Summer Reading – What do the Profs Recommend?
Soon I’ll be headed to the beach for some much-needed R&R. For me, packing a bag of books to dive into is as important as packing the swimsuit, sunscreen, and beach towel. It’s a good time to read something out of my comfort zone.
So I wondered, what’s our faculty reading this summer, or what books might they recommend? So I asked. And I share with you some of their selections to consider for your summer list:
Mia Hall, Applied Design
Half Broke Horses – Jeannette Walls
Thomas Wallace, Information Technology:
Adaptive Web Design – Aaron Gustafson
Dr. Julien C. Mirivel, Speech Communication:
Aleph – Paulo Coelho
Dr. John Kirk, Department of History:
Arsnick: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Arkansas – Jennifer Jensen Wallach and John A. Kirk
Dr. Mary Ann Garnett, International and Second Language Studies:
Cutting for Stone/Abraham Verghese
Dr. Toran Isom, Rhetoric and Writing:
Elizabeth and Hazel, Two Women of Little Rock – David Margolick
Amy Barnes, School of Mass Communication:
Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake – Anna Quindlen
Martha Morton, Arkansas Global Programs:
Yin Yang: American Perspectives on Living in China – edited by Alice Renouf and Mary Beth Ryan-Maher
And an intriguing selection with commentary from Dr. Jay Raphael, Theatre Arts/Dance:
of the intellectual and creative concepts behind the way puppetry and
theatre operate)
Eccentric Spaces – Robert Harbison (architecture/literature/art/sociology-an
amazing and stunning blend of ideas)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay – Michael Chabon (fiction-Pulitzer Prize-one of my favorite reads)
Mimesis as Make Believe – Kendall Walton (the foundations of the representational arts)
Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace (fiction – it’s huge, it’s genius, and it’s a comic and knowing skewer of American culture)
The Wild Trees – Richard Preston (about the largest organisms in the world)
American Chica – Marie Arana (memoir-a girl who was shuttled between the cultures of North and South America-raised in Wyoming and Peru)
Auschwitz and After – Charlotte Delbo (after reading this I could no longer read anything about the Holocaust…)
Room – Emma Donoghue (disturbing but compelling fiction)
On Any Given Sunday: A Life of Bert Bell – Robert S. Lyons (Bell was the first great commissioner of the NFL
And last, but not for the faint of heart, from Amy Burns, Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences:
Dracula – Bram Stoker, published in 1898. One of my favorite books of
all time – read the Victorian novel that started America’s fascination with the undead more than 100 years ago.
And what am I reading right now?
Steve Jobs – Walter Isaacson
Happy reading – enjoy your summer!