This series of posts was prompted by a recent statistical report of library circulation. In part I, we explored Mechanics’ Institute members’ favorite fiction and film. In part II, we looked at the non-traditional formats you’re enjoying – from music and magazines to audio- and ebooks. Part III covered some of your non-fiction interests in history, politics, art, and social justice. In this final installment, I’ll list some of your favorite books in a few popular areas of our non-fiction collection: memoir, science, and cookbooks!
Members checked out memoirs and biographies over 400 times this year.
Fusing your interest in art (mentioned in part III) with another popular subject area, you clamored to read Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs by Sally Mann, who is best known for her large-scale black and white photographs of her family, as well as epic landscapes.
H is For Hawk incorporates Helen MacDonald’s professional work – she is a research scholar at Cambridge’s Department of History and Philosophy of Science – and her personal life, in a gripping memoir of the year after her father’s death, which she spent training a goshawk, deftly interwoven with biographical material about the naturalist T.H. White.
You also enjoyed Vivian Gornick’s narrative collage, The Odd Woman and the City, which is framed within an exchange between Gornick and her friend Leonard; this memoir includes meditative pieces on the making of a modern feminist, the role of the flâneur in urban literature, and the evolution of friendship over the past two centuries.
Members selected books on science and medicine over 500 times this year.
When Breath Becomes Air is the powerful work of the late Paul Kalanithi, who at age 36, was a husband, a new father, a neurosurgeon, and a cancer patient. What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with, in this memoir confronting the challenge of facing death, and exploring the relationship between doctor and patient, from a writer who found himself in both roles.
Another bestselling book on medicine and mortality was Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End. The author addresses his profession’s ultimate limitation, arguing that quality of life matters just as much as quantity, outlining how the goals of medicine can run counter to the interest of the human spirit – that doctors are often focused on extending life, but accomplish this via procedures that ultimately extend suffering. Gawande explores the question of how medicine can improve life, and also how it can improve the process of its ending, offering models of socially fulfilling endings.
Seven Brief Lessons on Physics is a playful, entertaining, and mind-bending introduction to modern physics, explaining Einstein's general relativity, quantum mechanics, elementary particles, gravity, black holes, the complex architecture of the universe, and the role humans play in this weird and wonderful world. Author Carlo Rovelli is a renowned theoretical physicist, who in this work celebrates the joy of discovery.
Members borrowed books on food and cooking over 400 times this year.
Verdure: vegetable recipes from the American Academy in Rome is a collaboration among the kitchen and the American Academy in Rome’s garden, the artisan producers, and the organic farmers who provide the raw ingredients used in each dish. Its 92 recipes are arranged seasonally. Week by week, it can be used to navigate the harvest of the farmer’s market. Frugality is a consideration; maximizing flavor is paramount. The recipes are simple, but rise above the fundamental.
You’ve also been keen on cookbooks from the Food52 website. With her wildly popular New Veganism column on the site, Gena Hamshaw has inspired home cooks to incorporate plant-based recipes into their everyday routine. Food 52 vegan: 60 vegetable-driven recipes for any kitchen is her collection of all-new recipes plus beloved favorites from the column, illustrating innovative ways to cook with fresh produce and whole foods. Food52 Executive Editor Kristen Miglore says that “genius recipes” are those that surprise us and make us rethink the way we cook. They might involve an unexpectedly simple technique, debunk a kitchen myth, or apply a familiar ingredient in a new way. Food52 genius recipes: 100 recipes that will change the way you cook includes recipes from many sources which do just that.
We librarians are always interested to see which of the books we selected are most popular with members. You checked out about 13% of the 130,000+ materials on our shelves this year, which is a ratio that compares favorably with libraries of our size and service community.
The Library focuses on providing a patron-driven collection: we’re trying to build a collection that gives you what you want to read, and builds on your interests to expose you to materials that you didn’t even know you wanted to read! Don’t forget to take advantage of our Purchase Suggestion function when you hear about something you’d like us to add to the collection. On behalf of Mechanics’ Institute library staff, thanks for engaging deeply with our collection. Here’s to another year of story, information, and reading!
