News & Blog

If you’re having trouble finding your next read, don’t worry, we have lots of reading suggestions from our staff! All the books listed are available in your library for check out.

The Last World by Christoph Ransmayr

This Austrian author is fond of stories within stories within stories, time-bending, and genre-blurring (also check out his multilayered Terrors of Ice and Darkness). This retelling of Greek and Roman mythology is also a mystery, a fantasy, and historical fiction. The main character, Cotta, sets out from worldly and wondrous Rome in search of his friend, the poet Ovid, who had been exiled to a decaying town on the Black Sea as a result of insulting, through his poetry, the Emperor Augustus. Cotta encounters people who knew Ovid, and they tell his fantastical stories of transformation. But these individuals themselves also become the characters of myth, with their existence woven into the ancient mythological tales. The obsession of the poet drives the obsession of Cotta to learn more. The book, like a metamorphosis, is as unsettling as it is beautiful.

Beau Case, Dean of Libraries

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

The Sympathizer is the story of this captain: a man brought up by an absent French father and a poor Vietnamese mother, a man who went to university in America, but returned to Vietnam to fight for the Communist cause. Viet Thanh Nguyen’s astonishing novel takes us inside the mind of this double agent, a man whose lofty ideals necessitate his betrayal of the people closest to him. A gripping spy novel, an astute exploration of extreme politics, and a moving love story, The Sympathizer explores a life between two worlds and examines the legacy of the Vietnam War in literature, film, and the wars we fight today”–Publisher’s website.

Also, HBO has ordered the A24 drama series adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel with Downey attached to co-star. Downey will play multiple characters in the series, including a California congressman, a CIA agent, a Hollywood movie director, and more, with the plot following a half-French, half-Vietnamese Communist spy during the war and his exile to the United States, in what’s designed as a cross between a cultural satire and a political thriller. https://wegotthiscovered.com/movies/robert-downey-jr-s-hbo-series-the-sympathizer-shoots-this-summer/

Ven Basco, University Librarian

Packing for Mars : the curious science of life in the void by Mary Roach

The author of Stiff and Bonk explores the irresistibly strange universe of space travel and life without gravity. Space is a world devoid of the things we need to live and thrive: air, gravity, hot showers, fresh produce, privacy, beer. Space exploration is in some ways an exploration of what it means to be human. How much can a person give up? How much weirdness can they take? What happens to you when you can’t walk for a year? have sex? smell flowers? What happens if you vomit in your helmet during a space walk? Is it possible for the human body to survive a bailout at 17,000 miles per hour? To answer these questions, space agencies set up all manner of quizzical and startlingly bizarre space simulations. As the author discovers, it’s possible to preview space without ever leaving Earth. From the space shuttle training toilet to a crash test of NASA’s new space capsule (cadaver filling in for astronaut), she takes us on a surreally entertaining trip into the science of life in space and space on Earth.

Megan Haught, Administrative Assistant

The Library Book by Susan Orlean

A gripping tale that reads as if it were a whodunit. It recounts the vast fire in 1986 that destroyed many valuable materials at the main location of the Los Angeles Public Library. It delves into fire and arson science, but also reveals the major workings of a research library. And who really started the fire?

Richard Harrison, Associate Librarian

Saint Maybe by Anne Tyler

I love many of Anne Tyler’s novels due to her fully developed characters, but this one is my favorite.  It is a touching story of 17-year-old Ian Bledsoe in 1965 whose careless comment leads to tragedy that changes him and his family forever.  The novel follows him and his family over 20 years as he tries to atone for what he has done. 

Dawn Tripp, Library Technical Assistant

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris

The first in a trilogy of books about the life of Theodore Roosevelt won both the Pulitzer and National Book Award for Biography.  This is a well-researched and wonderfully approachable book about the life of Roosevelt prior to become president.  The reader has an intimate look into the events that shaped and molded Roosevelt from a sickly, privileged child of New York into the Rough Rider, Progressive reformer, and future president.  This is a book that I revisit and one I recommend to readers of history or biographies. 

Jason Phillips, Associate Librarian

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

Surprisingly funny story of how the author’s existence was a crime; being born to a white Swiss father and Xhosa mother at a time when such a birth was punishable by five years in prison.  Trevor shares his unusual upbringing of being hidden by his mother until the end of apartheid. I enjoyed the author’s humorous stories but also the opportunity to learn about this period in South African history from a personal perspective and how it affected those forced to live under it.  

Cindy Dancel, Graphics Specialist

“A Splash from the Past: Homecoming’s History at UCF” exhibit is officially open! Dive into UCF’s rich history of Homecoming. From sports, to performances, and the ever-elusive Spirit Splash ducks origin story, the exhibit features memorabilia from UCF Libraries Special Collections & University Archives. Be sure to check it out at the John C. Hitt Library Gallery on the 4th Floor.

The exhibit will run from August until November 2022.

The exhibit was curated by Trinity Cruz and Elisabeth Jimenez, Special Collections & University Archives staff, with the digital designs created by Jawn Roppoccio.

UCF Libraries’ Special Collections & University Archives is pleased to announce the 16^th Annual Student Book Arts Competition Exhibit. The competition invited UCF and Rollins College students to submit one-of-a-kind artist books. Unlike traditional books, artist books are handmade to reflect personal artistic visions of their creators ranging from narrative storytelling through but not limited to drawing, painting, printmaking, photography, and/or text. The 16^th Annual Student Book Arts Competition Exhibit showcases of all entries created during the 2021-2022 academic calendar year.

Our guest judge for the competition was Nikki Fragala Barnes. Nikki an editor, curator, experimental poet and participatory installation artist, whose practice is collaborative, participatory, and place-based. She is currently the co-leader of the Book Arts Guild of Central Florida.

The UCF campus has seen tremendous growth in recent years which means longer walks to and from classes often carrying very heavy loads of books and supplies. The library has spent time looking at this problem and has come away with the only reasonable solution. Llamas. They’re cute, furry, and only spit on you 5% of the time all the time. Awesome little buggers really. Now they are not equipped to carry our students but they will gladly shoulder the burden of your books as you lead them to your class. And unlike bikes or scooters, they know the way back to the library. So once you are finished with your cuddly walking backpack, you can send them on their way, relaxed in the knowledge that they will check themselves back in to the library saving you a sizeable llama theft charge.

So stop by the library and check one out today!

Please note no llamas were harmed in the creation of this light hearted April Fool’s blog post.

Joy Postle was a prolific artist whose career spanned more than seventy years. Her artistic output was varied and extensive. She painted wildlife in their environment, created murals that covered entire walls and rooms, and during the Great Depression, worked for the Florida Art Project of the WPA. Besides being an accomplished painter, Postle also made block prints and hand-colored hundreds of offset prints. She worked in oils, acrylics, watercolor, pen-and-ink, and pencil. She painted landscapes and murals, made sketches of people and places, and created her own pen-and-ink cartoons. Additionally, Postle wrote poetry and then illustrated her poems with drawings, authored books on drawing, and illustrated books for other authors.

After graduating from the Art Institute of Chicago, Postle moved out west to Boise, Idaho, where she bought a ranch with her brother in the early 1920s. Postle began painting and sketching the wildlife around her in Idaho. She gained a reputation for her artwork, opening an art studio and working as an interior decorator. After marrying Robert Blackstone, a journalist who would become her publicist and manager, Postle and Blackstone lived and traveled in a modified Model-T Ford truck through the West, Southwest, and South. Postle was the primary breadwinner, selling her paintings and painting murals as they traveled. They lived the “van life” long before this nomadic lifestyle was popularized by influencers and Instagram.

The couple eventually arrived in Florida in 1934. They continued living their nomadic lifestyle, camping, hiking, and bird watching; these explorations allowed Postle to study nature closely and refine her craft. She created murals featuring birds and wildlife for many commercial sites, including Disney. In addition to painting and writing, Postle created and performed “Glamour Birds,” which featured her painting birds while accompanied by bird songs and music. Postle and Blackstone toured Florida with this one-woman show, a cross between educational talk and performance art.

After years of nomadic living, the couple eventually settled in a modest home and studio on Lake Rose at Orla Vista, near Gotha, Florida, in 1942. Postle continued as the family breadwinner, using Florida’s environment as the chief subject for art. She waded through swamps, climbed trees, endured bugs, and “stayed up all night” to observe her beloved birds and other wildlife. Postle witnessed the destruction of the Florida landscape and fought to save the environment she loved so much. Not one to sit idly by, Postle wrote letters to the local newspaper and used her art to voice her concerns about man’s impact on nature.

A fire at their home in 1968 killed Blackstone and badly injured Postle. She persevered despite severe burns and resumed her performances and exhibitions. She took commissions, exhibited her work, and sold paintings well into old age. Postle died on June 1, 1989, and her ashes were spread at her home at Lake Rose in Florida.

Joy Postle is one of the artists featured in the UCF Libraries Special Collections & University Archives’ current exhibit, “Wild at Heart: Conserving Nature Through Art & Archives.” This exhibition explores the art, artists, and activists that challenge us to think deeply about the impacts of urbanization and climate change on the world around us. The exhibit runs through May 1, 2022, in the 4th-floor gallery of the John C. Hitt Library.

Illustration caption information:

Left to right: [Industrial scene] block print, undated; Joy Postle painting by the ocean, copy photograph; “Narrow sound on bay, on road to Gule Beach, Grand Lagoon, Pensacola, Florida,” watercolor, 1931