Literary Hoo-O-Meter0

Spring 2012

The University of Virginia has bit parts and sometimes starring roles in popular fiction. Here we rate novels with our trusty Hoo-O-Meter.

Bestsellers at the U.Va. Bookstore: October through December 20110

Spring 2012

Fiction/Poetry Inheritance by Christopher Paolini The Litigators by John Grisham The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt: A Novel in Pictures by Caroline Preston Bye-and-Bye: Selected Late Poems by Charles Wright (faculty) The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes Damned by Chuck Palahniuk The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach (Grad ’04) IQ84 by Haruki Murakami The Marriage Plot: A Novel by Jeffrey Eugenides Nonfiction The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True by Richard Dawkins Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson Tension City: Inside the Presidential Debates, from Kennedy-Nixon to...

New & Notable0

Spring 2012

Listen to six innovative albums by 15 must-hear alumni musicians.

Required Reading0

Spring 2012

Edward G. Lengel, editor in chief of the Papers of George Washington at U.Va., recently published Inventing George Washington: America’s Founder in Myth and Memory. What texts have contributed most to myths about Washington? The Life and Memorable Actions of George Washington by Mason Locke Weems, originally published in 1800 and reprinted dozens of times throughout the 19th century, remains one of the most influential Washington biographies ever written. Weems also invented many of the myths we know so well today, such as the story of George Washington chopping down the cherry tree and then telling...

Punks and Players0

New York Times 10 Best Books of 2011 list features two U.Va. debut novels

Spring 2012

Writing a first novel is a gamble. Authors can spend years developing a story, typically with no guarantee it will ever get published, much less read. But for two alumni, a decade’s worth of hard work has paid off; their debut novels have been welcomed to broad acclaim. “It’s been a big surprise,” admits Eleanor Henderson (Grad ’05), who wrote the first draft of Ten Thousand Saints as a graduate student. “I always wanted to be a writer since I was very tiny, so I had embarrassingly big dreams.” Diving...

Spirit of Adventure0

Two documentaries portray challenging journeys and the importance of family

Spring 2012

Two documentaries portray challenging journeys and the importance of family

Drawing From Nature0

Mountain Lake Biological Station inspires art

Winter 2011

Students carried five-gallon buckets that held their art supplies through the hardwood forest of the Appalachian Mountains. When they found something to draw, they turned the buckets over and used them as seats as they sketched. Art professor Megan Marlatt’s summer class spent two weeks at U.Va.’s Mountain Lake Biological Station, and nature served as their art’s subject and inspiration. “The first day, we collected natural specimens, leaves and mushrooms, and we drew them up close. Also, the station has a collection of insects and fungi that we got to draw in detail,” says Marlatt. Next,...

Life Lessons on the Green0

David Cook’s golf novel adapted to the big screen

Winter 2011

David Cook (Educ ’82, Grad ’84) has become a best-selling author and a movie producer, but he is first and foremost a sports psychologist. Soon after he started working with the San Antonio Spurs in 1996, they won two world championships. He has also worked with golfers on the PGA tour for 25 years. Cook knows how to use the mind to maximize performance, and he wrote a novel to share some of his lessons with a wider audience. “I took seven important principles from sports psychology and illustrated them,” says Cook. “The plot centers on the big questions:...