For the past five years, the Department of Psychology has compiled an annual list of book recommendations by faculty members and graduate students for graduating seniors. 

Yulia Chentsova Dutton, an associate professor of psychology, started the tradition in 2020 to help students whose graduation activities were impacted by the pandemic feel valued and celebrated. The list has since evolved into a way for faculty members to share books that they’ve loved and help graduates maintain their intellectual momentum.

“It is also something that can allow us to connect with friends and family beyond Georgetown and bring them a bit of the Georgetown experience,” Chentsova Dutton says.

Read on to find books that can help nurture your mind and soul this summer – and beyond.

–Kelyn Soong

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

“I like the novel because of the masterful way that it develops the characters – an omniscient narrator moves from character to character, shifting the point of view and expanding the reader’s understanding of the many characters whose lives have been brought together.” 

–W. Gerrod Parrott, professor in the Department of Psychology

The Mind Is Flat: The Remarkable Shallowness of the Improvising Brain by Nick Chater

“Students in my classes often refer to the process of discovering one’s true (and deep) emotions, motives or memories. In this book, Nick Chater, a cognitive scientist, argues that our inner world is a mirage – constructed to make sense of situational demands. The book explores our ‘remarkable ability to creatively improvise,’ challenging many of our assumptions about the nature of our mental lives.”

–Yulia Chentsova Dutton, associate professor in the Department of Psychology

Still Alice by Lisa Genova

“A moving account of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, from the point of view of the vibrant professor whose life begins to be taken over by it.”

–Andrea Bonior, teaching professor in the Department of Psychology

Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace by Christopher Blattman

“Although we know a wide range of factors contribute to aggression, including poverty and trauma, these are not problems that can be easily undone or fixed, which has led some scholars to express cynicism and fatalism about reducing violence – after all, if these are the ‘root causes’ of violence, why even hope violence can be reduced without eradicating them? But as Blattman persuasively shows, a range of other remedial variables contribute to violence, including psychological variables like self-regulation, patience and criminal identity.”

–Abigail Marsh, professor in the Department of Psychology and the Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience 

Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel’s Messiah by Charles King

“This nonfiction book by Georgetown’s own Charles King beautifully recounts how the struggles of multiple people contributed to a work of art interrogating questions of suffering, justice and redemption.”

–Jennifer Woolard, professor in the Department of Psychology and vice dean for faculty affairs in the College of Arts & Sciences

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin 

“It is a genre-bending fantasy series that examines themes of prejudice and stereotypes.”

–Kostadin Kushlev, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology and principal investigator of the Digital Health and Happiness Lab

Autocracy Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World by Anne Applebaum

“Very insightful examination of 21st-century authoritarianism, by a brilliant author.”

–Fathali Moghaddam, professor in the Department of Psychology

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

“It’s a fun, light read (i.e. good for summer!) and has a lovely message about how to build a life that is meaningful to you – and how many lives you can have if you can only imagine them.”

–Rebecca Ryan, professor in the Department of Psychology 

Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic – and What We Can Do About It by Jennifer Breheny Wallace 

“A warning about the characteristics and effects of toxic achievement culture (which is what got many of our students to Georgetown) but more importantly, lessons for how to combat it and what really matters when messaging to young people what they should be aiming for in life.”

–Anna Johnson, professor in the Department of Psychology 

The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays by Esmé Weijun Wang

“I found these essays fascinating as a window into the experience of schizoaffective disorder, including the author’s account of Cotard’s syndrome (the belief that one is dead).”

–Deborah Stearns, teaching professor in the Department of Psychology 

(Top photo by Dan Dumitriu)