Hala Aldosari
Independent Scholar (Saudi Arabia)
Biology and Medical Sciences

Hala, this year’s Robert G. James Scholar Fellow, is currently reading two books that investigate the roots of health: The Social Determinants of Health: Looking Upstream (Polity, 2017), by Kathryn Strother Ratcliff, and Gender and Health: The Effects of Constrained Choices and Social Policies (Cambridge University Press, 2008), by Chloe E. Bird and Patricia P. Rieker. Hala was also inspired to pick up Malcom Gladwell’s bestseller The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (Little, Brown, 2000) “because of my personal pursuit of meaningful change.”

Michael Bronstein
University of Lugano (Switzerland)/Tel Aviv University (Israel)
Computer Science

Michael recommends The Keepers of Light: A History and Working Guide to Early Photographic Processes (Morgan & Morgan, Inc., 1979), by William Crawford. Michael explains, "I am interested in old technology and photography in particular, and this book combines both a historic overview and practical recipes." Michael’s second recommendation is The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory (W. W. Norton, 2003), by the author-physicist Brian Greene ’84, who recently gave a Davis Lecture at the Radcliffe Institute.

Rana Dajani
Hashemite University (Jordan)
Biology and Medical Sciences

Rana, this year's Rita E. Hauser Fellow, suggests a quintet of books whose themes range from family ties and memory to the joy of reading and the central role ambiguity plays in our world: Teta, Mother, and Me: Three Generations of Arab Women (W. W. Norton, 2007), by Jean Said Makdisi; Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Continuum, 1970), by Paulo Freire; The Rights of the Reader (Candlewick, 2008), by Daniel Pennac and illustrated by Quentin Blake; Ishmael: A Novel (Turtleback Books, 1995), by Daniel Quinn; and Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing (Crown, 2015), by Jamie Holmes.

Robert Darnton
Harvard University
History

Robert, this year's Joy Foundation Fellow, recently finished Gabriel García Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera (Knopf, 1988) as part of his personal resolution to read his way through recent Latin American literature. Robert recommends the novel "as a way to get some sense of a fascinating and remote world — Colombia at the turn of the last century."

Erica Edwards
Rutgers University
Literature

Erica recommends Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less (Basic Books, 2016), by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang. Pang’s book reveals the startling benefits that prioritizing rest can yield for creativity and innovation. Erica reports, "As it turns out, long walks, vacations, hobbies, and naps give us what we need to perform at our best (whatever our fields of work may be). A beautifully stimulating (and soul-enriching) book."