Curated · Public · Always linking out

Reading

A curated broadsheet · 249 books · 6 editions

Curated reading lists worth keeping. Each summer resets the shelf: books grouped by subject, every title linked straight to the press that made it. A doorway, not a dead end. The lists re-present MIT News’s annual round-ups; the descriptions are theirs, credited up front, and each book is one click from its publisher. Press play and read along.

The desk

Progress · Outputs · Context

The same build-harness that assembles this site, turned back on the shelf: your reading tracked like a live task, the things this corpus makes, and the sources it all comes from.

Progress

Your reading, tracked like a task.

6 editions · 249 books · start the task

Outputs

Everything this shelf produces.

Curated reading paths The cover wall Explore every book249 Your shelf Syndication · RSS + JSON

Context

The sources behind the shelf.

MIT News6 eds MIT Libraries collection The timeline The reading graph

The latest edition · Summer 2026

Summer 2026 Reading from MIT

Summer is the perfect time to curl up with a good book — and MIT authors have had much to offer in the past year. These titles were published in the prior 12 months by MIT faculty and staff, gathered here from the MIT News reading list and grouped by subject. Every book links straight to its publisher.

Fiction & poetry3Science & engineering9Culture, humanities & social science12Technology & society8Education, work, finance & impact6Arts, design, architecture & planning5

Read the edition · 43 books →

via MIT News

More editions

5 more

Summer 2025 · via MIT News

39 books

Summer 2025 Reading from MIT

The prior year's titles from Institute faculty and staff.

Fiction & poetry1Science & engineering2Culture, humanities & social science13Technology & society7Education, work, finance & impact5Arts, design, architecture & planning8For young readers3

The Novice of Thanatos: An Epic Dark Fantasy of Horror, Death, and Necromancy

So Very Small: How Humans Discovered the Microcosmos, Defeated Germs - and May Still Lose the War Against Infectious Disease

The Miraculous from the Material: Understanding the Wonders of Nature

Chasing the Pearl-Manuscript: Speculation, Shapes, Delight

Taxation and Resentment: Race, Party, and Class in American Tax Attitudes

Uprooted: How post-WWII Population Transfers Remade Europe

Crime, Insecurity, and Community Policing: Experiments on Building Trust

Letterlocking: The Hidden History of the Letter

Summer 2024 · via MIT News

42 books

Summer 2024 Reading from MIT

Books from Institute faculty and staff, from the Summer 2024 round-up.

Fiction & poetry2Science & engineering3Culture, humanities & social science14Technology & society8Education, work, finance & impact11Arts, design, architecture & planning3Miscellany1

Seizing Control: Managing Epilepsy and Others' Reactions to It - A Memoir

Sky. Pond. Mouth.

A Book of Waves

An Introduction to System Safety Engineering

Solvable: How We Healed the Earth, and How We Can Do It Again

Political Rumors: Why We Accept Misinformation and How to Fight It

Laws of the Land: Fengshui and the State in Qing Dynasty China

Trouble with Gender: Sex Facts, Gender Fictions

Summer 2023 · via MIT News

40 books

Summer 2023 Reading from MIT

Books from Institute faculty and staff, from the Summer 2023 round-up.

Fiction & poetry2Science & engineering3Culture, humanities & social science14Technology & society5Education, work, finance & impact7Arts, design, architecture & planning7For young readers2

Summer 2022 · via MIT News

39 books

Summer 2022 Reading from MIT

Books from Institute faculty and staff, from the Summer 2022 round-up.

Fiction & poetry5Science & engineering4Culture, humanities & social science11Technology & society7Education, work, finance & impact5Arts, design, architecture & planning6For young readers1

Naiad Blood

Une Fille Indocile: L'émancipation d'une femme nourrie par les mouvements féministes des années 60-70 aux États-Unis

Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel

Shapley's Round Table: A Memoir by the Astronomer's Daughter

Carbon Queen: The Remarkable Life of Nanoscience Pioneer Mildred Dresselhaus

A Tactical Guide to Science Journalism: Lessons From the Front Lines

Chasing Black Holes: An Insider's View of a Space Astronomy Mission

What Is Life?

Summer 2021 · via MIT News

46 books

Summer 2021 Reading from MIT

Books from Institute faculty and staff, from the Summer 2021 round-up.

Fiction & poetry4Science & engineering5Culture, humanities & social science10Technology & society7Education, work, finance & impact9Arts, design, architecture & planning10For young readers1

Inside the stacks

Departments

Pick of the day · Surprise meOne book a day from the whole corpus, or roll the dice for a random one.Explore every bookSearch all 249 books at once; filter by subject or year, sort however you read.Curated reading pathsShort, ordered trails through the corpus: the editorial cut between the years and the subjects.The cover wallEvery book as its cover in one filterable poster wall, coloured by subject.Browse by author & publisherEvery book by an author, and every book from a press, gathered across all years.The reading challengeA bingo card over your shelf: one square per subject, ticking as you mark books read.

By subject

Themed across every edition

Fiction & poetry17

Poems and novels: the Institute writing for the page, not the lab.

Science & engineering26

Chemistry, cognition, birds, carbon, headaches: the physical and life sciences, made legible.

Culture, humanities & social science74

History, statecraft, economics and memory: how societies hold together and come apart.

Technology & society42

Computing, drones, AI auditing and the culture that grows around the machines.

Education, work, finance & impact43

Meritocracy, monetary policy, deep-tech startups: the systems that organize effort and money.

Arts, design, architecture & planning39

Gardens, shrinking towns, preparedness and reconstruction: design at the scale of the city.

For young readers7

Picture books and middle-grade stories from the Institute community, for the youngest shelf.

Miscellany1

The hard-to-file: cookbooks, field guides, and one-of-a-kind projects that fit no single shelf.

Also in the stacks

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An occasional dispatch when a genuinely new list lands here. No schedule, no filler, easy out.