The fall semester is over and winter break is here. Whether you want to curl up with a good book or share a movie with friends and family, the University Libraries has you covered.
The Library’s OverDrive collection includes a wide range of ebooks and audiobooks that you can enjoy anywhere, using your own device. This winter, there are even curated recommendations for when you want to Snuggle Up With a Cozy Read.
The Media & Design Center offers streaming access to thousands of documentaries and feature films. From cult classics to the critically acclaimed, there’s sure to be something for everyone.
Feeling overwhelmed by all the options? We asked 15 of the Library’s subject experts for their top book, film or podcast recommendations. Here’s what they said:
The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics by Tim Harford
Recommended by Matt Jansen, Data Analysis Librarian
This book provides a very accessible introduction to the big challenges around using data to reason about the world, helping the reader become a better consumer of the data-based claims we encounter daily.
Hale County This Morning, This Evening, documentary film by RaMell Ross
Recommended by Winifred Metz, Media Librarian and Head of the Media & Design Center
I highly recommend this documentary, a visually lyrical, intimate observation of the rural southern community of Hale County, Alabama. Ross allows a lot of space for the everyday lives of several families to languidly unfold alongside beautiful shots of the local landscape in this poetic portrait.
Havana Blue (Mario Conde Investigates #1) by Leonardo Padura, translated by Peter Bush
Recommended by Teresa Chapa, Librarian for Latin America, Iberia, Latina/o Studies, American Indian and Indigenous Studies
If you are a fan of detective fiction and would like to experience a not-so-traditional whodunnit, Havana Blue, set in Havana, Cuba of the 1990s will keep you entertained and engaged. Leonardo Padura’s police detective Mario Conde solves crime in revolutionary Cuba while also giving the reader an insight into daily life on the island.
Magic Tree House: The Graphic Novel. Volume 1: Dinosaurs Before Dark adapted by Jenny Laird from author Mary Pope Osborne’s original chapter book and illustrated by Kelly and Nichole Matthews
Recommended by Rebecca B. Vargha, Head of the Information and Library Science Library
The first children’s book in the highly regarded and best-selling series, The Magic Tree House, is now a graphic novel. This adaptation includes full-color scenes showing the setting and story action which engages emergent readers. Fun fact: Author Mary Pope Osborne is an alum of UNC-Chapel Hill.
Planet Money podcast from NPR
Recommended by Nancy Lovas, Entrepreneurship & Business Librarian
I enjoy the creative, entertaining ways the podcast team finds to explain the big, complicated forces that move our economy. The “About” page for this podcast says, “Imagine you could call up a friend and say, ‘Meet me at the bar and tell me what’s going on with the economy.’ Now imagine that’s actually a fun evening. That’s what we’re going for at Planet Money.”
Re/Collecting Chapel Hill podcast from the Chapel Hill Public Library
Recommended by Nicholas Graham, University Archivist
This podcast is a terrific look at local Chapel Hill history, including the many ways that Chapel Hill and UNC history intertwine and overlap. The episode about the murder of James Cates is an important and moving look at one of the most tragic events in the history of our campus and community.
Refugee: A Memoir by Emmanuel Mbolela, translated by Charlotte Collins
Recommended by Joanneke Fleischauer, African Studies and West European Studies Librarian
The book’s publisher writes, “Persecuted for his political activism, Emmanuel Mbolela left the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2002. His search for a new home would take six years. Direct, uncompromising, and clear-eyed, in Refugee, Mbolela provides an overlooked perspective on a global crisis.”
Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic by David Quammen
Recommended by Hannah Burrows, Community Outreach and Global Health Librarian
This book chronicles the animal origins of various human diseases, from West Nile Virus to AIDS. Published in 2012, this book feels eerily prescient. It is essential reading for understanding how we found ourselves immersed in another pandemic, and how we need to be better prepared for the next inevitable spillover.
Stranger in the Shogun’s city: A Japanese Woman and Her World by Amy Stanley
Recommended by Megan McClory, graduate assistant for East Asian Resources
This book is engaging, accessible, and well-researched. It’s a great intro to the time period, too, and there aren’t many that cover Tokugawa Japan so accurately and interestingly.
The Twin-City Housewife edited by Whatsoever Circle King’s Daughters
Recommended by Alison Barnett, Business Services Coordinator in the North Carolina Collection
At first glance, this 1915 cookbook is not much to look at. Once opened, you immediately notice the food stains and splotches and the owner’s handwritten recipes and notes throughout the book. This cookbook was clearly well loved and used often. It also contains my favorite cookbook poem.
Well of Souls: Uncovering the Banjo’s Hidden History by Kristina R. Gaddy
Recommended by Steve Weiss, Curator of the Southern Folklife Collection and interim Music Librarian
A highly anticipated work that is a deep and rich dive into the banjo’s historical roots and its place in the spiritual life of the African diaspora.
What Patients Say, What Doctors Hear by Danielle Ofri, M.D.
Recommended by Terri Ottosen, Community Engagement and Health Literacy Librarian
The book, one of my favorites, explores doctor-patient communication, which is critical in order to give and get the best care possible.
When Ghosts Come Home by Wiley Cash
Recommended by Sarah Whitley Carrier, North Carolina Research and Instruction Librarian
All of Wiley Cash’s novels are set in North Carolina and this one is in Oak Island, a small coastal town near Wilmington. This book is a murder mystery that offers nuanced and appropriately complex insight into race relations in our state and our collective history.
Women without Men by Shahrnush Parsipur
Recommended by Rustin Zarkar, Middle East & Islamic Studies Librarian
This book, which was published in Persian in 1989-90 and later translated to English, tells the story of the interwoven lives of five women as they arrive by different paths to live together in a garden in Karaj, Iran. I recommend this book due to the current events happening in Iran as Iranian women lead a nation-wide struggle against the Islamic Republic under the slogan, “Women, Life, Freedom.”
Your Ad Could Go Here by Oksana Zabuzhko, edited by Nina Shevchuk-Murray
Recommended by Kirill Tolpygo, Slavic, Eurasian and East European Studies Librarian
This is a selection of short stories from one of Ukraine’s leading public intellectuals. Oksana Zabuzhko is a novelist, poet, and feminist scholar, and one of the major writers of independent Ukraine. The stories in this collection deal with relationships between women against the backdrop of the 2004 Orange Revolution, the 2014 Euromaidan Protests, and the Russo-Ukrainian war.
Recommendations gathered and edited by Michele Lynn
