Graduation Gift Guide

It may seem early, but college graduations are coming up in just a couple weeks (not that I’m counting or freaking out AT ALL). After all the smarty-pants graduate from college, high schoolers are just around the corner! Since only one relative is allowed to buy ALL THE PLACES YOU’LL GO, I’ve put together a list of other books grads will love and appreciate.

For the high school senior…

Grace’s Guide: The Art of Pretending to Be a Grown Up

This book is the older sister I wish I had when I started college. Grace Helbig is hilarious and surprisingly helpful in this book. It’s so reassuring to know that everyone else is also just kind of flailing around and that you can be both wildly flailing and also wildly successful. This is one that could have gone on either list, but I think will be more useful to have from freshman year to a couple years after college.

The Great Gatsby

It’s so popular that it’s almost cliche – but that’s exactly what makes this book so great for grads. They’ve probably already read it in high but might not actually own it, and if they didn’t read it in high school it’s high time they do. Plus, displaying this in a dorm room means they automatically have something to talk about with the other 5,000 freshman who count this as their favorite book.

 

The Odyssey

Freshman year, this book was my first introduction into mythology and it blew my mind. The way that mythology is discussed made it sound so dense and difficult, I had no idea that it was this fun or exciting. It’s also a nice little metaphor for the life-upheaval craziness that is college.

 

Howl

Howl is so unlike any poetry we read in high school. Just that opening line packs such a punch. It’s a departure from high school reading material and just rebellious enough (having caused quite the scandal at the time) for any hipster eighteen year old who is on the cusp of their Beats phase.

 

For the college senior…

A classic in a beautiful edition

Few things say “I’m a classy adult” like beautiful editions of classics. Penguin does a great job of this, with its clothbound editions and drop cap editions. Barnes and Noble also does attractive hardbound copies of single books and also bind-ups like Jane Austen’s complete works.

Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office

This was recommended by the ladies at Call Your Girlfriend. As they said, this one is great but should be taken with a grain of salt. It talks about different ways women unconsciously put themselves at a professional disadvantage, including things like always taking notes in meetings, letting others take credit for your work, and over-apologizing. It does have some weak spots, the sections on appearance come rather forcefully to mind, but it definitely has some great tips to keep in mind as someone moves into the working world.

Quiet

This book is fantastic for helping introverts understand themselves but also to help extroverts understand introverts. It has so many implications for your professional life (there’s a whole section on what makes introverts great leaders) but also for your personal relationships. It’s so helpful for understanding yourself and others moving into the next phase of life.

What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

College doesn’t have to be the end of learning (though it can definitely be the end of exams, thank God). This book is one that you can either sit and read through or pick up and read a section here and there. The author takes insane questions people ask, like “What if we hooked gym machines up to turbines? How much power would we produce?” or “How dangerous is it actually to be in a pool during a thunderstorm?.” It’s funny and smart and a great way to keep stretching the brain muscles well after formalized schooling ends.

 

Quarterly Goal Check-In

I meant to do this several weeks ago, but better late than never! I wanted to check in on how I am progressing on my bookish goals for 2015 now that we are a quarter into the year. I talked about my goals for the year here.

Review | The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith

Even though I read every Harry Potter book ten times and loved The Casual Vacancy, I never got around to reading the “Robert Galbraith” mysteries, until now. I think I kind of eye-rolled at the need for secrecy, the use of a second male pen-name, and I just wasn’t interested. Recently, though, I’ve been tearing through mysteries and suspense (as I mentioned here) and decided it was finally time to give The Cuckoo’s Calling a go.

I really, really liked this book but I’m not actually sure why. Bear with me, y’all. For the first two-thirds, nothing actually happens. We are introduced to Cormoran Strike and Robin, we are introduced to the case and many of its players, and that’s kind of it. And yet, I was so incredibly engrossed in this book. I couldn’t put it down, and when I needed to, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It is a much more traditional crime novel, in that the detective spends his time going over the case, instead of having a bunch of action.

In many ways this book is a character study of Strike. He has a backstory that gets peeled back slowly throughout the book, including tumultuous childhood, connections to fame, the military, and disability. He’s also given more flaws than many characters I’ve seen in detective novels, but in a much more human way than someone like Sherlock Holmes. His temp turned assistant Robin is super smart, unraveling pieces of the case and being very sneaky to get him in meetings with witnesses while he just spends time eying her “figure” and worrying whether her fiancee would mind her working with him. He’s basically an archetype of the very nice man who is totally sexist and doesn’t realize it. He isn’t a boor walking around discounting women’s work, he just does it without even noticing or meaning to. I really hope that the relationship with him and Robin is explored more in the second book – she is so smart and I want him to train her to be a full-on badass detective and I want her to stand up and demand that he value her work.

This book is also interesting in the way that it employs an unreliable third person narrator. At first, I though the third-person narrator was more or less omniscient. The only characters whose heads we get into are Robin and Strike, but we DO get into their minds and see what they’re doing and thinking. However, it becomes abundantly clear at the end of the book that there are things that Strike thinks that the narrator does not divulge to the readers. It’s interesting but also gives the ending an air of deux-ex machina.

After being so obsessed with The Cuckoo’s Calling, I am really looking forward to reading The Silkworm and seeing how these characters progress.