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The UWT community has spent the last two weeks writing, on our We’re Listening whiteboard at the TLB1 entrance, answers to the question:
What’s your favorite summer movie or beach read?
We loved reading all about our fellow huskies’ favorite books and movies for summer! Here, we’ve compiled a selection of your answers. We hope everyone learns more about their community and possibly finds a new book or movie to enjoy this summer. Whiteboard Conversations will be on pause for the summer quarter but will return in the fall. Let the beach days commence!
Community Beach Reads:
In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan
The Borderlands aren’t like anywhere else. Don’t try to smuggle a phone or any other piece of technology over the wall that marks the Border — unless you enjoy a fireworks display in your backpack. (Ballpoint pens are okay.) There are elves, harpies, and — best of all as far as Elliot is concerned — mermaids.
“What’s your name?”
“Serene.”
“Serena?” Elliot asked.
“Serene,” said Serene. “My full name is Serene-Heart-in-the-Chaos-of-Battle.”
Elliot’s mouth fell open. “That is badass.”Elliot? Who’s Elliot? Elliot is thirteen years old. He’s smart and just a tiny bit obnoxious. Sometimes more than a tiny bit. When his class goes on a field trip and he can see a wall that no one else can see, he is given the chance to go to school in the Borderlands.
It turns out that on the other side of the wall, classes involve a lot more weaponry and fitness training and fewer mermaids than he expected. On the other hand, there’s Serene-Heart-in-the-Chaos-of-Battle, an elven warrior who is more beautiful than anyone Elliot has ever seen, and then there’s her human friend Luke: sunny, blond, and annoyingly likeable. There are lots of interesting books. There’s even the chance Elliot might be able to change the world. (from the publisher)
Checkout In Other Lands through UW Libraries, available as a print book and an audiobook!
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
The disappearance forty years ago of Harriet Vanger, a young scion of one of the wealthiest families in Sweden, gnaws at her octogenarian uncle, Henrik Vanger. He is determined to know the truth about what he believes was her murder. He hires crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist, recently at the wrong end of a libel case, to get to the bottom of Harriet’s disappearance. Lisbeth Salander, a twenty-four-year-old, pierced, tattooed genius hacker, possessed of the hard-earned wisdom of someone twice her age — and a terrifying capacity for ruthlessness — assists Blomkvist with the investigation. This unlikely team discovers a vein of nearly unfathomable iniquity running through the Vanger family, an astonishing corruption at the highest echelon of Swedish industrialism — and a surprising connection between themselves. (from the publisher)
Checkout The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo from UW Libraries in English and Swedish!
Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante
The story begins in the 1950s, in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples. Growing up on these tough streets the two girls learn to rely on each other ahead of anyone or anything else. As they grow, as their paths repeatedly diverge and converge, Elena and Lila remain best friends whose respective destinies are reflected and refracted in the other. They are likewise the embodiments of a nation undergoing momentous change. Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighborhood, a city, and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between her protagonists, the unforgettable Elena and Lila (from the publisher)
Checkout the Neapolitan Novels from UW Libraries in English and Italian!
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom.
These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won’t protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.
Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. (from the publisher)
Checkout Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow from UW Libraries! Available in print, ebook, and audiobook!
Community Summer Flicks
The Star Wars Series
A farm boy dreams of adventure and a princess rebels against an evil Empire. The fate of the galaxy is forever changed when Luke Skywalker discovers his powerful connection to a mysterious Force, and blasts into space to rescue Princess Leia. Mentored by a wise Jedi Master, and opposed by the menacing Darth Vader, Luke takes his first steps on a hero’s journey. (from the producer)
Checkout Star Wars on DVD from UW Tacoma Library! The library collection includes episodes I, II, III, IV, V, VI, and VII!
Dirty Dancing
Baby (Jennifer Grey) is one listless summer away from the Peace Corps. Hoping to enjoy her youth while it lasts, she’s disappointed when her summer plans deposit her at a sleepy resort in the Catskills with her parents. Her luck turns around, however, when the resort’s dance instructor, Johnny (Patrick Swayze), enlists Baby as his new partner, and the two fall in love. Baby’s father forbids her from seeing Johnny, but she’s determined to help him perform the last big dance of the summer. (from Rotten Tomatoes)
Checkout Dirty Dancing on DVD from UW Tacoma Library!
Purple Noon (Plein Soleil)
Tom Ripley (Alain Delon) travels to Italy to visit his playboy friend Phillippe Greenleaf (Maurice Ronet) and Phillippe’s new fiancée, Marge Duval (Marie Laforêt). What Phillippe doesn’t know is that his father has paid Tom to convince his son to abandon Europe and return to his family responsibilities in San Francisco. But when Phillippe’s family cuts off their funding of Tom’s extravagant lifestyle during his covert mission, he discovers another way to maintain his newfound standard of living. (from Rotten Tomatoes)
Checkout Purple Noon on DVD from UW Tacoma Library!
Midsommar
Dani and Christian are a young American couple with a relationship on the brink of falling apart. But after a family tragedy keeps them together, a grieving Dani invites herself to join Christian and his friends on a trip to a once-in-a-lifetime midsummer festival in a remote Swedish village. What begins as a carefree summer holiday in a land of eternal sunlight takes a sinister turn when the insular villagers invite their guests to partake in festivities that render the pastoral paradise increasingly unnerving and viscerally disturbing. From the visionary mind of Ari Aster comes a dread-soaked cinematic fairytale where a world of darkness unfolds in broad daylight. (from the producer)
Stream Midsommar online through UW Libraries!
Hard-Boiled
A cop who loses his partner in a shoot-out with gun smugglers goes on a mission to catch them. In order to get closer to the leaders of the ring he joins forces with an undercover cop who’s working as a gangster hitman. They use all means of excessive force to find them. (from Rotten Tomatoes)
Checkout Hard-Boiled on DVD from UW Tacoma Library!