What is your favorite VCU Libraries volume?

This amazing box set is a summation of Braxton's concerns over the last decade as well as a brilliant leap forward into the future of creative improvisation and composition.

The book I have chosen is Shel Silverstein's "Where the Sidewalk Ends." This book put into words the feelings in the heart of a child. I have truely been touched by these poems.

The book "Why Don't Your Eyelashes Grow: Curious Questions Kids Ask About the Human Body" by Beth Ditkoff, M.D. is an informative, quick read for the child in us all. Curiosity about the human body never ends. As adults we just stop asking these questions out loud!

"We are your sisters : Black women in the 19th century" by Dorothy Sterling.

Lest we forget.

I chose a new edition of one of my all time favorites. "Macbeth: The New Cambridge Shakespeare Updated Edition - 2008". A family classic. I laughed! I cried!

I chose Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. I read this book as a child, and it's Cinderella story, born out of reflections of a dream, captivated me. I will always remember this as one of my favorite books.

"The Waves," by Virginia Woolf -- an extraordinarily beautiful, haunting evocation of the internal thoughts, dreams, hopes, and sorrows of a small group of Londoners who grow up, and grow old, together. Without authorial narration, Woolf gradually allows the characters to paint a full portrait of themselves, through their own thoughts about their lives, their world, and each other. The central figure, Bernard, a writer like Woolf, stands perhaps as one of her most poignant statements about the powers, and limitations, of art.

Got to pick Dr. Suess's "Cat in the Hat". It's probably the first book that made me--and 35 years later, my son- laugh. Dr Suess showed me how language, reading, and books could be both thoughtful and lots of fun.

And if "favorite volume" means films or music. I'd pick the Bill Forsyth film "Local Hero" and its soundtrack CD album by Mark Knopfler, both of which VCU Libraries has.

As an expatriate Vietnamese, I have found in Andrew Lam’s Perfume Dreams :Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora my own voice. In a sometimes humorous, sometimes bittersweet tone, Lam told of the travails and triumphs of his family as it embarked on its own quest for the American Dream. Some of his humour may be opaque to most, yet it will be appreciated by those who carry a triple heritage of Vietnamese,French, and American cultures.

Sculptures Musicales by John Cage. What's not to like?; a one page textual score, Duchamp, Cage, perform it early and often.

From the center: Feminist Essays on Women’s Art by Lucy Lippard. This book helped shape who I am today. As an undergrad, I read it multiple times and was inspired with each reading.

Coming out of traditions established by explorers like Jorge Luis Borges and Joseph Cornell, Alex Rose's The Musical Illusionist is neither art nor literature, neither fiction nor non-fiction. It lives somewhere on the margins between all of these, illuminating a possible route to the future for writers and artists inhabiting an increasingly fragmented world.

My choice is a book I read as an undergraduate many years ago: A Rebours (Against Nature) by J-K Huysmans (1884). I was astounded by the strangeness of the character of des Esseintes, a prototype of the Decadent movement in literature, with his sense of synesthesia and his preference for the artificial over the real. This book affected me because it was so different from everything else I had previously read (the basic English literature syllabus). Now that I'm reminded of it, I should re-read this book and see if my appreciation of it is strengthened or lessened by time.

Nickel and Dimed : on (not) getting by in America by Barbara Ehreneich.

"Capativating"....This book was a humbling read. It opened my eyes to the plight of "low-wage America."

I’ve chosen Elisabeth Abbott’s 1960 translation of “The Saragossa Manuscript”, written by Count Jan Potocki in late 18th century Poland. As an accomplished ethnologist and world traveler, Potocki developed a fascination with Eastern cultures, secret societies, mysticism and gypsy folklore which are all beautifully reflected in this imaginative novel. Elisabeth Abbott’s marvelous translation retains the humor and eccentricities of the original work, and makes an entertaining read for anyone interested in tales of the supernatural.

I chose the graphic novel Blankets by Craig Thompson. I was fortunate enough to read this as a teenager and at a time when my life and the protagonist's story shared many similarities. It was truly a "does life imitate art or does art imitate life?" moment.

My choice "Ferret" by David Balmain provides an innovative approach to integrating search functionality into Ruby applications through the use of Ferret search libraries. Providing users with a simple way to search your sites' content is paramount in today's internet integrated society where a trip to the Google provides instant information gratification.

I chose Hopes and Dreams: the story of Barack Obama by Steven Dougherty. Reading the story of the first black president was inspiring.

"I Rode With Stonewall" gives an insightful look at one of Virginia's greatest Generals. Written by Henry Kyd Douglas, Jackson's youngest staff member, he had access to information no one else had.

I chose Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. He uses personal examples from his life and conversations from the campaign trail for U.S. Senate to "grow" this book. This book is a good read if you want to know a little more about this man.

Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick? (DVD)

A powerful documentary series that opened my eyes about the social, economic and racial disparities in health. A must see.

I selected, "Daddy Was a Number Runner" by Louise Meriwether. Meriwether is a short fiction writer, essayist, novelist, writer of children's literature, and black activist. Louise Meriwether holds an established place among literati whose writings reassess African Americans' past. Her fiction treats bygone times to revise American history and to record African Americans' tremendous achievements despite overwhelming odds.

I would select "Born to Run" - the 1975 album by Bruce Springsteen. It's got a lot of Rock-n-Roll influences (Byrds, Dylan, Van Morrison, Roy Orbinson, Phil Spector...) jam packed in its 8 songs. One critic said the album was like a '57 Chevy running on melted down Crystals records. I loved it as a teenager when I lived in New Jersey and still enjoy it as an adult living here in Richmond where Springsteen played so often in the early 1970s. If you don't dig the closing song, Jungleland, with the great Clarence Clemons saxophone solo, then you might as well hang it up.

The beginnings of our modern library collection can be traced to a gift in 1926 from Dr. Joseph L. Miller, an alumnus of MCV. To honor the 2 millionth milestone, I have chosen a reprint from the Bulletin of the History of Medicine that describes Dr. Miller's gift: The Miller Collection in the Library of the Richmond Academy of Medicine: a Checklist, compiled by Margaret N. Burke.

More than forty years ago, two men won the Noble prize for science for their discovery of the structure of DNA. One of the men, only twenty-five years old at the time,is James D. Watson. The book I chose, "The Double Helix", is his personal account of events that led to the solution of the structure of DNA, the fundamental genetical material. The discovery of the structure of DNA by Watson & Crick was one of the major scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century and has transformed science.