How can books help us understand the countries, cultures, and experiences that shape our school community?
Embedded Files
Books invite us to explore different perspectives, reflect on our own assumptions, and recognise our shared humanity. Discover stories by authors from countries where members of our school community have lived. As you read, consider how these texts deepen your understanding of others, encourage respect for differences, and inspire you to contribute to a more peaceful world.
Ms. Teodora ZUJOVIC,
MYP/DP Science Teacher
Before Serbia, I lived in:
the United States
United States
What happens when the future you planned no longer feels like your own?
Contemporary Literary Fiction 16+
eBook & Audiobook
Chemistry (2017) by Weike Wang follows an unnamed chemistry doctoral student at a demanding university in Boston. Her research is faltering, her parents expect excellence, and her boyfriend’s marriage proposal adds another question she cannot answer. When the pressure becomes overwhelming, she steps away from the laboratory and begins reconsidering what she wants from life. Told through short, sharp observations and understated humour, the novel weaves scientific ideas into an exploration of identity, family expectations, mental health, and belonging. Winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award, it invites readers to question how we define success—and whether changing direction can be a discovery rather than a failure.
Weike Wang is an American novelist with a background in science. She earned an undergraduate degree in chemistry and a doctorate in public health from Harvard University, followed by an MFA in creative writing from Boston University. Her debut novel, Chemistry, won the 2018 PEN/Hemingway Award, and she also received a Whiting Award. Her other novels include Joan Is Okay and Rental House. Wang’s fiction explores ambition, cultural expectations, work, and the search for an independent identity, combining precise prose with dry humour and emotional insight.
Serbia
How can stories help people from different cultures find common ground?
Magical Realism 15+
At the Lucky Hand (2020 English edition), translated by Peter Agnone, is an imaginative novel by Serbian author Goran Petrović. The story centres on My Legacy, a mysterious book whose detailed descriptions become a world that readers can physically enter. Through “simultaneous reading,” strangers meet inside its pages, where their lives and love stories begin to overlap. Blending romance, mystery and magical realism, the novel explores loneliness, memory, human connection and the transforming power of books and reading.
Goran Petrović (1961–2024) was an acclaimed Serbian novelist, short-story writer, editor and librarian. He studied Yugoslav and Serbian literature at the University of Belgrade and became a full member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. At the Lucky Hand received Serbia’s prestigious NIN Award in 2000. Petrović’s lyrical and inventive writing has been translated into numerous languages, establishing him as a major figure in modern Serbian literature.
Science
Who gets remembered in the history of science—and who gets left out?
History / Science / Biography 16+
Hardcopy
Sisters in Science: How Four Women Physicists Escaped Nazi Germany and Made Scientific History (2024) by Olivia Campbell tells the true story of four pioneering physicists—Hedwig Kohn, Lise Meitner, Hertha Sponer, and Hildegard Stücklen—whose careers and lives were threatened by the rise of Nazi Germany. Forced to flee because of antisemitism, sexism, or their opposition to the regime, the women relied on scientific networks, friendship, and extraordinary persistence to continue their work. Their escapes took them to Sweden and the United States, where they went on to make important contributions to physics and to open doors for future generations of women in science. Blending biography, WWII history, and the history of science, the book explores courage, exclusion, intellectual freedom, friendship, and the determination to pursue knowledge under extreme pressure.
Olivia Campbell is an American journalist, essayist, and author whose work focuses on the intersections of science, medicine, women, history, and culture. She is also the author of Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine. Campbell holds a master’s degree in science writing from Johns Hopkins University, and her journalism has appeared in publications including National Geographic, The Atlantic, The Guardian, and Scientific American. Her work is known for recovering overlooked stories of women whose contributions helped shape science and medicine.
How can paying attention to ordinary things reveal extraordinary ideas?
Science / Physics 14+
Hardcopy
Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life (2016) by Helen Czerski shows how the big ideas of physics are hidden in ordinary things. Using examples such as popcorn, coffee stains, fridge magnets, ketchup, bubbles, and milk swirling into tea, Czerski explains principles involving motion, energy, forces, fluids, heat, and matter in a lively and accessible way. Rather than treating physics as something distant or abstract, the book reveals how the same laws that shape galaxies, weather systems, and oceans are also at work in kitchens, streets, and everyday objects. Engaging and often humorous, it encourages readers to look at familiar experiences with greater curiosity and to see science as a way of understanding the world around them.
Helen Czerski is a British physicist, oceanographer, science writer, and broadcaster based at University College London. Her research focuses on the physics of the ocean, particularly bubbles, waves, and air–sea interactions, and she is also known for communicating science through books, journalism, radio, and television. Storm in a Teacup was her first book and has been widely praised for making everyday physics engaging and understandable for non-specialists.
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