Summer Reads For the COLLEGE BOUND STUDENT
This section is a collection of titles for students who will be attending
college in the fall of 2008. These titles have been chosen from
freshman reading lists in humanities and liberal arts courses at several
universities as well as from recommended summer reading lists of national
journals and publications.
FICTION
The Natural
by Bernard Malamud
One of the great books about baseball, although of course it's really about
something else
altogether.
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.
by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
This economical, relentless novel is one of the most forceful artistic
indictments of political oppression in the Stalin-era Soviet Union. The
simply told story of a typical, grueling day of the titular character's day
is unforgettable.
Cannery Row.
by John Steinbeck
A perfect gem of a story about a small neighborhood, down at the heels (and
none too respectable
when it was up at the heels - if it ever was), depression ridden.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay: A Novel.
by Michael Chabon.
Like the comic books that animate and inspire it, The Amazing Adventures of
Kavalier & Clay is both larger than life and of it too. Complete with golems
and magic and miraculous escapes and evil nemeses and even hand-to-hand
Antarctic battle, it pursues the most important questions of love and war,
dreams and art, across pages brimming with longing and hope. Samuel Klayman--
self-described little man, city boy, and Jew--first meets Josef Kavalier
when his mother shoves him aside in his own bed, telling him to make room
for their cousin, a refugee from Nazi-occupied Prague. It's the beginning,
however unlikely, of a beautiful friendship. In short order, Sam's talent
for pulp plotting meets Joe's faultless, academy-trained line, and a comic-
book superhero is born. A sort of lantern-jawed equalizer clad in dark blue
long underwear, the Escapist "roams the globe, performing amazing feats and
coming to the aid of those who languish in tyranny's chains!" Before they
know it, Kavalier and Clay (as Sam Klayman has come to be known) find
themselves at the epicenter of comics' golden age.(Pulitzer Prize)
The Life of Pi: A Novel
by Yann Martel
Sixteen-year-old Pi Patel, his family and their zoo animals are emigrating
from India to North America aboard a cargo ship, but the ship sinks and Pi
finds himself sharing a lifeboat with a hyena, an orangutan, a zebra, and a
450 pound Bengal tiger. This is a novel that has it all - humor, irony,
action and adventure, and a strong hint of spiritualism.
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress.
by Dai Sijie.
Two teenagers gain access to forbidden books while working in a “reeducation
center” in Maoist China. (A wonderful little read that will soon be a
major motion picture.)
A Confederacy of Dunces.
by John Kennedy Toole
A comic tour-de-force about a man who is fat, lazy, and useless. But,
brilliant and arrogant, he talks his way into a number of jobs and nearly
destroys every organization he touches.(Pulitzer Prize Winner.)
Crime and Punishment.
by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Raskalnikov, a student who believes his own intellectual and spiritual
supereriority place him above the masses, tests his theory of invcibility by
committing murder. (For those who are up to a challenge!)
The Legend of Hell House.
by Richard Matheson.
"Hell House is the scariest haunted house novel ever written. It looms over
the rest the way the mountains loom over the foothills." --Stephen King --
My Sister’s Keeper: A Novel.
by Jodi Picoult.
13-year old Anna, a product of preimplantation genetic diagnois, has
undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older
sister, Kate, can fight Leukemia. She begins a legal procedure to stop her
parents from using her body to keep Kate alive. (Alex Award)
Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Bronte
The classic story of a child, unloved and treated abusively, who nonetheless
retains a passionate sense of her own worth (and this in a pre-feminist era).
Stranger in a Strange Land.
by Robert Heinlein.
From one of the all time greats of the sci-fi genre, a thought provoking
novel about a young man from Mars who finds the ways of Earth strange.
The Handmaid's Tale
by Margaret Atwood.
Men have taken the world back, by firing women from their jobs and cutting
off their bank accounts and credit cards. Women now have only two roles:
wives, or servant babybreeders for wives. A scary read.
Robinson Crusoe.
by Daniel Defoe.
Yes, the familiar shipwreck on the island is there along with
Friday and his footprints. But you can also read about Crusoe's career as a
merchant, his own experience as a slave in the Middle East, and, especially
shocking, about how Crusoe sold the fellow slave who helped him escape back
into slavery to European slave traders. Learn about the
slave trade, plantations, and 18th century ideas about race, Africa,
property and religion.
Parable of the Sower
by Octavia Butler
In 2025, all sense of community has vanished with most of the jobs. The
people who have a lot live in well-guarded fortress communities, while those
with little are continually on guard against the desperate starving people
and druggies who raid, rape, murder, and set fire to everything they destroy.
Paradise Alley
by Kevin Baker
The story of the draft riots of 1863, told through the eyes of Ruth Dove (an
Irish woman married to Billy, a black man who works at the colored
orphanage), and several other characters. Much is told of the grievances of
the Irish, the travails of the freed blacks living in fear of slave catchers
and lynchings, and the ruthlessness of the mobs.
Slaughterhouse-Five.
by Kurt Vonnegut.
Perhaps the most personal novel written by Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-
Five is an antiwar story published in 1969, during a year which saw
escalating anti-Vietnam war protests sweep across America.
Life is Funny.
by E.R. Frank.
The lives of a number of young people of different races,
economic backgrounds, and family situations living in Brooklyn, New York,
become intertwined over a seven-year period.
Thank You for Smoking
by Christopher Buckley
A very funny political novel, about the lobbyists for death -- the tobacco,
gun and liquor folks.
NON-FICTION
My Losing Season
by Pat Conroy.
The author describes his life at a military college, his love of basketball
and his relationship with a brutal domineering father.
Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944-1945
by Max Hastings.
This splendid volume tells the grim tale of the final collapse of the Third
Reich. It does so from the viewpoints of the Western Allies, the Russians
and the Germans. The research includes previously untapped Russian archives
(particularly in the accounts of Soviet veterans) and leads to a gripping
and horrifying story.
Six Easy Pieces
by Richard Feyman.
The essentials of physics are explained in six “easy” chapters - originally
prepared for Caltech undergraduate students.
Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, A Young Man, and life’s Greatest
Lesson
by Mitch Albom.
Mitch Albom’s Tuesday night visits with his dying sociology professor,
Morrie,offer valuable lessons about the art of living and dying with dignity.
Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media,
Politicians, and Activists
by Joel Best.
Do you know the difference between “good” and “bad”
statistics or how statistics and public policy are connected?
The Kite Runner.
by Khaled Hosseini.
Years after he flees Afghanistan, Amir, now an American citizen, returns to
his native land and attempts to atone for the betrayal of
his best friend before he fled kabul and the Taliban.
Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal
by Eric Schlosser.
The growth of the fast food industry has changed America’s eating habits and
greatly impacted agriculture, the meatpacking industry, the minimum wage,
and other aspects of American life.
Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science
by Charles Wheelan.
Wheelan makes economics understandable, even interesting, as he demystifies
basic concepts and applies them to everyday life.
The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History, 1300 - 1850
by Brian Fagan.
A fascinating look at how climate change influenced the course of the last
thousand years of Western history. Author Brian Fagan highlight’s climate’s
profound influence on the Viking discovery of North America, the Industrial
and French Revolutions,and the Irish Potato Famine.
The World is Flat: A brief history of the 21st Century
by Thomas L.
Friedman
This book is an account of the great changes taking place in our time, as
lightning swift advances in technology and communications put people all
over the globe in touch as never before.
John Adams
by David McCullough
The definitive biography of one of America's greatest patriots and second
president.
October 1964
by David Halberstam
The story of the 1964 World Series which
played out against a backdrop of an America emerging from the Kennedy
assassination, an escalating war in Vietnam, and the civil rights movement,
marking a turning point: neither the nation, nor baseball, would ever be
quite so innocent again.
Stalingrad
by Antony Beevor
One of the best books ever written regarding the savage battle that
turned the tide of World War II. This is a must read for anyone with an
interest in history or for those planning to major in it.(If you find this
book interesting you might want to read The Fall of Berlin 1945
by the same author).
Team of Rivals:The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
by Doris
Kearns Goodwin
Goodwin makes the case for Lincoln's political genius by examining his
relationships with three men he selected for his cabinet, all of whom were
opponents for the Republican nomination in 1860: William H. Seward, Salmon
P. Chase, and Edward Bates. These men, all accomplished, nationally known,
and presidential, originally disdained Lincoln for his backwoods upbringing
and lack of experience, and were shocked and humiliated at losing to this
relatively obscure Illinois lawyer. Yet Lincoln not only convinced them to
join his administration--Seward as secretary of state, Chase as secretary of
the treasury, and Bates as attorney general--he ultimately gained their
admiration and respect as well. How he soothed egos, turned rivals into
allies, and dealt with many challenges to his leadership, all for the sake
of the greater good, is largely what Goodwin's fine book is about. Had he
not possessed the wisdom and confidence to select and work with the best
people, she argues, he could not have led the nation through one of its
darkest periods.
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