{"id":105559,"date":"2025-11-19T14:52:59","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T19:52:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/?p=105559"},"modified":"2025-11-21T11:41:34","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T16:41:34","slug":"recommended-reads-for-intersession-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/2025\/11\/19\/recommended-reads-for-intersession-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Recommended Reads for Intersession"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span>GMS Student Affairs and The Alumni Medical Library present the annual book list of <\/span><span><em>Recommended Reads For Intersession<\/em> and raffle. We hope you enjoy these titles picked by the staff members of both GMS and the Library!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/gms\/files\/2025\/11\/webpage-pic.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"3640\" height=\"2040\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-105860\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/files\/2025\/11\/webpage-pic.png 3640w, https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/files\/2025\/11\/webpage-pic-636x356.png 636w, https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/files\/2025\/11\/webpage-pic-1024x574.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/files\/2025\/11\/webpage-pic-768x430.png 768w, https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/files\/2025\/11\/webpage-pic-1536x861.png 1536w, https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/files\/2025\/11\/webpage-pic-2048x1148.png 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 3640px) 100vw, 3640px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span>Enter the raffle to be 1 of 20 students to win a book from this list to enjoy over winter break! <\/span>Raffle winners will be drawn at noon on December 3. Winners must respond by the end of the day as to which book from the list they prefer and their full mailing address (so we can send it directly to you!)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bostonu.qualtrics.com\/jfe\/form\/SV_b8aLbXnGVCxwgrY\" style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Enter the raffle here!<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h5><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/gms\/files\/2025\/10\/Cover-Abraham-Lincoln-Vampire-Hunter.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"153\" height=\"233\" class=\"wp-image-105841 alignleft\" \/>Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter<\/strong><\/h5>\n<h5><strong>By: Seth Grahame-Smith<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p><em>Categories: Historical fiction; Fantasy; Horror; Supernatural<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Awards: Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Paranormal Fantasy (2010)<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"bu_collapsible_container \" aria-live=\"polite\" data-customize-animation=\"false\"><h4 class=\"bu_collapsible\" aria-expanded=\"false\"tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\">Book Summary<\/h4><div class=\"bu_collapsible_section\" style=\"display: none;\"><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Indiana, 1818. Moonlight falls through the dense woods that surround a one-room cabin, where a nine-year-old Abraham Lincoln kneels at his suffering mother&#8217;s bedside. She&#8217;s been stricken with something the old-timers call &#8216;Milk Sickness.&#8217; &#8216;My baby boy&#8230;&#8217; she whispers before dying. Only later will the grieving Abe learn that his mother&#8217;s fatal affliction was actually the work of a vampire. When the truth becomes known to young Lincoln, he writes in his journal, &#8216;henceforth my life shall be one of rigorous study and devotion. I shall become a master of mind and body. And this mastery shall have but one purpose&#8230;&#8217; Gifted with his legendary height, strength, and skill with an ax, Abe sets out on a path of vengeance that will lead him all the way to the White House. While Abraham Lincoln is widely lauded for saving a Union and freeing millions of slaves, his valiant fight against the forces of the undead has remained in the shadows for hundreds of years. That is, until Seth Grahame-Smith stumbled upon The Secret Journal of Abraham Lincoln, and became the first living person to lay eyes on it in more than 140 years. Using the journal as his guide and writing in the grand biographical style of Doris Kearns Goodwin and David McCullough, Seth has reconstructed the true life story of our greatest president for the first time-all while revealing the hidden history behind the Civil War and uncovering the role vampires played in the birth, growth, and near-death of our nation.&#8221;\u00a0 &#8211; goodreads.com<\/p>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<hr \/>\n<h5><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/gms\/files\/2025\/10\/Cover-The-Academy.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"149\" height=\"232\" class=\"wp-image-105842 alignleft\" \/>The Academy<\/strong><\/h5>\n<h5><strong>By: Elin Hilderbrand &amp; Shelby Cunningham<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p><em>Categories: Fiction; Romance; Contemporary; Mystery; Academia<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Awards: New York Times Best Selling Author; Nominee for the 2025 Goodreads Choice Awards<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"bu_collapsible_container \" aria-live=\"polite\" data-customize-animation=\"false\"><h4 class=\"bu_collapsible\" aria-expanded=\"false\"tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\">Book Summary<\/h4><div class=\"bu_collapsible_section\" style=\"display: none;\"><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It\u2019s move-in day at Tiffin Academy and amidst the happy chaos of friends reuniting, selfies uploading, and cars unloading, shocking news arrives: America Today just ranked Tiffin the number two boarding school in the country. It\u2019s a seventeen-spot jump \u2013 was there a typo? The dorms need to be renovated, their sports teams always come in last place, and let\u2019s just say Tiffin students are known for being more social than academic. On the other hand, the campus is exquisite, class sizes are small, and the dining hall is run by an acclaimed New York chef. And they do have fun\u2014lots of parties and school dances, and a piano man plays in the student lounge every Monday night. But just as the rarefied air of Tiffin is suffused with self-congratulation, the wheels begin to turn \u2013 and then they fall off the bus. One by one, scandalous blind items begin to appear on phones across Tiffin\u2019s campus, thanks to a new app called ZipZap, and nobody is safe. From Davi Banerjee, international influencer and resident queen bee, to Simone Bergeron, the new and surprisingly young history teacher, to Charley Hicks, a transfer student who seems determined not to fit in, to Cordelia Spooner, Admissions Director with a somewhat idiosyncratic methodology \u2013 everyone has something to hide. s if high school wasn\u2019t dramatic enough&#8230;As the year unfolds, bonds are forged and broken, secrets are shared and exposed, and the lives of Tiffin\u2019s students and staff are changed forever.&#8221;\u00a0 &#8211; Amazon.com<\/p>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<hr \/>\n<h5><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/gms\/files\/2025\/10\/Cover-The-Autumn-Ghost.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"156\" height=\"230\" class=\"wp-image-105843 alignleft\" \/>The Autumn Ghost: How the Battle Against a Polio Epidemic Revolutionized Modern Medical Care<\/strong><\/h5>\n<h5><strong>By: Hannah Wunsch<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p><em>Categories: Nonfiction; Health &amp; wellness; Medical mysteries; Science; Current affairs &amp; politics; Boston-Born authors<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Awards: Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize Finalist; Lane Anderson Award for Best Science Writing in Canada<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"bu_collapsible_container \" aria-live=\"polite\" data-customize-animation=\"false\"><h4 class=\"bu_collapsible\" aria-expanded=\"false\"tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\">Book Summary<\/h4><div class=\"bu_collapsible_section\" style=\"display: none;\"><\/p>\n<p><span>&#8220;A suspenseful, authoritative account of how the battle against a mid-century polio epidemic sparked a revolution in medical care. Americans knew polio as the &#8216;summer plague.&#8217; In countries further North, however, the virus arrived later in the year, slipping into the homes of healthy children as the summer waned and the equinox approached. It was described by one writer as &#8216;the autumn ghost.&#8217;<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Intensive care units and mechanical ventilation are the crucial foundation of modern medical care: without them, the appalling death toll of the COVID-19 pandemic would be even higher. In The Autumn Ghost, Dr. Hannah Wunsch traces the origins of these two innovations back to a polio epidemic in the autumn of 1952. Drawing together compelling testimony from doctors, nurses, medical students, and patients, Wunsch relates a gripping tale of an epidemic that changed the world. In vivid, captivating chapters, Wunsch tells the dramatic true story of how insiders and iconoclasts came together in one overwhelmed hospital in Copenhagen to save the lives of many polio patients dying of respiratory failure. Their radical advances in care marked a turning point in the treatment of patients around the world\u2014from the rise of life support and the creation of intensive care units to the evolution of rehabilitation medicine. Moving and informative, The Autumn Ghost will leave readers in awe of the courage of those who battled the polio epidemic, and grateful for the modern medical care they pioneered.&#8221;\u00a0 &#8211; Greystone Books website<\/p>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<hr \/>\n<h5><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/gms\/files\/2025\/10\/Cover-Berry-Pickers.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"156\" height=\"224\" class=\"wp-image-105844 alignleft\" \/>The Berry Pickers: A Novel<\/strong><\/h5>\n<h5><strong>By: Amanda Peters<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p><em>Categories: Fiction; Coming of age; Family &amp; loss; Indigenous identity &amp; culture; Resilience &amp; grief<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Awards: Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction; 2023 Barnes &amp; Noble Discover Prize; Atwood Bison Writer&#8217;s Trust Fiction Prize Finalist; Amazon First Novel Award Finalist<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"bu_collapsible_container \" aria-live=\"polite\" data-customize-animation=\"false\"><h4 class=\"bu_collapsible\" aria-expanded=\"false\"tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\">Book Summary<\/h4><div class=\"bu_collapsible_section\" style=\"display: none;\"><\/p>\n<p><span>&#8220;A four-year-old Mi\u2019kmaq girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a mystery that will haunt the survivors, unravel a family, and remain unsolved for nearly fifty years. July 1962. Following in the tradition of Indigenous workers from Nova Scotia, a Mi\u2019kmaq family arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family\u2019s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister\u2019s disappearance for years to come. In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren\u2019t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cAn unforgettable exploration of grief, love, and kin,\u201d (The Boston Globe), this show stopping debut by a vibrant new voice in fiction is a riveting novel about the search for truth, the shadow of trauma, and the persistence of love across time. &#8211; Madison Street Books website<\/span><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<hr \/>\n<h5><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/gms\/files\/2025\/10\/Cover-dream-hotel.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"155\" height=\"234\" class=\"wp-image-105845 alignleft\" \/>The Dream Hotel<\/strong><\/h5>\n<h5><strong>By: Laila Lalami<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p><em>Categories: Science fiction; Dystopia; Fantasy; Mystery; First-generation authors; Moroccan authors<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Awards: Arab-American Book Award author; American Book Award author; Hurston\/Wright Legacy Award author; Booker Prize Longlist author; Pulitzer Prize in Fiction Finalist; Joyce Carol Oates Prize author; National Book Award in Fiction Finalist<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"bu_collapsible_container \" aria-live=\"polite\" data-customize-animation=\"false\"><h4 class=\"bu_collapsible\" aria-expanded=\"false\"tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\">Book Summary<\/h4><div class=\"bu_collapsible_section\" style=\"display: none;\"><\/p>\n<p><span>&#8220;Sara has just landed at LAX, returning home from a conference abroad, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA\u2019s algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most: her husband. For his safety, she must be kept under observation for twenty-one days. The agents transfer Sara to a retention center, where she is held with other dreamers, all of them women trying to prove their innocence from different crimes. With every deviation from the strict and ever-shifting rules of the facility, their stay is extended. Months pass and Sara seems no closer to release. Then one day, a new resident arrives, disrupting the order of the facility and leading Sara on a collision course with the very companies that have deprived her of her freedom. Eerie, urgent, and ceaselessly clear-eyed, The Dream Hotel artfully explores the seductive nature of technology, which puts us in shackles even as it makes our lives easier. Lalami asks how much of ourselves must remain private if we are to remain free, and whether even the most invasive forms of surveillance can ever capture who we really are.&#8221; &#8211; Laila Lalami website<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<div>\n<hr \/>\n<\/div>\n<h5><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/gms\/files\/2025\/10\/Cover-Evenings-Weekends.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"159\" height=\"240\" class=\"wp-image-105846 alignleft\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/files\/2025\/10\/Cover-Evenings-Weekends.png 494w, https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/files\/2025\/10\/Cover-Evenings-Weekends-421x636.png 421w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 159px) 100vw, 159px\" \/>Evenings &amp; Weekends: A Novel<\/strong><\/h5>\n<h5><strong>By: Ois<span>\u00ed<\/span>n McKenna<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p><em>Categories: Contemporary; LGBT; Fiction; Irish literature<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Awards: 2022 London Writers Award<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"bu_collapsible_container \" aria-live=\"polite\" data-customize-animation=\"false\"><h4 class=\"bu_collapsible\" aria-expanded=\"false\"tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\">Book Summary<\/h4><div class=\"bu_collapsible_section\" style=\"display: none;\"><\/p>\n<p><span>&#8220;Summer in London stops for no one. Not the half-naked drunks and stoners, the bachelorette parties glugging from bejewelled bottles, the drag queens puffing on hurried cigarettes. It\u2019s June 2019, and everyone has converged on the city\u2019s parks, beer gardens, and street corners to revel in the collective joys of being alive. Everyone but Maggie. She\u2019s 30, pregnant, and broke. Faced with moving back to the town she fought to escape, she\u2019s wondering if having a baby with boyfriend Ed will be the last spontaneous act of her life. Ed, meanwhile, is trying to run from his past with Maggie\u2019s best friend Phil and harboring secret dreams of his own. Phil hates his office job and is living for the weekend, while falling for his housemate, Keith. But there\u2019s a problem: Keith has a boyfriend and there might not be room for three people in the relationship. Then there\u2019s Rosaleen, Phil\u2019s mother, who\u2019s tired of feeling like a side character in her own life. She\u2019s just been diagnosed with cancer and is travelling to London to tell Phil, if she can ever get hold of him.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>As Saturday night approaches, all their lives are set to change forever. Temperatures are soaring and the weekend is about to begin\u2026&#8221;\u00a0 &#8211; HarperCollins Publishers website<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<hr \/>\n<h5><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/gms\/files\/2025\/10\/Cover-local-woman-missing.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"162\" height=\"248\" class=\"wp-image-105847 alignleft\" \/>Local Woman Missing<\/strong><\/h5>\n<h5><strong>By: Mary Kubica<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p><em>Categories: Psychological thriller; Mystery; Fiction; Crime; Contemporary<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Awards: Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Mystery &amp; Thriller (2021); Audie Award Finalist<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"bu_collapsible_container \" aria-live=\"polite\" data-customize-animation=\"false\"><h4 class=\"bu_collapsible\" aria-expanded=\"false\"tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\">Book Summary<\/h4><div class=\"bu_collapsible_section\" style=\"display: none;\"><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Shelby Tebow is the first to go missing. Not long after, Meredith Dickey and her six-year-old daughter, Delilah, vanish just blocks away from where Shelby was last seen, striking fear into their once-peaceful community. Are these incidents connected? After an elusive search that yields more questions than answers, the case eventually goes cold. Now, 11 years later, Delilah shockingly returns. Everyone wants to know what happened to her, but no one is prepared for what they\u2019ll find&#8230;. In this smart and chilling thriller, master of suspense and New York Times best-selling author Mary Kubica takes domestic secrets to a whole new level, showing that some people will stop at nothing to keep the truth buried.&#8221;\u00a0 &#8211; Goodreads.com<\/p>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<hr \/>\n<h5><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/gms\/files\/2025\/10\/Cover-My-Broken-Language.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"164\" height=\"253\" class=\"wp-image-105848 alignleft\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/files\/2025\/10\/Cover-My-Broken-Language.png 434w, https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/files\/2025\/10\/Cover-My-Broken-Language-411x636.png 411w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 164px) 100vw, 164px\" \/>My Broken Language<\/strong><\/h5>\n<h5><strong>By: Quiara Alegr<span>\u00ed<\/span>a Hudes<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p><em>Categories: Memoir; Nonfiction; Coming of age; Latinx authors<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Awards: Pulitzer Prize author; Carnegie Medal Longlist author; New York Public Library&#8217;s Best of 2021; Good Morning America Buzz Pick<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"bu_collapsible_container \" aria-live=\"polite\" data-customize-animation=\"false\"><h4 class=\"bu_collapsible\" aria-expanded=\"false\"tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\">Book Summary<\/h4><div class=\"bu_collapsible_section\" style=\"display: none;\"><\/p>\n<p><span>&#8220;Quiara Alegr\u00eda Hudes was the sharp-eyed girl on the stairs while her family danced their defiance in a tight North Philly kitchen. She was awed by her mother and aunts and cousins, but haunted by the unspoken, untold stories of the barrio \u2014 even as she tried to find her own voice in the sea of language around her, written and spoken, English and Spanish, bodies and books, Western art and sacred altars. Her family became her private pantheon, a gathering circle of powerful orisha-like women with tragic real-world wounds, and she vowed to tell their stories \u2014 but first she\u2019d have to get off the stairs and join the dance. She\u2019d have to find her language. Weaving together Hudes\u2019s love of music with the songs of her family, the lessons of North Philly with those of Yale, this is a multimythic dive into home, memory, and belonging \u2014 narrated by an obsessed girl who fought to become an artist so she could capture the world she loved in all its wild and delicate beauty.&#8221;\u00a0 &#8211; Audible.com<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<hr \/>\n<h5><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/gms\/files\/2025\/10\/Cover-plot-against-america-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"174\" height=\"266\" class=\" wp-image-105854 alignleft\" \/>Plot Against America<\/strong><\/h5>\n<h5><strong>By: Philip Roth<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p><em>Categories: Historical fiction; Alternate history; World War II<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Awards: National Bestseller; 2005 James Fenimore Cooper Prize; 2004 Sidewise Award for Alternate History; 2004 Society of Americans Historians Award; Pulitzer Prize-winning author; one of the New York Times&#8217; 100 Best Books of the 21st Century<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"bu_collapsible_container \" aria-live=\"polite\" data-customize-animation=\"false\"><h4 class=\"bu_collapsible\" aria-expanded=\"false\"tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\">Book Summary<\/h4><div class=\"bu_collapsible_section\" style=\"display: none;\"><\/p>\n<p><span>&#8220;In an extraordinary feat of narrative invention, Philip Roth imagines an alternate history where Franklin D. Roosevelt loses the 1940 presidential election to heroic aviator and rabid isolationist Charles A. Lindbergh. Shortly thereafter, Lindbergh negotiates a cordial &#8220;understanding&#8221; with Adolf Hitler, while the new government embarks on a program of folksy anti-Semitism.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The chilling bestselling alternate history novel of what happens to one family when America elects a charismatic, isolationist president whose government embraces anti-Semitism\u2014from the Pulitzer Prize\u2013winning author of\u00a0<i>American Pastoral<\/i>.&#8221;\u00a0 &#8211; Barnes &amp; Noble website<\/p>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<hr \/>\n<h5><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/gms\/files\/2025\/10\/Cover-Remarkably-Bright-Creatures.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"167\" height=\"248\" class=\"wp-image-105849 alignleft\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/files\/2025\/10\/Cover-Remarkably-Bright-Creatures.png 475w, https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/files\/2025\/10\/Cover-Remarkably-Bright-Creatures-429x636.png 429w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 167px) 100vw, 167px\" \/>Remarkably Bright Creatures: A Novel<\/strong><\/h5>\n<h5><strong>By: Shelby Van Pelt<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p><em>Categories: Fiction; Contemporary; Mystery; Magical realism; Grief &amp; loss<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Awards: Instant New York Times Bestseller; Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick; Heartland Prize for Fiction 2023 author; McLaughlin-Esstman-Stearns First Novel Prize from The Writer&#8217;s Center author; New York Times Hardcover Bestseller List; Goodreads Nominee for Readers&#8217; Favorite Fiction (2022); Goodreads Nominee for Readers&#8217; Favorie Debut Novel (2022)<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"bu_collapsible_container \" aria-live=\"polite\" data-customize-animation=\"false\"><h4 class=\"bu_collapsible\" aria-expanded=\"false\"tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\">Book Summary<\/h4><div class=\"bu_collapsible_section\" style=\"display: none;\"><\/p>\n<p><span>&#8220;<\/span>After Tova Sullivan\u2019s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she\u2019s been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in the Puget Sound over 30 years ago. As she works, Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine, but wouldn\u2019t dream of lifting one of his eight tentacles for his human captors\u2014until he forms an unlikely friendship with Tova. Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova\u2019s son disappeared. As his affection for Tova grows, Marcellus must use every trick his old, invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it\u2019s too late.<\/p>\n<p>Charming, compulsively readable, and full of wit, Shelby Van Pelt\u2019s debut novel is a beautiful exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope\u2013a reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.&#8221;\u00a0 &#8211; Shelby Van Pelt website<\/p>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<hr \/>\n<h5><strong><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/gms\/files\/2025\/10\/Cover-replaceable-you.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"172\" height=\"263\" class=\" wp-image-105855 alignleft\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/files\/2025\/10\/Cover-replaceable-you.png 592w, https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/files\/2025\/10\/Cover-replaceable-you-416x636.png 416w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 172px) 100vw, 172px\" \/>Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy<\/strong><\/h5>\n<h5><strong>By: Mary Roach<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p><em>Categories: Nonfiction; Health; Medicine; Biology<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Awards: Instant New York Times Bestseller; one of Literary Hub&#8217;s Most Anticipated Books of 2025; Goodreads Readers&#8217; Most Anticipated Fall Book; 2014 Royal Society Winton Prize Finalist author<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"bu_collapsible_container \" aria-live=\"polite\" data-customize-animation=\"false\"><h4 class=\"bu_collapsible\" aria-expanded=\"false\"tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\">Book Summary<\/h4><div class=\"bu_collapsible_section\" style=\"display: none;\"><\/p>\n<p><span>&#8220;The body is the most complex machine in the world, and the only one for which you cannot get a replacement part from the manufacturer. For centuries, medicine has reached for what\u2019s available\u2014sculpting noses from brass, borrowing skin from frogs and hearts from pigs, crafting eye parts from jet canopies and breasts from petroleum by-products. Today we\u2019re attempting to grow body parts from scratch using stem cells and 3D printers. How are we doing? Are we there yet? In Replaceable You, Mary Roach explores the remarkable advances and difficult questions prompted by the human body\u2019s failings. When and how does a person decide they\u2019d be better off with a prosthetic than their existing limb? Can a donated heart be made to beat forever? Can an intestine provide a workable substitute for a vagina? Roach dives in with her characteristic verve and infectious wit. Her travels take her to the OR at a legendary burn unit in Boston, a &#8216;superclean&#8217; xeno-pigsty in China, and a stem cell &#8216;hair nursery&#8217; in the San Diego tech hub. She talks with researchers and surgeons, amputees and ostomates, printers of kidneys and designers of wearable organs. She spends time in a working iron lung from the 1950s, stays up all night with recovery techs as they disassemble and reassemble a tissue donor, and travels across Mongolia with the cataract surgeons of Orbis International. Irrepressible and accessible, Replaceable You immerses readers in the wondrous, improbable, and surreal quest to build a new you.&#8221;\u00a0 &#8211; Mary Roach website<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<hr \/>\n<h5><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/gms\/files\/2025\/10\/Cover-The-Sisterhood.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"164\" height=\"242\" class=\" wp-image-105850 alignleft\" \/>The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA<\/strong><\/h5>\n<h5><strong>By: Liza Mundy<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p><em>Categories: 20th Century U.S. history; Nonfiction; Feminism; True Crime; Espionage<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Awards: Foreign Policy and Smithsonian Best Book of the Year; New York Times Book Review Editor&#8217;s Choice<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"bu_collapsible_container \" aria-live=\"polite\" data-customize-animation=\"false\"><h4 class=\"bu_collapsible\" aria-expanded=\"false\"tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\">Book Summary<\/h4><div class=\"bu_collapsible_section\" style=\"display: none;\"><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Created in the aftermath of World War II, the Central Intelligence Agency relied on women even as it attempted to channel their talents and keep them down. Women sent cables, made dead drops, and maintained the agency\u2019s secrets. Despite discrimination\u2014even because of it\u2014women who started as clerks, secretaries, or unpaid spouses rose to become some of the CIA\u2019s shrewdest operatives. They were unlikely spies\u2014and that\u2019s exactly what made them perfect for the role. Because women were seen as unimportant, pioneering female intelligence officers moved unnoticed around Bonn, Geneva, and Moscow, stealing secrets from under the noses of their KGB adversaries. Back at headquarters, women built the CIA\u2019s critical archives\u2014first by hand, then by computer. And they noticed things that the men at the top didn\u2019t see. As the CIA faced an identity crisis after the Cold War, it was a close-knit network of female analysts who spotted the rising threat of al-Qaeda\u2014though their warnings were repeatedly brushed aside. After the 9\/11 attacks, more women joined the agency as a new job, targeter, came to prominence. They showed that data analysis would be crucial to the post-9\/11 national security landscape\u2014an effort that culminated spectacularly in the CIA\u2019s successful effort to track down bin Laden in his Pakistani compound. Propelled by the same meticulous reporting and vivid storytelling that infused Code Girls, The Sisterhood offers a riveting new perspective on history, revealing how women at the CIA ushered in the modern intelligence age, and how their silencing made the world more dangerous.&#8221;\u00a0 &#8211; Penguin Random House website<\/p>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<hr \/>\n<h5><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/gms\/files\/2025\/10\/Cover-watchermakers-daughter.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"169\" height=\"260\" class=\" wp-image-105851 alignleft\" \/>The Watchmaker&#8217;s Daughter (Glass and Steele Series)<\/strong><\/h5>\n<h5><strong>By: C.J. Arthur<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p><em>Categories: Fantasy; Historical fiction; Mystery; Romance; Steampunk; Magic; Paranormal; Australian authors<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Awards: eFestival of Words for Best Young Adult (2018)<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"bu_collapsible_container \" aria-live=\"polite\" data-customize-animation=\"false\"><h4 class=\"bu_collapsible\" aria-expanded=\"false\"tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\">Book Summary<\/h4><div class=\"bu_collapsible_section\" style=\"display: none;\"><\/p>\n<p><span>&#8220;India Steele is desperate. Her father is dead, her fianc\u00e9 took her inheritance, and no one will employ her, despite years working for her watchmaker father. Indeed, the other London watchmakers seem frightened of her. Alone, poor, and at the end of her tether, India takes employment with the only person who&#8217;ll accept her, an enigmatic and mysterious man from America. A man who possesses a strange watch that rejuvenates him when he&#8217;s ill. Matthew Glass must find a particular watchmaker, but he won&#8217;t tell India why any old one won&#8217;t do. Nor will he tell her what he does back home, and how he can afford to stay in a house in one of London&#8217;s best streets. So when she reads about an American outlaw known as the Dark Rider arriving in England, she suspects Mr. Glass is the fugitive. When danger comes to their door, she&#8217;s certain of it. But if she notifies the authorities, she&#8217;ll find herself unemployed and homeless again, and she will have betrayed the man who saved her life.&#8221;\u00a0 &#8211; New York Public Library website<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<hr \/>\n<h5><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/gms\/files\/2025\/10\/Cover-Well-Prescribe-You-a-Cat.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"172\" height=\"246\" class=\" wp-image-105852 alignleft\" \/>We&#8217;ll Prescribe You a Cat<\/strong><\/h5>\n<h5><strong>By: Syou Ishida; E. Madison Shimoda (translator)<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p><em>Categories: Magical realism; Cats; Contemporary; Japanese literature<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Awards: USA Today Bestseller<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"bu_collapsible_container \" aria-live=\"polite\" data-customize-animation=\"false\"><h4 class=\"bu_collapsible\" aria-expanded=\"false\"tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\">Book Summary<\/h4><div class=\"bu_collapsible_section\" style=\"display: none;\"><\/p>\n<p><span>&#8220;Tucked away in an old building at the end of a narrow alley in Kyoto, the Kokoro Clinic for the Soul can only be found by people who are struggling in their lives and genuinely need help. The mysterious clinic offers a unique treatment to those who find their way there: it prescribes cats as medication. Patients are often puzzled by this unconventional prescription, but when they \u201ctake\u201d their cat for the recommended duration, they witness profound transformations in their lives, guided by the playful, empathetic, occasionally challenging yet endearing cats. Throughout the pages, the power of the human-animal bond is revealed as a disheartened businessman finds unexpected joy in physical labor, a young girl navigates the complexities of elementary school cliques, a middle-aged man struggles to stay relevant at work and home, a hardened bag designer seeks emotional balance, and a geisha finds herself unable to move on from the memory of her lost cat. As the clinic\u2019s patients navigate their inner turmoil and seek resolution, their feline companions lead them toward healing, self-discovery, and newfound hope.&#8221;\u00a0 &#8211; Penguin Random House website<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>GMS Student Affairs and The Alumni Medical Library present the annual book list of Recommended Reads For Intersession and raffle. We hope you enjoy these titles picked by the staff members of both GMS and the Library! Enter the raffle to be 1 of 20 students to win a book from this list to enjoy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7161,1,7153],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105559"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105559"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105891,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105559\/revisions\/105891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}