Lafayette College Library

While she offers her sympathies to all those suffering from the flu, Irene also gently suggests some titles as reminders that things could be much, much worse.

It could be 1918...
Flu: The story of the great influenza pandemic of 1918 and the search for the virus that caused it by Gina Kolata

It could be cholera in 19th century London...
The ghost map: The story of London's most terrifying epidemic--and how it changed science, cities, and the modern world by Steven Johnson

It could be the plague in 17th century England...
Year of wonders: A novel of the plague by Geraldine Brooks

You could be Typhoid Mary (forced to live in isolation for 26 years)...
Typhoid Mary: Captive to the public's health by Judith Walzer Leavitt

So many adults resist films with subtitles that Irene recommends starting kids off early. Try this Bhutanese sports film about a group of boys living in a Tibetan monastery who will do whatever it takes to watch the World Cup. Light and fun and something that the whole family can enjoy (or at least those who are old enough to read).

See more of Irene's picks (including a few more with subtitles).

Just in time for Halloween, Irene recommends some reads with a common ghoulish theme: the afterlife of corpses. Never one to shy away from fetishes, Irene is especially intrigued by the bodies of political or religious figures.

Stiff: the curious lives of human cadavers by Mary Roach

Lenin Lives! the Lenin cult in Soviet Russia by Nina Tumarkin

Santa Evita by Tomás Eloy Martínez

Magnificent corpses: Searching through Europe for St. Peter's head, St. Chiara's heart, St. Stephen's hand, and other saints' relics by Anneli S. Rufus

Furta sacra: Thefts of relics in the central Middle Ages by Patrick J. Geary

Lately Irene has noticed a slew of new fiction revolving around words, books, or characters who write. It’s the type of stuff that makes her heart beat faster. Check these out:

The Broken Teaglass by Emily Arsenault
A recent college grad working for a dictionary publisher uncovers a mystery with clues in unusual citations.

You or Someone Like You by Chandler Burr
A husband and wife with PhDs in literature move to Hollywood where they run book clubs for film executives.

The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker
The musings of a poet with writer’s block.

The Financial Lives of the Poets by Jess Walter
A journalist quits his job to start a website featuring poetry on financial issues.

The Cry of the Sloth by Sam Savage
Four-months-worth of collected writings—letters, diary entries, shopping lists, etc.—from a frustrated novelist and the editor of a second-rate literary magazine.

In the Valley of the Kings by Terrence Holt
A collection of short stories, many about the power of a word. In the opening story, a plague is transmitted by a single word marked on its victims’ skin.

Those who enjoyed "The Wrestler" should try this wrestling-themed film noir set in 1950s London. Irene had to cover her eyes during parts of the climactic wrestling scene and quickly tired of Mary, the enabling, martyred girlfriend. (With those cheekbones, Mary could easily have found someone better to love.) But the nightmarish setting, inventive camera angles, and frenetic pace kept her on the edge of her sofa cushions throughout.

See more of Irene's picks

A display in Skillman's periodicals reading room and on Flickr highlights "books that changed America."

The NYRB Classics imprint publishes an eclectic mix of titles. Among Skillman's recent additions from this collection is One Straw Revolution, which Michael Pollan has called "one of the founding documents of the alternative food movement."

Irene, who's a fan of some of the titles in this series, can't wait until January, when a new edition of Olivia Manning's "Balkan Trilogy" novels will be released. She plans to press it on as many people as she can, so if you're not interested in reading novels about young British expatriates in Bucharest and Athens in the early days of World War II, steer clear of Irene in January.

See a complete list of NYRB Classics in Skillman's collection.

Lately Skillman’s Irene Noodleman has been reading rather than watching movies and has found herself drawn to some new collections of short stories with titles that speak to her. Chief among them: Both ways is the only way I want it by Maile Meloy.

A few other new short story collections with intriguing titles (and stellar reviews):
Do not deny me by Jean Thompson
Mrs. Somebody Somebody by Tracy Winn
We never talk about my brother by Peter S. Beagle

Irene feels like she could almost write her life story with these titles plus that of the forthcoming new collection from Alice Munro: Too much happiness.

Irene was not prepared for the charm and tongue-in-cheek humor of this vintage film, starring a dressed down Marcello Mastroianni as a married man who wants to wed his much younger cousin and so hatches an elaborate scheme to kill his wife. Fans of Italian cinema should find the film-within-a-film sequence particularly amusing. The severe beauty of the Sicilian landscape is as integral to the plot as are the hapless lovers, and is shown to best advantage in this sparkling Criterion Collection edition.

See more of Irene's picks.

For a new spin on old tales, try Canongate's myths series. Popular authors such as Jeanette Winterson, Margaret Atwood, Ali Smith, and Alexander McCall Smith re-imagine classic myths to wonderful effect.

Find a list of the series titles by performing a title search in the Library Catalog for Myths (Canongate Publishing)