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Duke Reads

Discover your next read, connect with fellow Blue Devil book enthusiasts, stay in the know about Duke faculty and alumni publications, or enjoy our playlist of author interviews. Duke Reads is your one-stop shop for alumni book lovers, events, and resources.

Lifelong Learning Summer Reading List

Need something new on your nightstand? We've got you covered. We asked some of Duke's most admired faculty members to contribute to our popular Lifelong Learning summer reading list.

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Author Interviews

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Student Summer Reads

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Duke Resources

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Shelter Theology: The Religious Lives of People Without Homes

Nonfiction Social Science

Biography

Susan J Dunlap, Ph.D. is a Consulting Professor of Pastoral Theology at Duke Divinity School. In addition, she is the coordinator of the M.Div./M.S.W. dual degree program that the Divinity School shares with the University of North Carolina. Her teaching has been in the area of care of the sick and care for the bereaved. She also teaches two courses that integrate ministry and social work along with a colleague from UNC School of Social Work. She is an ordained Presbyterian (PCUSA) pastor and has served churches in both the Triangle area and Baltimore, MD. In Baltimore she was the pastor of a small church for four years before returning to school for a Th.M. from Duke and a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary. She has been on the Strategy Team of a community organizing group, Durham CAN, and serves on the board of the Religious Coalition for a Nonviolent Durham, where she also co-leads a grief group for family members of people who have died violently. She also serves as a volunteer chaplain at Urban Ministries of Durham. She is the author of three books, Counseling Depressed Women (1997), Caring Cultures: How Congregations Respond to the Sick (2009), and Shelter Theology: The Religious Lives of People Without Homes (2021). She lives in Durham with her husband, Dr. Prasad Kasibhatla, who teaches in the Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment.

Stay Woke: A People's Guide to Making All Black Lives Matter

Nonfiction Social Justice, Nonfiction Social Science

Stay Woke: A People’s Guide to Making All Black Lives Matter is an essential guide to understanding how racism works and how racial inequality shapes American lives, ultimately offering a road-map for resistance for racial justice advocates and antiracists. Despite moments of “racial reckoning,” many of our political, social, and economic institutions are still embedded with racist policies and practices that devalue Black lives. Stay Woke directly addresses these stark injustices and builds on the lessons of racial inequality and intersectionality the contemporary movement for Black lives has challenged its fellow citizens to learn.

In this essential primer, Tehama Lopez Bunyasi and Candis Watts Smith inspire readers to address the pressing issues of racial inequality, and provide a basic toolkit that will equip readers to become knowledgeable participants in public debate, activism, and politics.

This book offers a clear vision of a racially just society, and shows just how far we still need to go to achieve this reality. From activists to students to the average citizen, Stay Woke empowers all readers to work toward a better future for black Americans.

Biography

Candis Watts Smith is Associate Professor of Political Science at Duke University, where she also received her B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. Professor Smith's expertise highlights the role race, racism, and structural inequality play in shaping the American political landscape. Smith is the author of dozens of articles as well as three books--Black Mosaic: The Politics of Black Pan-Ethnic Identity (2014); Stay Woke: A People’s Guide to Making Black Lives Matter (2019); and Racial Stasis: The Millennial Generation and the Stagnation of Racial Attitudes in American Politics (2020). Smith has translated her research for wider audiences, such as writing for the Washington Post, recording an Audible Original on the History of Politics & Race in American, and presenting a TED talk on three myths about racism that has been viewed over 2 million times. She is the Faculty in Residence in Southgate and the Faculty Director of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, a program designed to diversify the pipeline in humanities and social sciences graduate programs. 

The Origins of You: How Childhood Shapes Later Life

Nonfiction Social Science

Biography

Dr. Avshalom Caspi’s appointments include the Edward M. Arnett Professor of Psychology & Neuroscience, Duke University and Professor of Personality Development, King's College, London. Caspi’s research spans the fields of psychology, epidemiology, and genetics. His work is concerned with three questions. (1) How do childhood experiences shape aging trajectories?, (2) How do mental health problems unfold across and shape the life course?, and (3) What are the best ways to assess and measure accelerated aging? Caspi is a recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association and the Rema Lapouse Award for Significant Contributions to the Scientific Understanding of Epidemiology and Control of Mental Disorders from the American Public Health Association. Dr. Caspi received his PhD in developmental psychology at Cornell University. He served on the faculty at Harvard and the University of Wisconsin before moving to London and then Duke. Just as soon as the world is safe and sane again, he will return to his travels, and for now he’s honing his photography and cooking and learning about farming. Learn more at www.moffittcaspi.com.

Dr. Terrie E. Moffitt’s appointments include the Nanerl O Keohane University Professor of Psychology, Duke University and Professor of Social Development, King's College, London. Moffit’s expertise is in the areas of lifelong aging, mental health, and longitudinal research methods. She is the associate director of the Dunedin Longitudinal Study, which follows a 1972 birth cohort in New Zealand. She also founded the Environmental Risk Longitudinal Twin Study (E-Risk), which follows a 1994 birth cohort in Britain. Moffitt is a licensed clinical psychologist, with specialization in neuropsychological assessment. She is an elected fellow of the US National Academy of Medicine, British Academy, and UK Academy of Medical Sciences. Her current service includes chair of the Board on Behavioral, Cognitive and Sensory Sciences at the National Academy of Sciences, chair of the National Institute on Aging’s Data-Monitoring Board, and chair of the jury for the Klaus J. Jacobs Prize (Switzerland). Moffitt is a recipient of the Stockholm Prize, the Klaus Jacobs Prize, the NARSAD Ruane Prize, and the 2022 Grawemeyer Prize for her work on mental health, and the Maltilda White Riley Award from the NIH for her recent work on aging. Dr. Moffitt received her PhD in psychology at the University of Southern California and completed her postdoctoral training at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute. She enjoys working on her poison-ivy farm in North Carolina. Learn more at www.moffittcaspi.com.

You Mean It or You Don't: James Baldwin's Radical Challenge

Nonfiction Social Science

Biography

Adam Hollowell teaches ethics and inequality studies at Duke University, where he directs the Global Inequality Research Initiative at the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity. He lives in Durham, North Carolina.

Jamie McGhee is a novelist, playwright, and essayist. For her fiction, she was named a James Baldwin Fellow in Saint-Paul de Vence, France, and a Sacatar Fellow in Itaparica, Brazil. She graduated from Duke University in 2016, where she was a Reginaldo Howard Scholar. She lives in Berlin, Germany.