by The Cowl Editor on March 7, 2019
On-Campus
by Sara Conway ’21 A&E Co-Editor
Known for its vast resources for researching and its lack of space during finals, Phillips Memorial Library has added something new to its shelves. Providence College students can now borrow books for pleasure-reading from Phillips Memorial Library’s Bestsellers Collection.
The Bestsellers Collection includes award-winning and popular titles such as Becoming by Michelle Obama, The Outsider by the king of horror, Stephen King, and Fire & Blood: 300 Years Before A Game of Thrones, which details the history of the Targaryens of George R.R. Martin’s world of Westeros.
For those who want a lighter read, have no fear. The library owns books like Gmorning, Gnight!: Little Pep Talks for Me & You by Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of the musical phenomenon, Hamilton. Gmorning, Gnight! is based on Miranda’s morning and evening inspirational tweets, which often begin with “Gmorning” or “Gnight.” The list of 124 books extends to feature adult fiction, memoirs, self-help books, sports autobiographies, translated works, and more.
If the variety of the selection is not enough, many of the books in the collection are on bestsellers lists. Once The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn was published, the novel instantly hit the number one spot as a New York Times bestseller. Fellow bestselling author, King, called Finn’s debut work “unputdownable.”
Madeline Miller’s second novel, Circe, crafts a quiet narrative around the often-forgotten Titan and the daughter of Helios, god of the sun. A #1 New York Times bestseller and named one of the best books of the year by Time, the Washington Post, and Publishers Weekly, Circe makes a lasting impression on readers.
The wildly popular memoir, Educated by Tara Westover, makes known the particular strength of narrative accounts. Educated reached #1 on the bestseller lists of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Boston Globe. Westover also won the Audience Award for Autobiography/Memoir and was nominated for the Pen/Jean Stein Book Award for her powerful memoir on leaving her survivalist family and obtaining her PhD from Cambridge. Every kind of reader can find something that appeals to their personal tastes within the new collection.
So take a break from Development of Western Civilization reading or studying and pick up a book from the Bestsellers Collection to take a break from reality for a little while.