Professor Teresa Duarte, president of the Department of Chemical Engineering at IST and researcher at Centro de Química Estrutural, shared some of the books included in her summer reading list.

“This has been a very unusual year and this also reflects my choices. Usually, Summer means travelling and go to conferences, but this year I didn’t go to any of the three conferences I had planned. I decided to reread a book that I like a lot – “Haja Luz!” (IST Press, 2011), by Jorge Calado, retired Full Professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering at IST and Professor Emeritus at IST / Universidade de Lisboa. This book addresses several topics, such as science, painting, music, history, photography… I highly recommend this book!”.

“I definitely recommend reading Pablo Neruda’s book “Confesso que vivi” (Europa-América, 1993). It is a journey through Pablo Neruda’s life and memories, since his childhood in Temuco, a small town in southern Chile, passing through his travels around the world and his political commitment in a period of enormous turbulence, culminating in his return to Chile. The way he writes, always in first person, and describes situations, captivate our senses. I also recommend another Pablo Neruda’s book – “The come back – the lost Neruda poems” (Bloodaxe, 2017)”.

“For those who read “The Handmaid´s Tale”, I recommend the sequel “The Testaments” – “Os Testamentos” (Bertrand, 2020) by Margaret Atwood. I am curious to know what inspired the author to write this new book in order to make it unforgettable as the first one. The novel alternates between the perspectives of three female narrators, giving different perspectives on how people live in Gilead fifteen years after the end of The Handmaid’s Tale. These dystopian works show a world that we want to avoid at all costs!”