By Lauren Hand, Magazine Editor
We are now entering our final week of classes, and with that, our last week of the Great Work from Home initiative. The past five weeks, we have asked you to share little aspects of your daily lives—what you’re listening to, what it looks like outside your back door—as wells as photos from life in Gettysburg, all with the goal of keeping us connected. Last week, we partnered up with the Library and we asked you to share what you’re reading during this time of separation, and you had plenty of recommendations to share! See the best submissions we received from our “Read a Book in a Week” challenge below.
For our final week, we have one last challenge for you. As exams and deadlines approach, we are sure you are taking to your trails and to your streets, and we’d love to see the many different views our individual walks have to offer. The name of the game is “Let’s Take a Walk,” and the rules are simple: take a walk, take a picture, and share that picture with us, as well as where it was taken. You can submit your photos to us here, and we’ll share them online and on social media next Sunday.
As always, we continue to accept your hometown spotlights, good times at Gettysburg photos, and original playlists. And if there anything you’d really like to see in this final week, and going forward, let us know via email: editors@gettysburgian.com.
We’ll continue to share our daily updates online and on social media as we all complete this final stretch. Until then, we hope you enjoy these book recommendations from, well, you!
Book: The Fire Never Goes Out: A Memoir in Pictures by Noelle Stevenson s
Submitted by: Maci Mark ’21
“I read this graphic memoir in a matter of hours. It follows Noelle Stevenson and her journey through college and continues into her career of illustrating books, writing comics, and eventually becoming a showrunner. Her memoir also talks about her finding and grappling with her identity and her mental health. I find it particularly fitting in these times since so many of us are in a transitional part of our lives and trying to figure out what our future holds. It is reassuring to see her be able to figure it out.”
Book: Ghost River: The Fall & Rise of the Conestoga
Submitted by: Janelle Wertzberger
“This is a graphic novel about the little-known Paxton massacres of 1763, in which white vigilantes killed Conestoga people near Lancaster, PA. It’s based on primary sources held at over a dozen archives, but it also intentionally centers the voices and experiences of Native peoples which archival records so often exclude or diminish. In addition to the graphic novel (which was authored, illustrated, and published by Native people), the volume includes short essays about indigenous representation in comics, colonial pamphlet wars, and the political motivations of the murderers, Ben Franklin, and the Philadelphia Quaker elite. It also lists and describes key primary sources (thousands of which are included on the companion website), reproduces some of the editorial conversation among collaborators, and includes a unit plan for grade 7-12 teachers. If you like history, digital history, public history, indigenous studies, or graphic novels, I recommend this breathtaking collaboration that is unlike any other book on my shelf. Holding a print copy is a privilege, but the digital edition is freely available to all at https://ghostriver.org.”
Book: The Girl from Kathmandu
Submitted by: Abby Hauer ’21
“Highly recommend as it brings to light the connection between US military contractors and Nepal, where I was just studying abroad.”
Book: The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America
Submitted by: Ben Pontz ’20
“This is something of a new genre on a familiar topic, and I have to say I like it. It is a series of short vignettes about various Americans’ experiences over the past few decades and intersperses headlines from the times. It is a new way of telling an old story; increasingly, where we once viewed the United States through the lens of “e pluribus unum,” we now are seeing increasing unwinding of the social fabric that — rightly or wrongly — made that possible. Packer shows some of the causes and consequences of that in this compelling format.”
Book: A Map of Days
Submitted by: Kenny Millson ’22
“This fourth book in the “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” series is a phenomenal continuation to a series I started reading in high school.”
Book: The Orphan’s Tale by Pam Jenoff
Submitted by: Katie Oglesby ’23
“The Orphan’s Tale is a sweet story about friendship and love set during the time of the Holocaust in Germany. It’s about a female aerialist in the circus who is Jewish and a young woman who comes to the circus after saving a Jewish baby. The two and the baby develop a close bond as they hide from the Nazis. It’s a very beautiful story that I would definitely recommend. I even cried at the end, which doesn’t happen too often!”
Book: The Song of Achilles
Submitted by: Associate Professor of Music Jocelyn Swigger
“[I would recommend], but I enjoyed Miller’s Circe even more.”
Book: The Pomodoro Technique
Submitted by: Peter Zhang
“Absolutely [would recommend]. I wanted to add structure into my daily life and having a guide to practice time management using a kitchen timer had helped me tremendously.”
