As the academic year winds down, you might be looking forward to getting back to your recreational reading list; or maybe you’ve been looking for a few good books to take along on summer travels. If summer reading is on your agenda, you'll find plenty of fiction on the shelves at DePaul Libraries to keep you busy!

Like many university libraries, DePaul doesn't have a separate fiction section, and you're not likely to find pop fiction like the Harry Potter or Twilight series. But you will find new books by contemporary literary writers such as Louise Erdrich, T.C. Boyle, Salman Rushdie, Toni Morrison, Michael Chabon and Joyce Carol Oates. DePaul also has a great selection of contemporary international fiction; a few recent favorites include After Dark by Haruki Murakami, Confessions of Noa Weber by Gayil Har'even and Say You’re One of Them by Uwem Akpan. And, of course, summer is a great time to revisit literary classics like The Grapes of Wrath, Pride and Prejudice or Invisible Man.

All fiction is listed in the library catalog; here's a quick, although certainly not comprehensive, way to search: use the Advanced Search screen of the library catalog to search for "fiction" as a Subject Word (“short stories” also works). You'll get a lot of results, but they'll be sorted by date making it easier to browse for recent fiction. The Lincoln Park campus library's new books display on the first floor also features new fiction, poetry, and non-fiction.

And if DePaul doesn't have the books on your summer reading list, don't forget to check the I-share catalog to place a request for another library to send the book to DePaul for pickup. The Chicago Public Libraries, or your local public library, are also great places to find recreational reading.

Happy reading this summer!