to offer. City Lights Books and editor Garrett Caples have without doubt done the poetry world a full on solid by bringing Meltzer’s book back in print. While today’s twitter-fed MFA communities may at first be puzzled by how righteously Meltzer celebrates the printed text as object this book is destined to become a regularly utilized classroom text. At the very least every creative writing program office would benefit from having a copy on hand. Poets & Writers should be all over it. The book’s value as an educational tool was after all in part the original impetus behind its initial publication. Read more at The Rumpus.
— Patrick Dunagan, Periodicals & Bindery Specialist
The new Jim Crow : mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
For folks seeking to understand the historical context preceding the BlackLivesMatter moment, this book is essential! Michelle Alexander provides an overview of the inherent racism built into the U.S. “justice” system.
— Amy Gilgan, Reference Librarian and liaison to the School of Education