The OISE Library team is pleased to share our sixth annual OISE Holiday Reads list! As always, this year’s list was a pleasure to curate. We are inspired by the selections of our community and look forward to reading over the break as a way to relax and regenerate for the new year.

In support of reading for relaxation and leisure, the OISE Library launched our new popular reading collection earlier this year! Recess Reading, as we've name it, is a collection of fiction and popular non-fiction books located in a cozy nook on the ground floor near the growing tower and seed library. It is one of several popular reading collections at U of T Libraries that are oriented toward interest, rest, and pleasure. An online browsing feature for all the popular reading collections at U of T Libraries will be available in early 2025.

Happy reading!

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Nat Johnson-Tyghter, Research & Engagement Librarian at the OISE Library, will be reading The Specter and the Speculative: Afterlives and Archives in the African Diaspora, edited by Mae G. Henderson, Jeanne Scheper and Gene Melton II.

Image cover for The Spector and the Speculative Collecting the work of 20 authors, the volume explores how histories and narratives within the African Diaspora are memorialized over time and distance. The essays within explore not only textual memory, but performance, music, and objects. As an archival worker, I’m always intrigued by the varying ways that ‘the archive’ can be conceptualized, particularly across disciplines and cultures. I can’t wait to read all the different perspectives featured in The Specter and the Speculative!

Chanel Tsang, MA student in OISE's Adult Education & Community Development Program, plans to read You Better Be Lightning by Andrea Gibson.

I’ve found that as I grow older, I’m more drawn to poetry, coming to appreciate not only its lyrical beauty, but also the electricity humming underneath the words, so much meaning and emotion imbued into each one. Recently, I started listening to Andrea Gibson’s spoken word poetry and have felt so moved by their readings. Gibson’s themes include love, gender identity, and social justice. I’m looking forward to taking my time to read and enjoy You Better Be Lightning over the winter break.

Dr. Marcelo Vieta, Associate Professor and Interim Chair, Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education, will be reading American Civilization by C. L. R. James.

Book cover for American Civilization Written in the immediate years after WWII but only published in full posthumously in 1994, American Civilization has much to inform us about today’s America, at the cusp of the Trump 2.0 era.” From the piercing pen of the Trinidadian critical social theorist, journalist, and cricket expert, American Civilization can help us more deeply understand our current era of rising authoritarianism and waning liberalism and gives us a better grasp of this moment of deep socio-political change in the US and America’s role in the world. Written 100 years after de Tocqueville’s mid-19th century masterpiece, Democracy in America, James offers the reader the same inquisitive spirit but from a Caribbean, post-colonial socialist’s perspective. American Civilization gestures crucial answers to the question of where America’s contribution to world history and its hopes for human flourishing – its promises of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" – stands today, and where it could be heading. As Homi Bhabha wrote of James: “CLR James provides a postcolonial revision of the ideas of modernity. His is a secular intellectual, practiced in the magic arts of interpretation; a revolutionary thinker who looks to the future and frees the past.”

Dr. Hilary Inwood, Coordinator of OISE’s Sustainability & Climate Action Network, plans to read Critical Hope: How to Grapple with Complexity, Lead with Purpose, and Cultivate Transformative Social Change by Kari Grains.

I take inspiration from those who see the polycrisis as an opportunity to imagine a new way forward. This book offers seven principles for critical hope to guide educators (and others) in working toward a new vision for the future – just what is needed at the start of a new year!

Professor Michele Peterson-Badali, Associate Dean, Research, International & Innovation at OISE is planning to read The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese.

Image of book cover for The Covenant of Water Over the holiday, I hope to read The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese. I began reading this book in the summer but it is loooong, so I’ve only managed the first couple hundred pages. I have found it to be beautifully written – visually and emotionally evocative – and fascinating in the descriptions and information presented. On top of that, the fact that the author is an endowed professor of medicine and provostial chair at Stanford Medical School blows my mind: how he can possibly have time to research and write a 736 page book is beyond me! So… wish me luck and happy holidays!

Kaelan Graham, Master of Information student at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information, and intern at the OISE Library plans to read The Life Impossible, a new novel by Matt Haig.

The Life Impossible follows a widow named Grace as she moves to the Spanish island of Ibiza after a friend passes away and leaves her a house there. I very much enjoyed The Midnight Library (also from Matt Haig) and I love this type of reflective fiction with a fantastical element, especially when the core of the book is about how we make our choices and navigate life. I’m looking forward to seeing what The Life Impossible has in store!

Tess Barclay, from OISE’s Office of the Chief Administrative Office, will be reading An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal The Hidden Realms Around Us, by Ed Yong.

Image of book cover for An Immense World Having traveled to the Arctic tundra, explored the Amazon, dived among coral reefs, and kayaked in Alaska’s Icy Strait to catch glimpses of some of the world’s most fascinating animals, An Immense World feels like the perfect companion for my curiosity. This book opens a whole new way of seeing nature—through the eyes, ears, and senses of other creatures. From turtles navigating via Earth’s magnetic fields to fish communicating with electric signals, it’s a fascinating dive into how animals experience the world around them. It’s the perfect read to remind me how much wonder there is left to discover.

Jenaya Webb, Director of the OISE Library, plans to read Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson.

Image for book cover for Silent Spring Over the break I plan to return to a classic that I haven’t read in over two decades: Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson. Published in 1962, the book documents Carson’s research on pesticides and their harmful effects on the environment and on animal and human health. It was a blockbuster when it was published and is often credited with bringing environmental issues into mainstream conversations in the U.S. and shaping the direction of environmental discourse. If I have time, I'm going to follow this up with with Field Guide To The Patchy Anthropocene: The New Nature, the 2024 title from renowned anthropologist Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, co-authored by Jennifer Deger, Alder Keleman Saxena, and Feifei Zhou. I am curious to see how these two titles resonate for me in 2024.

Image of book cover for Somewhere Beyond the Sea Mackenzie Blanchett, Liaison Librarian, Education at the OISE Library, is looking forward to Somewhere Beyond the Sea, a new novel from TJ Klune.

I have a few books by this TJ Klune that I’m hoping to read over the break, but Somewhere Beyond the Sea is at the top of my list. It’s a sequel The House in the Cerulean Sea, which is a story about an orphanage for magical youth and a caseworker who’s sent to evaluate if the children are a threat to the outside world. It’s a heartwarming (and often quite funny) story about found family, belonging, and hope. I’m looking forward to jumping back into the world and seeing where the characters are now! We don't have a copy of Somewhere Beyond the Sea at U of T Libraries, but I think I'll be purchasing one for the OISE Library popular reading collection!

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Thank you to all the contributors to this year’s list for taking the time to write and let us what you’re planning to read over the break. On behalf of the OISE Library team, we wish you a restful holiday and happy start to the new year.

OISE Library Holiday Reads 2024 Edition