Mercer Times

Six Princeton professors have shared their summer reading lists, offering a diverse array of books spanning scholarly nonfiction to crime fiction. Their selections reflect both professional interests and personal passions.

Tina Campt, the Roger S. Berlind '52 Professor in the Humanities, highlights "The Sweet Flypaper of Life" by Roy DeCarava and Langston Hughes as a source of inspiration. Her summer reading includes poetry collections "To the Realization of Perfect Helplessness" by Robin Coste Lewis and "Bluest Nude" by Ama Codjoe, along with "Devotion," a collection on filmmaker Garrett Bradley.

Tom Griffiths, Henry R. Luce Professor of Information Technology, Consciousness, and Culture, recommends "The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values" by Brian Christian and Fei-Fei Li's "The Worlds I See." His summer list features "Games: Agency as Art" by C. Thi Nguyen and Anthony Grafton's "Magus: The Art of Magic from Faustus to Agrippa," plus novels like Leigh Bardugo's "The Familiar."

Jacob Nebel, professor of philosophy, favors Derek Parfit's "Reasons and Persons." His reading list includes philosophical works such as “The Bounds of Possibility” by Cian Dorr et al., Thomas Kelly’s “Bias: A Philosophical Study,” and Theron Pummer’s “The Rules of Rescue.” He also plans to read fiction like Benjamín Labatut’s “The MANIAC.”

Christy Wampole, professor of French and Italian, is drawn to Jacques Ellul's technoskepticism in “Perspectives on Our Age.” Her project on Zeitgeist leads her to books like Roberto Calasso’s “The Unnamable Present” and Heinz Bude’s “The Mood of the World,” among others.

Anna Yu Wang, assistant professor of music, highlights Kofi Agawu's “Representing African Music.” Her recommendations include Becky Chambers’ sci-fi novel “Record of a Spaceborn Few” and Carrie Sun’s memoir “Private Equity.” Scholarly reads include Anne Anlin Cheng’s “Ornamentalism” and Gavin Steingo’s “Interspecies Communication.”

Leonard Wantchekon, James Madison Professor of Political Economy, praises Cheick Hamidou Kane's classic "Ambiguous Adventure." His list features Yaa Gyasi’s historical novel “Homegoing,” Nadine Gordimer’s political novel “Burger’s Daughter,” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “Purple Hibiscus,” Eitan Hersh's political analysis in “Politics Is for Power,” Adrian Bua and Sonia Bussu's essays in “Reclaiming Participatory Governance,” and Frank M. Bryan's study on town meetings in American democracy.