Sticking around for break? Relax with movies and fiction from the Libraries and/or take advantage of our group study and quiet spaces to get stuff done!

Fun Books?!?

Wilson Library and Walter Library have popular reading collections. These books include recent best sellers and award winners, both fiction and nonfiction. Current titles include:

• “The Goldfinch” by Donna Tartt
• “The Psychopath Test” by Jon Ronson
• “Lowlands” by Jhumpa Lahiri
• “Five Days at Memorial” by Sheri Fink
• “Why Nations Fail” by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson
• “The Boleyn Inheritance” by Philippa Gregory

Hopefully something for readers of all tastes. This collection can’t be searched from the Web, so stop by the ground floor lobby of Wilson Library or the Wise Owl Café in Walter Library and find a rejuvenating read!  Need a place to read, how about grabbing a seat in Walter Library’s beautiful Great Hall

DVDs

Walter Library’s SMART Commons has a huge selection of DVDs to check out (for free!). From eclectic new releases like Blackfish, Muscle Shoals, and Oscar Winning Short Films to classics like Casablanca and  Star Wars. We’ve also got full seasons of 24 and Battlestar Galactica if you prefer to plow through some TV you’ve missed.

Cookbooks

Why not celebrate a spring break by cooking a feast with your friends? Our Kirchener Cookbook collection in St. Paul (on Pinterest) has a variety of unique titles to make it a meal to remember. We have “Trout Caviar,” a forager’s cookbook — you can go rustle up your own grub before cooking, an adventure on many levels.

Or try “The Star Wars Cook Book” because it’s a cookbook inspired by STAR WARS!  For the optimists in the area we also have James Beard’s “Treasury of Outdoor Cooking.” Positive thoughts will make it warmer, right?  These books don’t check out some bring a notebook or money for photocopies.

Special Collections

There are some unique collections that we own that are only available at the University of Minnesota: 

• Visit our James Ford Bell Library (view the Sherlock Holme’s 220b Baker Street recreation (created by a Fan and collector), or
• Wagensteen Library (check out the Medicine of Downton Abbey exhibit!), or
• Check out all the current exhibits in Andersen Libraries Archives and Special Collections, which includes things from the first ever Spiderman to Babylonian Clay Tablets.