By Dakota Galvin and Georgia Jackson, College of Arts and Sciences
Summer is the perfect season to slow down, recharge and dive into a good book. And what better place to start than close to home? The USF College of Arts and Sciences is a vibrant community of thinkers, storytellers and researchers whose work spans genres, disciplines and perspectives. From reverent poetry and epic novels to thought-provoking nonfiction, faculty and alumni alike have contributed compelling titles that deserve a spot on your summer reading list. Whether you’re lounging by the pool, traveling or simply enjoying a quiet afternoon, these books offer a chance to explore new ideas while celebrating the creative and scholarly impact of the USF community.
POETRY
"Reliquaries" by Liz Kicak
"Reliquaries" is a collection of poems both reverent and skeptical of the complex divinity of the natural world, the family and the self. Each poem — itself a container meant to house a precious relic — delights in the mangrove, the spoonbill, the venom and the flood. They celebrate the living and the dead, the mundane and the fantastic. They are lyric offerings rooted in the wonder and joy of language.
"My Perfect Cognate" by Natalie Scenters-Zapico
Written from the depths of post-partum depression, Natalie Scenters-Zapico searches for a language that can hold both personal and communal pain. When Spanish and English seem insufficient, she leans on the connection between the two languages: the cognate. Originally a way to document lineage through the mother, the cognate provides a possible bridge of understanding. Natalie Scenters-Zapico mines the depths of linguistic cognate theory to write poems that go beyond translation and mistranslation.
"Women in Tampa Talking About Alligators" by Heather Sellers
In "Women in Tampa Talking About Alligators," Heather Sellers takes great delight in documenting life in her wonderfully weird native Florida.
FICTION
"THIS IS THE ONLY KINGDOM" by Jaquira Díaz
From the Whiting Award-winning author and USF alumna Jaquira Díaz, an epic novel of a mother and daughter wrestling with the aftermath of a murder, set against the backdrop of a tightknit, working-class barrio in Puerto Rico.
"Wonders of Shadow Key" by John Fleming
In a near-future world where hurricanes are weekly events, Eleanor escapes with her family to an abandoned beach town on Shadow Key after a storm destroys her school. There, she stumbles upon a strange and eerie discovery—a small colony of ghosts, each with their own peculiar story. But the ghosts are in danger. Tentacled sea monsters called Oldies are stalking their souls, and with rising sea levels and more storms on the way, the ghosts’ time is running out. "Wonders of Shadow Key" is a quirky, suspenseful tale of one girl’s fight to use her voice for good.
"Vulture Gold" by Micah Dean Hicks
These growling, prickly-feathered stories blur the lines between human and animal, living and dead. Teenage spirits are condemned to drive around their hometown forever. Five brothers learn that they were once crows. The bank hires a man to go into foreclosed houses and kill their monsters. Two sisters find an oven that can resurrect the dead. Plumbers kidnap mermaids trapped in a city sewer system. A mockingbird sings a woman’s sins. A boy with a single swan’s wing yearns to fly. And watching over all of them is the queen of the dead, who sends her vulture men to scavenge the bones. The characters in these modern fairy tales challenge expectations and norms in a dark and magical shared world.
"Mannequins from Outerspace" by Kimberly Karalius
"Mannequins from Outer Space" contains interconnected flash fiction pieces set in a small town secretly inhabited by sentient mannequins. The chapbook follows Maëlys, a misfit mannequin yearning for a purpose beyond modeling for humans. Falling for the charming salon mannequin next door seems like the answer at first, but when heartbreak follows, she learns that a better life may be waiting for her beyond the stars.
"They Called Us Wicked" by Gloria Muñoz
Four budding bruja BFFs face off against an anti-magic regime in this witchy, weird-girl YA dystopia. Equal parts coming-of-age friendship story and supernatural dystopia, this dazzling novel finds resistance to oppression in the extraordinary and the ordinary, from magic and spellcraft to friendship, heritage and love.
"In Every Possible Way" by Alicia Thompson
One woman’s luck changes in an instant when she hits her head and wakes up in Ireland, in this whimsical, whirlwind romance from USA Today bestselling author and USF alumna Alicia Thompson.
NON-FICTION
"Bohemians on the Breadline" by Lauren Arrington
In vivid, eloquent prose backed up by archival research, Lauren Arrington brings to life the extraordinary and unexamined history of a radical group of women artists funded by Roosevelt’s New Deal, who challenged racism and inequality and created enduring works of public art.
"Catching Sight" by Deni Elliott
When ethics scholar Deni Elliott, born with limited vision, realized she could no longer navigate the world safely alone, she turned to a guide dog—a decision that reshaped her understanding of disability and independence. Co-authored with master trainer Graham Buck, "Catching Sight" offers a behind-the-scenes look at the world of guide dog breeding and training, revealing the intelligence and decision-making skills these dogs develop from birth.
"The Kite and the Snail" by Hilary Flower
A rare success story in an age of increasing threats of extinction, this book traces the evolutionary and ecological factors that have allowed the kite to thrive against the odds. "The Kite and the Snail" asks how endangered species can be saved when the world around them keeps shifting. Part natural history, part investigative journey and part personal meditation, this story shows that flexibility, surprise and human-altered habitats may play unexpected roles in saving species at risk, pointing to new approaches to conservation.
"Thicker Than Water" by Elizabeth Miller
"Thicker Than Water" explores the causes and consequences of iron deficiency in women. Exploring how race, poverty and gender are entangled with women's evolved bodies, Elizabeth Miller brings a new anthropological lens to this issue that deeply affects women's lives.
"The Anxious State: Stress, Polarization and Elections in America" by Stephen Neely
"The Anxious State" examines the physiological toll of exposure to political conflict, the role of media and social media in heightening anxiety and the strain on personal relationships caused by polarization. The authors argue that politics has moved from the periphery of American life into its most intimate spaces, creating a state of heightened vigilance and emotional exhaustion.
MEMOIR
"ANYWHERE ELSE" by Rachel Knox
From true crimes on social media to spring break movies to Miami Vice, Florida has been served up for the rest of the world as a place of swamp things, serial killers, beach bums, teen girls, and dead poets. In "Anywhere Else," Rachel Knox weaves her own story around the media caricatures, digging deeper into what it’s like to be from a “wild” place — and who gets to decide what that means.
"I HAVE THIS THING FOR FLOWERS" by Alysia Li Ying Sawchyn
Six months before her wedding, Alysia Li Ying Sawchyn’s fiancé broke off their engagement. Stunned, reeling and newly uninsured, Sawchyn married her friend in an arrangement that secured them both free health insurance. They moved in together in the midst of the pandemic, and with time and while tending a garden, their marriage of convenience grew into a marriage of love. Cataloguing many of the great romances and loves of her life like an herbarium of flowers preserved from the garden, Sawchyn examines the kinds of love that can't be explained.
