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The following book recommendations and comments on "The Joy of Reading " were submitted by members of the Holy Cross community. Post your own reactions >>
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Neel Smith, associate professor, classics (August 17, 2007)
The subtitle of Jane Rylands' Across the Bridge of Sighs: More Venetian Stories is a nod to fans of her earlier Venetian Stories, but it is misleading to a newcomer to her writing. In each 'story,' characters from previous stories appear, and the reader quickly realizes that the stories also function as chapters in a novel. It's an unconventional novel. Rylands lays out her main themes from the first page—Venice's unique past, its uncertain but certainly changing future, and the wrenching changes the present is effecting as Venice's complex, self-contained society is increasingly integrated into a global twenty-first century world. The cast of characters is enormous, and Rylands chooses not to develop any single character too fully, because, I think, her real protagonist is Venice herself. A long-time resident of Venice, Rylands knows the city intimately, and is a skillful enough writer to pick out details of Venetian life that a casual observer might overlook, but that in these Venetian stories become small revelations.
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Eddie Turner '04 (August 17, 2007)
Forget Frank Miller's 300. Steven Pressfield's Gates of Fire, a novel about the Battle of Thermopylae, is the book that should have been made into a movie.
Crime fiction fans should check out anything by Dennis Lehane or George Pelecanos, both of whom also write for HBO's The Wire.
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Jim McManus '70 (August 15, 2007)
The most important omission by your suggested reading list was books on CD, a must for busy folks who want to populate their commutes with good books. In that regard I rate the following tops:
1. A History of Britain by Simon Schama
2. Sailing the Wine Dark Sea by Thomas Cahill
3. Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
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Carolyn Howe, associate professor, sociology & anthropology (August 15, 2007)
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver (with Steven Hopp and Camile Kingsolver)
This summer I have been listening to the 12-CD complete version of this book, read by Kingsolver, her husband, and her college-age daughter. I will never eat a winter orange again without thinking about the tremendous waste of fuel and tax dollars to bring that orange from California to the Northeast. This intriguing, magical, informative, and often humorous book has changed how I view food, energy waste, and how to limit the size of my energy "footprint" that harms the very earth I am supposed to be a steward of.
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Timothy Duffy '06 (August 13, 2007)
Unrequited Conquests: Love and Empire in the Colonial Americas by Roland Greene
Having spent much of my undergraduate days split between studying the poetry of Renaissance England and Cultural Anthropology, I spent my earliest days of graduate school trying to build bridges between colonial studies and the English Renaissance. For myself—and anyone interested in the links between poetry and politics—Greene’s book shows how lyric poetry, especially love poetry, of the sixteenth century in Europe played a role in the conquest of the New World. Greene’s prose is provocative for an academic book. One of Greene’s principal arguments is that the ambivalence and ambiguity of lyric love poetry was well suited to describing the ambivalent experience of the colonial project. Working off of David Quint’s idea that Epic is the genre of winners, Romance of losers, Greene argues that Lyric poetry is in the middle, and therefore able to uniquely describe the odd situation of Columbian America. What is really at stake in Greene’s argument is saving lyric poetry’s relevance in the history of our world. Greene convinces us that poetry and the political are irrevocably linked, that the “well wrought urn” of the poem may be used to hold the ugly realities of political ambition and cruelty. A must read for any student of history, politics, or literature.
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Virginia Raguin, professor, visual arts (August 10, 2007)
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
I just rediscovered Virginia Woolf – thanks to Sarah Stanbury’s inclusion of To the Lighthouse in the sophomore honors seminar. I took it with me on a long, linguistically polyglot, and culturally diverse trip to Europe. Astonishing—as Lily Briscoe endeavors to paint “truth” by perceiving its shifting surfaces, meshing of present and past, memory and imagination, so the medieval and modern, scholarship and family intertwined. Here were Anselm Kiefer’s art reflecting the Holocaust in Paris, stained glass from long dead monasteries reunited in Cologne, now fluent grandchildren during “les dîners français,” and conferences mingling the reflections of scholars past and newly minted. I learned—recognized—the seductive power of Woolf’s richly humanistic prose, allowing us to see our construction of experience in her egalitarian complexity. Now—onward to Orlando, Jacob’s Room, and more.
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Bill Loughlin ’51 (August 9, 2007)
As one who was fortunate enough to travel to Rome with some of my fellow Crusaders during the 1950 Holy Year, the memory of standing within a few feet as Pope Pius XII passed by has remained with me for a lifetime. Over the years the assault on his character by people who should know better has angered me. In an effort to help repair his sullied reputation, I’d recommend two books. Consensus & Controversy is but one of more than half a dozen written about Pius XII by Sister Margherita Marchione, professor emerita of Italian language and literature at Fairleigh Dickinson University. She has been to the Vatican Archives—in contrast to the critics—and, as a young religious, she actually got to meet and talk with Pius. The second book I highly recommend is The Pius War. Among the essayists responding to the critics of Pope Pius XII are Joseph Bottum, Rabbi David G. Dalin, Justus George Lawler, Michael Novak and John Jay Hughes. Bill Doino, whose late father and sister both attended Holy Cross, has compiled an extraordinary annotated bibliography covering more than half the book.
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Lisa Gonyea,
student affairs (August 9, 2007)
Why We Believe What We Believe: Uncovering Our Biological Need for Meaning, Spirituality, and Truth by Andrew Newberg & Mark Robert Waldman. The book uses examples of real people to illustrate how biology (how the brain works) plays a huge part in what beliefs we carry with us through our lives. Interesting perspectives/theories comparing/contrasting nature & nurture. How often do we consciously choose to believe? Are we biologically destined to follow an “auto-pilot” belief system? How big a part does society play in influencing our beliefs? Read the book and find out!
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Mike Keegan ’74 (August 7, 2007)
The best book I have read in the past year, (and one of the most pleasurable ever), was The Last of the Donkey Pilgrims by Kevin O'Hara. Written in 2004, the book describes Mr. O'Hara's walk around Ireland in 1979 with his donkey. Anyone who has ever visited Ireland, or has an interest in the country, will thoroughly enjoy this tale of human interest.
Mr. O'Hara, a Viet Nam veteran whose parents were born in Ireland and who came with his parents and his siblings to America at a young age, writes in a very engaging style and from the perspective of a person who had been to Ireland on many occasions and was now taking the time to see the country and its people on a very personal level. In 1979, the assassination of Lord Mountbatten and the Pope's visit to Ireland add historical backdrop to the everyday occurrences and encounters that are the heart of the story. This is a wonderful book that I did not want to end.
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Jay Howard ’68 (August 7, 2007)
Two of the best books I have read recently are about living a life of faith, but they have very different voices. To paraphrase a Holy Cross slogan, Hornby’s How to Be Good is about a “man and woman for others.” The man, an opinionated and cynical columnist, meets a mystic and decides to become a good person and do good for his community. His wife, a doctor and therefore, or, perhaps, already, good, tells the story about her husband’s epiphany and its effects on their children and shaky marriage. Hornby’s humorous treatment of the family’s pilgrimage intensifies their struggles and choices. In Minaret: A Novel, Leila Aboulela writes somberly and gently about a woman finding herself. The main character is an exile from her native Sudan living in England. She has lost, in different ways, her parents and brother. She has lost her childhood Muslim faith. When she accepts a job as a nanny and maid, she finds her place in the ex-pat community, and when she is loved by a younger man, she re-discovers the faith which was hers as a child.
When not reading books, college students need to get out more and walk in the forest. Tom Wessels’ Reading the Forested Landscape: A Natural History of New England will enable them to use the cognitive skills they have learned in the classroom on a stroll through the woods. Each chapter presents a piece of the landscape: scorch marks, tree blow down, stone wall, and discusses how the event probably happened and its significance. The author is both a story teller and detective, and after reading this book, the forests visible from the top of Mount St James will not be merely a blotch of green but an arboreal manuscript.
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Todd Lewis, professor, religious studies (August 6, 2007)
The Orient in American Transcendentalism: A Study of Emerson, Thoreau, and Alcott by Arthur Christy
Professor Chris Dustin’s Rodino Lecture this past spring, in which he highlighted Thoreau as a model for the liberal arts education, drew me into the Dinand stacks to find and re-read this fine book, one I had skimmed 30 years ago in graduate school. Back then, the content of this monograph seemed minor, even trivial; today, through a careful re-reading, The Orient in American Transcendentalism informed me about the scope and scale of global religious contact in 19th century America. Professor Christy carefully demonstrates how the Concord circle of Transcendentalists, and especially Thoreau, were in a very thoroughgoing way influenced by the earliest translations made of Asian and Muslim religious texts. I was amazed to discover how eagerly they sought out the newest “revelations” from the first European translators of these works and how Thoreau in his journals reveals his excited consideration of their ideas. (He called one shipment of such books “a godsend.”) For him, this was no mere dabbling in the “exotic.” Thoreau's journal discussions of “Brahman,” “Buddha,” “Maya,” “The East,” and “Confucius” are common; it is clear, in fact, that these core Asian ideas came to fundamentally form Thoreau's intellectual and spiritual identity. Through The Orient in American Transcendentalism, we learn that Thoreau explicitly framed his entire “experiment” at Walden Pond as the ascetic practice of a Hindu yogin: its waters were his “Ganges” and the Bhagavad Gita was on his bed stand. Seeing such strong connections so pervasive in one of America's most original intellectual movements, and with Walden long-installed as part of the “Western Canon,” I now wonder why the importance of Asia was for so long so marginal in the liberal arts curriculum or why Asian religions were ignored in treatments of Thoreau's masterpiece. The final chapter documents how Asian reformers like Gandhi were profoundly influenced by Emerson and Thoreau, drawn to their globally-informed inter-religious insights. This volume provides one of the greatest pleasures in academic reading: it opens up a richer, more complex understanding of a great intellectual, one that we thought we knew so well.
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Stephen Schulz ’80 (August 6, 2007)
Best Book in last Year: Team Of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. An amazing book that not only gives you historical insights into the Lincoln Administration but also illustrates a magnificent management style that brought his rivals into his administration so that he could tap their immense expertise. Being human, tremendous pettiness, egotistical jockeying and gamesmanship went on among these rivals, and Lincoln put up with a lot but he tolerated unbelievable bickering so that he had the benefit of the best thinking in the country. The book also shows how he never lost sight of the big picture and made compromises along the way to get to his ultimate goal. Though slavery was repugnant to him and was under a lot of pressure to eliminate it, he felt that in the long run, a Union of all the states would eventually be able to tackle the slavery question more effectively than if the Union was divided. It is a great history book but one of the best management books I have ever read.
Most Influential Book (besides the Bible): The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. I read it every New Years. Great lessons about working hard for something material, only to lose it—but in return to gain something much more valuable.
I greatly enjoyed the article about reading in this issue of the Holy Cross Magazine. From the time I was forced by my mom to take “Great Books” after school in grade school, reading has been as integral and influential in my life as has my faith. Ever since high school, I have always been reading books and each books takes me away to a place in time (history), a new way to think about things (current events) or far away into an author’s imagination (novels). I am never alone because I am always reading some book. (I average 35-40 books a year—I use to travel a lot for business.) Exchanging book recommendations is a great pastime between my friends and through this exchange I have been exposed to authors and subjects I never would have sought out on my own. I can remember books I was reading during formative and significant times in my life, what I was reading on certain vacations and what books have influenced my thinking on many subjects. Long airplane flights (and delays) have seemed very short because reading passed the time. My life has been greatly enriched by reading in ways that movies or TV shows never have managed. I can not imagine a life without the ability or resources to read!
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Jim McManus ’70 (August 6, 2007)
“It was of this death I was reminded by the crushed thistle in the recently ploughed field.”
So ends Hadji Murad, Tolstoy’s story of the mountaineer warrior who died in a confused war of shifting loyalties in a land just north of Iraq. Given that our nation is involved in a great contest in a part of the world where Tolstoy fought in the Russian army as a young man, this great book is a worthwhile read and it’s a heck of a lot shorter than War and Peace.
I would also recommend The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci, a biography of the great Jesuit whose facility with scholastic memory techniques enabled him to carried Euclid and the other Greeks to China in his head. I started reading Memory Palace last winter, but had to put it down for the Little League season; I'd completely forgotten about it until I started wondering what I should read on the airplane to our vacation in New England.
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Susan Amatangelo, associate professor, modern languages (Italian) (August 3, 2007)
A student in my Italian Women Writers course recommended Kris Holloway’s Monique and the Mango Rains (the author spoke at Holy Cross in the spring of 2007). The book is the personal account of a friendship between a Peace Corps volunteer and a midwife from Mali, but what really captured me was the evocative portrayal of life in a West African village: the traditions, family dynamics, politics, and the power of the natural world. The image of Monique's young son, Basil, who for most of the novel observers the world from his place on her back, will stay with me for a long time. The conclusion is heartbreaking but, ultimately, inspiring.
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Patrick McKinney ’04 (August 3, 2007)
Thomas Friedman’s From Beirut to Jerusalem. Interesting and very readable narrative on Lebanon, Israel, and the Middle East in the 1970s and 1980s. Helps explain the mindset and why things are the way they are. Anton Myrer’s Once an Eagle. This is the book that every Army officer is told to read and live. Be warned, it is long, and you will not put it down.
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Ward Thomas, associate professor, political science (August 2, 2007)
I recommend Andrew Bacevich’s The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War. Bacevich defies convenient stereotypes: a former Army officer who laments Americans’ infatuation with the military and military power; a conservative who is scathingly critical of the Bush administration. Unlike many critics of the Iraq War, however, Bacevich sees the problem not only as arrogant overreaching after Sept. 11, but the culmination of trends that date back three decades, including the U.S. commitment to protect the flow of Middle East oil (embodied in the Carter Doctrine), and the adulation of military institutions even as the idea of uniformed service as an obligation of citizenship has all but disappeared. Tragically, the story has an ironic postscript: Bacevich’s son, who followed his father into the Army, was killed in action in Iraq in May.
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Debra Gettelman, assistant professor, English (August 1, 2007)
I taught several novels by George Eliot in different classes last year, which inspired me to reread her final novel, Daniel Deronda, this summer. In the novel one character struggles to find his vocation and identity, another learns painfully to feel sympathy: these themes are familiar to anyone who has read one of Eliot’s sage-like, satiric works. In Daniel Deronda her social critique is more incisive and her reformist vision more distinct, as the novel is set not in earlier times but in her own, late-nineteenth century English society. For me one of the pleasures of rereading a favorite novel was in noticing new ways these themes emerge which had been illuminated for me over the past year.
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Thomas Worcester, S.J., associate professor, history (August 1, 2007)
I highly recommend Brokers of Culture: Italian Jesuits in the American West, 1848-1919 by Gerald McKevitt a fascinating exposition of complex cultural encounters between Italian Jesuits, other European immigrants, and various groups of Native Americans.
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Rob Godfrey ’07 (August 1, 2007)
James Patterson continues to write great suspense novels. I recently read Lifeguard, which was great. His Alex Cross novels are also great reads. Short chapters make reading his books a pleasure and easy to complete in no time.
Another great read for any sports enthusiast is Moneyball by Michael Lewis. Although not a new release, I recently completed this book and was amazed at the facts and stories regarding Major League Baseball.
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Scott Sandstrom, associate professor, economics (August 1, 2007)
From 60 Yards In: How to Master Golf's Short Game by Raymond Floyd.
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Ankur Patel ’10 (August 1, 2007)
I recommend reading Walter Issacson’s newest book, Einstein: His Life and Universe. The book reveals the personal and scientific aspects of Einstein life, which are truly inspirational.
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Sam Partyka ’10 (August 1, 2007)
Just before starting at Holy Cross, I read the two books that are defining my college experience: The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Each book is an attempt by the author to portray the ideal man in a context where the root of his character is clear. Her message of individualism, achievement, and rationality is powerful—powerful enough in my case to effect a change of both religion and political affiliation.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein is also a very good read. It’s the best science fiction novel I’ve read yet. Within a compelling plot, the author portrays a society without many of our basic customs, leading the reader to question which, in fact, are natural.
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Kyle A. Soucy ’05 (July 31, 2007)
I highly recommend The Light Bearer by Donna Gillespie. I shamefully have to admit that I picked the book because of its cover, but have since read it twice. Even my sister (the true book lover of the family) read and loved the book. Love (some forbidden), war, nobles, slaves, warriors, priestesses and prophecy all taking place during a time when Rome is attempting to conquer Germanic tribes of the North. There is a great deal of history to absorb during the first few chapters, but hang in there because the rest of the story is well worth the read! I think it would make an excellent movie some day as well.
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Br. Cuthbert Elliott ’06 (July 31, 2007)
Dorotheos of Gaza: Discourses and Sayings by Dorotheos of Gaza
Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler
The Browning Version by Terrence Rattigan
Eagles in the Snow by Wallace Breem
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Maria G. Rodrigues, associate professor, political science (July 31, 2007)
Shake Hands with the Devil by Romeo Dellaire.
A moving account of Dellaire’s struggles to lead a force of fewer than 200 United Nations’ peace keepers in Rwanda in 1994, in the midst of the genocide in that country that killed 800,000 people in three months. It tells a lot about the personal struggles of a man in command, about the weaknesses of the United Nations and its institutional dependence on power politics of western nations. It makes us think about our own personal responsibility in the face of major crises, whether they’re on the other side of the world or in our own backyard.
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Rob Bellin, assistant professor, biology (July 30, 2007)
A book that I find very meaningful is Watership Down by Richard Adams. Although some people ironically dismiss the importance of this book because it is often a standard high school reading assignment, I think it contains a wealth of ideas and commentary about the nature of human interactions and societal structure that all of us could stand to think more about. It is one of those great books that you can read multiple times in your life and find new layers of meaning each time—amazing, considering that the book tells the story of a group of talking rabbits!
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Carol Lieberman, associate professor, music (July 30, 2007)
I’m not sure if this would be categorized as “summer reading” but David Schneider’s book Bartok, Hungary, and the Renewal of Tradition sheds new light on Bartok’s Hungarian nationalism, as well as on his complicated relationship with Igor Stravinsky. This work is so well written that the analyses of music intersect very easily with the insightful discussions of Hungarian and German relations. A must for musicians, this is also an interesting and illuminating read for everyone.
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Mike Kristofik ’79 (July 30, 2007)
Call me old fashioned, but I still read from front to back, from left to right. So I find Summer 2007 Holy Cross Magazine's “Readers Write,” page 2, with four letters; three of them commenting on matters of faith, the fourth wishing blessings for Tim Leary's soul.
On page 3 editor Jack O'Connell says, “I’ve long been enamored of the notion that what is cultivated on the Hill each year is a vibrant crop of passionate, lifelong readers.”
By page 23, I am asked to share my latest or life-changing book. Here it is.
Our Lady of Lost and Found by Diane Schoemperlen.(a novel of Mary, Faith and Friendship) A fictional account of Mary moving in with the author for a week, woven together with the historical accounts of Mary’s apparitions. This book’s light, breezy style belies its rather deeper pondering of faith and miracles, and, indeed, our relationship to the spiritual side of this life.
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Stuart Fuller, public safety (July 30, 2007)
Being a member of the public safety department, I tend to be drawn to books regarding psychology and crime. I have to say that one of the books that changed my whole perspective on crime prevention was The Gift of Fear by Gavin DeBecker. The book is an easy read, and combines stories of his clients and his youth to illustrate concepts. The essence of his message is this: People need to trust their instincts when it comes to gut feelings and intuition. Very often, it is your subconscious observations manifesting themselves as fear. He also points out several psychological tools that criminals will use to “interview” and select their victims. Once you pay attention to these simple signs, you can drastically reduce your chance of becoming a victim.
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Mark Lincicome, associate professor, history (July 30, 2007)
Looking for Blackfellas’ Point: An Australian History of Place
American readers will gain new insights into their own country’s historical constructions of race and identity in this award-winning book by Australian historian Mark McKenna. The author’s absorbing local history of European immigrant settlers and the indigenous Aborigines whom they “displaced” in rural southeastern Australia deftly reveals the economic and ideological contradictions imbedded in British colonialism, and examines how Australians’ colonial past continues to haunt their sense of national identity.
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Elaine Hays, director, writing programs, English (July 30, 2007)
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
The Essential Rumi
A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah
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Michaela Sparling ’07 (July 27, 2007)
I would recommend Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil by Deborah Rodriguez. It is a non-fiction memoir of an American hair-dresser who went to Afghanistan in 2002 as part of an aid-organization. Upon discovering that there isn't a good salon in the city of Kabul and that, prior to the Taliban's regime, Afghan women thrived as beauticians, Rodriguez sets out to create and defend the Beauty School. The experiences of the Afghan women and of Rodriguez herself range from unbelievable to funny to appalling and back again. The book opens the reader's eye to a completely different world; despite the heavy subject matter, there are moments of joy and hope for all.
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William Shea, director, Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture (July 27, 2007)
Is the Reformation Over? An Evangelical Assessment of Contemporary Roman Catholicism by Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom. The best treatment of Catholicism by a conservative Protestant in the past 50 years. Anything you need and want to know about the burgeoning dialogue between Catholics and the conservative Protestants, about the fall-out among conservative Protestants over whether to talk with Catholics at all, about the many conversions to the Catholic Church among leading Protestant intellectuals, about how a conservative Protestant reads the Catholic Catechism, it is all here in clear prose. The author, an eminent historian, recently joined the faculty of the University of Notre Dame.
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Art Korandanis, director, auxiliary services (July 27, 2007)
Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
When you finish the book you will put it down and feel emotionally exhausted. This is a very informative but heart wrenching novel revolving around the Sunni/Shiite conflict in Afghanistan.
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Liz Breen, public safety (July 27, 2007)
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. This book tells the story of guests at a lavish birthday party held captive by terrorists in South America. To me the book is ever so slightly reminiscent of 12 Angry Men, in that the plot and character development is so potent despite what little scene change the story offers. This makes for a really great read. What I loved most about the book is the extensive character development and the overall exploration of human nature and human interaction.
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Suzanne Sousa, conference services (July 27, 2007)
I want to recommend the memoir of Sidney Poitier, The Measure of a Man. Mr. Poitier shares a wonderful story of his earliest daydreams and imagination on Cat Island in the Bahamas. In the face of prejudice and disadvantage, he tells of the strength and faith he held that led him on the road to becoming the man he is today.
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Jane Reynolds, executive assistant, student affairs (July 27, 2007)
I recommend Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery by Eric Metaxas, a thought-provoking historical account of one man's quest to eliminate slavery — history, unfamiliar and previously unheard by most Americans.
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Gordon Keir, senior systems administrator, ITS (July 27, 2007)
I recommend Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Aristotle observed 2,300 years ago that more than anything men and women seek happiness. Csikszentmihalyi (psychology, Univ. of Chicago) has, for 25 years, made similar observations regarding “flow,” a field of behavioral science examining connections between satisfaction and daily activities. A flow state ensues when one is engaged in self-controlled, goal-related, meaningful actions. Data regarding flow were collected on thousands of individuals, from mountain climbers to chess players. This thoroughly researched study is an intriguing look at the age-old problem of the pursuit of happiness and how, through conscious effort, we may more easily attain it.
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John Cannon, associate director, physical plant/planning and operations (July 27, 2007)
The Fred Factor is written by Mark Sanborn and it is an excellent motivational book for both career and life. It is written about a mail carrier who delivers mail to the author’s house and how he makes a big difference in the lives of others by always going the extra mile — simply because it is the right thing to do. There are numerous other examples of how people go out of their way to make the lives of others a little better, but most importantly the book demonstrates how much one’s life is enriched by living this life style.
It is a well written, quick read with a strong impact and I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to advance in a career or simply find more joy in life. After you read the book you will find yourself noticing the many “Freds” in the Holy Cross community.
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Tressa Stalford ’07 (July 27, 2007)
Although an avid reader, usually I did not enjoy the required summer reading for high school. That changed with St. Maybe by Anne Tyler. It’s about a classic American family whose lives are forever changed when the eldest son gets married to a young woman with a mysterious past. Tyler is able to weave a compassionate, humorous and tragic story around the many meaningful characters. I re-read this book several times, and each time was a renewed sense of journey and satisfaction.
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Catherine A. Roberts, associate professor, mathematics (July 27, 2007)
A book that had a tremendous impact on me was Bryce Courtenay’s The Power of One, which takes place in South Africa during WWII. It follows the life of a small boy who is the only English-speaking boy in a very rough and tough world.
This summer, I am reading Seeing by Nobel Prize Laureate Jose Saramango. It’s a political satire and it’s a challenge for me to read ... I could use a book club on this one!
I've taken a break from Seeing to read the new Harry Potter book. Today at my town’s pool, there were over a dozen of us reading this book while our children swam. It’s a nice shared experience.
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Patrick Gemme, technical network engineer, ITS (July 27, 2007)
The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom by Slavomir Rawicz.
This is my new favorite book about human courage. Seven men escape a prison in a Soviet camp in 1941 and begin an extraordinary trek across an unfathomable distance and take on impossible odds. I’ve read an assortment of tales of human determination and endurance, but none of them top this heroic walk. Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm, calls the account “so filled with despair and suffering it is almost unreadable; but it must be read--and re-read.”
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Heather Brooks D’Antoni ’95 (July 27, 2007)
The best book I read in the past year was Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. An affecting book with an unforgettable narrative voice! Loved the adventure and the style. I've also enjoyed all of Anne Lamott's books on faith: Traveling Mercies, Plan B and Grace (Eventually). She brings humor to topical, spiritual issues. The last Harry Potter delivered a wonderful message, too.
The book that changed my life: There are many, honestly; in some ways I feel like I’ve been parented by books. I'll choose The Waves by Virginia Woolf, which changed the way I think about narrative style and “plot.” No one writes more beautifully than VW, either. I read this book with Professor Sweeney while at Holy Cross (one of the best teachers I've ever had.)
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Edward J. Soares, associate professor, mathematics (July 27, 2007)
Although I bought and began to read David McCullough’s biography of John Adams when it first came out in ’01, I had put it aside, unfinished, until fall ’06. Beginning anew, I found the author painted a very human portrait of our nation’s second president. Adams was a principled, inspiring man. Most interesting were his relationships with Thomas Jefferson and his wife, Abigail. McCullough’s writings on Adams inspired my further study regarding our nation’s founding, particularly the exploration of the relationships between many of the other Founding Fathers. This led me to Joseph Ellis’ book Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation. I believe that we, as a nation, tend to think of Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson and many of the other founders as caricatures of who they really were. This book does much to dispel those notions. I highly recommend it.
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Larry Cahoone, associate professor, philosophy (July 27, 2007)
Popular books on physics can be pretty misleading sometimes. Not so Lee Smolin’s The Life of the Cosmos, an interesting and accessible presentation of his view of “cosmic evolution.”
For popular music fans over 40, Christopher Ricks’ Dylan's Visions of Sin is the best case for Dylan as a major American poet.
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John Tardiff,
financial analyst, planning and budget office (July 27, 2007)
Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy
by Vincent Bugliosi
This tome will cause despair in (nearly) every conspiracy theorist.
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Frank Vellaccio, senior vice president (July 25, 2007)
The easiest ways to amuse children in cars today seem to be the backseat DVD player or the handheld video game. While sometimes effective at quieting children and minimizing horseplay, they both serve only to isolate children from their parents. I would like to recommend some great books on CD that the whole family can enjoy. They not only lead to hours of shared listening enjoyment but also to frequent opportunities, both inside and outside the car, to continue to discuss them. Most notable are the Harry Potter books. Even if your children have read them, the reading done by Jim Dale is an entirely different and amazing theatrical experience—ten times better than the movies, I might add. Eragon and the sequel, Eldest, written by Christopher Paolini and read by Gerard Doyle, are also great. For the slighter older child you could try Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, written by Susanna Clarke and read by Simon Prebble. Whatever you do please don’t get abridged editions. Drive safely and have some great family listening this summer.
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Ellen Ryder, director, public affairs (July 25, 2007)
I just finished reading Jennifer Egan’s startling new novel, The Keep. It’s the story of two cousins, friends who went on to lead very different lives after a teenage prank went dangerously awry and left both emotionally damaged. They meet again, many years later, to renovate a creepy medieval castle in Eastern Europe which one of the cousins (the financially successful one) wants to turn into a resort where people can take refuge from technology and use their imaginations. At least, that’s one story. There’s another parallel story set in a maximum security prison, with characters who bear a striking resemblance to at least one of the cousins—maybe both. Egan’s book is a compelling mystery and a remarkable, multi-layered exploration of character, psyche, and, ultimately, about stories and the power of the written word to transform lives.
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James M. Brennan ’08 (July 25, 2007)
If the purpose of liberal arts education is to challenge what we think we know, then no book is more appropriate than The Autobiography of Malcolm X, as told to Alex Haley. Unfortunately, Malcolm X remains a much overlooked figure in American history because of his controversial views on race relations in America. Yet it is this controversy that compels the reader to take a second look at the structural nature of racism. Furthermore, Malcolm X’s observations are not dated—they offer a disturbing reflection of contemporary society. To read this book is challenging, for, indeed, the dream has been deferred for too long now.
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