Enjoy this selection of reading material—fiction, nonfiction, and content for younger readers—written by Indiana University alumni, faculty, and staff, and chosen especially for IU alumni.
Spring 2026 Reading List
Summer Reading Challenge
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Fiction
Untethered
by Angela Jackson-Brown (Director of creative writing at IU Bloomington)
Harper Muse, 2024
In the small college town of Troy, Alabama, amidst the backdrop of 1967, Katia Daniels lives a life steeped in responsibility—for the young lives she nurtures at the Pike County Group Home for Negro Boys, and for her family, for whom she has now become a caretaker.
Amidst a power struggle at work, Katia finds solace in the pages of romance novels and the soothing melodies of Nina Simone. When a familiar face from her high school days reenters Katia’s life, Katia grapples with the idea of making difficult choices for herself.
Untethered is a poignant tale of a woman torn between the demands of her heart and the responsibilities she’s shouldered for so long. Set against the backdrop of a changing South, this novel delves into the complexities of love, family, and self-discovery amid transformation and upheaval.
Take Me Home
By Brian Leung, MFA’00
Harper Perennial, 2010
From Brian Leung, author of Lost Men and World Famous Love Acts (winner of both the Asian American Literary Award and the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction) comes a story of forbidden friendship in an Old West mining town.
Set amidst the racial tensions surrounding the Rock Springs massacre of Chinese miners in 1885, Take Me Home makes the desperate coal mine culture of Wyoming come alive. Leung captures the haunting landscape, harsh conditions, and abundant racism of late 19th century Wyoming, and, through the relationship of Addie Main and Wing Lee, he leaves the reader with the hope that more can be achieved through unity than by hatred.
Readers of Annie Dillard and Annie Proulx will enjoy the latest book by this exciting voice in American literature.
The Infidel and the Ghost of Moscow
By David Tanner, BA’70
Embram Galaxy Press, 2023
In 1938 Moscow, young diplomat Mark Russell struggles to survive the bitter winter at the U.S. Embassy as tensions rise leading up to a second world war. But when he meets a brilliant and mysterious woman, “Russ” finds himself drawn into a dangerous affair that could jeopardize his career.
As Russ’s infatuation with the married woman grows, his self-righteous boss punishes him with a poor review. Desperate to salvage his reputation, Russ tries to redeem himself during his next assignment in Kuwait, but his hopes are once again dashed. As Russ forges a path to his future, the stakes continue to rise, and the consequences of his actions become more dire.
Filled with passion, deceit, and danger, The Infidel and the Ghost of Moscow is a riveting tale that explores the complexities of love and loyalty during times of war.
Check out The Infidel and the Ghost of Moscow
Scone Cold Dead
by Maddie Day (aka Edith Maxwell, MA’80, PhD’82)
Kensington Publishing Corp., 2025
Robbie is just weeks away from giving birth. While her husband Abe scrambles to get the house ready for their baby’s arrival, Robbie makes last-minute arrangements to keep her shop and restaurant, Pans ’N Pancakes, up and running while she’s on maternity leave. And it seems Robbie and Abe aren’t the only ones grappling with anxiety—a stranger is causing a stir in town, and Robbie’s Aunt Adele appears unusually preoccupied at the baby shower.
But when someone finds a body in the ram field on Adele’s sheep farm, it’s Robbie’s turn to be worried. Especially after Chief Buck Bird uncovers a troubling link between Adele and the possible murder victim. Robbie has no choice but to knit the clues together and solve this mystery before anything else gets flocked up.
In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash
By Jean Shepherd, LHD’95
Doubleday/Broadway Books, 1966
Jean Shepherd was a master monologuist and writer who spun the materials of his all-American childhood into immensely resonant—and utterly hilarious—works of comic art. In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash represents one of the peaks of his achievement, a compound of irony, affection, and perfect detail that speaks across generations.
From pop art to the World’s Fair, Shepherd’s subjects speak with a universal irony and are deeply and unabashedly grounded in American Midwestern life, together rendering a wonderfully nostalgic impression of a more innocent era when life was good, fun was clean, and station wagons roamed the earth.
A comic genius who bridged the gap between James Thurber and David Sedaris, Shepherd may have accomplished for “Hohman, Indiana” (a stand-in for Shepherd’s hometown of Hammond, Indiana), what Mark Twain did for Hannibal, Missouri.
Nonfiction
London Sojourn: Rewriting Life After Retirement
by Rebecca Knuth, PhD’95
She Writes Press, 2026
At age 65, Rebecca Knuth walks away from the security and status of academia, determined to reimagine herself in London. Immersing herself in the city’s literary and cultural world, she enrolls in a master’s degree program, trains as a guide, joins the prestigious London Library, and reclaims her voice as a writer.
London becomes her muse, a place of transformation where shedding her old identity is inseparable from rebuilding a new one. But change is never simple. Her mother’s health declines. Rebecca lands in intensive care. Exhaustion takes hold. Doubt creeps in—about her ambition, her motivation, even her sense of belonging.
A memoir of reinvention, resilience, and self-discovery, London Sojourn speaks to retirees, creatives, and seekers longing to step beyond certainty into something new.
Check out London Sojourn: Rewriting Life After Retirement
Author in Chief: The Untold Story of Our Presidents and the Books They Wrote
By Craig Fehrman (Adjunct professor, Media School at IU Bloomington)
Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster, 2020
In Craig Fehrman’s “original, illuminating, and entertaining” work of history, the story of America’s presidents and their books opens a rich new window into presidential biography. From volumes lost to history to ones we know and love—like Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father—Fehrman unearths countless insights about the presidents through their literary works.
Presidential books have made an enormous impact on American history, catapulting their authors onto the national stage and even turning key elections. Beginning with Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia, the first presidential book to influence a campaign, through Donald Trump’s The Art of the Deal, alongside each of these authors, we also glimpse the everyday Americans who read them.
Check out Author in Chief: The Untold Story of Our Presidents and the Books They Wrote
Completely Mad: Tom McClean, John Fairfax, and the Epic Race to Row Solo Across the Atlantic
By James R. Hansen, BA’74
Pegasus Books, 2023
In this seafaring adventure tale, historian James R. Hansen tells the story of John Fairfax and Tom McClean, two British sailors who, in 1969, traversed the Atlantic Ocean in separate rowboats—and in opposite directions—alone.
Fairfax set off from the Canary Islands, off the coast of Africa, with his sights on Florida. McClean charted a course from Newfoundland to Ireland. The two men couldn’t have been more different. Fairfax was a golden-haired playboy, gambler, gun smuggler, and ex-pirate. McClean was an orphan with a tough, Dickensian childhood, who became a British paratrooper.
Filled with gale-force winds, menacing sharks, playful dolphins, failed equipment, hyperthermia, mental and physical fatigue, phantom illusions on the water, and glorious moments of bliss, Completely Mad stands alongside other classics of ocean adventure.
The Narrative Brain: The Stories Our Neurons Tell
By Fritz Alwin Breithaupt (Provost professor of Germanic studies, IU Bloomington)
Yale University Press, 2025
As humans, we think in stories—stories that allow us to feel and share emotions. In order for this phenomenon to work, our brains and the ways in which we tell stories must be attuned to each other. But how exactly does this happen?
This wide-ranging study includes analyses of political history, novels, fairy tales, and everyday office gossip; proposes a new theory of narrative that focuses on emotions and affects; and hypothesizes on the evolution of narratives among our hominid ancestors.
Redefining us as beings who anchor ourselves in the world through narratives, Breithaupt introduces a new kind of psychology that cuts to the core of how and why humans feel the need to tell stories.
For Young Hoosier Readers
Ellie Engle Saves Herself
By Leah Johnson, BAJ’16
Disney/Hyperion, 2023
Ellie Engle doesn’t stand out. Not at home, where she’s alone with her pet fish since her dad left and her mom has to work around the clock. Not at the bakery, where she helps out on the weekends. And definitely not at school. To someone else, a life in the shadows might seem boring or lonely. But not to Ellie. As long as she has her best friend, Abby, by her side and a comic book in her hand, she’s quite content.
But when a freak earthquake hits her small town, Ellie wakes up with fantastical powers that allow her to bring anything back to life with just her touch. Surviving middle school is hard enough. Surviving middle school when paparazzi are camped out on your front lawn and you might be in love with your best friend. Absolutely impossible.
Check out Ellie Engle Saves Herself
Crawdad Creek
By Scott Russell Sanders (Professor emeritus, Dept. of English, IUB)
Indiana University Press, 2018
There’s always something happening at Crawdad Creek.
That’s what Lizzie and Michael call the stream that runs behind their house. Come pan for gold, hunt for fossils, find an arrowhead in the mud or a crayfish under a stone. Watch whirligig beetles and water striders skate across the water, teasing the fish below, and count the turtles sunning themselves on moss-covered logs.
Or follow tracks along the bank, then sit in quiet amazement as deer, raccoons, and other animals visit the creek. There’s a wild and beautiful world here waiting to be discovered. Take the time to look!
Kareem Between
By Shifa Saltagi Safadi, BA’13
G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2024
As seventh grade begins, Kareem’s best friend has moved away, he’s messed up his tryout for the football team, and—to his embarrassment—he has to show a new kid around school.
Just when Kareem thinks his middle school life has imploded, he has the chance of another tryout for the squad. There’s a catch: to secure that chance, Kareem must do something he knows is wrong.
Then, Kareem’s mom has to return to Syria to help her family and can’t make it back home. Kareem is stuck between. Between countries. Between friends, between football, between parents—and between right and wrong. It’s up to him to step up, find his confidence, and navigate the beauty and hope found somewhere in the middle.
Postcards from Papa
By Christina McKee (IU Indianapolis Center for Young Children)
Christina’s Scribbles LLC, 2023
Different family dynamics shape children. Sometimes, a parent’s job away from home can be emotionally hard. As parents, we can help our children through transitions, changes, long waiting periods, and their emotions.
In this book, Hannah is a child with a father who works as a truck driver. Her parents’ love and support help her through sad times and celebrate the good times. Come along on this journey through a child’s eyes, having a parent who works far away from home for long periods of time.
Do Mommies Ever Sleep?
By Kim Howard, BS’09, PhD’18
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2024
Baby can’t help but wonder why Mommy never gets any sleep. Maybe Mommy doesn’t sleep because she lost her pacifier? Or she’s really hungry—or maybe she’s too gassy? Could the reason be not such a big mystery after all? But baby also has some wise and witty advice for all those mommies who never rest.
This funny tribute to the exhausting work of raising an infant, cleverly told from the baby’s point of view, provides plenty of much-needed laughs for all those sleepless nights (and days)!