Tips on How to Compile The Best Summer Reading List

While enjoying the warm months of summer, students and patrons are advised to continue their pace of studies and start with their summer reading. Whether it’s a graphic novel, works as long as Tolkien’s Lord of The Rings or a magazine article, be sure to review suggestions on how to compile the perfect summer reading list or simply how to become a better reader.

Reading is one of the most prolific kills to have. Reading improves your writing and comprehension skills, increases one’s ability to focus and concentrate as well as improves one’s chances of excelling academically and professionally. 

Reading lists give readers something to look forward to and help readers to set academic objectives and goals. Summer reading lists continues one’s pace of studies, outside the academic fiscal year; expands one’s vocabulary, and helps readers to understand other cultures and languages, not of his or her own.  

Suggestions for Finding the Best Reads

1. When in search of a good novel or book, search for similar subjects, topics, or genre that is associated with the topic you are looking for or have in mind. 
   
2. Use databases such as GALILEO, Lib Guides and Gil-Find to narrow and filter your search results to find the best sellers, popular picks, or to help compile your summer lists. 
   
3. Browse literary journals, magazines, and reviews for contemporary and current reads that are popular or recommended. 
   
4. For readers interested in movies that began as novels, search Movie indexes like, IMBM  for popular and well respected productions. 
5. Plays, poetry chapbooks and collections, graphic novels and magazines are not excused from summer reading lists. Include works like these to add color to your selections.   
6. Readers that are attracted to specific genres or certain authors are advised to follow up on their favorites by requesting favorite authors at your local or school’s library. 
   
7. Find a cozy and comfortable place to read. A comfortable environment to go to may help a reader's passion to read. Find your own nook or private place to read. 
   
   
   

CSU Libraries encourages and advises all students and patrons to compile their summer reading list with the above suggestions. For more information, be sure to visit CSU Libraries Page.

CSU Libraries’ Suggested Poetry to Read for National Poetry Month

Since President Bill Clinton’s issued proclamation in 1996, April is annually celebrated as National Poetry Month. Each year, the Academy of American Poets and others around the country and global celebrate, encourage and increase awareness and appreciation of poetry.

The poetry celebration is one of the most awaited celebrations for literati, poets and bibliophiles. The Found Poetry Review invites and encourages poets to participate in their annual National Poetry Month project, PoMoSco. The project is an opportunity for poets, of any experience level or publication history, to earn more than 30 merit badges and all poetry, for PoMoSco, will be posted on a centralized site to encourage others to particularly focus their attention to poetry.

CSU libraries encourage students and patrons to participate and read various selections of poetry. For this year’s poetry month, CSU libraries suggests poets, writers, and all patrons to review and read as much poetry as possible to help spread the awareness and increase the appreciation for poetry.
**List not in any order of significance

Poetry and Other Selections 

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot

The Elephant by Hilare Belloc
Hope is the Thing with Feathers by Emily Dickinson

Let America Be America Again by Langston Hughes
If by Rudyard Kipling

Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin
I Carry Your Heart with Me by E.E. Cummings

Why I am Not a Painter by Frank O’Hara

The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot

The Selected Poetry of Sylvia Plath
Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
The Buried Life by Matthew Arnold

Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Love is a Dog from Hell by Charles Bukowski

The Langston Hughes Reader by Langston Hughes

A Dream within a Dream by Edgar A. Poe
The Poor Ghost by Christina Rossetti

The Second Coming by William B. Yeats

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft

The Vanity of Human Wishes by Samuel Johnson 
Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge

On Being Brought from Africa to America Phyllis Wheatley

Ulysses and In Memoriam by Lord Tennyson

Before the Birth of One of Her Children and Contemplations by Anne Bradstreet

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
To Autumn by John Keats

The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope

Outside of The Found Poetry Review’s PoMoSco, there are other literary projects, festivals, poetry slams and events hosted in the state of Georgia and in the city of Columbus. For more information, review the below list or browse The Southern Literary Trail: 2015 Georgia Events, supported by the Georgia Humanities Council, and The Georgia Poetry Society.

THE MARGUERITE AND LAMAR SMITH FELLOWSHIP FOR WRITERS
Deadline: April 1, 2015
The Carson McCullers Center Fellowship Program- English Department

Columbus State University

http://www.mccullerscenter.org/fellowships.php

AN AFTERNOON WITH POET NOAH BLAUSTEIN

Tuesday, April 13, 2015

The Carson McCullers Center of Columbus, Georgia

EUDORA WELTY: A LIFE IN LETTERS

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

The Balzar Theater at Herren's, Atlanta

AN EVENING OF MASTERFUL STORYTELLING: ERSKINE CALDWELL, THE SHORT STORY WRITER

Thursday, April 23, 2015

Moreland, Georgia

A READING WITH POET ACE BOGGESS

Thursday, April 30, 2015

The Carson McCullers Center of Columbus, Georgia

ACTRESS BRENDA BYNUM PERFORMS "JORDAN IS SO CHILLY: AN ENCOUNTER WITH LILLIAN SMITH,"

Saturday, May 9, 2015

Brenda Bynum Dillard, Georgia

A KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY GRAMMY NOMINEE TED OLSON AT THE BYRON HERBERT REECE FARM

Saturday, May 30, 2015

Blairsville, Georgia

BOURBON, LITERATURE AND SOUTHERN CHARM: SOUTHERN LITFEST 2015

Friday and Saturday, June 5 & 6, 2015

Newnan, Georgia

As the semester comes to an end, CSU libraries encourage all, particularly students, to partake in some of the literary events around campus, the city and the state. For more information, browse CSU libraries official page and CSU Gil-Find Catalog to locate items and visit The Georgia Poetry Society.

CSU Libraries’ Suggested Novels and Dramas to Read

In 2013, Republican and Idaho State Senate Education Committee Chairman, John Goedde, introduced legislation for all high school students in the state to read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, in order to graduate. This requirement, and novel, greatly encourages and is referenced by many Tea Party members, before the legislation and now. This signifies how literature is still a significant, administrative influence and inspiration outside a library or college campus.

The Simon Schwob Memorial Library encourages the reading habits of its patrons and students; however, not all books closed are meant to stay that way. On any campus, a collegiate environment inspires many to become more serious about his or her studies. Regardless of students’ major, of study, or a patrons’ intent to conduct their research, there is simply a list of novels and dramas that many are presumed to, and should be, familiar with.

Each year the New York Best-Sellers list features familiar and new authors and writers. The British and Western canon is becoming larger with new, contemporary contributions; however, certain literary works are not as appreciated or read by millennials and bibliophiles, as they should. Here are CSU Libraries’ suggested novel and dramas lists.
**Lists are not in any order of significance.

Novels

 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Night, Day, and Dawn by Elie Weisel

Middlemarch by T.S. Eliot

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand            
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton

How the Other Half Lives by Jacob Riis

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

Hard Times by Charles Dickens

The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Wuthering Heights by Elizabeth Brontë

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

Animal Farm and 1984 by George Orwell

The Color of Water by James McBride

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

A Good Man is hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora N. Hurston

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

Beloved by Toni Morrison

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Songs of Innocence and of Experience by William Blake

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce          
Candide by Voltaire
Curious Wine by Katherine Forrest

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angeluo

                                                                       

Dramas

The Histories, Tragedies, and Comedies of William Shakespeare

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry

Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello

Spring Awakening by Frank Wedekind

The Colored Museum by George C. Wolfe

She Stoops to Conquer by Goldsmith

The Way of the World by Congreve

Arsenic and Old Lace by Joseph Kesselring

Mother Courage and Her Children by Bertolt Brecht

The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World by Suzan-Lori Parks

A Streetcar Names Desire by Tennessee Williams

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen

Long Day’s Journey into Night by Eugene O’Neill

After reading a few pieces of literature, one is not considered a literati; yet, it is advised that readers maintain their passion to read. As the semester comes to an end, CSU libraries encourages many, particularly bibliophiles, to review the list of canonical literature. For more information about reading selections, browse CSU libraries official page and CSU Gil-Find Catalog to locate items. 

Government Documents Collection Exhibits Colorful Women’s History Month Selection

This March, the Simon Schwob Memorial library celebrates multiple iconic women who have inspired much of American history and this institution. The Government Documents Collection, on the first floor of the Schwob Library, is exhibiting a special assortment highlighting prolific, intriguing professions and the lives of several, significant women. This small collection, reiterating the importance of women’s history, will remain up in the Government Documents Collection, for the rest of March, Women’s History month.

Works such as 33 Years of Army Nursing by Brigadier General Lillian Dunlap and Women in Congress, 1917–2006, one of the most commemorative and endorsed work on the 229 women who have served in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, profiles 74 women member of the 109^th Congress and history before the first woman elected to Congress, Jeannette Rankin. Selections pertaining to subjects about military activities, political studies, medical and physical education and other subjects expand the literature, already available, about women’s history.

67th United States Secretary of State and former First Lady and U.S. Senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Tributes Delivered in Congress 2001-2009 is also available in the Government Documents Collection. Clinton, along with, First lady Michelle Obama, Laura Bush and Pat Nixon are the only First Ladies, yet, to have earned and hold a graduate degree. Clinton remains the only first lady elected to a public office—the U.S. Senate, and to seek presidency.

Outside of exhibiting selections about women’s history, there are multiple works in the McNaughton Collection that may interest readers attracted to women’s history and gender studies. Answering the Call: The U.S. Army Nurse Corps, 1917-1919: A commemorative Tribute to Military Nursing in World War I is another colorful selection students and military-afflicted patrons will enjoy. There are various books available in the Government Documents and McNaughton Collections and entire Schwob library. Be sure to visit the Schwob library.

NovelList Plus and NoveList Plus K-8 Added to GALILEO

NoveList Plus and NoveList K-8 Plus are two new resources that have been added to GALILEO. NoveList has provided readers' advisory for both educators and librarians, and NoveList Plus provides new popular nonfiction titles as well as other features such as:

• Recommended reading lists on Adventure Travel, Growing Up Around the World, Animals in Our Lives, Historical Scandals, Scientific Discoveries, Women in Sports, and more 
• Dewey Number Browse to find recommended titles by Dewey number
• Advanced Search features for audio and nonfiction search refinement

Other features still available

·         Author, title, and series read-alikes
·         Lexile level assignments
·         Robust awards and notable books lists
·         Book discussion guides
·         Picture book extenders
·         Common Core resources

NoveList Reading Suggestions

Searching for the next best read but don't want to go all the way to your library to find out what's hot? Get librarian suggested books online through Novelist. Choose from several reading lists or find read-alikes for your favorite authors and books. Follow the instructions in the Powerpoint below to access Novelist and try it out. Happy reading!