Thematic Cluster Reading for the Humanities

Shakespeare Reimagined

Read:

• “Hamnet” by Maggie O’Farrell, a fictionalized account that reimagines the death of Shakespeare’s son, Hamnet.
• “By Any Other Name” by Jodi Picoult, which explores the theory that a woman may have authored some of Shakespeare’s works.

Visit the Globe Theatre in London or explore its history online. You can also watch videos from live performances on the Shakespeare’s Globe YouTube.

Watch “& Juliet,” a musical imagining Juliet’s fate had she lived, and listen to this podcast about the making of the musical.

• “D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths” by Ingri and Edgar Parin d’Aulaire.
• “Circe” by Madeline Miller, which focuses on the life of the Greek goddess.
• “The Song of Achilles” by Madeline Miller, a retelling of Homer’s “Iliad.”

See the musical “Hadestown.”

Mythology: Then and Now

Epic Journeys

• Read “The Odyssey” by Homer and “Gilgamesh” by Anonymous.

Modern odysseys:

• Read “Enrique’s Journey: The Story of a Boy’s Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother” by Sonia Nazario, “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy, and “This Tender Land” by William Kent Krueger.

Memoir/journey pairings:

• Read “The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey” by Ernesto Che Guevara, “A Walk Across America” by Peter Jenkins, and “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac.

Sci-fi/fantasy:

• Read “The Martian” by Andy Weir (pair with the movie “Interstellar”) and “The Hobbit” by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Tales of time travel:

• Read “Kindred” by Octavia E. Butler, “11/22/63” by Stephen King, and the short story “The Langoliers” also by Stephen King. Watch the Netflix series, “Dark.”

• “Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail” by Cheryl Strayed and watch the movie based on the book.
• “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer and watch the film based on the book.
• “The Unlikely Thru-Hiker: An Appalachian Trail Journey” by Derick Lugo.
• “Grandma Gatewood’s Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail” by Ben Montgomery and listen to the National Park After Dark podcast episode about Grandma Gatewood.
• “A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail” by Bill Bryson and watch the movie based on the book.
• “Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis. Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West” by Stephen E. Ambrose.

Exploring Nature

Magical Realism Across Time and Cultures

• “The House of the Spirits” by Isabel Allende.
• “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel García Márquez.
• “The Invisible Hour” by Alice Hoffman.
• “North Woods” by Daniel Mason.
• “The Berry Pickers” by Amanda Peters.
• “The Midnight Library” by Matt Haig.
• “Before the Coffee Gets Cold” by Toshikazu Kawaguchi.
• “The Night Circus” by Erin Morgenstern.
• “The House in the Cerulean Sea” by TJ Klune.
• “The Lost Apothecary” by Sarah Penner. Afterward, research Giulia Tofana — a woman responsible for poisoning hundreds of men in 17th century Italy.
• “We Used to Live Here” by Marcus Kliewer and “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” by Iain Reid.
• The poetry of Federico García Lorca.
• The short stories of Jorge Luis Borges.
• Novels by Italo Calvino.

• Emily Dickinson’s poetry.
• “These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson” by Martha Ackmann.
• “Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson’s Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson,” edited by Ellen Louise Hart and Martha Nell Smith.
• Essays in “The Marginalian” about her intimate relationship with Susan Huntington Dickinson.

Watch “Dickinson” on Apple TV, a fantastically creative mix of modern and traditional.

Explore the Dickinson Collection and Room at Harvard’s Houghton Library.

Check out the digital version of her Herbarium.

Visit her home in Amherst, MA.

The World of Emily Dickinson

Mysteries

• Agatha Christie’s classics.
• “The Thursday Murder Club” by Richard Osman.
• Louise Penny’s “Chief Inspector Armand Gamache” series  and watch “Three Pines,” the Amazon Prime series based on the books.
• Spanish author Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s historical thrillers and mysteries.

Watch:

• The 80s movie “Clue” or see the current “Clue” musical. Compare with Christie’s book “And Then There Were None.”
• “Only Murders in the Building” on Hulu, a TV series written by Steve Martin and others.

• “The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession” by Michael Finkel.
• “The Lioness of Boston” by Emily Franklin and explore the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the unresolved heist that happened there.
• “The Stolen Queen” by Fiona Buckley.

Art Heists and History

The Gilded Age: Power, Wealth, and Women

• “Carnegie’s Maid” by Marie Benedict.
• “The Personal Librarian” by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray, which focuses on J.P. Morgan’s personal librarian, Belle da Costa Greene. Then visit the Morgan Library & Museum in NYC.
• “Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty” and “Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune” by Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe.
• “The Age of Innocence” by Edith Wharton and visit The Mount, her home in Lenox, MA.
• “The Lost Summers of Newport” by Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, and Karen White.

Tour The Breakers or other mansions in Newport, RI

• “Seabiscuit: An American Legend” and “Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption,” both by Laura Hillenbrand. Watch the movies based on these books.
• “The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America” by Erik Larson.
• “Tunnel 29: The True Story of an Extraordinary Escape Beneath the Berlin Wall” by Helena Merriman.
• “Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War” by Nathaniel Philbrick.

History that Reads Like Fiction

Historical Fiction

• “The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post” by Allison Pataki and “The Lioness of Boston” (mentioned above).
• “Finding Dorothy” by Elizabeth Letts along with the “Wicked” book series by Gregory Maguire and the movie or the Broadway show, “Wicked.”
• “All the Light We Cannot See” by Anthony Doerr along with “The Book of Lost Names” by Kristin Harmel, “The Nightingale” by Kristin Hannah, and the graphic novel “Maus” by Art Spiegelman.
• “The Invention of Wings” by Sue Monk Kidd along with the feminist works mentioned below.
• “The Women” by Kristin Hannah along with “Unbroken” (mentioned above).
• “Horse” by Geraldine Brooks along with “Seabiscuit” (mentioned above).
• “The Book of Longings” by Sue Monk Kidd along with “The Gnostic Gospels” by Elaine Pagels.
• “James” by Percival Everett along with “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain.
• “My Dear Hamilton: A Novel of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton” by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie. Also watch “Hamilton” the musical and read Ron Chernow’s biography of Hamilton, which inspired the musical. Expand this theme by learning more about Lin Manuel Miranda, the writer of the musical.
• “The Bohemians” by Jasmin Darznik, and check out Dorothea Lange’s work.

Read:

• “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley.
• “Animal Farm” and “1984” by George Orwell.

Modern takes:

Read:

• “The Power” by Naomi Alderman.
• “Bewilderment” by Richard Powers.
• “The Last Cuentista” by Donna Barba Higuera.
• “Migrations” by Charlotte McConaghy.
• “A Clockwork Orange” by Anthony Burgess, which notable for its invented language.
• “Our Missing Hearts” by Celeste Ng.

Dystopian Worlds

Adversity

• “Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood” by Trevor Noah.
• “Running with Scissors” by Augusten Burroughs.
• “Educated” by Tara Westover.
• “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls.
• “The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing” by Lara Love Hardin.

• “When Breath Becomes Air” by Paul Kalanithi.
• “In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss” by Amy Bloom along with “The Problem of Alzheimer’s: How Science, Culture, and Politics Turned a Rare Disease into a Crisis and What We Can Do About It” by Jason Karlawish.
• “Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist” by Judith Heumann.

Medical/Disability Advocacy

Sports

• “Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike” by Phil Knight.
• “Running with Sherman: The Donkey with the Heart of a Hero” by Christopher McDougall.
• “Good for a Girl: A Women Running in a Man’s World” by Lauren Fleshman.

• “My Life in France” by Julia Child and Alex Prud’Homme, “Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously” by Julie Powell (and watch the movie based on the book), and “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck.
• “Be Ready When the Luck Happens” by Ina Garten.

Watch Anthony Bourdain’s “Parts Unknown” series.

Listen to the podcast “The Splendid Table.”

Food

Leadership, Habits, and Self-Discovery

• “I’m No Hero: A POW Story as Told to Glen DeWerff” by Charlie Plumb.
• “Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.” and “Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience” by Brené Brown.
• “Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones” by James Clear.
• “The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun” by Gretchen Rubin.
• “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking” by Susan Cain.
• “Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success” by Adam Grant.

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Watch Frances Frei’s TED Talk: How to build (and rebuild) trust and listen to her podcast “Fixable”

• “Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption” by Bryan Stevenson and watch the film.
• “Cuz: The Life and Times of Michael A.” by Danielle Allen.
• “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” by Michelle Alexander.
• “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson.
• “The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together” by Heather McGhee.
• “Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America” by Ibram X. Kendi.
• “The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America” by Richard Rothstein.
• “Solito” by Javier Zamora.
• “American Dirt” by Jeanine Cummins.
• “The Wind Knows My Name” by Isabel Allende.
• “The Night Watchman” by Louise Erdrich, watch the New York Times video: “A Conversation with Native Americans on Race”, and read “The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History” by Ned Blackhawk.
• “In a Different Key: The Story of Autism” by John Donvan and Caren Zucker, watch the documentary by the same name about autism as well as the Netflix documentary, “Crip Camp“.

Social Justice and Systems of Power

Feminist Voices and Perspectives

• “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison.
• “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
• “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin.
• “The Feminine Mystique” by Betty Friedan.
• “Men Explain Things to Me” by Rebecca Solnit.
• The writings of bell hooks and Audre Lorde.

Listen to Julia Louis Dreyfus’ podcast “Wiser Than Me.”

• “Half of a Yellow Sun” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
• “Cutting for Stone” by Abraham Verghese.
• “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini and watch the film based on the book.
• “Brick Lane” by Monica Ali.
• “Memoirs of a Geisha” by Arthur Golden and watch the film based on the book.
• “Small Things Like These” by Claire Keegan.
• The “Beartown” series by Fredrik Backman.

Around the World Through Literature

Octopuses (Because Why Not?)

• “The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness” by Sy Montgomery.
• “Remarkably Bright Creatures” by Shelby Van Pelt

Watch the Netflix documentary, “My Octopus Teacher.”

Expand on this topic by reading books on ecology, such as Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” or other works by author Sy Montgomery.