We are excited to announce the return of our book discussion groups!
Storytelling is at the heart of medical and public health practice and Countway Library is here to help foster this tradition. Our Countway Reads initiative invites the community to read and learn together by engaging with creative works by people from all walks of life.
These events, held each semester, are open to all Harvard ID holders and facilitated by Countway Library librarians. The discussions provide a chance to connect with other patrons from across the campus and to foster conversations about a wide range of topics including health, medicine, literature, history, culture, art, and more. Our book selections include novels, autobiographies, graphic novels, and beyond. The events will be held in person, light refreshments will be provided, and registration will sometimes include a free copy of the book for advanced reading.
Seats are limited, so register early if possible. We look forward to seeing you there!
Upcoming Events
Shubeik Lubeik
By Deena Mohamed
Click here to register for Shubeik Lubeik
About the Book
Shubeik Lubeik by Deena Mohamed
From the publisher:
Three wishes that are sold at an unassuming kiosk in Cairo link Aziza, Nour, and Shokry, changing their perspectives as well as their lives. Aziza learned early that life can be hard, but when she loses her husband and manages to procure a wish, she finds herself fighting bureaucracy and inequality for the right to have—and make—that wish. Nour is a privileged college student who secretly struggles with depression and must decide whether or not to use their wish to try to “fix” this depression, and then figure out how to do it. And, finally, Shokry must grapple with his religious convictions as he decides how to help a friend who doesn’t want to use their wish. Deena Mohamed brings to life a cast of characters whose struggles and triumphs are heartbreaking, inspiring, and deeply resonant.
Although their stories are fantastical—featuring talking donkeys, dragons, and cars that can magically avoid traffic—each of these people grapples with the very real challenge of trying to make their most deeply held desires come true.
Notable relevant themes identified in Shubeik Lubeik by Matthew: colonialism, mental health, trauma, family, faith
About the Event
Storytelling is at the heart of medical and public health practice and Countway Library is here to help foster this tradition. Our Countway Reads initiative invites the community to read and learn together by engaging with creative works by people from all walks of life.
These book discussions, held each semester, are open to all Harvard ID holders and facilitated by Countway Library librarians. Light refreshments will be provided. Registration is limited, so sign up early!
About the Facilitator
Countway Reads is facilitated by Countway's Lead Collection & Knowledge Management Librarian, Matthew Noe. Matthew is a world-renowned expert on graphic medicine and is an advocate for the importance of reading for not just information, but for enjoyment and community, at all levels of education. Find out more about Matthew on his Harvard Library staff page and learn more about graphic medicine on Countway's Graphic Medicine landing page.
Advocate: A Graphic Memoir of Family, Community, and the Fight for Environmental Justice
By Eddie Ahn
Click here to register for Advocate
About the Book
Advocate: A Graphic Memoir of Family, Community, and the Fight for Environmental Justice by Eddie Ahn
From the publisher:
Born in Texas to Korean immigrants, Eddie grew up working at his family’s store with the weighty expectations that their sacrifices would be paid off when he achieved the “American Dream.” Years later after moving to San Francisco and earning a coveted law degree, he then does the unthinkable: he rejects a lucrative legal career to enter the nonprofit world.
In carving his own path, Eddie defies his family’s notions of economic success, igniting a struggle between family expectations, professional goals, and dreams of community. As an environmental justice attorney, he confronts the most immediate issues the country is facing today, from the devastating effects of Californian wildfires to economic inequality, all while combatting burnout and racial prejudice. In coming fully into his own, Eddie also reaches a hand back to his parents, showing them the value of a life of service rather than one spent only seeking monetary wealth.
Weaving together humorous anecdotes with moments of victory and hope, this powerful, deeply contemplative full-color graphic novel explores the relationship between immigration and activism, opportunity and obligation, and familial duty and community service.
Notable relevant themes identified in Advocate by Matthew: advocacy, environmental justice, public health, first-generation experiences
About the Event
Storytelling is at the heart of medical and public health practice and Countway Library is here to help foster this tradition. Our Countway Reads initiative invites the community to read and learn together by engaging with creative works by people from all walks of life.
These book discussions, held each semester, are open to all Harvard ID holders and facilitated by Countway Library librarians. Light refreshments will be provided. Registration is limited, so sign up early!
About the Facilitator
Countway Reads is facilitated by Countway's Lead Collection & Knowledge Management Librarian, Matthew Noe. Matthew is a world-renowned expert on graphic medicine and is an advocate for the importance of reading for not just information, but for enjoyment and community, at all levels of education. Find out more about Matthew on his Harvard Library staff page and learn more about graphic medicine on Countway's Graphic Medicine landing page.
My Degeneration: A Journey Through Parkinson’s
By Peter Dunlap-ShohlClick here to register for My Degeneration
About the Book
My Degeneration: A Journey Through Parkinson's by Peter Dunlap-Shohl
From the publisher:
How does one deal with a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease at the age of forty-three? My Degeneration, by former Anchorage Daily News staff cartoonist Peter Dunlap-Shohl, answers the question with humor and passion, recounting the author’s attempt to come to grips with the “malicious whimsy” of this chronic, progressive, and disabling disease. This graphic novel tracks Dunlap-Shohl’s journey through depression, the worsening symptoms of the disease, the juggling of medications and their side effects, the impact on relations with family and community, and the raft of mental and physical changes wrought by the malady.
My Degeneration examines the current state of Parkinson’s care, including doctor/patient relations and the repercussions of a disease that, among other things, impairs movement, can rob patients of their ability to speak or write, degrades sufferers’ ability to deal with complexity, and interferes with the sense of balance. Readers learn what it’s like to undergo a dramatic, demanding, and audacious bit of high-tech brain surgery that can mysteriously restore much of a patient’s control over symptoms. But My Degeneration is more than a Parkinson’s memoir. Dunlap-Shohl gives the person newly diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease the information necessary to cope with it on a day-to-day basis. He chronicles the changes that life with the disease can bring to the way one sees the world and the way one is seen by the wider community. Dunlap-Shohl imparts a realistic basis for hope—hope not only to carry on, but to enjoy a decent quality of life.
Notable relevant themes identified in My Degeneration by Matthew: Parkinson's, mental health, medication, family, patient experiences
About the Event
Storytelling is at the heart of medical and public health practice and Countway Library is here to help foster this tradition. Our Countway Reads initiative invites the community to read and learn together by engaging with creative works by people from all walks of life.
These book discussions, held each semester, are open to all Harvard ID holders and facilitated by Countway Library librarians. Light refreshments will be provided. Registration is limited, so sign up early!
About the Facilitator
Countway Reads is facilitated by Countway's Lead Collection & Knowledge Management Librarian, Matthew Noe. Matthew is a world-renowned expert on graphic medicine and is an advocate for the importance of reading for not just information, but for enjoyment and community, at all levels of education. Find out more about Matthew on his Harvard Library staff page and learn more about graphic medicine on Countway's Graphic Medicine landing page.
Past Events
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands
By Kate Beaton
About the Book
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton
Before there was Kate Beaton, New York Times bestselling cartoonist of Hark! A Vagrant, there was Katie Beaton of the Cape Breton Beatons, specifically Mabou, a tight-knit seaside community where the lobster is as abundant as beaches, fiddles, and Gaelic folk songs. With the singular goal of paying off her student loans, Katie heads out west to take advantage of Alberta’s oil rush—part of the long tradition of East Coasters who seek gainful employment elsewhere when they can’t find it in the homeland they love so much. Katie encounters the harsh reality of life in the oil sands, where trauma is an everyday occurrence yet is never discussed.
Beaton’s natural cartooning prowess is on full display as she draws colossal machinery and mammoth vehicles set against a sublime Albertan backdrop of wildlife, northern lights, and boreal forest. Her first full length graphic narrative, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands is an untold story of Canada: a country that prides itself on its egalitarian ethos and natural beauty while simultaneously exploiting both the riches of its land and the humanity of its people.
About the Event
Storytelling is at the heart of medical and public health practice and Countway Library is here to help foster this tradition. Our Countway Reads initiative invites the community to read and learn together by engaging with creative works by people from all walks of life.
These book discussions, held each semester, are open to all Harvard ID holders and facilitated by Countway Library librarians. Light refreshments will be provided. Registration is limited, so sign up early!
About the Facilitator
Countway Reads is facilitated by Countway's Lead Collection & Knowledge Management Librarian, Matthew Noe. Matthew is a world-renowned expert on graphic medicine and is an advocate for the importance of reading for not just information, but for enjoyment and community, at all levels of education. Find out more about Matthew on his Harvard Library staff page and learn more about graphic medicine on Countway's Graphic Medicine landing page.
Notable themes from Matthew: environmentalism, extractive labor, loneliness, trauma
Please note that this comic discusses sexual assault, substance abuse, and other difficult subjects.
Seek You: A Journey through American Loneliness
By Kristen Radtke
About the Book
Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness by Kristen Radtke.
Ranging from the invention of the laugh track to the rise of Instagram, the bootstrap-pulling cowboy to the brutal experiments of Harry Harlow, Radtke investigates why we engage with each other and what we risk when we turn away. With her distinctive, emotionally charged, and deeply empathetic prose, Kristen Radtke masterfully shines a light on some of our most vulnerable and sublime moments and asks how we might keep the spaces between us from splitting entirely.
About the Facilitator
Countway Reads is facilitated by Countway's Lead Collection & Knowledge Management Librarian, Matthew Noe. Matthew is a world-renowned expert on graphic medicine and is an advocate for the importance of reading for not just information, but for enjoyment and community, at all levels of education. Find out more about Matthew on his Harvard Library staff page and learn more about graphic medicine on Countway's Graphic Medicine landing page.
Pain Woman Takes Your Keys, and Other Essays from a Nervous System
By Sonya Huber
About the Book
Pain Woman Takes Your Keys, and Other Essays from a Nervous System by Sonya Huber
Rate your pain on a scale of one to ten. What about on a scale of spicy to citrus? Is it more like a lava lamp or a mosaic? Pain, though a universal element of human experience, is dimly understood and sometimes barely managed. Pain Woman Takes Your Keys, and Other Essays from a Nervous System is a collection of literary and experimental essays about living with chronic pain. Sonya Huber moves away from a linear narrative to step through the doorway into pain itself, into that strange, unbounded reality. Although the essays are personal in nature, this collection is not a record of the author’s specific condition but an exploration that transcends pain’s airless and constraining world and focuses on its edges from wild and widely ranging angles.
About the Facilitator
Countway Reads is facilitated by Countway's Lead Collection & Knowledge Management Librarian, Matthew Noe. Matthew is a world-renowned expert on graphic medicine and is an advocate for the importance of reading for not just information, but for enjoyment and community, at all levels of education. Find out more about Matthew on his Harvard Library staff page and learn more about graphic medicine on Countway's Graphic Medicine landing page.
The Body Factory: From the First Prosthetics to the Augmented Human
By Héloïse Chochois (Author), Kendra Boileau (Translator)
About the Book
The Body Factory: From the First Prosthetics to the Augmented Human by Héloïse Chochois (Author), Kendra Boileau (Translator)
A young man has a horrible motorcycle accident. He wakes up in the hospital to discover that one of his arms has been amputated. Then a portrait on the wall of his hospital room begins to speak to him. The subject of the painting introduces himself as Ambroise Paré, the French barber-surgeon who revolutionized the art of amputation.
From this wonderfully absurd premise, the two begin an imaginary conversation that takes them through a sweeping history of surgical amputation, from the Stone Age to the Space Age. Unencumbered by pathos or didacticism, this graphic novel explores the world of amputation, revealing fascinating details about famous amputees throughout history, the invention of the tourniquet, phantom limb syndrome, types of prostheses, and transhumanist technologies.
Playfully illustrated and seriously funny, The Body Factory is sure to delight anyone interested in the history and future of medicine and how we repair and even enhance the body.
About the Facilitator
Countway Reads is facilitated by Countway's Lead Collection & Knowledge Management Librarian, Matthew Noe. Matthew is a world-renowned expert on graphic medicine and is an advocate for the importance of reading for not just information, but for enjoyment and community, at all levels of education. Find out more about Matthew on his Harvard Library staff page and learn more about graphic medicine on Countway's Graphic Medicine landing page.
Bipolar Bear and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Health Insurance: A Fable for Grownups
by Kathleen Founds
Join us for a facilitated book discussion at Countway on Tuesday, April 23 from 12:30 to 1:45 p.m. in Room 102!
Bipolar Bear tackles the complicated, politically and emotionally charged experiences of navigating the US health care system. Experiences like those in this comic are vital to emerging and current practitioners, not only for the sake of their patients, but for the sake of their own understanding of the roles they (you, we) play in this complex web of systems that patients must navigate often wile living through the worst experiences of their lives.
Refreshments will be served. Seats are limited. To register, visit Countway Reads: Bipolar Bear.
Ripple Effects
by Jordan Hart and Bruno Chiroleu
Graphic Medicine book discussion on Wednesday, February 7, 2024 from 12:30 to 1:45 pm in Countway Room 103.
Join us to discuss the award-winning graphic novel Ripple Effects by Jordan Hart and Bruno Chiroleu, with a foreword by Countway librarian Matthew Noe. Ripple Effects explores life as a superhero with an invisible and incurable disease.
Part of the Graphic Medicine: Ill-Conceived & Well-Drawn event series & traveling exhibit that was hosted by Countway Library from January 9 through February 17, 2024.
Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist
by Judith HeumannJoin us for the first in-person Countway Reads book discussion! In Being Heumann, one of the most influential disability rights activists in US history tells her personal story of fighting for the right to receive an education, have a job, and just be human.
"A moving chronical of social change, Being Heumann will restore your hope in our democracy and the power of our shared humanity." -Darren Walker, Ford Foundation president