UI professor, first-time author Ashley Howard talks about books that inspire her

Ashley Howard is a devoted reader, with the library card receipts to prove it. But the University of Iowa African American Studies and history professor isn't a collector. She happily loans out books from her personal library, marks them up heavily, and reads them until the covers hang by threads.

"I'm a huge reader - I probably read a hundred books a year that have nothing to do with my work, which means that I'm a huge fan and patron of the university and Iowa City libraries," Howard says. Since 2009, she's logged each book she's read in a blue journal. (Sleeper pick: T.L. Huchu's dystopian fantasy, The Library of the Dead.)

For her first book as an author, Midwest Unrest - an examination of overlooked 1960s urban uprisings in Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and Omaha published in June- Howard drew inspiration from a personal library that fills her Schaeffer Hall office. It's an ideal of the form, with tall windows overlooking the Pentacrest, intriguing art, and shelves lined with titles she calls classics.

They include a well-worn copy of the 1968 Kerner Commission report on violence and social disparities in America ("I'm a little embarrassed to say I bought this when I was 15," she says); Gerald Horne's overview of the 1965 Watts uprising, Fire This Time ("A classic"); and an autobiography of civil rights leader Stokely Carmichael.

"This is the book that actually made me want to be a historian," Howard says, pulling from a shelf near her desk a tattered copy of Ready for Revolution that she discovered in a Chicago bookstore. She opens to a favorite passage: "That line, 'An account of my people, my remarkable heroic struggling people' gave me chills."

For Howard, an Omaha native who was inspired to earn a PhD in history after reading Carmichael's autobiography, it's a line that speaks to the way that her chosen field is about connection. She pulls two favorite books from a shelf to illustrate: Rebecca Hall's history of women-led slave revolts, Wake ("It shows how we bring our whole selves to history") and Trevor Getz's graphic novel, Abina and the Important Men ("It gets at the fact that history is an act of investigation and an act of imagination").

Her copy of Matt de la Peña's children's book, Milo Imagines the World, reinforces that point. ("It's basically encouraging us all to not think about the world as we see it but to imagine a whole new world.") "I think children's literature is way, way undervalued," Howard says.

Howard says her most beloved book is a signed edition of Camille Dungy's memoir, Soil ("A beautiful, beautiful book"). She opens to a favorite line and reads: "'Gardens, history, and hope are the same … if left unattended without anyone's dedication and care, much will totally be lost.'"

Her library shelves also celebrate UI colleagues, including books from Colin Gordon, Tara Bynum, and Richard Turner. "This has been really one of the best parts of coming to Iowa is that I'm dually appointed - I get to do what I do as a historian, but I also get to think more broadly about the human experience and the histories that aren't in an archive," she says.

Genre-bending works are also represented on Howard's shelves, including Bryant Terry's cookbook, Vegan Soul Kitchen, in which recipes are paired with the music that inspired them ("This one is well-loved and often cooked at my house," she says of the BBQ black eyed peas). Tanisha Ford's Dressed in Dreams combines fashion and cultural history ("It's such a fabulous way of thinking about how we dress and why").

But the most precious book she owns isn't on campus. It's her grandmother's handwritten journal, a diary about family happenings and garden planting that Howard keeps at home. "That's the one I'd grab in a fire," she says without hesitation.

Howard, who is raising three children in Iowa City with her husband, couldn't be happier to live and work in a UNESCO City of Literature. "For me, the joy of raising children here is there are books everywhere in this city," she says. "That's normal here. You go to school functions, and the kids are bringing books in to read. What a wonderful place and what a wonderful way to be part of the world.

"As you can tell, I love books," Howard says. "I think that the act of reading helps us connect to people around the world and, most importantly, connect with ourselves because it helps us understand who we are and who we want to be."