Price Gilbert Memorial Library is one of the best resources on campus — boasting numerous study spaces, reference materials, experts and various research exhibits and events. However, one of the best resources of the library is one of its least well-known — your ability to check out books with nothing but your BuzzCard.

The library returned to having a more present, physical catalog of books available to check out in the fall of 2021, and since then, it has consistently been an expansive, but underused resource. To check out a book, all you have to do is choose the book you would like to check out and either swipe your card and check your book out at one of the many digital check-out machines scattered throughout the library, or at the information desks on the Grove Floor of the library.

While relatively new, Price Gilbert’s catalog of books is both very comprehensive and varied. From computer science textbooks to the most recent installations of manga, the library has something for everyone, but most people will probably be able to find something of interest in the library’s Popular Reading section. Housed on the first floor, the Popular Reading section is — as the name suggests — a collection of the most popular and relevant books. From new romance novels to the most impactful nonfiction, the Popular Reading section is a great place to start if you’re overwhelmed by all the library has to offer. Moreover, the section, and the library in general, are constantly expanding and finding new ways to connect with students.

In addition, the library allows you to put a hold on books, so you can make sure you’re able to get the books you want when you need them. The library will send you an email every time you check out a book with its due date and will also email you when you are nearing the return date. Most books can be checked out for 28 days, but this can vary, so make sure to confirm the date yourself. 

Similar, but separate from checking out books, you can also place course reserves, which is a way to access physical and digital copies of articles, journals and resources. Furthermore, this isn’t limited to the Georgia Tech library, as students can also place an interlibrary loan. With an interlibrary loan, students can basically request books — digital or physical — to be sent to Tech from other universities or research libraries. 

If you’re still not sure where to start, here are a few recommendations of books that you can check out at the library right now. “Book Lover” by Emily Henry is a fun and light summery romance that follows an uptight publishing agent trying to find small-town love, but it may already be closer than it seems. It’s a quick and entertaining read and a great way to get out of a reading slump. The first volume of “The Sandman” comics by Neil Gaiman is also a great book to start reading now, since the TV adaptation was just released on Netflix. Finally, for those who may prefer nonfiction, “The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet” by John Green is a collection of essays that covers an almost unbelievably broad range of topics — perfect for any reader.

Even if you never considered yourself an avid reader, college is a great time to pick up new things, hobbies or maybe just a book, and the library is the perfect place to do it.

Decolonize the literary canon.

These four simple words printed on a sticker stuck on a corner of my laptop have sparked a host of conversations on what it means to decolonize something and what it has to do with literature. Put simply, decolonizing the literary canon refers to the movement to introduce more works by people of color and non-cisgender male authors into the collection of books that are widely accepted by academics as the classics. 

Even though the choices of academics and scholars may seem far out of the scope of our day-to-day lives, the issue of the antiquated nature of our literary canon is extremely relevant to each of us. Think about your high school English classes and what you were reading. Do names like “The Scarlet Letter,” “1984” or “The Great Gatsby” ring a bell? Other than being staples in educational institutions around the country, these books share very little in common, except for one key fact: they were all written by white men.

Nearly everywhere we turn, we see stories. Whether it be in our required introductory English courses or our movie theaters, the books that populate our class syllabi, daily conversations and bookshelves are almost exclusively written by white men. This is nothing new as nearly every aspect of academia has historically been dominated by the privileged, but by allowing this, we are allowing the stories that we tell to be dominated by one narrative. Starting to decolonize the literary canon is a collection of choices. It can be as small as picking up a book by an up-and-coming POC author at the library, or it can be as big as petitioning your professors to reconsider their selected works for the semester–encouraging them to diversify their classes. 

Advocating for a more inclusive educational experience is the first step towards creating a more holistic perspective inside the classroom and a more connected world outside.

To truly understand society and our place in it, it is important to have a comprehensive view — to listen to both sides — and looking outside the scope of our current literary canon allows us to do this. Today, more than ever, in an increasingly globalized world, it is important to encourage students to broaden their horizons past the familiar. 

One of the primary goals of reading is to learn to empathize with others — the characters and the author. As fictional as they might be, the relationships and empathy we build with characters are real. When we watch heroes rise and fall and teenagers fall in and out of love, for a brief span of time, we are connected to them in a way that teaches
us an unquantifiable amount about ourselves and the people around us. 

Choosing to decolonize the literary canon is a choice to make the human experience more human, not just what academia has chosen to push to the forefront.  By choosing to listen to historically suppressed voices, we make the conscious choice to better understand the world around us, its history, and, consequently, its future.

In 1960, four African-American college students remained seated at a counter in a segregated restaurant in Greensboro amongst police presence, inspiring hundreds of students to do the same across the nation.

In 1989, amid tanks and gunfires, a gathering of nearly 15,000 college students stood unyielding against a military advance and a corrupt government in Tianmen Square.

In 2018, students across the nation walked out during the school day and called for better gun control and their right to feel safe in their classrooms.

College students have been at the forefront of nearly every political movement–sitting, marching, and yelling for the change they want to see in the world.

Just as college students are an intrinsic part of politics, politics remain an integral part of the college experience.

As college students, we’re at a uniquely volatile time in our lives. In that transitory period between youth and adulthood, we are stuck in an odd liminal space where we are able to see all the problems in the world, and we are also sure that we can fix them.

Even though the surety we have in our ability to change the world is often discounted by adults who think we’re nothing more than disillusioned youth, they could not be more wrong.

Across centuries and nations, student protests have remained catalysts for explosions of change. In South Africa, student protests in Soweto inspired students in the United States to enact their own demonstrations, leading to the withdrawal of billions of dollars from investments in South Africa by administrators.

The ensuing economic pressure has been cited as one of the key factors to the dissolution of apartheid. In Czechoslovakia, five hundred thousand students remained resolutely nonviolent in the face of tear gas and water cannons. Ten days after the protest, the Communist Party relinquished its power.

Higher education serves as a gateway to the understanding of the society we participate in and with that understanding comes an ability to enact change. By studying the revolutions of generations past, we are able to demand more and better than our predecessors. Even in recent years, the goals of movements have continued to evolve.

In 2017, millions of protestors filled the streets of Washington D.C to participate in the Women’s March, the largest single-day protest in US history, to protest Trump’s anti-woman behavior. In 2018, they rallied to encourage a more diverse involvement of women in politics.

In 2019, for the first time, the movement created a federal policy platform and marched to call for change in legislation that would end violence against women, protect LGBTQ+ rights, and enact climate change reform.

In 2020, in light of the election, the march partnered with a voter registration organization to ensure that women would be able to vote.

In 2021, they marched to dismantle systems of oppression and build inclusive structures. They haven’t yet announced their plans for the 2022 march, but it can be assumed that it will be focused on the battle for reproductive rights currently raging in our courts.

As new leaders come into power and the uphill fight for universal human rights continues, the legacy of student protests remains one of the few constants of change. Every right we have today is one that was fought for by those that came before us, so isn’t it our responsibility to continue the fight?

Our willingness to stand up against injustice and demand a better life for our generation and every generation after us is what guarantees our growing freedoms.

You don’t have to take to the streets in protest. You don’t have to make a grand proclamation. You don’t even have to vocally advocate for anything.

Fighting oppression can be something as small as signing a petition or voting in local elections.

As long as you are using your voice, your privilege as a student of higher education, to make a change in something you’re passionate about, you’ve made a difference in our world, and, at the end of the day, that’s what matters.

Writing a novel in a month seems impossible, but that’s what nearly 40,000 writers do every year in November.

National Novel Writing Months (usually shortened to NaNoWriMo) is a month-long challenge where writers from around the world try to write 50,000 words for a single project.

With a nearly 40% success rate, NaNoWriMo forces writers to finally set aside time in their day to sit down and work on projects they are passionate about but never have time for.

Setting an average pace of 1667 words a day, NaNoWriMo sets a grueling pace and it is just as much a testament to the hardwork behind writing as it the actual art of writing a novel.

At the end of the month, if you are successfully able to complete the challenge, you will get a certificate and a banner, certifying your completion, and more importantly, the draft to a brand new novel.

Great books, like Rainbow Rowell’s “Fangirl” and Marissa Meyer’s “Cinder,” have come out of NaNoWriMo, but the process to get there was far from easy.

Fitting in the time to write over a thousand words everyday is difficult and for a college student, it may seem impossible, but I believe that is exactly why it’s important to do it. This is my first year doing NaNoWriMo and to be honest, it’s already pretty intimidating. In true Georgia Tech fashion, I spent hours on Reddit, reading through subreddits about how feasible it was for a college student to try and do NaNoWriMo and what I found surprised me.

Contrary to Reddit’s usual negativity, nearly every single response I read said that it was more than possible for a student to do it.

From first-year undergrads to last-year grad students, there was an oupouring of positive support, all with a common message: NaNoWriMo is possible to anyone as long as you choose to make time for it and you’re not alone in doing it.

That simple takeaway is why I think everyone should do NaNoWriMo, or something similar, at least once in their life.

NaNoWriMo asks you to set aside a hour everyday to make time for writing and your continuous choice to do this for a whole month teaches you discipline and commitment in a way little else can.

You’re not alone in making this choice.

From adults with kids to students like us, we’re all making sacrifices to meet that 50,000 word deadline and nothing builds community better than sacrifice. NaNoWriMo has an extensive online network, filled with forums and planned writer meetups in local cafe.

With events like Virtual Write-Ins or Writer Yoga, NaNoWriMo works to build a community of people, who just like you, are trying to meet a seemingly impossible deadline.

Even if you aren’t a writer, try setting out a hour a day to do something you love — revisiting an old hobby or trying a new one — this month.

Just by trying to make the effort to set aside time, you’ll be surprise how much time you actually have in a day and how many people you’ll meet through hobbies.

If you are a writer, I strongly encourage that you do NaNoWriMo, even if it’s not this year.

To sign up, all you have to do is go nanowrimo.org and create an account.

At the end of the month, you’ll upload your novel to the website to verify that it’s reached the word count.

On Nov. 30, maybe you won’t have finished your novel or even gotten close to the 50,000 word count, but you’ll have the start of a great novel and a new commitment to making time for the things that matter, and what else could you ask for.

Our Take: 4/5 Stars

Released on Oct. 1, “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” hit theaters with resounding success, grossing nearly $90.1 million in ticket sales, the highest box office opening since the beginning of the pandemic. This sequel to Sony’s 2018 hit “Venom” picked up where the first movie left off with Eddy Brock (Tom Hardy, “Inception”) still infected by a symbiote and the world on the brink of peril at the hands of a serial killer, Cletus Cassidy, played by Woody Harrelson (“Now You See Me”).

As a superhero movie, “Venom” was aggressively mediocre. With odd pacing and anticlimactic fight sequences, the movie felt like it was sidelining its own plot. But oddly enough, the marginalization of the heroics was actually what made “Venom” so good.

“Venom” is by definition a superhero movie, but it should be viewed as something completely different. At its core, “Venom” is a story about love — the excitement of falling into it, the pain of falling out of it and the lengths we are willing to go for it.

Throughout the movie, we follow diametrically different relationships — Cletus and Shriek’s Bonnie and Clyde-esque relationship and Annie and Dan’s recent engagement — but it is Eddy and Venom’s relationship that remains central to it all.

This is no surprise. It was their relationship, with its blatant flaws and humorous banter, that got millions of viewers hooked on the Venom franchise in the first place. Nearly the entire first half of “Venom” focuses on Eddy and Venom trying to figure out how to navigate their relationship; Venom feels like Eddy does not allow him enough liberties and Eddy feels stifled by Venom’s constant presence in every aspect of his life.

However, when the two briefly separate, they almost instantly miss each other. Venom, finally able to live the life he wants, cannot enjoy any of it because he wished Eddy was there to see it and in the absence of Venom, Eddy struggles to remember what his life was like pre-symbiote. When they reunite at the end of the movie in their final battle against Carnage, they are able to come to a compromise. In many ways, their reuniting feels more like a definitive climax than the final battle between Venom and Carnage.

It would be remiss to write a Venom review without acknowledging the controversial end scene that introduced Venom to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel is going to introduce Venom into the MCU through the upcoming Spiderman movie “Long Way Home,” since Venom the character got its start off as an antagonist to Spiderman. However, it is difficult to imagine how Venom’s unique brand of morally grey heroics will meld into Marvel’s world of black and white, but regardless, it will definitely be interesting to see.

“Venom” was a reminder of why the first movie was so lovable. Sony is not trying to be something that it is not and instead focuses on what has always made Venom so good: the story of two incredibly flawed people continuing to choose to be there for each other, even if they have to make sacrifices. And at the end of the day, is that not what love is?

If I’ve learned one thing from my time on campus, it’s this: Georgia Tech runs on coffee.

From the finicky machines at North Avenue to the coffee vending machine in Crosland Tower, it is an unarguable fact that coffee is an integral part of the Georgia Tech experience.

While coffee’s importance is a well-established fact of campus, the question of where to get the best coffee is far more contentious.

Coffee shops like Blue Donkey and Kaldi are campus staples with consistently long lines and even more consistent regulars, but which coffee shop can truly claim that it has the best coffee on campus?

It’s hard to answer that question, but I strongly believe that there is an almost definitive ranking of all the coffee shops on campus and that one shop truly does rise above the rest.

Starting in one of our very own dining halls, we have Ramblin’ Coffee & Sweets, the coffee shop in West Village. At the beginning of the semester, Ramblin’ Coffee & Sweets offered two options: hot or iced coffee.

Generally, the coffee was unnecessarily bitter, watered down, and somehow, no matter what temperature you ordered it, always lukewarm — not a great combination for a cup of coffee.

Two weeks ago, ​​Ramblin’ Coffee & Sweets introduced a completely new menu, and it changed the entire experience.

With the addition of an espresso machine and a variety of flavored syrups, the coffee was radically different.

It felt like going to a completely different coffee shop, and I actually began to look forward to going to West Village in the morning.

However, within a span of a week, the toppings began to dwindle, and soon Ramblin’ Coffee & Sweets had returned to its humble beginnings: hot and iced lukewarm coffee.

I hope that one day Ramblin’ Coffee & Sweets returns to its short-lived former glory, but until it does, it will remain at a solid third place on the list.

Moving further into the heart of campus, we have Kaldi — a relatively new addition to the Clough Undergraduate Learning Commons.

With lines stretching out the door every day, Kaldi has quickly become a student favorite which is why I was disappointed when I tried the coffee.

Kaldi’s coffee is the very definition of okay.

Even as I try to recall what it tasted like as I write this, I find it hard to come up with any defining characteristics.

There was nothing particularly bad about it, but there also wasn’t anything particularly good about it.

However, I believe Kaldi’s lackluster coffee works to its favor because where it truly shines is in its teas and specialty beverages.

What Kaldi lacks in ingenuity in its coffees, it more than makes up for in its extensive tea menu and its seasonal specialties, such as the Oatchata beverage.

Even though I would strongly recommend the chai lattes and matcha drinks, the coffee still remains painfully mediocre–landing Kaldi at number two.

Finally, we have the ever-timeless Blue Donkey. Surviving a student center renovation, the Blue Donkey has remained a campus classic and it’s easy to see why.

Best known for its iced coffee selection, Blue Donkey hosts a variety of beverages and pastries and all of them are well worth praise.

The best way I can describe Blue Donkey’s coffee is that it feels like a summer breeze.

The different coffee flavors are all discernibly different while also being subtle enough that you’re not overwhelmed by them.

The coffee is always beautifully smooth and a delight to drink, and possibly most importantly, they actually put less ice in your drink when you order your coffee with light ice.

Always consistently good, it is no surprise that Blue Donkey claims the number one spot and the title of the best coffee shop on campus.

If you disagree with me and my completely arbitrary ranking, that is completely understandable — there is a reason why it is called an almost definitive ranking and not a definitive one.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter where you get your coffee as long as you get your caffeine buzz.

Our Take: 4 Stars

With new weekly installments on Wednesdays, “What If…?” is Marvel’s newest addition to its collection of television series released on Disney+.

Following in the footsteps of critically acclaimed shows like “Wandavision” and “Loki,” “What If…?” offers an animated reimagining of what would’ve happened in the Marvel Cinematic Universe if key events were changed.

As of this writing, six of the eight total episodes of the series have been released, and in these six episodes, Marvel has managed to hook audiences. “What If…?” is a remarkably well-done series that allows fans to reconnect with their favorite characters while exploring the Marvel Cinematic Universe outside of its regular scope.

All of the episodes are vastly different, which is expected for the format of the show, but there are two underlying characteristics that set “What If…?” apart from Marvel’s other projects: its animation style and storylines.

“What If…?” uses an art style traditionally referred to as cel shading, a form of animation that is used to make three dimensional characters look more two dimensional. Marvel has used it in past projects to a mixed response since the style is often criticized for being choppy and stilted.

But the opposite is true in “What If…?” The comic-book art style of cel shading allowed for a smooth transition from the live-action actors of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to their animated counterparts, while also maintaining fluidity in its characters and action sequences. Furthermore, the style of cel shading allows for some truly beautiful shots of familiar landscapes from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

“What If…?” does not succeed purely on its aesthetics, however. The storytelling in the series is phenomenal as well. By colliding universes and plotlines together, Marvel is able to tell rich stories, full of familiar characters in completely unfamiliar settings.

The episodic format of the show also allows Marvel to set up a premise where the universe resets in every new episode, giving the franchise the freedom to make bold choices they would never make in their canonical movies and shows. Episodes like “What If… Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands,” where Dr. Strange not only destroys the universe but is then forced to grieve his own hubris and lost love, allow Marvel to demonstrate its ability to tell tales of tragedy, not just heroic triumph.

However, in many ways, the episodic format of “What If…?” is also its downfall. It is impossible to construct a new universe, tell an entire story, and resolve it in thirty minutes. Because of this, many of the episodes feel unfinished and leave viewers feeling like they had only watched half of a movie. For this reason, an otherwise five-star show becomes a four-star experience.

This issue with the endings could have easily been resolved by making some of the conflicts in the episodes less complicated. For example, in “What If…Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark?” the conflict unfolds for the better part of the episode, and we aren’t introduced to the resolution until mere minutes before the credits. While the added complexity allows for a more complete universe, at some point, it simply detracts from the story at the heart of the episode. Despite its flaws, “What If…?” may be one of Marvel’s best Phase IV ventures because it does what the franchise has always done best — tell us new stories about old characters we know and love.