Pacific Reads

Paul Susi’s Character Work is a story of acting, activism, ancestry, and identity that feels essential for our current moment.

Dava Sobel constructs this entertaining, beautifully written biography of Galileo from the letters of his daughter, Suor Maria Celeste. We get to know Suor Maria Celeste and her life in 17th century Florence as she worries about her dad’s health, makes treats and medicines from citrons that he grows, and supports her impoverished convent.

McWilliams tells a riveting story about money, which for millennia has enabled humans to cooperate by specializing in what they are good at. The gains from mutually beneficial trade have made our scrawny but innovative species fabulously wealthy. Reading Money can help us understand why.

The story we tell about who we are in relation to the rest of the universe is important -- it shapes how we feel and how we act in our day-to-day lives. But it can be challenging to connect specific individual experiences to a modern scientific description of the history and evolution of Earth's ecosystem and the larger universe. This is where Journey of the Universe shines.

From the first page, when we meet the central character, Jojo, we know Jesmyn Ward is taking us into a haunted landscape where love, suffering, loss, and joy will be wound together in an epic tale.