For the third straight year, MIT News is featuring recent books published by MIT faculty and staff in its summer reading list. The following titles from this year’s list are available to borrow now from the MIT Libraries. We will add to this list as more titles become available.

 

Novels and poetry

“Pomegranate” (Atria Books, 2023)
By Helen Elaine Lee, professor, Comparative Media Studies/Writing
Ebook and Print

Science

“Responding to the Climate Threat: Essays on Humanity’s Greatest Challenge” (Springer Cham, 2023)
By Henry Jacoby, the William F. Pounds Professor Emeritus in management; Gary Yohe; Richard Richels; and Benjamin Santer
Ebook

“The Transcendent Brain: Spirituality in the Age of Science” (Pantheon, 2023)
By Alan Lightman, professor of the practice in humanities
Print

“Climate Future: Averting and Adapting to Climate Change” (Oxford University Press, 2022)
By Robert S. Pindyck, the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi Ltd Professor in Finance and Economics
Print and Ebook

Culture, humanities, and social sciences

“Spoken Word: A Cultural History” (Knopf, 2023)
By Joshua Bennett, visiting professor of literature
Print

“A Thousand Steps to Parliament: Constructing Electable Women in Mongolia” (University of Chicago, 2022)
By Manduhai Buyandelger, professor of anthropology
Print and Ebook

“Playing Oppression: The Legacy of Conquest and Empire in Colonialist Board Games” (MIT Press, 2023)
By Mikael Jakobsson, lecturer in comparative media studies, and Mary Flanagan
Ebook and Print

“A New Companion to Herman Melville” (Wiley, 2022)
Edited by Wyn Kelley, senior lecturer of literature, and Christopher Ohge
Print and ebook

“The Scarce State: Inequality and Political Power in the Hinterland” (Cambridge University Press, 2023)
By Noah L. Nathan, professor of political science
Print
Ebook

“Eating Beside Ourselves: Thresholds of Foods and Bodies” (Duke University Press, 2023)
Edited by Heather Paxson, the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Anthropology and head of MIT Anthropology
Print and Ebook

“Writing Egypt: Al-Maqrizi and his Historical Project” (Edinburgh University Press, November 2022)
By Nasser Rabbat, professor of architecture
Ebook
Print

“Life Is Hard” (Riverhead Books, 2022)
By Kieran Setiya, professor of philosophy
Print

“Grand Delusion: The Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle East” (Penguin Random House, 2023)
By Steven Simon, Robert E Wilhelm Fellow, MIT Center for International Studies
Print

“Ruderal City: Ecologies of Migration, Race, and Urban Nature in Berlin” (Duke University Press, 2022)
By Bettina Stoetzer, associate professor of anthropology
Print and Ebook

“Harvard Square: A Love Story” (Columbia University Press, 2023)
By Catherine J. Turco, associate professor of management
Print and Ebook

Technology and society

“Power and Progress: Our Thousand Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity” (PublicAffairs, 2023)
By Daron Acemoglu, Institute Professor, and Simon Johnson, the Ronald A. Kurtz (1954) Professor of Entrepreneurship
Print

“Handbook of Innovation and Appropriate Technologies for International Development” (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2022)
Edited by Daniel Frey, professor of mechanical engineering; Samuel Pierre; Philippe Régnier; Koshy Varghese; and Pascal Wild
Print

Work, finance, and industry

“Fiscal Policy under Low Interest Rates” (MIT Press, 2023)
By Olivier Blanchard, the Robert Solow Professor of Economics Emeritus
Print and Ebook

“Risky Business: Why Insurance Markets Fail and What to Do About It” (Yale University Press, 2022)
By Amy Finkelstein, professor of economics; Liran Einav; and Ray Fisman
Print and Ebook 

“Workforce Ecosystems: Reaching Strategic Goals with People, Partners, and Technologies” (MIT Press, 2023)
By David Kiron, editorial director of research at MIT Sloan Management Review; Elizabeth J. Altman; Jeff Schwartz; and Robin Jones
Print

“The Case for Good Jobs: How Great Companies Bring Dignity, Pay, and Meaning to Everyone’s Work” (Harvard Business Review Press, 2023)
By Zeynep Ton, professor of the practice, Operations Management
Ebook

“Future Ready: The Four Pathways to Capturing Digital Value” (Harvard Business Review Press, 2022)
By Stephanie L. Woerner, Center for Information Systems Research (CISR) director and principal research scientist; Peter Weill, CISR senior research scientist and chairman emeritus, and Ina M. Sebastian, CISR research scientist
Print and Ebook

Arts, architecture, planning, and design

“Equity, Evaluation, and International Cooperation: In Pursuit of Proximate Peers in an African City” (Oxford University Press, 2022)
By Gabriella Carolini, associate professor of urban studies and planning
Ebook

“Architecture Constructed: Notes on a Discipline” (Bloomsbury Press, April 2023)
By Mark Jarzombek, professor of architecture
Print

“Design and Solidarity: Conversations on Collective Futures” (Columbia University Press, February 2023)
By Rafi Segal, associate professor of architecture, and Marissa Morán Jahn SM ’07
Print and Ebook

“Dare to Know: Prints and Drawings in the Age of Enlightenment” (Yale University Press, October 2022)
Edited by Kristel Smentek, associate professor of architecture, Edouard Kopp, and Elizabeth M. Rudy
Print

“Shapes of Imagination: Calculating in Coleridge’s Magical Realm” (MIT Press, November 2022)
By George Stiny, professor of architecture
Print and Ebook

For young readers

“The Order of Things” (Nancy Paulsen Books, 2023)
By Kaija Langley, director of development at MIT Libraries
Print