With summer here (almost), we asked OLLI faculty to recommend books they've recently read and loved. Feel free to steal their page-turning picks as we dive into beach-reading season.
Harry Chotiner
Against Constitutional Originalism
by Jonathan Gienapp
"It's a devastating critique of the philosophy of the Supreme Court's right wing."
Linda Rugg
North Woods
by Daniel Mason
"North Woods is an historical novel that focuses on a place: an old apple orchard in northwestern Massachusetts from the colonial period to today and on into an imagined future. It combines realism with the supernatural, history with ecology, and has a great heart and imagination. I've listened to it and read it and will read it again!"
Small Things Like These and Foster
by Clare Keegan
"Really, anything she writes. An Irish writer who creates depth of feeling and thought in spare writing and small canvases. Both Small These Like These and Foster are short novels that deal with the complexities of love and estrangement in families."
Pete Elman
Heartbreaker
by Mike Campbell
"This book may be the best autobiography I've ever read by a bonafide rock star. Tom Petty's lead guitarist relates his journey from white trash Florida to the top of the rock n' roll world with humor, heart and humility."
Karen Davis
Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir
by Tessa Hulls
"I'm very selective about graphic novels but this one, written by a young woman raised in the Bay Area, leaped to my attention when it won the Pulitzer Prize last year. Only one other graphic novel has won a Pulitzer and that's Art Spiegelman's Maus, so this is quite an accomplishment for a young first-time author It's the story of the author's mother and grandmother's perilous flight from Shanghai to Hong Kong, eventually settling in the Bay Area. Quite a story; quite a read!"
Stephanie Wells
Summer Solstice
by Nina MacLaughlin
"This tiny glowing publication of a single long-form essay captures all the sensory and imaginative delights of the most primal ways summer touches us."
Richie Unterberger
A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever: The Official Story of Spinal Tap
by Rob Reiner with Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer
"After the tragic departure of Spinal Tap director Rob Reiner, this slim but entertaining volume makes a good tribute to the legacy of the best "mockumentary." Written by Reiner with the three main Spinal Tap guys, this has the inside story of the film's genesis and reception, which saw it grow from box office failure to one of the most popular cult movies of all time."
Hilary Roberts
On the Calculation of Volume
by Solvej Balle
"Imagine a 7-volume novel that is a wildly unique literary version of the film Groundhog Day. I'm halfway through the New Directions Press set of charming books and wildly enthused about the combination of speculative, philosophic, humane and physics-oriented writing translated from Danish."
Yoni Mayeri
Georgia O'Keeffe
by Roxanne Robinson
"Georgia is one of my favorite artists and has influenced my work as a photographer. Her extraordinary accomplishments, such as the often eroticized flowers, bones, stones, skulls, and pelvises that she painted with such command, are all the more remarkable when seen in the context of the struggle she waged between the rigorous demands of love and work."
Susan Kamei
They Called Us Enemy
by George Takei
"George Takei's graphic novel about his childhood experience incarcerated by the US government during World War II is the 2026 "One Book One Coast" selection."
Ben Simon
Indivisible by Four
by Arnold Steinhardt
"The inside scoop on one of our greatest classical string quartets, the Guarneri Quartet, written with panache and humor by their first violinist Arnoled Steinhardt."
Linda Carucci
Letters to a Young Chef
by Daniel Boulud
"From the cover blurb by Jacque Pépin: 'This is a priceless manual for anyone seriously interested in the restaurant world. Concise, pointed, informative, and candid, it explains simply to the neophyte chef the difficult but wonderful and rewarding world of the kitchen.' Yeah, what he said."
Amelia Barili
Joyspan: The Art and Science of Thriving in Life's Second Half Book
by Dr. Kerry Burnnight
"Joyspan reframes everything we think we know about growing older — with science, warmth, and a refreshing refusal to treat aging as a problem to be solved. So inspiring that I am already weaving it into my next OLLI class."
Bill Smoot
Are You Happy?
by Lori Ostlund
"San Francisco writer Lori Ostlund's short story collection is rich with funny and insightful looks at contemporary life."
Art Eckstein
Absalom, Absalom!
by William Faulkner
"This is the great American novel that explores the impact of slavery over generations. It’s written as a stream of consciousness so you have to go with that. As fresh now as it was when Faulkner wrote it."
Secret Lovers
by Charles McCarry
"An intricate plot with an explosive ending. Starts with a murder. Enough said."