New Library, New Year, New Section
Over the vacation we’ve been busy preparing a new collection of books, and we’re ready to introduce you to the New Library’s General Reading collection! These books cover a broad range of genres—poetry and prose, fiction and non-fiction, graphic novels and long reads—but all are for leisure reading outside your reading lists. Alongside the Welfare and Study Skills sections on the ground floor, the General Reading collection allows the library to support aspects of student life beyond the academic side. These items are borrowable at the self-service machines or at the front desk, requestable on iDiscover, and with the loan limit raised to 12 items there’s room to borrow these in addition to the books for your studies.
See below some of the books in the collection:
Many of the novels in the contemporary fiction subsection have been selected from shortlists for literary prizes, such as the Booker Prize. The Booker Prize is a highly anticipated annual literary award for the best novel written in English, and its shortlist features fantastic works from many countries and cultures. There are also many nominees from the Women’s Prize for Fiction, such as Yaa Gyasi’s Transcendent Kingdom.
The poetry subsection features an array of prolific contemporary writers. It contains famous collections from Benjamin Zephaniah, Rupi Kaur, and Margaret Atwood, and a few you may never have heard of!
There are Graphic Novels of diverse genres in the collection, from those in the classic comic-book style of DC—Watchmen and V for Vendetta—to those outside the expected superhero-esque domain. Killing and dying, for example, is described as:
“a stunning showcase of the possibilities of the graphic novel medium and a wry exploration of loss, creative ambition, identity, and family dynamics.”
For those who love long series set in different worlds, the General Reading collection has the fantasy trilogies Lord of the Rings and His Dark Materials, as well as Isaac Asimov’s seven-part sci-fi Foundation series.
It’s not all fiction. General Reading also brings you of variety of casual, informative reads.
Whether you’re already an avid reader looking for your next read, or maybe you’ve lost the reading habit lately and looking to start again, we hope this collection caters to the diversity of interests at the college and provides some much needed downtime after hard, academic work.