Let's See WKUers' 2025 New Year Reading List
Reading is a joyful journey and helps us understand ourselves better. The year 2024 has quietly concluded amidst the rustle of turning pages. WKUers immersed themselves in the world of knowledge from days to nights and seasons. They encountered various masterpieces during the past year. They felt the joy and sorrow of different eras through literary classics. They unlocked the doors to unknown worlds in renowned works. By exploring books across diverse genres, they may experience different lives and emotions, witnessing the clash of wisdom and thought.
As the Spring Festival of 2025 approaches, with a curiosity for unread books or a deep yearning for new knowledge, WKU Library's recommendation wall is already adorned with to-read titles. A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit. Come and see what everyone is planning to read in the new year! Let us follow the trail of books to embark on a grand journey, allowing the new year to begin with the beauty of words.
2025 Reading Plans
Tai bai jin xing you dian fan
Transcending cause and effect doesn’t mean avoiding all entanglements. In contrast, it means focusing solely on one’s inner resolve. Likewise, supreme detachment from emotion doesn’t mean being devoid of feelings and desires but cultivating oneself alone.
The Heavenly Court and the Western Paradise collaborated on the grand project of sending Tang Sanzang on his journey to seek Buddhist scriptures. Still, the task became a burden for Taibai Jinxing (the Venus God), Li Changeng. The seasoned deity thought everything was under control, yet unforeseen challenges arose one after another. The collaborative team harbored ulterior motives and struggled to work together; powerful demons and spirits with intricate backgrounds proved impossible to mediate, and a parade of "special connections" and "persistent petitioners" complicated matters even further. As the journey's trials mounted, deeper and more bizarre intrigues surfaced, including the infamous rebellion in Heaven and the enigmatic conflicts surrounding the true and false Monkey King. What was meant to be Tang Sanzang’s journey of enlightenment morphed into Taibai Jinxing’s personal trial of perseverance.
This book retells the classic Journey to the West that every adult should revisit. The author uses a humorous and satirical tone to recount Taibai Jinxing’s tribulations and the comedic events along the journey to retrieve the scriptures. The narrative acts as a mirror, reflecting the absurdities of real life while laying bare the unspoken rules of the workplace. It portrays the joys and sorrows of the common worker, vividly capturing the bittersweet inevitabilities of life. More than just an immortal fantasy novel, the book serves as a workplace manual, dissecting the essence of professional life, satirizing its flaws, and sparking reflection on both human nature and the realities of modern employment. Between its lines lies the relatable helplessness and resilience of adulthood, offering readers a thought-provoking glimpse into their own experiences.
Vincent
We will plow ahead until we can no longer move. When that time comes, we will wonder at the daisies, the freshly tilled soil, the budding sprouts of spring, the serene and clear summer sky, the thick autumn clouds, the bare winter trees, the sun, moon, and stars. Whatever happens, it will all belong to us.
The turbulent life of painter Vincent van Gogh remains an inexhaustible source of inspiration to this day. In the unique graphic novel Van Gogh, his innocent and unfiltered artistic temperament is vividly brought to life. Barbara Stok takes readers on a journey into van Gogh’s years in the south of France, the final years of his life. Readers will witness his interactions with his family, his initial awkward yet passionate foray into painting, his confusion and transformation under the influence of new artistic movements, and the frenzy and solitude behind the creation of his most radiant works, such as Sunflowers and The Starry Night.
The book’s combination of text and illustrations delicately recreates van Gogh’s emotional highs and lows, transforming him from a distant, iconic figure of greatness into a flesh-and-blood individual, a mortal deeply committed to his dreams. This graphic novel bridges the public and van Gogh’s artistic world, offering new perspectives for enthusiasts while passing on his story and artistic spirit to a younger generation. It inspires readers to explore the soul behind van Gogh’s paintings, opening new doors to art education and history. Doing so brings the art classics to life, ensuring their continued legacy in a lighthearted and accessible manner.
A Room of One's Own
Women possess a highly developed creativity, which is inherently complex and powerful. It is profoundly different from that of men. This strength, forged through centuries of harsh constraints, is irreplaceable, and its suppression or waste would be an immeasurable tragedy.
In 1928, Virginia Woolf delivered two lectures on "Women and Fiction" at Cambridge University, which later served as the foundation for her seminal work A Room of One’s Own, published in 1929. In this book, Woolf examines the struggles of women in a patriarchal society, the historical biases against them, the shared destinies women face, and the impact of poverty on their creative pursuits. She urges women to recognize their circumstances, strive for financial independence and social standing, think independently, live freely, and harness their unique strengths to fulfill their potential.
As a feminist classic, A Room of One’s Own employs Woolf’s signature stream-of-consciousness style, blending fictional stories and imagined scenes to interweave her ideas and invite readers into her realm of thought. It profoundly reveals the challenges women face under patriarchal systems, inspiring them to pursue self-worth and personal independence. Moreover, it delves into women's inner world and creative spirit, offering a profound reflection and transcendence of gender norms.
Yi ju ding yi wan ju
One person’s loneliness is not true loneliness. True loneliness is when one person seeks another or when one word seeks another.
This book is divided into two parts: Leaving Yanjin and Returning to Yanjin. In the first part, Wu Moxi, a lonely and helpless farmer from Yanjin County, Henan, finds himself unable to connect with his wife. When she elopes with another man, he embarks on a journey with his adopted daughter, Qiaoling, in search of her. However, he unexpectedly loses Qiaoling and leaves Yanjin searching for her. In the second part, Qiaoling's son, Niu Aiguo, faces a similar betrayal by his wife. In his quest to find her, he begins a journey that leads him back to Yanjin. Through the intertwined destinies of three generations of a family, the novel vividly portrays the mundane, fragmented, and ordinary lives of the lower-class people in early 20th-century Yanjin. It delves into their persistent search for someone they can truly connect with, their physical and emotional departures, their struggle against the spiritual desolation of loneliness, and their attempts at inner reconstruction.
This is a timeless classic worthy of repeated readings. Liu Zhenyun employs a distinctive narrative style to gracefully unfold the century-long story of a family across three generations. His prose is simple yet powerful, with exceptional expressiveness and emotional resonance. Through detailed depictions of dialogue and inner thoughts, the novel captures the complexities of ordinary lives and the intricacies of the human spirit. With its profound themes, masterful artistry, and unique style, the work showcases Liu Zhenyun's literary genius and intellectual depth, offering readers a profound lens to reflect on life, society, and humanity.
Shi jie shang zui mei de yi shui zhe
That awkward fool died, and only then did people realize how breathtakingly beautiful he was.
This is a classic short story collection from Colombian literary giant Gabriel García Márquez. With his signature magical realism, Márquez masterfully weaves reality and fantasy into a seamless, mesmerizing world. In this world, the dead regain their youthful appearance and drift on ocean currents across the globe, carrying flowers and aquatic plants from every place they pass. After an endless rain, you might wake up to find an angel fallen into the mud of your backyard. Sunken ships transform into ghost vessels, endlessly repeating their fateful wreckage, unless they encounter a clever, determined boy who can navigate them back to the world of the living. A magician builds a grand tomb for his dead enemy and brings him back to life in the coffin again and again. A cruel grandmother forces her granddaughter into prostitution while a boy in love hears his lover's desperate call from miles away. A girl yearning for freedom abandons everything without hesitation.
Through seven uniquely themed yet equally haunting and evocative tales, Márquez invites readers into an enchanting, image-laden fairy-tale world. Set in the sea's dampness, desolate deserts, and strange villages, these stories unfold tales of love and death, innocence and cruelty, dreams, and eeriness. Captivating yet laced with an intoxicating danger, these stories transcend the boundaries of thought with their extraordinary imagination. They vividly portray Latin America's mysterious, magical, and bizarre facets, showcasing Márquez's unmatched literary brilliance.
The Lost Salt Gift of Blood
Sometimes, in the fear of darkness, it becomes difficult to distinguish dreams from reality. We may wake in the stillness of night, yet because the world in our dreams felt so much better, we forcefully try to return to that fleeting solace through sheer will.
Alistair MacLeod's work contains seven stories that capture moments of longing, memory, and the ties that bind. In one tale, a young boy yearns to escape the family tradition of coal mining on a remote island and leaves upon reaching adulthood. Another story recounts a middle-aged university professor reflecting on his father, a man of ambition trapped in a life of fishing. A sprawling family, scattered across distant places, reunites on the windswept coast to celebrate their matriarch's 96th birthday. These stories explore the intimate and inescapable bonds between men and women, parents and children. The connections are both tender and harrowing. MacLeod's prose is lyrical and evocative, and his descriptions of the environment are vivid and textured, with a cinematic quality. Set against the backdrop of Cape Breton, the collection captures the lives and fates of ordinary people, blending the region's unique character with universal emotions. The stories lack dramatic twists but unfold with quiet depth, revealing profound emotions and the complexity of human nature. For instance, in "Autumn," the portrayal of an aging horse mirrors the struggles and emotional entanglements within a family. Like slices of life, these tales are honest and deeply moving, prompting reflection on family, destiny, and self-awareness. This is a timeless collection, rich with subtle beauty, worthy of savoring again and again.
More Reading Plans
Ping fan de shi ji
Changan de li zhi
Fateless
Flowers for Algernon
El amor en los tiempos del cólera
Brave New World
Chen mo de da duo shu
Norwegian Wood
Questions of Life
Happier Hour: How to Beat Distraction, Expand Your Time, and Focus on What Matters Most
……
In the new year, please turn reading into a joy of life and internalize it as a way of life. You may encounter a better version of yourself in the fragrance of books and ink.
Content | HU Linxiao
Layout | HU Linxiao
Review | REN Yuanyuanao
