Welcome!

I welcome you to the 13th Annual Bates College Store Non-required Reading List, or Good Reads for Leisure Moments XIII. As in the past, this list includes submissions from across the Bates College community. Enjoy! — Sarah Potter ’77, College Store director

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Brother Fish by Bryce Courtenay
A good story about prisoners of war during the Korean conflict, racism and the strength of friendships. I actually listened to this one in audio form, and the reader was superb as well. A good one for a long car trip. The Great Influenza by John Barry Everything you EVER wanted to know about the flu epidemic of 1918. An absolutely fascinating story of the pandemic that killed more than 40 million people – the reason why we are so terrified of the emergence of H1N1. A good story that is well written and interesting (from a virology geek’s point of view)-a very accessible account of how one virus changed history.

Body of Work: Meditations on Mortality from the Human Anatomy Lab by Christine Montross
David Cummisky told me about this book a while ago and I finally read it this year. It was written when Ms. Montross was a first year medical student, dissecting her cadaver in the gross anatomy lab. Her prose is really beautiful. Whether she is describing her own thoughts about her right to violate the body of another, the high personal price one pays to navigate a medical education, or the glistening dura mater that covers the brain, the writing is equally compelling. I was really captivated (good call, Dave!). The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett OK, it takes me a while to get to some of these “classics”. This is another one that I’m listening to on my iPod – I am hooked on listening to audiobooks in the car and on airplanes. So far I like it, and although it’s a little contrived, I like the details in this historical fiction about the building of the Kingsbury cathedral in 12th century England. It’s not so complex that I forget to get off the turnpike….

Lee Abrahamson, Associate Professor of Biology

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My reading has been eclectic: A Guide to the Birds of East Africa (Nicholas Drayson) was very fun: a love story in postcolonial Nairobi with interesting politics; School of Essential Ingredients: not my favorite, but a light, sweet food- and-relationships novel; Peace Like a River (Leif Enger): beautiful story of a family’s struggles with faith, integrity, and the law in the upper midwest, gorgeously written; Emotionally Weird (Kate Atkinson): took me two readings to “get” it, but a very clever, fun, bizarre literary adventure — stories within stories; Metzger’s Dog (Thomas Perry): rather hilarious heist-and-murder sort — surprisingly clever and lots of fun, though I usually enjoy stories more when there’s a character I can really admire; (also The Island by Perry —same critique); Dick Francis novels — any of them — good fun around/involving the British horse-racing scene. Read too many, though, and you end up speaking and writing a little funny. Len is reading The Life You Can Save — Peter Singer — and loving it. It’s an intellectual argument for increased philanthropy from individuals — giving consistently, because of justice and reason, rather than sporadically out of pity. He’s also enjoyed The Starfish and the Spider and Here Comes Everybody, both about new organizational models of leadership, usually technologically mediated. And he worked through Breach of Faith which is about Katrina, though it was heavy.

Anna Bartel, Associate Director of the Harward Center for Community Partnerships (and her husband, Len!)

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Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson

Jim Bauer, Director of Network and Infrastructure Services, ILS

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The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch….should be a “must read” requirement for everyone. Very inspiring… Knit Two by Kate Jacobs…..sequel to The Friday Night Knitting Club, if you read the first book, reading this is like catching up with old friends.

Jane Bedard, Admissions Office Specialist

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Moloka’i by Alan Brennert
Fascinating historical fiction about life in a quarantined leprosy settlement. The Summer Guest by Justin Cronin A perfect summer read that takes place at a fishing camp in rural Maine. The Double Bind by Chis Bohjalian A psychological drama with a twist – you’ll want to read it twice. Beneath a Marble Sky by John Shors Historical fiction about the building of the Taj Mahal.

Kristen Belka, Associate Dean of Admissions

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Finding Beauty in a Broken World, Terry Tempest Williams, Pantheon
A beautiful read indeed. For example: “A mosaic is a conversation between what is broken.” There is, in the middle, an approximately 100-page exercise in what first feels like tedium and monotony. Then I got it! Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, Thomas Merton, Doubleday Still remarkably fresh and relevant after almost 40 years. A Mercy, Toni Morrison, Knopf The language of an earlier South caught and kept my curiosity.

Bill Blaine-Wallace, Multifaith Chaplain

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Robert Whiting, You Gotta have Wa (1989). This is a fascinating account of how America’s pasttime changed/evolved in Japan to be more compatible with the culture as it was in the 70s and 80s. A great read for anyone with an interest in baseball or Japan. Julie Norem, The Positive Power of Negative Thinking. (2001). If you’ve ever been disgusted by someone telling you to “not worry so much” or “look on the bright side,” then you may be a defensive pessimist. Norem argues that this may actually be a good thing for many people, as it can help them deal with what might otherwise be overwhelming anxiety. Moreover, she argues that for some people, being defensively pessimistic is better than being optimistic! This is an interesting book that turns the positive psychology movement on its head.

Helen Boucher, Assistant Professor of Psychology

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Matthew Kelly: The Rhythm of Life
An easy read for those who seek to get their emotional life in order. The author is best known for his public speaking and motivational skills. He has many other titles as well that cover other subjects. It is an easy and wonderful read. These titles are also available on cds.

Jane Boyle, Library Assistant, ILS

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Here are a few children’s books that are/have been popular at our house. Ellison the Elephant by Eric Drachman A wonderful story about self-confidence and perseverance that you will want to read over and over again. The accompanying CD is priceless. The Dinosaur Who Lived in My Backyard by B.G. Hennessy A great book for little ones interested in dinosaurs. Dinosaur facts woven into a cute story that even includes lima beans. Do Like a Duck Does! by Judy Hindley The rhyming makes this a really fun book to read. Dig, Dig, Digging by Margaret Mayo An entertaining book for those fascinated by big machines such as bulldozers, tractors and firetrucks.

Heather Bumps, Assistant to the President

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As The Earth Turns, Gladys Hasty Carroll ’25, D.Lit ’45
In one of the interviews that Pulitzer-winning author Elizabeth Strout ’77 gave recently, she told Maine Public Broadcasting that it wasn’t until she moved to New York, where people assume that all the New England states are all the same, that she began to focus on her own Maine background in her writing, with great success. That made me think about Carroll’s most famous book, 1933′s “As the Earth Turns” — about inland Maine farm life — which faded then rebounded in critical approval in the 1990s as people began to value the sense of place in Carroll’s writing. It’s a good lesson.

H. Jay Burns, Editor Bates Magazine

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Magazines: Mother Jones, Mental Floss

Books: The Complete Manual of Things That Might Kill You: A Guide to Self-Diagnosis for Hypochondriacs by Knock Knock; The Phantom Tollbooth by Justin Norton; Poor People by William T. Vollmann

Anne Marie Byrne, Staff Assistant-Dean of Students Office

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The Death of Vishnu by Manil Suri I really liked this book! An interesting blend of Indian culture and contemporary life in Bombay, with the mythical world of the gods. The story loosely follows the death of Vishnu, a man who lives in an apartment hallway. We learn of the inhabitants of the building, while Vishnu goes in and out of delirium and/or death “truths.” A clever combination and the characters are built well.

The Glass Castle: A Memoir, by Jeanette Walls This is an excellent book and a page-turner! It ranks right up there with Angela’s Ashes — and I think I like this one better. A true story of a girl’s horrific childhood. Told with humor and insight. My 12 yr old started reading this book “accidentally” and couldn’t put it down until he had finished it. A Mercy, by Toni Morrison Since this is one of my all-time favorite authors, I have trouble saying anything negative about her most recent book. A friend ordered it for me as soon as it became available, and I finished in a couple of days. It was a satisfying read, wonderfully written. A bit shorter than I would have liked. I think she could have beefed out some of the characterization and depth more, but it was a good read. Not as good as Beloved, but that would be hard to compete with.

The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea, by Sebastian Junger
I guess I’m behind the rest of the world in reading this book, and no, I haven’t seen the movie! The book was a thriller — kept me turning pages to find out what would happen next. It’s told in intricate detail, sometimes more than I wanted, esp about the ships and the ocean statistics. It’s not a “typical” book for me, but I liked it more than I thought I might. I kept dreaming about it, and I kept feeling like I was actually in the book at times, esp when the process of drowning is described. Now I guess I need to rent the movie! (Don’t give away the ending… Oh yeah, the ship goes down.)

The Pilot’s Wife, by Anita Shreve I’m on a bit of an Anita Shreve kick. This book didn’t disappoint. I like her writing style and her sense of the perverse. She takes the reader through the unfolding of a terrible discovery that keeps you turning pages. She takes the ordinary and makes it strange, and the strange ordinary.

Sea Glass, by Anita Shreve Again, another story where the reader gets pulled in bit by bit and washed out to sea with the unraveling of truths and deceptions! I didn’t like the ending — seemed very abrupt and too wrapped up, but maybe the abruptness is part of the point.

Testimony, by Anita Shreve This book is dark, intense, and disturbing. Through multiple viewpoints, we see the cause and effect of one terrible moment caught on video — what led up to it is just as troubling as what happened afterward. This book is well written — and despite the darkness was hard to put down. But I warn you, it’s a bit on the weird side.

Everything is Illuminated, by Jonathan Safran Foer I thought I would like this book more than I did, but it was a good read. By about the 3rd page, I was already sick to death of one of the narrator’s overdone butchered English and smug crassness. But of course that sets you up for lots of change in the character as the book evolves. The book is about a young man who goes searching for the woman who saved his grandfather during WWII. The first-person narrator who opens the book is a “foil” of sorts, as the chapters from different viewpoints interweave with each other. One thing I really liked about this story was its nuances of what’s real and what’s fiction. The Ukrainian narrator alludes to shifting and “inventing” parts of the story, and some of the “historical” chapters by the other narrator are clearly fanciful.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer
Unlike his other book, this one was a definite win! I couldn’t put it down and finished it in two days. I love the blend of narration, the puzzling out that the reader needs to do, the innocent child-narrator, and the story that presents one tale of the aftermath of 9-11 without overdoing the drama. I love the characters that the boy meets in his journey, and I enjoyed the mystery of the key. Nothing seems to turn out as you want it to, and yet it all does seem to resolve itself. Some of the book is quite unrealistic — a mom allowing her 9 yr old boy to wander the streets of NY for hours on end?? Improbable at best. A 103 yr old man who is able to participate in some of those hours-long wanderings? Again, not likely. Esp when he more or less disappears later. (Oops, was that a spoiler??) But I don’t mind suspending my disbelief for a great book!

The Septembers of Shiraz, by Dalia Sofer
I am just finishing up this book and have really liked it! It is somewhat-loosely based on the author’s childhood experience of her father’s imprisonment in Iran, and the family’s subsequent escape. This story follows the lives of individuals in one family caught in the middle of a revolution. It’s well-crafted, and you get inside the perspectives of the father in prison, the mother’s helplessness, the young daughter’s subversive activity of her own (and accompanying guilt), and the older son’s passivity living in New York.

Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire Mystery Series, by Charlaine Harris (Dead Until Dark; Living Dead in Dallas; Club Dead; and other novels in the series)
Okay, DON’T LAUGH!! Yes, this is a human-in-love-with-a-vampire book, and no it’s not my typical read! So, if you’re done laughing yourself out of your chair that I’m reading a whole series about a girl who loves a vampire, let me explain… A good friend recommended it, and I started reading them and found that the story line was lighthearted in an odd sort of way. Surprises along the way, and some fun, refreshing characters. The tone is very light, and there is absolutely nothing serious about these books. They are the ones I bring when I’m exercising on the treadmill and need something relatively mindless. I’m starting to get fond of these characters now. Kind of like a soap opera… (Note: I’m part way through the 6th or 7th one now and have to confess to growing weary of them. I give them 2 out of 5 stars. Fun, but after a while they become — dare I say it? — “deadly.”)

Anita Charles, Lecturer in Education

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Some “light” summer reading! Peter Thomson, Sacred Sea: A Journey to Baikal. Read it and pretend you’re coming with the Bates FSA to Russia! Lyrical and quirky and informative about Baikal and Siberia and Russia. By the former producer of Living on Earth. Thoughtful consideration about what it means to be an environmental journalist.

Karen Armstrong, The Spiral Staircase: My Climb out of Darkness. There were moments when I wasn’t sure that Karen Armstrong ever had ANY friends – but all in all I found this an interesting account, and a more personal approach to some of her work on various religious traditions.

Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate. This is the War and Peace of the 20th century, only it’s actually better. Without Tolstoy’s ponderous philosophizing. Grossman was the most famous Soviet war reporter, his mother murdered by the Nazis in their invasion of the western Soviet Union. His novel takes on a vast cast of characters, interlinked by their connections to the Battle of Stalingrad. It’s a novel about ideology and individual lives, but also about the Holocaust, state control of science, art and freedom and incredible heroism. My FYS loved it!

Anything by Andrei Platonov that you can get your hands on – but only if it’s translated by Robert Chandler. Chandler is an AMAZING translator. And Platonov is the great unsung Russian writer of the 20th century, finally coming into his own. He was a true believer, an engineer who became a writer, with an uncanny ability to register the odd distortions of vision and verbiage that went along with the revolution. His prose is a kind of heartbreaking grotesque mysticism…The collection entitled Soul is a good place to start.

Jane Costlow, Professor of Russian

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I think Still Alice by Bates’ own Lisa Genova ’92 is the best read I’ve had this year. This is a fantastic novel that brings you into the life of an Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease patient – and beautifully demonstrates the struggles of the patient, her family and colleagues. There’s enough humor to make it light, and you just fall in love with the patient and her family.

Marianne Cowan, Associate Director of Alumni and Parent Programs

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An excellent summer book is: Phyllis Rose -Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages

David Cummiskey, Professor of Philosophy

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These are quite diverse suggestions but since I turned 50 on Tuesday, my memory only serves my most recent reads. Marrying Mozart was a good historical fiction and Marley and Me couldn’t be lighter. If you are a fan of nutty dogs it is pretty funny!

Karen Daigler, Assistant Director of Medical Studies

The first two are Swedish authors: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson Firewall by Henning Mankell Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (yea Bates!!) Champlain’s Dream (non-fiction) by David Hackett Fisher

Jerry Davis, Class of 1961

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How the Irish Saved Civilization, The Untold Story of Ireland’s Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe by Thomas Cahill. Finally, now everyone knows why I am so proud of being Irish!

Sylvia Deschaine, Academic Administrative Assistant – Pettengill

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Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver; The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon; Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams; The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls; Divided Minds by Carolyn Spiro and Pamela Wagner; Home by Marilynne Robinson; Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Relin; The World Without Us by Alan Weisman; The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga; Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali; Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout.

Marty Deschaines, Asst. Dir. For Community Volunteerism and Student LeadershipDevelopment, HCCP

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Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers is probably already on your list, but I just finished it an enjoyed it immensely.

Carol Dilley, Director of Dance

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Lisa See’s Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a fascinating novel about the lives of two women (lao tang) who wrote to each other over many years in the Chinese women’s language, nushu. Lijia Zhang’s Socialism Is Great! is a memoir about growing as a worker in the “New China.” Xiolu Guo. Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth, novel about an unmarried young woman’s life in contemporary Beijing is an interesting read, but her A Concise English Dictionary for Lovers is a better choice for those who have less time to read. This novel describes the cultural differences a Chinese woman encounters when she moves to the U.K., but it also focuses as much on the English and Chinese language as on her experiences. As the book progresses, the reader actually “sees” her fluency in English develop. And finally for those who are interested in schools and teaching, Relentless Pursuit by Donna Foote summarizes the history of Teach for America as it profiles the experiences of first-year teachers in Los Angeles. Engaging and thought-provoking read.

Anne Dodd, Senior Lecturer in Education

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I’d like to recommend A Cargo of Women: Susannah Watson and the convicts of the Princess Royal by Babette Smith. It tracks 99 women who arrived in Australia in 1825 after being sentenced to “transport” in England and Wales. Some of them received life sentences for very minor crimes. It should be great reading for anyone with an interest in crime and punishment or Australia in general!

Amy Bradfield Douglass, Associate Professor of Psychology

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I recently discovered a gem; a very poetically written little novella called Welcome to Our Hillbrow, by Phaswane Mpe, set in contemporary times in a township of Johannesburg. I used it in a class this year, along with Benjamin Kwachye’s The Clothes of Nakedness, set in contemporary Accra. I highly recommend either or both, though you are on notice: don’t expect any familiar “North Atlantic” sensibility here, rather, be ready to encounter a distinctive moral universe!

Elizabeth Eames, Associate Professor of Anthropology

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Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
A classic. Don’t let the movie with Leo and Kate scare you off! It’s intense, well written and will make your head spin… The Underground City by H.L Humes A big book that takes a bit of time to read. A fascinating, detailed novel set in France during and after WWII from the perspective of an American special ops soldier.

Johie Farrar, Assistant Dean of Admissions

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Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert; Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah; The Women Who Raised Me: A Memoir by Victoria Rowell.

Heidi Gagnon, Advancement

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I have enjoyed re-reading some of the late Tony Hillerman’s mysteries, set in the desert Southwest, with Navajo Tribal Policemen Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee. Some of the most recent are The First Eagle, The Sinister Pig, and Hunting Badger. The characters are very appealing, and the setting really takes the reader into the Native American cultures of Arizona and New Mexico. We will miss him.

Lois Griffiths, retired staff member, Class of 1951

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Two Rivers, by T. Greenwood. Suspense, love, and betrayal told in flashbacks is the story of a widowed father his daughter and an orphan. Setting is in the late 60’s in a small town, Harper has trouble dealing with a vicious act that happened while in his teens. Nice gentle mystery that kept me entertained. Double Bind, by Chris Bohjalian. Psychological thriller about a social worker and the homeless. There are characters brought in from the Great Gatsby era. I couldn’t tell if this was fact or fiction. I liked this authors book Midwives better but this was worth reading also. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. Ms. Strout is a Bates alumna and now a Pulitzer Prize winner! How can you not read this novel? It is a collection of short stories of people from a small town in Maine. You get insight of Olive in almost every chapter as she tries to understand herself and her life in painfully honest ways.

Lorraine Groves, Bookstore Sales Floor Supervisor

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The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic — and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson. If you’re an alum who loved Professor Herzig’s courses, this book will make you wish you could return to discuss it in one of her seminars.

Bridget Harr, Institutional Research Assistant

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Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, The Three Trillion Dollar War
As a response to an administration that would not even include war costs in the normal yearly budgets, the Nobel-Prize-winning economist makes the case for calculating the real costs of the Iraq war, including such items as equipment replacement and lost income with life-long medical care for the tens of thousands of American wounded and brain-injured.

Margaret S. Creighton, The Colors of Courage: Gettysburg’s Forgotten History
Elegantly written, a different view of the battle we think we know all about, looking at the experiences of women, Blacks and immigrants at Gettysburg.

David Wroblewski, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle.
This is a remarkable first novel (where has this guy been for 30 years, we wonder), somewhat reminiscent of another strong first novel, Charles Frazier’s civil war saga, Cold Mountain. Wroblewski has written a powerful story around an inauspicious plot line, a mute boy whose family raises thoroughbred and well-trained dogs in rural northern Michigan. It is a kind of Hamlet story, with family betrayals and mis-communications, largely told from inside the mute boy’s head and through lots of interaction with the dogs, a real trick for a writer.

William H. Tucker ’67, The Cattell Controversy: Race, Science and Ideology.
Full disclosure: Bill Tucker was my Bates roommate and is one of my oldest friends. A psych prof at Rutgers, he has written three well-argued (and for a non-scholar, readable) books around the broad theme of individuals or organizations that claim to be doing unbiased social science when in fact they are advancing racist, anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic or eugenic causes. His previous books, The Science and Politics of Racial Research and The Funding of Scientific Racism: Wickliffe Draper and the Pioneer Fund, were in some ways fascinating scholarly detective stories — they traced the hidden agendas of organizations that claimed scholarly purity. This new book on Raymond Cattell, a leading 20th century psychologist often regarded as the father of personality trait measurement, traces the scholarly dismay when Cattell, the author of hundreds of books, articles and standardized instruments for measuring personality, was found to be the author of a series of publications on racial segregation and eugenics.

Two books and a related film on India: Bapsi Dishwa, Cracking India
A remarkable novel about a Parsee girl from an upper-class family caught in the swirling chaos of the partition of colonial India in the late 1940’s into India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The partition of India as part of the end of the British empire created not only great suffering and violence, but one of the largest migrations in human history, with about 12 million people moving to get across national and religious boundaries that had not existed until the partition. Deepa Mehta’s powerful film “Earth” is based on Cracking India. It is reasonably unusual to find a film and the novel on which it is based that are both top shelf, but true in this case.

Alex Von Tunzelman, Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire
A substantial book on the last months of the British empire in India, with fascinating portraits of some of the 20th century’s major personalities. Gandhi, Nehru and the Muslim leader Jinnah were all trying to deal with the last British Viceroy, the royally incompetent “Dickie” Mountbatten and his socialite but surprisingly brave and very independent wife, Edwina, whose personal/political relationship with Nehru was a most unexpected facet of the withdrawal of Britain from their empire.

Bill Hiss ’66, Vice President for External Affairs

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David Hackett Fischer, Champlain’s Dream
A sweeping full-length biography of Samuel de Champlain, the explorer and founder of Quebec. Dozens of voyages to North America. A slice of history of France and North America. Mark Paul Richard, Loyal but French: The Negotiation of Identity by French-Canadian Descendants in the United States

A history of Franco Americans in Lewiston, Maine, from 1850 to 2007, who subscribed to neither survivance (maintaining their separateness) nor assimilation (erasing their heritage). They accomplished acculturation, becoming Americans, but retaining for a long time their identity. Tom Vanderbilt, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)

The human psychology of dealing with traffic. Considers the variation in different places in the U. S., as well as the world. Treats questions such as whether you should merge early or late when a lane is closed ahead. Quotes statistics that show “dangerous” narrow streets with distractions are safer than “efficient” thoroughfares like Russell Street (but maybe we knew this already).

Doug Hodgkin, Professor Emeritus of Political Science

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I have been meaning to send you this, excellent book about college girls who’s identity got switched unintentionally at an accident scene where one died and one nearly so, months of recuperation… Mistaken Identity by Don and Susie VanRyn and Newell, Colleen, and Whitney Cerak.

The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch, I may have put this on last year’s list, but it is worth repeating. It is so inspirational, it’s a must! Not for everyone, but I love the series by J.D. Robb, Lt. Eve. Dallas, Homicide books, great if you love crime drama!! Happy reading…

Joan Houston, Administrative Assistant, Physical Plant

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I’m enjoying biologist Bernd Heinrich’s Summer World: A Season of Bounty very much, though I think it should be titled, “Bug World: A Season of Bounty.” I thought there would be more about flowers, other plant life, and mammals, but much of the book concentrates on moths, wasps, caterpillars, and other insects and their alternate forms. But that’s fine, because it’s fascinating! There’s also some great stuff on why male wood frogs all sing together, when only one really needs to in order for them all to attract females. And he answers the question: Why do hummingbirds come north before many of the nectar-bearing flowers bloom? After I finish this book, I’m going to start in on his others. There are enough to keep me going for quite a while. He lives in Vermont, with a camp in Western Maine, and is a graduate of the University of Maine.

Sue Hubley, Senior Researcher, College Advancement

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The Man Who Loved China, by Simon Winchester
The Control of Nature by John McPhee
This book has been around for awhile, but affected my thinking more than about any other.

Jim Hughes, Thomas Sowell Professor of Economics

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I’d like to suggest Water Dogs by Lewis Robinson. A novel based in Maine.
Amy Jaffe, Career Counselor

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Guy Delisle’s graphic novel Burma Chronicles eloquently portrays daily life in Myanmar, the official name of Burma since 1989 when a militaristic government seized power. Canadian animator Delisle joins his French wife who works for the humanitarian organization Medecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) and their infant son for a year in this tightly controlled Southeast Asian nation. Humorous and observant, Delisle’s treatment demonstrates that drawings with text can match solo prose, no sweat. Give me a comic book, please.

Phyllis Graber Jensen, Senior Staff Writer and Photographer

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For fans of Patrick O’Brian’s and C. S. Forester’s naval adventure fiction try the collection of short stories edited by Mike Ashley, The Mammoth Book of Sea Battles, 2001. I laugh to tears with David Remnick’s and Henry Finder’s Fierce Pajamas. These are the best humor from the “New Yorker” magazine. A terrific new history of the Christian and Islamic struggle for the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages is Stephen O’Shea’s Sea of Faith, 2006.

Michael Jones, Christian A. Johnson Professor of History

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Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill, a book we read aloud to each other, is a powerful story of a young, intelligent, literate woman who is sold into slavery at the age of 12, and who is obsessed with being free and returning to her native village in West Africa for the rest of her life. We followed her through about sixty years of her life on three continents, with all the hardship, prejudice, and soul-wrenching pain of enslavement, which is often complicated by her abilities and intelligence which she must hide from her masters. Freedom does come decades later, but it is a freedom in a world where only the force of her will and personality keep her surviving. The ignorance of even the “good” whites to the implications and cruelty of slavery become a vehicle for her to further her goal, but only as a tool of the abolitionists and often at the cost of her personal dignity. (To a white authority figure who insists that she has “profited by being enslaved” and vehemently deny’s slavery’s cruel branding, she bares her old breast to show the brand she was given at 12.) Lawrence Hill has written a breathtaking book and created Aminata Diallo, a remarkable woman.

Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernieres was a wonderful book, and I enjoyed it as much as a previous book of de Bernieres, Corelli’s Mandolin. Both books deal with the everyday experiences of the life of civilians during a war. “Birds” takes place in Turkey at the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the beginning of the modern Turkish state. Greeks and Turks, some of each of whom are either Muslim or Christian, and most of whom happily rely on each other’s religions when it suits their needs (Muslim woman concerned for her soldier son asks her friend to “light a candle to the Virgin for me”), live together in simplicity and peace until WWI starts far away in Europe. Turks and Greeks are forced to choose sides in a war that has nothing to do with them. And then religion and nationalism imposed by others starts ethnic cleansing, forcing Greeks who don’t speak Greek to leave Turkey for Greece, where they are shunned, and Turks are forced from Greece to Turkey. The small town life and ambiance is destroyed, the friends and fellow citizens scattered, and no one has a clue about what it is all about. A poignant, anti-war story, and for me a reminiscence of my time in Turkey and Greece. I recommend this book to anyone who still thinks that war is an answer to any problems, and to all who think that Muslims and Christians can’t live in peace and harmony together.

Laura Juraska , Associate Librarian for Reference Services
Richard Fochtmann

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My suggestion for summer reading is: The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (translated from the French). It is tender and funny, and a sly critique of French social conventions.

Leila Kawar, Visiting Instructor in Politics

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I have just finished reading the new autobiography by Harold Varmus, The Art and Politics of Science. Dr. Varmus was the director of NIH under Clinton and the co-winner of the Nobel Prize in 1989 for his work on oncogenes, and he is now the director the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. The book is a generally well written summary of his career and his opinions of and his involvement in the major health issues of our day. Written for a general audience, I learned a lot about retroviruses, oncogenes, stem cells, Congress, pharmaceutical companies, publishing companies, and open access journals.

John E. Kelsey, Professor of Psychology

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Here are two suggestions for the book list, each arguably a “coming of age” story but from distinctly different cultural contexts and literary styles: Fun Home by Alison Bechdel (2006) Main Street by Sinclair Lewis (1920)

Nancy Koven, Assistant Professor of Psychology

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Home by Marilynne Robinson; Memorial Day by Vince Flynn; Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo; American Babylon by Richard John Neuhaus; Christ the Lord by Anne Rice.

Paul Kuritz, Professor of Theater

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The English Major by Jim Harrison (N.Y., Grove Press, 2008)
Works by this modern master now come fewer and farther between, sparser and at times even less erudite than previous writings, but nonetheless still brilliant: here an academician in mid-life crisis roams the western landscape with a younger woman.

Dark summit: the true story of Everest’s most controversial season by Nick Heil (N.Y., Henry Holt, 2008)
Could things on our highest mountain get any worse after the 1996 disaster (see Into thin air)? Well, ten years later, in a world that is as ever totally unforgiving to careless humans, risky expeditions and unscrupulous outfitters have done it: eleven deaths, two abandonments, and recriminations galore.

Jim Lamontagne, Ladd Library Assistant, Cataloging

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What is the What? by Dave Eggers, and if I have never given you this before, and even if I have, Here’s Your Hat, What’s Your Hurry, by Elizabeth McCracken

Peter Lasagna, Head Men’s Lacrosse Coach

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I’m on a mystery jag. Margery Allingham’s brilliant Albert Campion mysteries. A real delight. And, Akunin’s two different mystery/detective series. Great distractions.

Kathy Low, Professor of Psychology

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Book of Embraces (Eduardo Galeano); L’Assommoir (Emile Zola); Design in the Age of Darwin: From William Morris to Frank Lloyd Wright; (Stephen Eisenman)

End of the World Book: A Novel (Alistair McCartney) The Night Watch (Sarah Waters)

Perrin Lumbert, Library Assistant-Interlibrary Loan

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Grown Up Digital by Dan Tapscott. Here’s a link to the book’s site.

Ethan Dahlin Magoon, Online Media Producer, CMR

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Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
This is the intriguing story of Trond, an aging, grieving man living in a self-inflicted isolation. He has given up his former life for a solitary existence partially out of a life-long yearning to be left alone, but mostly out of grief for the sudden death of his wife. But when he realizes that his new neighbor is a figure from his past it triggers a host of feelings and memories that Trond has been trying to avoid for a long time, and in flashbacks we are taken back with him to the summer of his fifteenth year — a summer that forever altered the course of his life. Beautifully written and memorable!

Ines of My Soul by Isabel Allende

Based almost entirely on the life of Ines Suarez who lived from 1507 to 1580, this is the historical fictional account of life in the 16th century and the birth of a nation. I love Allende’s wonderful descriptions and just as in her book, Zorro, she brings her characters to life. Poor and nearly destitute, Ines had a rough life in Spain. Alone because her husband has left to make his fortune in the new world she eventually sets out to search for him. When she arrives Ines learns he has been killed. Determined to make a new life for herself Ines decides to remain in the new colony. She eventually meets Don Pedro de Valdivia, field marshal of Francisco Pizarro. Together they undertake the founding of the country of Chile. You will not be able to put this book down!

The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry
The book starts when the main character, Towner, receives a call from her brother telling her that her 80-something-year-old Great Aunt, a lace reader, is missing and she must return home to Salem, Massachusetts. The reading of lace had been a tradition of the all the women in their family, and Towner was no exception. Although she wants no part of it anymore, she loves her aunt and feels she has to face her bad memories and go home. Towner returns after being away for over 15 years and is immediately immersed in all the troubles of the past. It is interesting to follow the writing of author Barry as she writes through the eyes of Towner, who sometimes lives in her dreams of the past. The story moves quickly as you try to determine if what Towner is thinking is real, or the memories from childhood twisted over time. Interesting information about lace reading and lots of surprises in this book!

Mary Main, Director of Human Resources

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This year, my three personal favorites are recent reads: Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout
I finished it just before her Pulitzer Prize was announced, and was happily surprised that she received recognition for a really special book. All through the book, I felt: “I know these people. I know this town—maybe better than the people I really know, and the town where I really live.” But what I can’t understand is how a young woman from the Class of 1977 knows how it feels to be as old as the characters she creates.

The Help, by Kathryn Stockett Jackson, Mississippi, in the early 60′s—as seen through the stories of black “maids” in upperclass white households, written by a young white woman who has grown up in the culture and encourages the middle-aged women to tell her their stories. The stories are powerful, chilling, and especially shocking to me, as a college student from the 60′s. Perhaps reading it then would have made me more of an activist.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
A book of letters, written in the aftermath of World War II, about the residents of Guernsey, and a writer who comes to the island by a chance connection. Her involvement with characters who grow real though their letters and telegrams weaves a heartwarming story of love, quiet heroism, friendship, and loyalty over time.

Judy Marden, Bates Retiree and Class of ’66

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History: A Novel by Elsa Morante. Trans. by W, Weaver
Set in WWII in Italy, Morante explores the intersection between individual lives and the larger forces of political events in a way that is utterly compelling and authentic. Never preachy, Morante forces us to see that we are always subject to political forces, even when we don’t want to be. Morante herself went into hiding from the Germans during WWII in the mountains south of Rome. She won several awards for her novels and is one of Italy’s premier authors.

Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy by Eric G. Wilson
He came and spoke here. His book celebrates those moments when we are not quite right with the world and our lives, and when we are compelled to reflect and generate new ideas and new ways of being in the world.

Lisa Maurizio, Associate Professor of Classical and Medieval Studies

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The Oregon Files are a group of novels written by author Clive Cussler and co-author Craig Dirigo and later co-author Jack Du Brul. The books follow the mysterious “Corporation” and its leader Juan Cabrillo. Juan Cabrillo is Chairman of the Corporation, a special US Government-sponsored group that operates out of a ship called Oregon, a marvel of scientific research equipment bristling with state-of-the-art weaponry – but disguised as a heap of junk. Cabrillo and his crew of mercenaries with a conscience are able to cross the high seas in their ‘rusting’ tub unmolested, seeking out those beyond the arms of the law and dealing out justice to any who would plot chaos on a global scale. The Oregon Files series currently consists of 6 books: Golden Buddha (2004), Sacred Stone (2004), Dark Watch (2005), Skeleton Coast (2006), Plague Ship (2008) and Corsair (2009).

Karen McArthur, Systems Administrator, ILS

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My favorite book this year was Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert. It was probably on last year’s recommended list. I also liked Loving Frank: A Novel by Nancy Horan, “a historically imagined novel that is at once fully versed in the facts and unafraid of weaving those truths into a story that dares to explore the unanswered questions of Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Cheney’s love story.” In line with our Bates year of contemplating food, I recommend Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver, Camille Kingsolver, Steven L. Hopp (I love every book by Kingsolver) and, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals and In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan. Here if you need me: A true story by Kate Braestrup. A wonderful memoir by the chaplain to the Maine Warden Service.

Laurie McConnell, Academic Administrative Assistant , Carnegie lobby desk,

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I’m not one who usually reads autobiographies, but I recently picked up the book, What’s It All About by Michael Caine. His writing style is friendly and conversational, as though he is telling his story face to face with the reader. His story as a struggling actor making it into the limelight of celebrity carries you on a personal journey that is laced with comedy and sadness. With the pending release of yet another acclaimed movie, one may be interested to learn what life experiences made him the person and actor that he is today.

Monica McCusker, Office Coordinator-College Store

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The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie — One of the best books I have read in recent memory. An engaging story, memorable characters, and a dynamic writing style. And the extreme controversy surrounding the novel only makes it more appealing! A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry — This is a story about India in the 70s, during the State of Emergency. Four strangers are thrown together and are forced to live together and grow, learn, and develop together during troubling times. A very moving and deeply emotional story. The Brother Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky — A very long, very interesting Russian novel centering on the four Karamazov brothers and the murder of their father. It combines courtroom drama with mystery with many musings on man’s place in the world and the existence (or lack thereof) of God. Gripping and powerful! Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan — A story that centers on a fateful trip to Burma. Narrated by the ghost of the trip organizer who dies before the trip commences. This book includes a lot of historical fact regarding Burma. A very engaging and interesting read. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver—This book is about a family of missionaries who are working in the Congo. Each chapter is narrated by a different daughter. Another book that integrates the actual history of the Congo and its post-colonial history.

Andrew McGeehan, Housing Coordinator and Residence Life Assistant

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Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2004)
Only 247 pages, this was a surprisingly rich and welcome meditation each night. Really fine, spare writing. Readers are transported to a small town in 1950s Iowa, where we get to intimately understand John Ames, an old Congregationalist minister with a young second wife and a six-year-old son. Ames is dying of heart disease, and he is crafting a family history and memoir to leave behind for his boy. At the same time, he is feeling conflicted about how much he should say to his wife about a friend’s son who left Gilead in disgrace but recently returned, befriending and bonding with his wife and son. It is truly wonderful how the author gets inside the head of this 80-year-old man and shares his thoughts as he is approaches the end of life, and the peace he wants to make with life. (This novel won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2005.)

Bryan McNulty, Director, Communications and Media Relations

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The Gathering by Anne Enright – The Irish family can be a rich trove of sadness, and Enright mines it as few can. The Art of Strategy by Dixit and Nalebuff – Game theory offers myriad strategic insights. Here those insights are illustrated with examples from everyday life, business, and sport. An easy introduction to better strategic thinking.

Michael Murray, Charles Franklin Phillips Professor of Economics

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Here are some great books I’ve read lately: Thinking In Pictures: My Life with Autism (Expanded Edition), by Temple Grandin — A very interesting perspective on the world. I learned things in this book — about animals, about the different ways people think, about ‘disorders,’ and so much more — which, I think, will forever influence my own perspective on the world. It certainly has defended my desire for lots of hugs (or squeeze machines) — you’ll know what I mean if you read the book! Water for Elephants, but Sara Gruen — This book sweeps you up, right along with its protagonist, onto the traveling circus train.

Boy’s Life, by Robert McCammon — This book is filled with the magic of being young but also the realities of change and the passing of time. It takes place in a small, Alabama town, but every chapter is action and imagination-packed, from shoot-outs to dinosaurs. McCammon encourages nostalgia in the reader, not only for the innocence of childhood, but that time in history, not too long ago, in which people were sure that “the world’ll always need milkmen.” But he also plays close attention to the darker facts of life (and death), using clever metaphor and skilled writing to blur the lines between fact and fiction, and to ask us to question the need for this distinction in the first place. Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan — This might be a cliche choice, but, more than any other book, this has made me rethink my lifestyle. I like that Pollan not only presents the problems with our current food consumption, but offers more efficient solutions. The book is full of wellthought-out points and counter-points which force you to chew on your own daily decisions, as well as lots of tasty factoids. I just fine Pollan’s writing so persuasive, and yet so honest and common-sensical.

Aubrey Nelson, Americorp VISTA

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Leo Lerman, The Grand Surprise: The Journals of Leo Lerman. Knopf, 2007
Tab Hunter with Eddie Muller, Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star. Algonquin Books, 2005
Bob Morris, Assisted Loving: True Tales of Double Dating with My Dad. Harper, 2008
Max Birkbeck, Deconstructing Sammy (Davis, Jr.): Music, Money, Madness, and the Mob Amistad, 2008.
Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger (A Novel). The Free Press, 2008

Charles Nero, Associate Professor of Rhetoric

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Two novels I enjoyed this year: The Swarm by Frank Schätzing is a big, fat thriller for readers who love science as well as speculation about alien forms of intelligence. If you don’t enjoy science fiction, you might still enjoy this thriller because the alien form of intelligence turns out to share the planet with us. The story explores possible outcomes of our unsustainable ways of treating the world’s bodies of water.

Mr. Emerson’s Wife by Bates graduate Anne Belding Brown is a fictional imagining of the life of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s second wife, Lydia(n). She was a fascinating member of the transcendental circle, who may or may not have reacted to Emerson’s request that she modify her common name to the less common Lydian, as Brown has her do. But whether she spoke up or not, we understand something about the shape of the marriage to come.

Georgia Nigro, Professor of Psychology

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The Broke Diaries by Angela Nissel
A short read, certainly a summer beach read. Angela tells her hilarious stories of being broke in college. Great comical detail and a fun read.

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
You probably already have this suggestion, as it was a big seller this year. But this is an excellent book and a great graduation gift! Highly recommended.

The New Kings of Nonfiction – Edited & Introduced by Ira Glass (NPR’s “This American Life”)
A great collection of short non-fiction stories by popular names such as Malcolm Caldwell and Chuck Klosterman.

Sara Noyes, Residence Life and Student Activities Assistant

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The Air We Breathe, by the great Andrea Barrett, is a brilliant, transcendent book. Written in the first person plural (go figure, but for a reason), it chronicles the lives of inmates at a New York TB sanitorium, hitting on class, immigration, anarchism, women in science, public health, power, and of course love, deception, healing landscapes, big meals, revenge: this book has everything! Go immediately to the College Store and buy it! The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery is a very different book but has some of the same themes about class, knowledge, and humanity. Its protagonist is the concierge of a swanky apartment building in Paris who is compelled to hide her formidable intellect, till she is discovered by two other outsiders. A great book about why it matters to educate yourself. And I did read and love Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout ’77, long before it won the Pulitzer Prize. Life in a small Maine town told in a series of precise and unnerving stories. Liz Strout has an uncanny ability to make you love and loathe a character at the same time: so lifelike!

Kerry O’Brien, Assistant Dean of the Faculty

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I wish I could remember the others I’ve read this year, but those are ones that stand out to me. The Latehomecomer, A Hmong Family Memoir, by Kao Kalia Yang The author is a young woman, not too much older than our students when she wrote this. She writes beautifully about her experiences as her family is resettled in Minnesota after the Vietnam War. I Remember Warm Rain, Telling Room’s Story House Project This is a collection of writings by immigrant and refugee teens living in the Portland area. It is a very quick read that provides a glimpse into the lives of these young adults as they begin to make their ways here. Godmother, The Secret Cinderella Story, by Carolyn Turgeon This is the Cinderella story from her fairy godmother’s point of view. It is an interesting take on the story, one you don’t expect at all. It would be a great choice for a book group. On the darker side, though.

Karen A. Palin, Lecturer in Biology

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Here are two novels I’m very excited about: Steven Galloway, The Cellist of Sarajevo Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies

Jim Parakilas, Music, James L. Moody Family Professor of Performing Arts

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I recommend The Penderwicks on Gardam Street by Jeanne Birdsall. It is the story of an autumn’s adventures of a very quirky family of four young (ages 4-12) sisters and their dad. The characters are marvelous: quirky, like I said, and some nerdy, some obstinate, all well-meaning and very accepting of one another. Lots of laugh-out-loud moments.

Liz McCabe Park, Director, Maine Campus Compact

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I’m just finishing up Wally Lamb’s newest novel, The Hour I First Believed. I gave it to Ian, who loved Lamb’s previous novel, I Know this Much is True, for Christmas. He recommended I read it but be prepared. It’s not for everyone, and it brings in the Columbine tragedy and images thereof in a big way, but if you like Lamb’s other books, you should like it. I still think I like his previous one better. I also have been reading…”They were very beautiful. Such things are” : memoirs for change from Dadaab, Kenya and Lewiston, Maine, which I’ve enjoyed very much. In a different genre, Julian was telling me about the wellknown juvenile fiction novel Holes, by Louis Sachar, which I had come upon in one of my cleaning forays. I knew the other 2 kids had read it and that a movie had been made of it, but he piqued my curiosity, so I read it, quickly of course (a treat in itself). I liked it!
Ian and Julian are Carole’s sons — Editor.

Carole Parker, Library Assistant-Acquisitions

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I would like to recommend Kenneth Roberts’ novel Lydia Bailey. With action ranging from New England in the early 1800′s, to Haiti during Toussaint L’Ouverture’s rebellion, to the Barbary Coast, this novel is fairly typical of Roberts’ style. It is a little bit detective story, a lot of adventure and a little bit of romance, extensively researched with plenty of historical details.

Heather L’Hommedieu Perreault, Assistant Director, Financial Offices

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Two examples of successful historical fiction for your list, in case these have not yet been named: The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B. by Sandra Gulland It’s actually a 3-book series that chronicles the life of Josephine Bonaparte (wife of Napoleon) through her fictional diary entries. Great glimpse into a turbulent time through the life of a fascinating woman. Portrait of an Unknown Woman by Vanora Bennett — another piece of historical fiction, this one about Chancellor Thomas More (under Henry VIII) and the relationship of his family (in particular, of his foster daughter) to the visiting German painter Hans Holbein.

Sonja Pieck, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies

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I like to mix up my genres and the price I pay is that not everything I read ends up on my list of favorites. For international intrigue with a submariner’s theme you can’t go too far wrong with Patrick Robinson. I read H.M.S. Unseen which is about a very angry but very clever Iraqi agent working with a group of Irani opportunists to steal a British submarine and shoot missiles at American targets. The U.S. would be doomed without the curmudgeonly but brilliant Admiral Morgan and his British counterpart. This is an edge of your seat thriller with some truly despicable and some truly likable characters. A great escape. My favorite novel this past year lead to interest in reading others by the author.

Susan Vreeland wrote Luncheon at the Boating Party which is an imagined explanation of how Pierre-Auguste Renoir came to create the painting bearing the book’s title. Vreeland skillfully weaves the lives of the models and their relationships with Renoir into a tale which brings life to the painting. I had great fun Googling the paintings referenced in the book and other artists who were part of the story. Aside from the creative way in which the story is developed Vreeland has a wonderful writing style. I found this to be an adventure in art appreciation and I was fascinated with Vreeland’s speculations on what was going on in Renoir’s life and in his head as the painting evolved.

So then I had to read Girl in Hyacinth Blue also by Vreeland. I didn’t find it as compelling but the story followed a fictional Vermeer painting backwards through its various owners to its origin. The story is about how the painting impacted each custodian. This book is about art history, character study, near-poetic prose and emotional transitions in the lives of people from all walks of life. It is about the power of art to shape peoples’ lives and thus inform history. It isn’t a totally happy story but in some chapters this painting lifts people up from hardship and frees them despite the pain of letting the painting go. So then I had to read The Passion of Artemisia also by Susan Vreeland. This is a beautifully written speculation on the life and times of a female painter in Italy from 1593-1653, Artemisia Gentileschi. She is the daughter of a painter in a world of male artists. She is raped by her father’s partner, publically humiliated in a trial, forced into an arranged marriage and cheated upon by her husband. Through it all she finds solace and enlightenment through art. This is another story which can be enhanced by Googling the paintings referenced in the story. Artemisia has a unique and renowned ability to capture the emotion in women’s faces. This book also provides a spectacular perspective on the art of Italy and one woman’s perception of the influences of the time.

I needed to change genres so I read Christopher Paolini’s Brisingr. This is the third novel in the series which was started when Paolini was 15 years old. His writing is maturing but even with only a few years behind him the author has an amazing perception of human values. His characters reveal his wit and wisdom. But his hero is pure youth, supremely confident one moment and impatient and filled with angst the next. Of course there is magic and politics and warfare and relationships and dragons. The book has a lot to offer if fantasy is your thing. It’s a brick of a book but it usually moves along quite well. Of course, there is no real solution to the central plot so you’ll have to wait for the last book in the series. I tried on some other fantasy and science fiction but the author who I found most satisfying was Julie E. Czerneda. The Trade Pact Universe Trilogy includes A Thousand Words for Stranger, Ties of Power and To Trade the Stars. I like the author’s imaginative characters and her sense of humor. There is telepathy and a love interest and strange creatures with odd devotion to the heroine. It’s complicated enough to keep your interest without befuddling you in tangled plots. There are answers to some of the mysteries in each book with enough loose ends to draw you into the next book. It’s not high literature but it’s entertaining for a light read.

Since I was travelling to New Mexico and Arizona for vacation in March I had to read some Tony Hillerman. While I’m not usually a fan of mysteries, the two stories I read were very engaging. The Blessing Way and A Thief of Time were recommended and did not disappoint. These books provide a good introduction to Native American culture and a bit of archeology with a great introduction to the geography. For non-fiction I read two books which I enjoyed. The Flamingo’s Smile: Reflections on Natural History by Stephen Jay Gould is a collection of articles originally written for Natural History Magazine. It seemed like a timely read for the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. Sometimes Gould’s writing seemed a bit arrogant or self-righteous but the subject matter and depth of knowledge was truly impressive.

The other book was Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey: River of Doubt by Candice Millard. This was historical, dramatic and startling. The trip was one of adventure and exploration on a South American river and took place fairly late in Roosevelt’s life. It reveals a lot about the man and his companions. At times I found the narrative redundant but the boldness of the poorly equipped and barely prepared expedition left no doubt about the strength of will and determination of the men who undertook this trip. The area was previously uncharted and once the journey was begun there was no turning back and no real chance of rescue. There were no satellite photos or aerial shots showing the number and ferocity of rapids. Little was known of the natives except that they were not prone to welcoming strangers. This book can make you stop in your tracks and think about how you would have managed in Roosevelt’s shoes. We have come a long way in our ability to prepare for safe outcomes but I suspect few of us would have the tolerance for hardship and risk demonstrated by this band of men. It was fascinating and chilling.

Ray Potter, Environmental Health and Safety Coordinator

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I’ve had a bit of a reading drought this year, broken (thankfully) by these downpours: Liz Strout’s Olive Kitteridge. Liz and I were both English majors at Bates in the glorious Class of ‘77. She has a fresh Pulitzer while I have…a great affection and respect for Olive. Mary Shaffer’s Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Devoured this one. Anne Lamott’s Plan B. I have always appreciated Lamott’s quirky yet direct approach on matters spiritual, parental, mid-life… Lorna Landvik’s View from Mount Joy. Landvik continues to create characters I enjoy. Amy Dickinson’s The Mighty Queens of Freeville. This wonderful read features two Bates notables, Kirk Read and Camille Parrish. You’ll have to read the book to discover just what pivotal roles they play in Amy’s life. (This is the Amy of “Ask Amy” advice column fame and “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” on NPR). And on my list of “to be read and savored” this summer, the newly-released An Honorable Harvest—Shakers and the Natural World, by professor emeritus of Religion, Clark A. Griffiths Professor Emeritus of Environmental Studies AND former Dean of the Faculty at Bates, Carl Benton Straub. This much-anticipated book is published by the United Society of Shakers and is available at the Bates Bookstore (shameless plug here!).

Sarah Potter, Bookstore Director

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I recommend taking time to linger in the kind of pop magazines for sale in places like the supermarket check-out area. They can be a great source of pleasure, amusement, and insight—and not just about what some people in academic settings assume to be the sorry state of pop culture. Sure, you can find the same fake science that daily graces the Today show: my favorite of late concerns the “chemical of attachment” that allegedly prohibits women from enjoying casual sex. But I’ve also read great pieces in Soap Opera Digest on how racism drives programming, and dare I say it, a wonderful column “by” Pamela Anderson in (the now defunct) Jane that was useful and vividly on target about living with an alcoholic. You never know what you might find, but more often than one might expect, I think, it includes counterevidence to snobby presumptions about where to find insight.

Erica Rand, Professor of Art and Visual Culture

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Confession of an Economic Hit Man John Perkins
The Gift of Dyslexia Ronald Davis
Never Have Your Dog Stuffed Alan Alda
The Devil in the White City Eric Larson

John Rasmussen, Project Manager-Physical Plant

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It is a sign of my perversely pitiful life that I, as a professor of literature, have read so little for leisure. And some of what I read I really didn’t like. A pleasure from my short term: Tintin in Tibet (or better yet, Tintin au Tibet). A beautifully told story of friendship, gorgeously illustrated. Tintin encounters the abominable snow man and rescues his friend Tchang in the himalayas after having dreamed of his peril. Michael Farr’s companion that I recommended last year is a nice complement: The Complete Tintin. This is the second time I’ve taught Tintin for short term and my fanaticism is becoming ever more complicated and nuanced. I heard Samantha Hunt read from her book The Invention of Everything Else about Tesla (thank you Jonathan Skinner, Rob Farnsworth and Eden Osucha for such a wonderful authors series!) and have started it and love it A tri-fecta based on Terry Gross’s interview with Erik Reece. I haven’t read his book, but plan to: An American Gospel which is an exploration of his struggle with religion. He uses Walt Whitman as a reference and quoted some beautiful passages from Leaves of Grass which I took off the shelf and bathed in again right after. I love Walt Whitman for his rambling, unruly, exuberant verse which is so right in summer. A tonic for overheated academic prose and overedited senior theses. And then listen to the musical settings of leaves of grass by Fred Hersch. Beautiful. As a respite from Whitman, read Baudelaire. And Emily Dickinson. Anything. Exquisite. My honor’s thesis student did a study of Baudelaire and Debussy and what music can or cannot do in comparison with poetry.

The same could be said for French and English, I suppose. Get a bilingual edition at least! I want to read Our Life in Gardens by Wayne Wintterrowd and Joe Eck and then go visit their amazing estate in New York (North Hill). I will put in (perhaps another) plug for my pal Amy Dickinson’s memoir, The Mighty Queens of Freeville. I know everyone in it and make an appearance in chapter 6. Amy and I were negotiating our book contracts at the same time. She got over 4 million dollars for two books. I am still negotiating not to have to pay for my own indexing. Sigh. At 5 thousand dollars a word, I think her beautiful book holds up quite well.

Kirk Read, Associate Professor of French

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Indian Summer by Alex Von Tunzelmann. NY: Picador-Henry Holt & Co.
A finely written book about the history of a part of the world we (at least, I) should know more about. How did India form as it is today? Why Pakistan? For a wonderful read that you cannot put down, try this one. Strapless by Deborah Davis. NY: Penguin, 2003 The intriguing story behind John Singer Sargent’s portrait of Madame X. A view into the life of the artist and the striking, 19th century, French Creole woman who posed for the painting, the culture that swirled around and with her, in and out of the painting.

Jill Reich, Dean of Faculty

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Here’s my one great read from the past year. Loved it!

If You Lived Here, I’d Know Your Name: News from Small-Town Alaska

by Heather Lende From Publishers Weekly: Lende chronicles the various lives and deaths of the people of Haines, Alaska, an almost inaccessible hamlet 90 miles north of Juneau. In writing her social and obituary columns for Haines’s Chilkat Valley News—some of which are included here—she blends reportage and humor.

Julie Retelle, Assistant College Librarian for Access Services

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Heat by Bill Buford
New Yorker editor works as a kitchen slave in one of Mario Batali’s restaurants. This is the beginning of a cooking quest…I don’t want to eat there, but have considered (very briefly) apprenticing with a Tuscan butcher.

The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen
An older book, worth a re-read, and one of my husband’s favorites. Mattheissen travels to Nepal with biologist George Schaller to study Himalayan blue sheep, and possibly glimpse a rare snow leopard. A physical and spiritual journey.

An Unexpected Forest by Eleanor Lincoln Morse (Maine author!)
Very sweet book about changes. On the day he is fired from his job, The US Forest Service mistakenly delivers 1000 black spruce tree seedlings to our hero’s home in suburbia. He decides he needs to plant them in mid-Maine. In bogs. With black flies. For the young adult fantasy crowd, a series called The Books of Pellinor by Alison Croggon. These are The Naming, The Riddle, The Crow, and The Singing. The usual good vs evil/magic/journey quest but very fun summer read.

Stephanie Richards, Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology

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Magazines too? Then my pick is definitely The Week. As for books – I’ll go ahead and suggest Getting Green Done by Auden Schendler.

Julie Rosenbach, Environmental Coordinator

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I’m in the middle of The Known World by Edward Jones. I had to stop reading for awhile because I knew something bad was about to happen to a favorite character. Now that the light has returned I can continue. The story is set in Virginia during the mid-1800s and is about the lives of African American slave owners, their slaves and the culture surrounding them. Multiple main characters with flash forward events that allow you to know their future without actually getting there in the narrative.

Nancy Salmon, Bates Dance Festival

• • •

Gaming the Vote: Why Elections Aren’t Fair (and What We Can Do About It) by William Poundstone
This engaging piece of nonfiction describes a variety of methods of counting votes, as well as the vulnerabilities of each to such problems as vote-splitting (recall the U.S. presidential election of 2000). He makes a persuasive case that the system we use in national elections in the U.S. is one of the worst. Interestingly, the system used at such web sites as www.hotornot.com (“range voting”) seems to be one of the best. Poundstone (who also wrote “Prisoner’s Dilemma,” an accessible exploration of basic game theory and a biography of John von Neumann) has a knack for making mathematical concepts easy to understand and engaging.

Michael Sargent, Associate Professor of Psychology

• • •

Sherman Alexie: Ten Little Indians, Indian Killer, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian and Reservation Blues. Julia Glass: Three Junes For the Young Adults/teens: Little Brother by Cory Doctorow.

Paula Schlax, Associate Professor of Chemistry

• • •

The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory (much better than the movie)

Claire Schmoll, Assistant to the Vice President for Finance and Treasurer

• • •

Liz Strout’s amazing, Pulitzer-Prize winning Olive Kitteridge.

David Scobey, Director of the Harward Center for Community Partnerships

• • •

Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh Ghosh seems to want to single-handedly revive the rich Indo-English vocabulary of past centuries in this book about the British opium industry of the early 19th century—and why not? Don’t you want launderbuzz, budzat and chuckeroo in your emergency expletive repertoire? Why NOT go back to that huge crossover stock pile of which “jodhpurs” and “kedgeree” are just the tip, instead of trying to translate impossible idioms (and I’ve tried)? Sea of Poppies is a salty tale of tall ships and second mates, a historical compendium of early British India, and a fictional testament to vicissitudes of cross-cultural characters high and low. If you think “globalization” is a recent thing, read this book. It would be handy to have a labeled diagram of a slave-trade sailing ship nearby. Readers with some Hindi/Urdu/Bengali will get a kick out of the South Asian inside jokes, though there is a glossary of sorts (in fictional guise) to help others. And I belatedly understood why the story stops in the middle of the Indian Ocean—it’s part of a projected trilogy. Poet in New York by Federico Garcia Lorca These texts are from a gritty time when only cabbies and hoodlums, rather than writers and artists, seemed to swarm the streets of the city. The facing page translations are a rather insane way to pick up Spanish, but that doesn’t stop me from trying. “…una reunion de cloacas/donde gritan las oscuras ninfas del colera.” What he said! Smooth and digestible translations, however.

Sagaree Sengupta, Asian Studies Lecturer, Graduate Fellowships Advisor

• • •

For someone whose reading taste has run to light fiction in recent years, this was a serious year for me: my two favorite books were both about presidents, Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, and President Obama’s autobiographical Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. Perhaps inspired by the Obama book, I happened to read two novels about young men growing up between cultures this spring, The Namesake (Jhumpa Lahiri) and The Absolutely True Diary of A Part-Time Indian (Sherman Alexie). For sheer fun, I recommend Gods Behaving Badly (Marie Phillips) about a house full of bored Greek gods in contemporary London and Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty (Jim Sandlin) about a nursing home full of ex hippies in 2022.

Beth Sheppard, Associate Director of Annual Giving

• • •

I recommend the humorous fantasy/alternate history series by British author Jasper Fforde (don’t ask me how to pronounce that!). The books are: The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots and Something Rotten. I’ve read the first 3 so far. The main character is named Thursday Next. There are puns and in-group humor a-plenty for literature fans and I often laugh out loud while reading these books. In the alternate world of these books, literature is far more popular than in our world, and in fact there is a whole organization set up to police and protect books and their characters. I simply can’t begin to describe all the clever plot and character devices, but I can recommend this series without reservation to anyone who loves literature and quirky novels. Also recommend the series by Laurie B. King, starting with The Beekeeper’s Apprentice. The beekeeper is Sherlock Holmes, and his apprentice is a young teenager named Mary Russell. I won’t be a spoiler and say more, except you know there are other books in the series, so the partnership must continue. As a fan of Sherlock Holmes, I was skeptical, but this series is every bit as witty and full of plot twists, maybe even more so. Good writing, as well. Laurie R. King has described Russell as “what Sherlock Holmes would look like if Holmes, the Victorian detective, were a) a woman, b) of the Twentieth century, and c) interested in theology”. King has a graduate degree in Old Testament theology that has doubtless informed Russell’s own theological pursuits. Finally, I just finished Four Letters of Love by Irish writer Niall Williams.

The writing in this sometimes reminded me of a long prose poem. Stunning. And a great love story (actually, several) as well as weaving the atmosphere of Ireland and the Irish throughout. Great summer read.

Bonnie Shulman, Associate Professor of Mathematics

• • •

The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker
Gavin de Becker garnered widespread media attention with his bestselling book, The Gift of Fear, which revealed the practical lessons from his decades of studying violence for the purpose of protecting ourselves from the dangerous situations people typically face – street crime, domestic abuse, violence in the workplace. The book, which appeared on the New York Times bestseller list for four months and has been published in 13 languages, was featured multiple times on the Oprah Winfrey Show, ABCTV’s Prime Time Live, and Larry King Live, as well as the pages of Time and Newsweek, and was endorsed by every major women’s magazine.

Marni Lyn Sienko, Bates Contract Photographer

• • •

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
There are two female narrators in this novel, a 50-something concierge and a 12-year-old student. They live in the same building in Paris but don’t know each other. They are both sophisticated philosophers who have chosen to keep a low profile by looking ordinary (the concierge) and stupid (the girl) for quiet living. Also, they are both in love with Japan. Will they manage to find out about each other? Best seller in Europe, finally available in English.

Roberta Strippoli, Visiting Assistant Professor of Asian Studies

• • •

This year it’s mostly books about books — with two exceptions.

Bibliotopia, Steven Gilbar
This is a miscellany about books. It describes the component parts of books, book sizes, history of printing, literary terms, largest libraries in the world, and on and on. It even has a depiction of selected typefaces on the endpapers ["Endpapers — the paper attached to the inside of the boards of a book after it has been covered."] A small encyclopedia and great for browsing.

Reading the OED, Ammon Shea
First off, the author admits, “I collect words.” What better way to spend his time while out of work than to move in with his girlfriend (a very indulgent girlfriend) along with his collection of dictionaries and spend his days there and in the Hunter College Library reading the Oxford English Dictionary — all of it. Better yet to write a book on this excellent adventure, a chapter for each letter of the alphabet, and containing a few choice words from the OED beginning with that letter. For example, “happify” — to make you happy, which this book will.

The City of Dreaming Books, Walter Moers
This is among the most engrossing of literary odysseys. It involves a hero and a quest and a fantasy world. Optimus Yarnspinner, a creature, perhaps a sort of dinosaur to judge from the book’s delightful illustrations, is himself an author and has inherited a manuscript of another unnamed author whose identity he feels he must discover. His search takes him to Bookholm — The City of Dreaming Books. I’ll say no more — except that you really should read it.

People of the Book, Geraldine Brooks
This is the history — part fact, part fiction — of an ancient book, the Sarajevo Haggadah. A number of its features, even that it was magnificently illustrated, call its authenticity into question and causes it to be put into the hands of a skilled manuscript restorer for examination. Her work on the Haggadah is one story. The other is the story of the book itself, of the people who preserved it through the centuries, and those who tried to destroy it in the recurrent periods of anti-Semitism in Europe.

A History of Reading, Alberto Manguel
This is a personal account of the author’s life as a reader, as well as a history of reading and readers of all kinds. It’s an account of reading alone and being read to, of books and bookmen, of the importance of reading in all ages and for all people. Manguel does in text what Kertesz has done in photographs in On Reading. He notes, for example, that one of the cruelest cruelties of African-American slavery was that slaves were forbidden to read. In the end, he quotes Virginia Woolf on readers. “… when the day of judgment dawns … the Almighty will turn to Peter and say, not without certain envy when he sees us coming with our books under our arms, ‘Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them. They have loved reading.’”

The following are the two exceptions — one is an historical mystery (fiction), the other is a modern tragedy (fact).

Mistress of the Art of Death, Ariana Franklin
Henry II has a problem, several murdered Christian children whose deaths are blamed on the Jewish community in Cambridge. Henry is concerned, mostly because the Jewish community is a prime source of his tax revenue. He calls on a forensic pathologist from Salerno — a Mistress of the Art of Death named Adelia. Battling prejudice, ignorance, the Church, and even accusations of witchcraft, Adelia “reads” the bodies and eventually solves the murders. The final court scene is illustrative. Rather than the comfortable resort to the supernatural to make decisions, Adelia forces the judges (with a little help from Henry himself) to consider the facts as dispositive. For all her efforts, Adelia is scantly rewarded. Henry won’t let her leave England. He might have need of her again. She can’t marry one of Henry’s knights she’s fallen in love with because Henry wants him as a tame bishop in a Church still smarting over the Becket thing. But pragmatic as ever she settles down and the last we hear of her, “… she was in bed with the Bishop-Elect of Saint Albans.”

Dying Inside, Benjamin Fleury-Steiner
The latest data indicate that one out of every 198 people in the United States is in a state or Federal prison. Some say that we have a larger proportion of our population incarcerated than most any other nation. We imprison so many and for so long that we have created a swelling population of the geriatric and the sick, a population which prisons are ill equipped to deal with. Many jurisdictions simply give up on health care, for example, and farm it out to private health providers. These frequently cut to the bottom line since the patients they ostensibly serve can’t effectually complain. And the sickest and most forgotten of these are the AIDS patients who will end up in a place like the HIV/AIDS ward at Limestone Prison in Alabama. Dying Inside is the story of a gruesome health crisis in a place where, as one prisoner put it, when an inmate is transferred there, they just go there to die.

Sawyer Sylvester, Professor of Sociology

• • •

One new one old: Rose Macaulay, The Towers of Trebizond, written in 1956, has to be one of the most charming, and funny “travel” books ever written. A fictional account of the narrator, her aunt, and an Anglican priest as they wander around Turkey. The opening sentence will give you some idea of the book: “”Take my camel, dear,” said my Aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass.” Of course it’s outdated, but you get a pretty good picture of the country and its people, and not everything has changed. It’s wise as well as funny. For a new book I suggest Ursula LeGuin’s Lavinia, an imagining of the story of the wife Aeneas chooses after abandoning Dido to burn on her pyre. Lavinia gets only a handful of words in The Aeneid, but LeGuin not only creates a worthy (and of course feisty) companion for the hero, she makes Lavinia seem credible, and pius Aeneas both human and lovable. The novel sent me back to Vergil, in a new translation by Sarah Ruden.

Anne Thompson, Professor Emerita of English

• • •

Two of the best murder mysteries I (Dick) have ever read — and I’ve read a lot — the first two of a trilogy by Stieg Larsson, who died shortly after finishing the third (which will be translated in a year or so). They are best read in order: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and, for those who care about the third, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest).

Superior travel book: Colin Thubron: Shadow of the Silk Road

Dick (Professor Emeritus of Psychology) and Lois Wagner

• • •

If you like your summer reading served up in big, tasty chunks of contemporary history — and I bet some of you do — then find a copy of Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945 by Tony Judt. One of our most respected and honored historians, Judt has crafted a magesterial work encompassing not just the recent political and military history of post-WWII Europe, but also the social, cultural, intellectual, and occasionally the moral histories of the era. The New York Review of Books said this work “has the pace of a thriller and the scope of an encyclopedia.” Amen. And as a bonus, if you’re thinking of reading Martha Cooley’s The Archivist — don’t. Dull, stifling, maddening. Find something more diverting, like product labels or shipping instructions.

Pat Webber, Archivist, Muskie Archives

• • •

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and Davis Oliver Relin
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls came recommended by a friend.
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini has been on this list for years and I finally got around to reading it!
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan: A Novel by Lisa See

Beth Whalon, Assistant in Instruction in Biological Chemistry

• • •

Little Dorrit, Charles Dickens
I try to read a Dickens novel each winter. Over-sentimental, yes, but quite current in its depiction of the results of avarice and financial shenanigans.

Two in the Far North, Margaret Murie
I bought this memoir at truck stop in Coldfoot, Alaska. Considered one of the founding mothers of the environmental movement, Murie writes of her upbringing in Fairbanks, a dog-sled honeymoon, and many trips in the Brooks Range.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz
A gorgeous mix of pop and politics. The language will transport you.

Selections from John Degon, partner and fellow-reader Fingersmith. Sarah Waters
A modern text that reads like a lost Victorian novel, only with sex and swearing. Bottom of the Harbor, Joseph Mitchell A collection of stories about the New York waterfront originally published in The New Yorker from 1940-50. But so much more.

Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work, Jason Brown

A collection of stories set in and around the fictional town of Vaughn, Maine. Beautifully written and as evocative of life in a small town as “Olive Kitteredge”.

Andrew White, Director of User Services, ILS

• • •

Two older books I read this year that deserve some notice. When I studied history seriously I shied away from military studies, tactics, and all associated matters. Grant, by Jean Edward Smith (Simon & Schuster, 2001) tells me why this was maybe a mistake. The story of a modest man who became the most celebrated American after Lincoln who also was written off by subsequent generations, especially in high school history texts. A really interesting study of the rise and fall of fame, and an answer to the question “Why does Grant deserve a tomb on Riverside Drive?” Also, An Island out of Time, by Tom Horton (W. W. Norton, 1996). Tom Horton is a journalist and now a champion of saving the Chesapeake Bay. This is his narrative of a year spent on Smith Island in 1987. Full of vignettes of island life and living, with unsentimental and stunning transcripts of islanders who seek to maintain their lives in the face of environmental destruction, bureaucratic insensitivity and the relentless work of currents, tides and isolation.

Gene Wiemers, Vice President for ILS and Librarian

• • •

Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks

Anne Williams, Professor Emerita of Economics

• • •

Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner won a Pulitzer Prize, but don’t let that put you off. Great intergenerational saga of the American west without cowboys. Beautiful writing and a fantastic storyline. 400 pages of summer enjoyment.

LaVerne Winn, Science Reference Librarian, Ladd

• • •

Pocketful of Names: A Novel by Joe Coomer
Some might find this novel overly long, but I loved that it’s set in Maine and explores the themes of solitude and connection, creativity and context, family and identity… (excerpted review from Booklist): …tracks the arduous emotional growth of a reclusive artist perfectly content to live by herself on an island off the coast of Maine, left to her by her lobsterman uncle. Hannah’s artwork sells briskly at a gallery in New York, which allows her to devote all of her time to her creative pursuits. Then an old charmer of a dog washes ashore, followed some months later by an abused teenager. One human connection leads to another, and soon Hannah is hosting Thanksgiving dinner, aiding the rescue efforts of a whale-watch group, and providing shelter for her pregnant half-sister. [spoiler removed!] The pace of this overly long novel is slow, but Coomer excels at evoking the attractions of solitude versus the meaning of home and connection.

Emily Wright-Timko, Assistant Chaplain

• • •

Our annual thanks to our friends in Office Services for getting this list into booklet format with blazing speed and to our friend in Communications and Media Relations for their assistance with our web version of the list.

Compiled and edited by Sarah Potter ’77, Bookstore Director, May 2009

In a new twist this year, submitters were also asked to suggest that one book they’d like to have with them if they were shipwrecked on a deserted, tropical island for several months. So, look for a few titles for desert-island reading in this, the 11th annual “Non-required Reading List, or Good Reads for Leisure Moments.”

Lee Abrahamsen, Associate Professor of Biology:

The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan
Interesting biology, history, philosophy and sociology. About how “domesticated” plants have changed us while we thought we were changing them. Great writing and some very provocative ideas. Just enough humor.

Rise and Shine, Anna Quindlan
A good story about two sisters and how they deal with life and each other. If you like Quindlan’s easy style, you’ll like this one. A good, not-at-all-taxing read.

Wickett’s Remedy, Maya Goldberg
This is a sort of historical novel about a fictitious character in Boston during the 1918 flu epidemic. It was a good story. Being the infectious disease geek that I am, I was disappointed that there wasn’t more about the flu epidemic itself, but normal people will probably be grateful for that. I also like Goldberg’s earlier novel Bee Season about a girl who finds that she’s good at spelling bees. Goldberg is good at creating believable characters with lots of familiar complexities.

• • •

Stefany Arsenault, VISTA Leader, Maine Campus Compact:

Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris
An autobiography of sorts, also out on audio book read by the author himself. His self-deprecating humor brightens up a gloomy, rainy day. My favorite part is when he talks about his parents’ Great Danes. David Sedaris is known for is work with This American Life (Public Radio International).

His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
This trilogy is juvenile fantasy. The first book, The Golden Compass, is expected to come out in the theaters in December 2007 (with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig). I urge you to read the book or listen to the tape before the movie comes out because these books are incredible. The second and third books are called The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass.

Bitter with Baggage Seeks Same: The Life and Times of Some Chickens, Sloane Tanen
This is a funny picture book — the author photographed dioramas featuring little yellow chicks going about their daily lives. Sarcastic, witty and a bit cynical.

Desert island reading: One book that I have always loved is unfortunately out of print. It’s called My Friend Bear by Carol-Lynn Rossel-Waugh. It’s a comfort book.

• • •

Pam Baker ’70, Helen A. Papaioanou Professor of Biology:

Zorro, Isabel Allende
We (husband, Dave ’70, too) both enjoyed it very much. Lots of history about colonial California, and a swashbuckling (yet highly personal) good tale.

• • •

Jan Beaudoin, Athletics, Business Manager:

A World Lit Only By Fire, William Manchester
An interesting read about the European Renaissance and Reformation focusing on early Catholic religion. It is based on research of various writings of those years and delves into the history’s darker side of that religious period. For those wanting a wider outlook beyond the usual. This was a borrowed book, so not sure if still in print.

• • •

Denise Begin, Staff Assistant, Dean of Faculty’s Office:

Golf for Women
A magazine with good tips for some. It hasn’t been all that successful for me yet!

• • •

Helen Boucher, Assistant Professor of Psychology:

Shutting Out the Sun: How Japan Created Its Own Lost Generation, Michael Zielenziger
This is a new book that analyzes several modern-day problems with which Japan is struggling: the highest suicide and lowest birth rates of any industrialized county, and a new mental disorder called “hikikomori,” in which young men (typically) shut themselves in their rooms for weeks, months and years at a time, among other trends. For anyone interested in the land of geisha, bullet trains, sushi, Zen and anime, this is a must read.

• • •

Jane Boyle, Library Assistant, Public Service:

The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Trees
Pocket Guide with great pictures of tree trunks, bark and leaves all both in color.

Healing Lyme: Natural Healing and Prevention of Lyme Borreliosis and Its Coinfections, Stephen Harrod Buhner
A lot of great info in this book. The library does not own this title but you can order through MaineCat.

• • •

Sean Campbell, Director of Leadership Gifts:

The Book of Ruth, Jane Hamilton.

• • •

Ned Carr, Assistant Treasurer:

Written in Stone: A Geological History of the Northeastern United States, Chet Raymo and Maureen E. Raymo
Maureen Raymo gave a talk at Bates earlier this year. In readable format, the book tells the story of how the landscape of the Northeastern U.S. came to be what it is.

Reading the Forested Landscape: A Natural History of New England, Tom Wessels. A walk through the woods will never be the same, as you’ll understand more of its language and what it’s telling you.
• • •

Gene Clough, Geology and Physics Lecturer:

A Philosophy of Play, Luther Halsey Gulick
Everyone should read this book, published in 1920 by Scribners, although it is no longer in print and might be hard to find. An excerpt: “If you want to know what a child is, study his play; if you want to affect what he will be, direct the form of his play.”

• • •

Joanne Cole ’77, Peer Tutor Writing Pilot Program:

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer
Atonement, Ian McEwan
The Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama

• • •

John Cole, Thomas Hedley Reynolds Professor of History:

I’ve recently encountered a pair of entertaining books on the odd postmortem histories of the physical remains of two notables from the era of the French Revolution:

The Lost King of France: A True Story of Revolution, Revenge, and DNA, Deborah Cadbury,New York: St. Martin’s, 2002
The “king” in question is Louis XVII (1785–1795), who reigned only nominally and briefly while being treated with abominable inhumanity by the republican revolutionaries who had executed his father in 1793. The book tells this sad story, which becomes paradoxically livelier after the boy’s death, with accounts of the succession of false claimants to be “the lost Dauphin” (including a half-caste American Indian, for instance) and the remarkable story of the true heart, “stolen” from the corpse by the physician who performed the autopsy in 1795, then re-stolen from him, and so on.

The Trouble with Tom: The Strange Afterlife and Times of Thomas Paine, Paul Collins, New York: Bloomsbury, 2005
This one tells the story of the author’s search for Paine’s remains, starting in a gay bar in Greenwich Village.

• • •

Grace Coulombe ’94, Director of the Mathematics and Statistics Workshop:

The Prestige, Christopher Priest
A story of intrigue and illusion surrounding the fierce rivalry between two stage magicians at the end of the 19th century. The story, told through journal entries, tells of each magician’s obsession with outwitting and outperforming the other as well as discovering the other’s secrets.

The Painted Veil, W. Somerset Maugham
A story about a young, shallow British woman, Kitty. When Kitty’s husband, a bacteriologist, discovers her infidelity he volunteers to be a doctor in a remote region of mainland China in the middle of a cholera epidemic. Kitty is compelled to accompany him and eventually come to terms with her selfish existence.

• • •

Marianne Nolan Cowan ’92, Associate Director of Alumni and Parent Programs:

Five Smooth Stones, Ann Fairbairn
Four Spirits, Sena Jeter Naslund
The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom, Slavomir Rawicz
An incredible story of endurance.

• • •

John W. Creasy, Professor of Geology:

A Land Gone Lonesome: An Inland Voyage along the Yukon River, Dan O’Neill
The Border Trilogy, Cormac McCarthy
The Dispossessed, Ursula Le Guin
The Road, Cormac McCarthy
Nightfall, Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg
The Foundation, Isaac Asimov (series)
The Map that Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology, Simon Winchester (as much social history as geology)
Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883, Simon Winchester
Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays, Joan Didion
The White Album, Joan Didion

• • •

Marty Deschaines, Assistant Director for Community Volunteerism and Student Development, the Harward Center for Community Partnerships:

Some books I’ve enjoyed reading over the past year:
Consider the Lobster, David Foster Wallace
Behind the Scenes at the Museum;Case Histories;and One Good Turn, by Kate Atkinson
The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan
The White Rose, Jean Hanff Korelitz
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer

• • •

Vicky Devlin, Vice President for Advancement:

The Tender Bar, J.D. Moehringer
This is a beautifully written memoir of growing up under difficult circumstances and finding friends and role models among the characters who frequent a local bar. The author’s descriptions of his college years at Yale should help everyone understand that mentoring students from unusual backgrounds is essential.

Suite Francaise, Irene Nemirovsky
As compelling a book about war as one can read. First, the author’s personal story and the subsequent discovery of her notes and publication of the book makes her story even more compelling. The author was not able to finish the book, but her rough notes tell individual stories about living through the German occupation of France from the taking of Paris to the movement of the Germans throughout the countryside up to the establishment of the Russian front.

• • •

Carol Dilley, Assistant Professor of Dance:

The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins
This is a life-changing book and amazing history of ideas through the tension between science and religion. I have not read any of his other works yet, like The Selfish Gene, but my guess is that I am a later comer to someone everyone else knows about already.

The Book Thief, Marcus Zuzak
Germany during the war — a compelling story but with a narrator voice that some love and some don’t.

Ghost Dancer, Douglas Wright
Art and aids and amazing way with words. With this book I felt compelled to share phrases with friends on a regular basis because the writing was so glorious. He is a dancer, drug addict, reader, artist laureate of New Zealand, prostitute and generally big liver. His second book, Terra Incognito, is supposed to be even better but his books may not be easily available in U.S.

The Reader, Bernhard Schlink
Love and war on an intimate level.

Black Water, Joyce Carol Oates
Going over the bridge at Chappaquiddick. This unfolds in the most gripping way, looping back in time over and over again. It is short and powerful.

All of Kurt Vonnegut, again.

• • •

Members of the Educational Policy Committee:

Our Underachieving Colleges, Derek Bok.  A good read, easy and not too taxing. But, a book that raises provocative questions and interesting perspectives about what makes up an undergraduate education. Sometimes by being too simplistic and other times by being too dogmatic, Bok brings into focus the hard question of how to contribute to and organize a quality education for bright undergraduate students.

• • •

Melinda Emerson, Information and Library Services:

Stealing History, William Andrews.
A Maine author, and a book with a Maine theme (Bethel Historical Museum).

• • •

Johanna Farrar ’03, Assistant Dean of Admissions:

My Half of the Sky, Jana McBurney-Lin ’84. The novel gives an interesting look at women’s rolls in a ‘modern’ China. The fact that Jana is an alum made me proud when I read it!

Desert island reading: The Odyssey. It never bores.

• • •

Paul Farnsworth, Project Manager, Physical Plant:

Underground History of American Education, John Taylor Gatto
Very heavy reading; not your typical beach material. I liked it.

• • •

Laura Faure, Director of the Bates Dance Festival:

The Places In Between,Rory Stewart
About walking across Afghanistan.

Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town, Paul Theroux.

Holy Fools: A Novel, Joanne Harris
1610 Brittany, France
• • •

Sylvia Federico, Assistant Professor of English:

Amy and Isabelle, Elizabeth Strout ’77
Spunk, Zora Neale Hurston

Also, Jessica Mitford’s letters, collected as Decca, were highly entertaining and decadent.

• • •

David Foster ’77, Trustee:

Queen of Cups, Mina Samuels
Why would a strong woman choose to stay with a brilliant but abusive man? The answer is more complicated than you might think.

• • •

Jane K. Frizzell, Network Services Administrator:

No 1. Ladies’ Detective Agency, Alexander McCall Smith.
This is a series of at least eight books about Mma Ramotswe, a modern Botswana woman who starts her own detective agency. The writing is beautiful, the point of view decidedly African, the plots interesting and the solutions feminine and fitting of the crime. Descriptions of daily Botswana life and the landscape are haunting and the growth and emerging abilities of the “Ladies” is delightful. Starting with the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, Tears of the Giraffe, Morality of Beautiful Girls and, most recently, The Good Husband of Zebra Drive, these books are not just for mystery readers.

• • •

Heidi Gagnon, Alumni and Parent Programs Coordinator:

One of my favorites is The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks.

• • •

Leah Wiedmann Gailey ’97, Associate Director of Alumni and Parent Programs:

Suite Française, Irene Nemirovsky
This book was written in 1941–42, but the author was deported to Auschwitz in 1942 where she died. Her daughters preserved her manuscript for 60 years without realizing it was a masterpiece. It was published recently for the first time and is a wonderful account of France during the German invasion in the early 1940s.

The Last Days of Dogtown, Anita Diamant
A great read set in the early 1800s about a community of castoffs in Cape Ann, Mass.

• • •

Lois M. Griffiths ’51, retired staff:

Benedict Arnold’s Navy, James L. Nelson
A lively history of Arnold’s retreat from Quebec in 1776, which gave America’s revolutionary army an extra year to organize.

Master and Commander, Patrick O’Brian
And all the other 19 books of this wonderful series about the British navy in the Napoleonic era. I have been re-reading them in order, after skipping around the first time,
and enjoying them much more. Fascinating characters in adventures around the world 200 years ago.

• • •

Lorraine Groves, Sales Floor Supervisor, Bates College Store:

Astrid and Veronika, Linda Olsson
An unusual relationship between two women several decades apart in age. Their histories unfold during a harsh winter in a remote Swedish village. Both women share secrets of their past and as the seasons change so do they. This is a wonderful story that left me in tears and wanting more from this new author. Read it in bed read it on the beach, but do read it!

The Secret by Rhonda Byrne
We all know the Secret, but this book assists and helps to confirm how we can control our destiny, be it wealth, love, health, and life as we want it to be. I read it in small doses and will read it many more times. I have been a recipient of this formula and know that it works and will if you believe in yourself.

• • •

Claire Guyton, Area Coordinator, Philosophy and Religion:

The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo, Peter Orner
It took me about 30 pages to get used to the unusual structure, but I was captivated by the language on page one. This book has it all — an exotic locale, rich characters, poetic and innovative language, plenty of philosophical notes to ponder. I just loaned it out, and now I’m sorry I did, because I want to read it again.

The Wisdom of Insecurity, Alan Watts
I re-read this little gem every few years.

Desert island reading: If I were stuck on an island for three months I’d want my Norton Anthology of Short Stories. Is that cheating?

• • •

Amy Nadzo Haile, Associate Director of Alumni and Parent Programs:

Saturday, Ian McEwan

Raising Resilient Children, Robert Brooks

The Snowy Day, Ezra Jack Keats
A children’s classic!

• • •

Elaine Hansen, President:

I don’t usually have time to read or write, but I actually read two fabulous books this year that were so amazing that I would add to the [list] if others have not yet mentioned them: Anne Tyler’s Digging to America, and David Lodge’s Author Author.

• • •

John Harrison, Associate College Librarian for Collection Development:

The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy

• • •

Nina Hicks, Student Services Specialist:

Why We Love, The Nature & Chemistry of Romantic Love, Helen Fisher
“For anyone who is in love, has ever been in love or wants to love, [this book] is a fascinating and eye-opening examination of the forces behind passion, attraction, lust and romance.”

• • •

Joan Houston, Physical Plant Staff Assistant:

Dangerous, Nora Roberts
Great for easy reading; three stories in one book.

Sisters, Danielle Steele

• • •

Michael Jones, Christian A. Johnson Professor of History:

Mama Makes Up Her Mind, Bailey White
Terrific storyteller and humorist.

The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard
These are the famous crime writer’s earlier Wild West stories.

• • •

Laura Juraska, Associate College Librarian for Reference Services, and Richard Fochtmann, partner:

Coroner’s Lunch,Thirty-three Teeth andDisco for the Departed, Colin Cotterill
For an absolute delight in crime fiction, try Colin Cotterill’s Dr. Siri Paiboun. Set in newly Communist Laos, the party, finding the old coroner has escaped by crossing the river to Thailand in a rubber tube, tells the 72-year-old doctor that he is too young to be retired and that he must now be the official state coroner, even though he has never done an autopsy before. Despite bungling party officials and lack of equipment and forensic lab, Dr. Siri, his poor but ambitious Nurse Dtui, and loveable Down-syndrome-with-a-perfect-memory-for-autopsy-details Mr. Geung make a remarkable team. If you, like we, like to have a book to read aloud to the driver or in bed before turning off the light, these are great choices, but do read them in order of publication.

Moonstone, Wilkie Collins
And speaking of mystery, Moonstone is “the first and greatest of English detective novels” (T.S. Eliot). This, the first tale of romance, theft, murder, was the inspiration for a complete new, in 1871, genre: the detective mystery, the whodunit! If you love mysteries and haven’t read this one, you are in for a delightful experience.

The Painted Drum, Louise Erdrich
Louise Erdrich is part Ojibwa and part white of European extraction, and her books’ characters speak of the conflict of native peoples, and especially those of bi-cultural parentage, caught between two worlds. The painted drum is sacred and becomes the object of obsession of an assimilated woman who is compelled to learn about her roots. Time shifts back and forth thru generations as Erdrich herself grows in knowledge of the story of the peoples of the drum.

The Last Gentleman Adventurer: Coming of Age in the Arctic, Edward Beauclerk Maurice
Another book about the conflict of two worlds is a true story, recently published by the children of the author, about his adventures at his first real job, working for the Hudson Bay Co., and his life with the Inuit. The author, unlike many other whites, is sensitive and interested in the native people, enough to learn their language and how to live as they do, becoming one of them, without “going native” — the term used to indicate someone who has given up their cultural roots to become “one of the natives.” You will learn a good deal about the difference in cultural norms of a people who live with death constantly in the harsh environment of the Arctic versus those of a poor young man of Victorian England.

• • •

Margo Knight, Director of Advancement Research:

Five Thousand Days Like This One, Jane Brox
A memoir of her family and the family farm in Dracut, Mass., interwoven with the history of the Merrimack River Valley. She says that she is a poet first, and that is evident in this beautifully written book.

March, by Geraldine Brooks
The story of a fictional character, the absent father, Mr. March, of the “Little Women” in Louisa May Alcott’s classic. It is a well-written story about the Civil War and March’s struggle between his anti-slavery, Quaker beliefs and the realities of war. By the way, if you read her first book, Year of Wonders, I thought March was much better.

This year, I also re-read two favorites by Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose and Crossing to Safety. His writing is beautiful and the stories are compelling. He is a joy to read.

• • •

James Elkins, How to Use Your Eyes.
A set of illustrated essays helping the reader to see more carefully and generously the natural and cultural phenomena around us.

David Kolb, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy:

Convergence Culture, Henry Jenkins
An interpretation of the mixing of Internet, television and print to create new kinds of programming and new kinds of experiences that will change how we experience ourselves as “viewers” and “authors.” Jenkins cites the dynamics of “fan” involvement with TV shows, the creation of mixed media advertising and the increasingly active role of “the audience.”

This Land, Anthony Flint
A well-written, journalistic account of suburban sprawl, its causes, its history and movements to limit or to defend the current patterns and processes of development.

• • •

Nancy Koven , Assistant Professor of Psychology:

Melmoth the Wanderer by Maturin
An often-overlooked classic.

• • •

Paul Kuritz, Professor of Theater:

The Language of God,Francis Collins
The Beginning of Wisdom,Leon Kass
How Green Was My Valley,Richard Llewellyn
Exclusion and Embrace,Miroslav Volf

Desert island reading: The Bible.

• • •

Jim Lamontagne, Library Assistant, Cataloging:

Returning to Earth, Jim Harrison (Grove Press, 2007)
The Road, Cormac McCarthy (Knopf, 2006)

The latest titles from American lit’s two best living writers. I’m one of the few people east of the Upper Peninsula of Harrison’s native Michigan who read him. Everyone else’s loss, I say.

And my choice for the island stay: Encyclopaedia Britannica (latest paper edition). Why? Multi volumes, more pages, more reading, more kindling.

• • •

Alli Lambert, Assistant Director of Alumni and Parent Programs:

Eye Contact, Cammie McGovern
Brief description from Publisher’s Weekly: “A parent’s worst nightmare becomes a crusade for justice in McGovern’s dynamite second novel (after 2002′s The Art of Seeing), set in an unspecified middle-class suburban community. Shortly after Adam, a nine-year-old boy with autism spectrum disorder, and his friend Amelia, a 10-year-old diagnosed with PDD-NOS (pervasive developmental disorder—not otherwise specified), disappear during recess from Greenwood elementary school, a traumatized Adam turns up next to Amelia’s body in the nearby woods. Cara, Adam’s 30-year-old single mom, helps the police unlock the clues in Adam’s mind to try to identify Amelia’s killer. Cara finds surprising assistance from 13-year-old Morgan, who’s determined to solve the crime in order to distract authorities from his own guilty secret—accidentally starting a fire in the wetlands his lawyer/environmentalist mom was trying to protect. Meticulously researched and emotionally absorbing, this provocative page-turner also addresses an important issue—how to educate and care for children with special needs.”

• • •

Holly Lasagna, Assistant Director of Service Learning:

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer
I bought this astonishing book for my 15-year-old daughter who adored it (though it may be a bit old for some 15-year-olds). She gave it away to her best friend who loved it as well. She then bought another copy for my husband for his birthday and he read it late into the night. I just finished it yesterday and was stunned by it. I can’t explain it any other way. It speaks to familial love, loss, 9/11, the Holocaust and the wonders of New York City, among other things. The author uses not just words but text, typeface and photographs to “illustrate” the story. A line of the book summed it up for me (if anything could), “You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.” And all told mostly from the perspective of a troubled, intense, creative genius of an 8-year-old boy, Oskar Schell.

• • •

Charlotte Lehmann, Research Technician:

Understanding Our Mind, Thich Nhat Hahn
I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy, renderings of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky
Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West, Daniel Ladinsky
The Eleven Million Mile High Dancer, Carol Hill
The Time Quartet, Madeline L’Engle
Well Schooled in Murder, Elizabeth George
The Journey to the East, Herman Hesse
Undersong, Audre Lourde
The Everything Seed: A Story of Beginnings, Carole Martignacco

• • •

Becky Lovett, Assistant Bookstore Manager:

Eat the Document, Dana Spiotta
This novel makes you straddle the past and the present of a fugitive radical
from the 1970s. The in-between is largely left for you to construct, on the way to understanding this woman’s life, defined then and now by an action taken.

• • •

Bill Low, Assistant Curator, Museum of Art:

The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece, Jonathan Harr
“Jonathan Harr has taken the story of the lost painting, and woven from it a deeply moving narrative about history, art and taste–and about the greed, envy, covetousness and professional jealousy of people who fall prey to obsession. It is as perfect a work of narrative nonfiction as you could ever hope to read.” — The Economist

Solo Faces, James Salter
Not a new one but a favorite. “Solo Faces contrasts a devotion to mountain climbing with the earthbound tugs of love and ordinary life…. A beautifully composed book that will remind readers of Camus and Saint-Exupery. It exemplifies the purity it describes.”

• • •

Kathy Low, Professor of Psychology:

The Echomaker, Richard Powers
The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan
Gilead, Marilynne Robinson
The Sea, John Banville

• • •

Maren Lowell, offspring of Seri Rudolph, Writing Workshop:

Journey to the Center of the Earth, Jules Verne

Wheeler Lowell, offspring of Seri Rudolph, Writing Workshop:

Swallows and Amazons, Arthur Ransom

• • •

Judy Marden ’66, Director, Bates-Mores Mountain Conservation Area and Coastal Center at Shortridge

With No One as Witness, Elizabeth George
This was my mystery year, and I found myself involved with George’s complex characters and British law enforcement and class issues to such an extent that I wanted to find out the rest of the story — so set about finding and reading all her other mysteries. So far: 12 down and only Payment in Blood to go (if I can find it).

My Place, Nadia Wheatley and Donna Rawlins
Thanks to David Scobey, a brilliant book for children (and others); the stories of the different “owners” of a particular place over 200 years of time.

And of course Mary Oliver — her visit inspiring me to go back, and keep up. What a joy to have her here in person!

• • •

Laurie McConnell, Area Coordinator, Carnegie Science:

Light, Margaret Elphinstone
I have a discovered a new author — she has written many books that I can look forward to reading! The year is 1831. A family headed by two sisters-in-law live on a very small island off the coast of Scotland. They tend the lighthouse there after the untimely death of the brother/husband keeper. There are three children who have never known any other life. Now their lives are about to change dramatically. The private owner of the lighthouse has died and the civil authorities are taking over and plan to rebuild and bring the lighthouse up to modern requirements — and assign a new keeper who, of course, must be a man. A surveyor and his assistant come to the island to start the process and the interaction between these two men and the women and children make up the bulk of the story — with lots of history and vivid description, each life is slowly revealed — just as if you were there interacting with them all, living their lives. Don’t know the ending yet, but the journey is so fine!

• • •

Bryan McNulty, Director of the Office of Communication and Media Relations:

The Guns of August,Barbara W. Tuchman
Published in 1962 and winner of a Pulitzer, it has a timeless style and eloquence. The story is about events and political intrigues leading up to World War I and the first month of the war. It provides unflattering insights into powerful royals — King, Kaiser and Czar — all related through Queen Victoria. It reveals the naivety, hubris and tragedy that marked the end of the European century and the bloody transformation to scientific warfare. It is one of those rarest of jewels from historians: fine history and an engaging narrative.

• • •

Jason Moreau, Programmer/Analyst, Information and Library Services:

I’m embarrassed to admit that I am not a heavy reader. Most of my reading happens in 10-minute intervals at night before falling asleep. That being said, I do want to contribute to this important resource. Here are a few suggestions, keeping in mind by background as a geek . All have been around for quite a while (the last, not so long).

The Design of Everyday Things, Donald A. Norman
This book helped shape my philosophy in my work as a Web developer and programmer, designing software that is easy for people to use. This book explores the design of doors, cars, appliances in an extremely enjoyable format. It’s a must-read for anyone whose job involves creating anything that others will need to interact with. I’d also suggest it’s equally valuable to people who have to interact with this “stuff” — and last I checked, that’s pretty much anyone.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
The first book of a series adapted from the author’s radio series. I’ve yet to find anyone who can match Douglas’s dry wit in novel form. One-tenth sci-fi, nine-tenths humor. I read through three novels in the series during the course of one week back in high school. I was laughing so hard I didn’t want to stop reading.

The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century, Thomas L. Friedman
An analysis of globalization in the 21st century. An important read for anyone who wants to have a better understanding of the forces shaping our economy and world today.

• • •

Kerry O’Brien, Assistant Dean of Faculty:

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Last summer I read several Jane Austens, but this is the crème de la crème, a truly engaging, funny and wonderful book and a great read.

The Vision of Emma Blau, Ursula Hegi
Follows multiple generations of a German-American family obsessed with an apartment building-cum-schloss built by the patriarch on Lake Winnipesaukee.

Good Faith, Jane Smiley
Smiley’s satiric take on the get-rich real estate schemers of the 1980s. In spite of pretty unsympathetic characters, you get sucked into the maelstrom of the capitalists.

For young adults and old adults: To laugh out loud without stopping, read Daniel Pinkwater, whose hysterical novels for teens only improve with rereading. My son and I never tire of them. The best are the Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death and the Snarkout Boys and the Baconburg Horror, both featuring three teens caught up with werewolves, detectives, avocados and Wallace Nussbaum, the evil mastermind of the world, but other classics areBorgel; Slaves of Spiegel;Alan Mendelsohn, Boy from Mars; The Hoboken Chicken Emergency and its very funny sequel, Looking for Bobowicz; and the Worms of Kukumlima (in which a boy finds adventure in Africa with his grandfather, inventor of the “plastic-thingy-used-to-close-bread bags”). I cannot recommend these books highly enough.

• • •

Lori Ouellette, Administrative Assistant, Dean of Faculty’s Office:

Health
This magazine actually has some worthwhile recipes and healthy living tips.

• • •

Karen Palin, Lecturer in Biology:

I joined a book group this year and we read some very thought provoking works, which I submit for non-required reading (although I am thinking that one of them might be fun to use sometime in a bio class!).

The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan
I used snippets of this in Bio 101, to good effect.

Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
Might be considered science fiction but was unlike any science fiction I had ever read.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Lisa See
Wonderful and powerful story about women and their friendships in 19th-century China.

Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich
The author tries to work and live in several parts of the country, supporting herself with various poverty level jobs. Maine is one of the places she finds herself.

Suite Française, Irene Nemirovsky
The author intended this to be a five-part novel, set in France during World War II. Early in the war, she was deported to Auschwitz and never came home. After the war, her daughters found this writing but did not read it, believing it to be her diaries, until many years later. This is book is the first two parts of the author’s intended book.

The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai
Don’t read it while it is raining or gloomy outside.

Lighthousekeeping, Jeanette Winterson
Our last book, and we all agreed we need to re-read it.

• • •

Carole Parker, Library Assistant, Acquisitions:

Coroner’s Lunch, Thirty-three Teeth, and Disco for the Departed, Colin Cotterill
Great characters and rich interesting mysteries, recommended to me by Laura Juraska! I’ve also been re-reading the first three Madeline L’Engle fantasy juvenile books Wrinkle in Time (I remember from way back as my favorite book), A Wind in the Door, and A Swiftly Tilting Planet with my 10-year old son. They’re wonderful.

• • •

Christie Peterson, Muskie Archives:

Fun Home: a Family Tragicomic, Alison Bechdel
I very, very enthusiastically recommend this relatively new book for reading, summer or otherwise.

• • •

Ray Potter, Environmental Health and Safety Coordinator:

My list for this year is strictly escapist. I found a pair of authors, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, who have been around a while and can spin a pretty captivating tale. The stories are a unique blend of archeology, anthropology, science, forensics and relationships. Some are, admittedly, pretty blatant fantasy so if you are the sort of reader who can’t deal with the unreal these aren’t the books for you. The characters are strong and can be either likable or detestable, as the story demands. Since some of the characters carry over there is an order to the books though each story can stand alone very nicely. And there are more where these came from — very prolific writers. Each by Preston and Child:

Relic takes place in the New York Museum of Natural History and involves a chemical-dependent creature which has made its way into the underground catacombs of the museum in search of plant matter containing the chemical it needs.

Reliquary takes place in old tunnels and caverns below the subway tunnels in New York. There’s an underground subculture with a twisted connection to characters in the previous book. The search for and attempts to eliminate the cause of a string of mysterious, bizarre murders is intense and filled with twists and turns.

Cabinet of Curiosities presents a character prominent in the earlier books and places him at the heart of the story. There are references to historical natural history collection practices and lots of skulking about in dark dusty old buildings as our hero tries to end the long history of murders spanning decades.

Still Life with Crows takes us to Kansas where the FBI agent who has helped solve the mysteries on the previous stories finds himself on a “busman’s holiday” sort of vacation. There are murders occurring in a small town where competing economic interests and locals with secrets makes for a tale full of surprises.

Thunderhead takes us to the canyons in the heart of Utah looking for the lost city of gold with a truly unique group of misfits and some challenges with a supernatural sort of feel.

Douglas Preston has also written solo. I read Codex which has a similar sort of feel to stories he has co-written with Child. It takes place in the rain forests of Honduras with good guys and bad guys searching for an ancient codex which provides pharmacological uses for many of the plants in the rain forest. There’s a beautiful woman, a handsome guy, a dysfunctional family of brothers and some strange fish and animals. And of course, there is a deadline to meet if things are going to end happily. Hard to beat for a creative story.

Finally, I just finished two volumes of science fiction by Peter Hamilton. It had everything: faster-than-light space travel, travel through worm holes, friendly aliens, aliens programmed in their DNA to eliminate all other sentient life forms, relief clinics to restore people from the dead, beautiful first lifers, beautiful elders who had lived hundreds of years, electronic implants that allowed communication and computing within one’s eye, world-destroying weapons, and other endless surprises. In basic terms it was good versus evil stretched out over hundreds of years with social classes, issues and occupations recognizable across the ages. And you just never knew who to trust, right down to the final showdown. The books were Pandora’s Star and Judas Unchained.

• • •

Sarah Potter ’77, Bookstore Director:

In an attempt to stay ahead of my son in our informal competition to read as many books as we can from 1001 Books to Read Before You Die (by Peter Ackroyd and Peter Boxall), I have read these titles recently and can recommend them:

Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
This 1932 parody is a perfectly hilarious read. What’s not to love about cows named Feckless and Graceless, eccentric and charming human characters and the anticipation of “something nasty in the woodshed?” I agree with the reviewer who described the novel as a slapstick comedy of manners. I may need to see the movie now!

A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
A remarkable story that I will need to read again, I think. Such a compelling first line: “I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice—not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew or even because he was the instrument of my mother’s death, but because he is the reason I believe in God;”
The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate,Nancy Mitford
A satirization of British aristocracy in the 1920’s and ’30s.

And in pursuit of my dream of coastal living, this summer I will read Sailing Days on the Penobscot by George Savary Wasson and immerse myself in life on the Penobscot River and Penobscot Bay at a time when the sailing industry was booming. Beyond Concord: Selected Writings of David Atwood Wasson,edited by Charles H. Foster, is also on my reading stack to tackle. This Wasson is the father of George and was a contemporary of Emerson and Thoreau, described as a “transcendentalist with a difference.” I hope I’m up to the task!

I’ll revisit E.B. White’s Essays, too.

• • •

Zach Potter, Bookstore alumnus:

Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro

Desert island reading: East of Eden, John Steinbeck.

• • •

Jack Pribram, Professor of Physics:

A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888–1889,Frederic Morton
An idiosyncratic telling of a year in the life of the city and the Hapsburg empire with the brilliant Crown Prince Rudolph as the central personality. A year where the older Brahms, Bruckner and Johann Strauss are still creative, and the younger Freud, Herzl, Klimt and Mahler are struggling to define their life work. A remarkable year with turning points that will affect the early 20th century.

Oppenheimer: Portrait of an Enigma, Jeremy Bernstein
Very readable. A full-length book written in the style of New Yorker profile (Bernstein did write many profiles). Bernstein is an excellent physicist and writer, knew Oppenheimer and was puzzled by the combination of brilliance and arrogance. There is emphasis on the remarkable physics programs he helped develop at Cal Tech and Berkeley in the 1930s, on his leadership of the Manhattan Project in the 1940s and on his security clearance trial during the height of the McCarthy era frenzy of the early 1950s.

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir, Bill Bryson
Just started this, but a hilarious description of growing up in one kind of America in the 1950s.

• • •

George Purgavie, Associate Professor, Physical Education:

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Ishmael Beah
Very compelling book.

• • •

Lorelei Purrington, Area Coordinator, Pettengill Hall

Excellent memoirs:
Seed of Sarah, Judith Magyar Isaacson ’65
A memoir of Judith’s experience in concentration camps during the Holocaust. Amazing, sparkling woman who was a Bates College dean of students in our recent past.

Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, Alexandra Fuller
A memoir of a white woman who was raised in Africa from the time she was 2 years old. The book is about her survival with wild Africa and with her unique, unconventional family.

Rita Will, Rita Mae Brown
Bestselling author of a number of books who is known for her political activism in the Civil Rights movement and the Gay Liberation movement and the feminist movement in the 1960s and 1970s.

The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls
An author who relates her amazing strength growing up in a very dysfunctional family. She manages to do so with a great sense of humor in such a sad situation.

Incredible, suspenseful novels that you cannot put down:

The Way the Crow Flies, Ann-Marie MacDonald and
The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruis Zafon

Thank you Melinda Plastas for suggesting the following fantastic books:
Year of Wonders, Geraldine Brooks
The Red Tent, Anita Diamant
Angle of Repose, Wallace Stegner

Desert island reading:Clan of the Cave Bear series, Jean Auel

• • •

Kirk Read, Associate Professor of French:

My Life in France, Julia Child and Alex Prudhomme
This is a great book about this wonderful woman whom (sadly) many only know from Dan Ackroyd’s hilarious impersonation on Saturday Night Live. It is a love song to good food, France and her husband. The photographs, mostly by her husband, are truly wonderful. You will want to hop on a jet immediately and start eating.

Suite Française, Irene Nemirovsky
I am still reading it but really love it. It may have been recommended before as I have several colleagues who have told me about it, assuming that I had read it. I am finally getting around to it and greatly enjoy both the story of exiled Parisian families in World War II France and the style which is reminiscent of the best of Balzac and Flaubert: keen observations on the human condition. French or English: same title! No one will know you’re reading in translation!

Call Me By Your Name, Andre Aciman.
Steamy summer reading. It is about longing, crushing and consumating and then more longing. And the cover is unassuming enough that you won’t have to cover the book in brown paper at Popham. The relationship ignites in an Italian, Mediterranean household of academics between the oldest son and a graduate student come to Italy to translate his dissertation for publication. The relationships between all of the colorful characters are well drawn and the romantic and erotic attachments, while mostly gay in this context, are often universal. The father-son relationship is truly wonderful. And everyone is fluent in Italian, French and English, and the son relaxes by transcribing Haydn sonatas and Latin poetry. He is a one-man humanities General Education Concentration.

The Last Life,Claire Messud
A nice companion to Call Me By Your Name. More Mediterranean shenanigans in a family that runs a hotel on the Riviera. Another colorful cast of characters. A wonderful coming of age story about a girl with a handicapped brother, philandering father, long-suffering mother, wacky American cousins and a grandfather fond of gun-play. Beautifully written and observed. I liked it much better than Messud’s latest, acclaimed novel, The Emperor’s Children, which was populated by lots of people I really couldn’t care less about.

Desert island reading: I would take David Sedaris’s Naked or Me Talk Pretty One Day. I would rather die laughing than crying, I suppose. The essays are short and you could probably finish one before the shark did fatal damage. I know people who can recite Sedaris sentence by sentence like Bible verse. I have an aging mind like a sieve which, happily in this case, means that Mr. Sedaris is fresh every time I reread!

• • •

Julie Retelle, Assistant College Librarian for Access Services:

Deception Point, Dan Brown. Great suspense, as usual!

• • •

Julie Rosenbach, Environmental Coordinator:

Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
It’s great. I would recommend it to folks.

• • •

Michael Sargent, Associate Professor of Psychology:

The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins
This wide-ranging and boldly written book is recommended to all independent thinkers. In addition to reviewing — and rebutting — various arguments for the existence of God (meaning a personal, supernatural god), Dawkins also describes reasons that a belief in God is unnecessary — unnecessary in accounting for the existence of the universe and of life itself and unnecessary in order to live a moral life. (And if you’re thinking, “What’s wrong with religion? Why be so hostile?” then be sure to read his Chapter 8, titled “What’s wrong with religion? Why be so hostile?”)

Mindblindness: An Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind, Simon Baron-Cohen
A very quick read (you can probably finish in one evening) that describes Baron-Cohen’s ideas on what psychological mechanisms are required in order for one individual to understand the mental processes of other individuals and which of these component processes he thinks are absent in some autistic individuals.

The Wages of Wins: Taking Measure of the Many Myths in Modern Sport, David J. Berri, Martin B. Schmidt, Stacey L. Brook

If you liked Michael Lewis’ Moneyball, then you’ll like this one too. Berri et al. are economists who apply econometric analyses to such questions as “Who’s the most valuable player in the NBA in any given year?” and “Who’s more valuable — Kobe or Shaq?” and “How much value (in wins) do high baseball payrolls actually purchase?” and “How are quarterbacks like mutual funds” (also a chapter title of theirs). For the right kind of sports fan, this could be a fun read.

• • •

Paula Schlax, Associate Professor of Chemistry:

Special Topics in Calamity Physics, Marisha Pessl
A great first novel.

The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
The well written.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Brian Selznick
A terrific and beautiful graphic novel.

Heartbeat and Love that Dog by Creech
Perfect for elementary school students.

Love, Rosie, Cecelia Ahern
Very light but fun.

I also read a lot of Alice Munro on Sanford’s recommendation and enjoyed her work very much.

• • •

Sagaree Sengupta, Lecturer in Asian Studies:

Desert island reading: On a desert island, I’d want something with me that would be very difficult to read, in order to keep my mind occupied — something that would help me structure my days, that would give me hope and amazement. The Rig Veda, with its myriads of vanished nature-gods, questions about the mysteries of the universe, and admiration of colorful cattle herds, is a natural choice. (Isn’t it?) Since my own Vedic Sanskrit is not very good, I’d keep busy on my island decoding the commentaries on each verse. And any time life got really strange, the Rig Veda would always have something stranger and more wonderful to offer. Wendy Doniger’s Penguin paperback, The Rig Veda: An Anthology of One Hundred Eight Hymns is recommended for those not prepared to dive into Vedic Sanskrit.

My 8-year old recommends There’s a Chef in my Soup by Emeril Lagasse. It’s a children’s cookbook with really tasty food in it that certain adults could enjoy too. The instructions and layout are really clear, and the ingredients in the recipes are decent. My daughter says it would be good on a desert island because “there is lots of stuff in it to memorize and it has tons of recipes.” She points out that the few recipes she’s tried have been very good.

Other recent leisure reading I can heartily recommend, on a desert island or not:

Assassinating Shakespeare: The True Confessions of a Bard in the Bush, Thomas Goltz
The well-known war correspondent of Chechnya Diary, etc., reveals his most amazing youthful adventures. Goltz hitchhiked through Africa after college performing impromptu Shakespeare with puppets he carved himself — no kidding! Technically, he was looking for his sibling-rival brother, who was also traveling in Africa, but with a guitar. He does find the brother, finally, but their eventual meeting is a minor event compared to the other close encounters Goltz has with locals, ex-pats, civil conflict and the law. The account is almost a textbook of what not to do when abroad, nevertheless it is a boon that Goltz did not throw his travel journals into the Avon river (as he almost did) once he returned to Europe.

Sentimental Education, Gustave Flaubert
Speaking of youthful indiscretions — reading it for the first time I was blown away by Flaubert’s crystal-clear observations of the many shadings of sexual passion, the having and not of money, the workings of class, the details of the 1848 uprising, the realities of politics…all folded into a story you want to follow wherever it leads. My copy was the Penguin translation by Robert Baldick. Worth carrying on a trip, if only to the beach.

• • •

Lavina Shankar, Associate Professor of English:

Marley and Me: Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog, John Grogan

• • •

Beth Sheppard, Associate Director of Alumni and Parent Programs:

I’ve had lots of time to read this year, and lots of wonderful friends have supplied me with books. I am grateful to all of them except the person who introduced me to the work of James Patterson (Jack and Jill, Along Came a Spider, Beach Road, et al.). I am appalled to admit to having gobbled up a couple dozen Patterson thrillers. Thanks a bunch, buddy. (You know who you are.)

I’ve also discovered (and read everything by) Elizabeth Berg and Chris Bohjalian this year. Especially loved Berg’s The Art of Mendingand Bohjalian’s Before You Know Kindness, both of which deal with family loyalties. Another great book about families is The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home. A nonfiction account of the author’s family’s New England summer house, it covers history, architecture, sailing, local politics, reading lists, family stories, building techniques, economics — fascinating stuff. I read it twice then bought copies for several people on my Christmas list.

Based on recommendations from last year’s list, I read Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex and loved it for all the reasons that everyone mentioned last year: It is a novel of amazing depth and breadth. Put off by hermaphrodites? Don’t be. Finally, a more personal choice: I Remember Running: The Year I Got Everything I Ever Wanted — and ALS, by the late Darcy Wakefield ’92.

• • •

Anthony Shostak, Education Coordinator, Museum of Art:

Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, William McDonough and Michael Braungart
The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, Michael Pollan

• • •

Bonnie Shulman, Associate professor of Mathematics:

I have recently been introduced to Lois McMaster Bujold, an award-winning science fiction writer, and her hero Miles Vorkosigan. There are many books in the series, and fans argue over which is the best order to read them in. You can check out this Wikipedia article for more details. Bujold’s writing is wonderful, loaded with humor, wisdom, compassion and well-researched. She gets her biology, physics, mathematics, psychology, medicine right, and weaves intelligent consideration of profound ethical issues deftly into her exciting stories. Each volume is a page turner, but not like reading the same book over and over. The characters evolve and develop, and the themes change.

I also highly recommend the short stories of Alice Munro, in particular the volume Runaway. Munro’s prose is delicious, and she is a master of the short story genre. In Runaway she paints portraits of women of all ages and their relationships with their families, friends, lovers and themselves, always with an unexpected twist. Even though the circumstances are sometimes strange and haunting, I feel like I’ve met these people, they are so real.

• • •

Sara Stone ’06, VISTA:

The Culture of Make Believe, Derrick Jensen
Walking on Water: Reading, Writing, and Revolution, Derrick Jensen

I have found the writing of Derrick Jensen, my new favorite author, very engaging and thought-provoking. If you’re looking for an “escape,” this probably isn’t the choice for you, but if you’re looking for something interesting and challenging to dig into, check out these books!

• • •

Sawyer Sylvester, Professor of Sociology:

Letter of the Century, Lisa Grunwald and Stephen Adler
From the first letter, written in 1900 by Joel Chandler Harris, in which he says of letters that in them “we commit our thoughts, as it were, to the winds,” to the last letter in 1999 from a married woman who wistfully confesses she has an online lover, the letters in the book, of the famous and the less so, hold a mirror up to what we have been.

The Victory of Reason, Rodney Stark
Stark claims that the rationalism characteristic of Christianity as a whole, and not just of Protestantism, led to the West’s technological, political and economic supremacy. I think Max Weber would take more convincing.

After Elizabeth, Leanda de Lisle
De Lisle offers a rich account of the political storm that raged in England after the reign of Elizabeth and of the successful passage through the storm to the throne by James (of doubtful ability and even more doubtful morality). He still was once called “the wisest fool in Christendom”— and there was the book that he commissioned, which just might make it on to my “desert island” list.

Amo, Amas, Amat…and All That, Harry Mount
If the terms “passive periphrastic” and “ablative absolute” still chill your blood, you must have taken high school Latin. (You would have done better to wait and come to Bates.) Mount claims that his humorous review of the essentials will exorcise the remaining demons. I haven’t quite finished it, so we’ll see.

Jacquard’s Web, James Essinger
A short time after I arrived in Lewiston, I visited one of the abandoned textile mills which still had a power loom with a Jacquard head. This was a device into which was fed a series of heavy, punched fiberboard cards that caused the warp threads to be raised and lowered in a planned sequence so that the shuttle would weave patterns. It was an invention of Joseph-Marie Jacquard, and Essinger has traced the idea behind it from the loom to the Hollerith card to the first modern IBM computer.

The Book of Lost Books, Stuart Kelly
My final book selection is the story of the ones that got away. In an age when our friendly (for now) electronic servants remember so much, we tend to be unaware of how many manuscripts have gone missing, how many sequels didn’t follow, how many libraries just couldn’t find that last copy of that last book. Kelly offers examples from 80 or so authors in what he calls “An Incomplete History of All the Great Books You’ll Never Read.”

• • •

Anne Thomson, Professor Emerita of English:

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, Michael Pollan
I’m sure this will be on other folks’ list as well, but I can’t recommend it too highly. It’s nonfiction but reads with all the narrative pull of a thriller. I thought I already knew about the evils of corn — as seen in the prevalence of high-fructose corn syrup in just about everything — but the story turns out to be much more complicated, starting in 1947 when munitions plants had to decide what to do with the surplus ammonium nitrate used to make explosives. They began turning it into chemical fertilizer, which revolutionized the agricultural industry by making cheap corn the most profitable crop ever grown. So what’s wrong with that? Read the book and find out, but one overwhelming fact is that it takes enormous amounts of fossil fuels both to produce that corn and get it to our supermarkets. The chapter on “big organic” is a further revelation, not cheery, about the degree to which the success of chains like Whole Foods rests on bad farming practices. Let me emphasize, however, that reading this book is not depressing, just enthralling and informative, especially in the third chapter where Pollan describes a small organic farm in Virginia that will make you wish you could head down there for a visit tomorrow.

The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai
Set in the 1980s in Kalimpong, a part of northeast India bordering Nepal, at a time of growing unrest. I love books that tell me something new about the world, and I knew virtually nothing about the history of this area. This novel, which won the 2006 Booker Prize, is also a terrific read, though at times it’s almost unbearably sad as it traces the fortunes of the many characters who are dealing with all the tensions and losses attendant on their post-colonial world. The humor and the small but real glimpse of light in the darkness keep you going, more because of the resilience and humanity of the characters than because of any great hope for a better future.

Finally (this is a plug for the Good Reads list!), if there’s anyone who hasn’t yet read Edward P. Jones’ The Known World, a novel set just before the Civil War in Virginia about a freed African American who himself becomes a slave-owner, it’s a must-read. When I saw that it had been recommended on the two previous lists, I decided to follow up — hope others will do the same.

• • •

Bonnie Trundy, Assistant to the Director, Office of Career Services:

Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis, Jimmy Carter
Madame Secretary, Madeleine Albright
Saving Graces, Elizabeth Edwards
Coming of Age in Mississippi, Anne Moody
Rosa Lee, Leon Dash
What Can One Person Do? Sabina Alkire and Edmund Newell
An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore
Girl with Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier
In Cold Blood, Truman Capote

• • •

Pat Webber, Archivist, Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library:

The Inimitable Jeeves or Wodehouse on Golf, P.G. Wodehouse
Very smooth, very dry, and very funny.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick
Book on which the movie Blade Runner is based. Reads a little dated now, but is still a classic story of paranoia and questioning who one really is.

• • •

Leigh Weisenburger, Assistant Dean of Admissions:

Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert
The Homeowners Guide to Energy Independence: Alternative Power Sources for the Average American, Christine Woodside

• • •

Andrew W. White, Director of Academic Technology:

Ghosts of Spain, Guy Tremlett
One anglosajon‘s view of life in post-Franco Spain

Suite Française, Irene Nemirovsky
Beautifully written, heartbreaking and truncated chronicle of life in World War II France.

English, August, Upamanyu Chatterjee
Twentysomething angst transcends cultural boundaries.

Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens
Excellent company during the long winter evenings

The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, Michael Chabon
Isaac Bashevis Singer crossed with Philip Marlowe.

Desert island reading: While this is cheating somewhat, I’d select all 12 volumes of Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell. I’ve always wanted to read this saga, but could never find the time to commit; being stranded without any distraction except survival seems the optimal time. Would I have an espresso machine?

• • •

Gene Wiemers ,Vice President for Information and Library Services and Librarian:

For some readers who might want to mix mystery with the intricacies of book conservation or art detection, a couple of suggestions from the librarian geek in me. The Sixteen Pleasures, Robert R. Hellenga (New York: Soho, 1994) Blends romance and the intricacies of book and manuscript conservation. No kidding. Set in the aftermath of the Florence flood of 1966, it shows how saving manuscripts can be redemptive in other ways. Readers may be familiar with Jonathan Harr’s book A Civil Action, based on fact and later transformed into a movie. His book The Lost Painting (New York: Random House, 2005) tells the story of the discovery and authentication of a lost Caravaggio, now on view in Dublin. A surprising mystery read, hard to put down, with some extremely attractive smart people — and a rogue or two as well.

• • •

Dick Williamson, Professor Emeritus of French:

In retirement mode, I have read much this year. My first choice:

Skylight Confessions, Alice Hoffmann
Another superb novel by Hoffmann.

Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
About the different and challenging life of a young Greek American who is a s/he growing up in Grosse Pointe, Mich., in the ’60s and ’70s.

For beach or deck reading: any novel by Carl Hiaasen, and Bill Buford’s
Heat about his apprenticeship in Italian kitchens and in a Tuscan butchershop.

Desert island reading: My book(s) for a lonely, lovely isle is, indeed, Marcel Proust, A la recherche du temps perdu. It has everything one could ask for in literature, and one can recommence the novel with Du côté de chez Swann as soon as one has finished Le temps retrouvé.

• • •

LaVerne Winn, Science Reference Librarian:

Out of the Shadow: A Russian Jewish Girlhood on the Lower East Side, Rose Cohen
(Cornell University Press, 1995)
Written in 1918, this is a memoir of a young girl and her family’s experiences in New York’s Jewish Community. There is no grand, triumphant success story but a simple recounting of her life up to young adulthood, working from the age of 14, sewing coat sleeves, her struggle to get an education. I found it mesmerizing.

• • •

Phyllis Wisher, Security Officer:

The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
This book has taught me so much about myself.

• • •

Wayne Zimmerman, Associate Director of Advancement Services:

The Monkey Wrench Gang, John Abbey.
One of my all time favorite book, it’s a sometimes sad, sometimes funny, sometimes disturbing work of fiction set in the American Southwest. While at its deepest level, it is a “man against the machine” story, on the surface it is an entertaining story about four well-intentioned but misguided people trying to change the world, or save the world — it’s your call. It’s one of a very small number of books that I reach for even though I have read it many times before. It is not War and Peace but it’s an enjoyable read and even has a message or two.

Paula Jean Schlax, Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biological Chemistry:

…Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami. This was a fascinating story about Kafka, a 15-year-old boy who runs away from home and ends up at a small private library and Nakata, a strange old man who has a connection to Kafka and the people he meets. The story delves in and out of time and dream type reality. The prose, even in translation, is great.

Harbor by Lorraine Adams. This story is about an illegal immigrant from Algeria and his experiences. He is accused of being a terrorist (because of his associations with others that conduct illegal activities). His interactions with others are intriguing.

Mirrormask: Script book by Dave Mckean and Neil Gaiman. It is the storyboard and script of an upcoming movie by (Jim) Henson films. Dave McKean’s storyboards are so interesting that I enjoy looking at it and reading it.

…

Andrew White, Director of Academic Technology:

The busier I get at home and work, the more I read–go figure.

The Baroque Cycle–Neal Stephenson
A tale told across 3 volumes and over 2700 pages. I could say it’s about the origins of our modern economic system in Baroque Europe-but it’s really a fantastic, picaresque adventure story which blends Newton, Leibniz, Louis XIV, piracy, European aristocracy, Peter the Great, voyages round the world, and cross-dressing into a rollicking read. You can go deep or stay on the surface. Either way it’s a blast.

Gilead and Housekeeping–both by Marilynne Robinson

Housekeeping has always stayed on my reread shelf. It reads like a single breath. Reading Gilead is like reading a prayer.

Buddha in the World–Pankaj Mishra
A somewhat disjointed, but enjoyable overview of the Buddha’s legacy.

One Man’s Wilderness–Sam Keith
Touted during endless PBS beg-athons, this reconstruction of Dick Proenneke’s journals of his time near Lake Clark, Alaska fuels the wanderlust of those of us trapped behind our desks.

How Soon is Never?–Marc Spitz
A great read for us Reagan-era adolescents. A primer for saving your life by reuniting your favorite band.

Lobster Coast–Colin Woodward
Entertaining cultural history of the Maine coast, useful for those of us perpetually from away. It explains a lot.

…

Laura Faure, Director of Bates Dance Festival:

Time Traveler’s Wife (by Audrey Niffenegger) and The Kite Runner (by Khaled Hosseini). Both were excellent.

…

Elizabeth Eames, Associate Professor of Anthropology:

Finally got around to Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver–been meaning to read it for ages–I thought the first three-quarters were inspired and brilliant. (Even though it went on a bit too long, it was all in all enlightening, poetic and evocative).

…

Alli Lambert, Coordinator of Alumni and Parent Programs:

Night Fall by Nelson Demille…finished it in one day! A fast and funny read.

…

Gene Wiemers, Vice President for Information and Library Services and Librarian:

Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World, by Tracy Kidder. Out in paperback from Random House in 2004. Required reading for the human race. I’m interested in it because it shows that it is possible to be an effective professional one person at a time, and at the same time influence political systems, national, and international policy. Some Bates readers will remember Farmer’s visit here several years ago, and many will have read Kidder’s other books. Kidder wrote this book as a first person narrative, which some readers may find jarring. In a recent visit to Maine, he said that he used this approach in order to keep Farmer on a human and personal scale, as his accomplishments are so great that a third person narrative might make Farmer seem unbelievable.

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda, by Philip Gourevitch. The 1998 book available in paperback from Picador. You may not think about the Rwandan genocide as summer reading. Many readers may have been put off by the topic, which makes this book of value to this list many years after it was published. Don’t let the subject matter stop you. This is a gripping, dispassionate and compelling account of how human beings can instigate, accept, witness and ignore unspeakably inhuman acts. It reminds you that it can happen here. A very good and very important reading experience.

…

Charles Kovacs, Director of Career Services:

Getting a job is really a job; it involves as much, possibly more, time, energy, effort, and skills than a nine to five occupation. More, job hunting hurts: loss of self-esteem, wages, identity, and status. Yep, unemployment can be a bummer, for the first time, job seeker no less than the seasoned professional. Consequently, there is a proliferation of books, web sites, newsletters, self-help guides, and multi-media materials aimed at making the transition a bit less painful. After a while, the literature in the field resembles variations on predictable themes, like the “gothic” novels of pulp fiction fame. It was refreshing to discover that a recent book returned to a provocative technique that has not been covered in the literature for a while and is most deserving of another serious review.

Brian Graham’s new monograph, Get Hired Fast! Tap the Hidden Job Market in 15 Days, [Adams Media, Avon, MA, 2005] recommends that the older techniques – cover letters, resumes, email spam “blasts” of your documents, web postings, and networking – are too time-consuming and less effective, especially the technology over-kill approach. Graham advises a simple, direct, and seemingly swift approach: identify the key contact in any organization, do research on the organization, target appropriate companies, and execute a professional scripted phone call. If this is done in a focused manner, he states, you could see results in 15 days.

While this sounds too good to be true, it does work. The catch: focus, time, and intentional effort. Graham’s style is direct, clear and exact, just what you would expect from a successful founder of an executive search firm with major clients. Especially useful is his chapter on scripted calling. His advice there is particularly useful for the neophyte and experienced job hunter.

Guy Kawaski is perhaps best know for his work with Apple Computer as their corporate “evangelist” and the positive effect wrought through an intentional and enthusiastic expression of a product. He has published many popular and substantial books, is a motivational speaker, and entrepreneur. His most recent book, The Art of the Start. The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything [Portfolio/Penguin, New York, 2004] provides the reader with a great benchmarking tool for starting any new venture be that a company, family, career, or writing a book.

In 11 chapters, Kawaski presents his distilled experience, insights, and sense of the phases of new venture development: starting, positing, pitching, business plan crafting, bootstrapping, recruiting, capital raising, partnering, branding, and rainmaking. His last chapter is perhaps his best – he recommends reading that chapter first – on “The Art of Being a Mensch.” Essentially, if you are not engaged in your new venture for anything less than being ethical, decent, and admirable, your success – or failure – will never satisfy or lead to a higher level of personhood. I was struck with the resonance of his admonition with aspects of the Bates philosophy: “The three foundations of menschhood are helping lots of people, doing what is right, and paying back society – simple concepts that are hard to implement.” He inspires too: “When telescopes work, everyone is an astronomer, and the world is full of stars. When they don’t, everyone whips out their microscopes, and the world is full of flaws.”

This easy to read book will delight, entertain, and inform your next great venture. It is a funny, witty, and delightful book and if you want to check out his corresponding web site for a taste of it try http://www.artofthestart.com. Just be sure you focus your telescope, not your microscope, as you start your new venture.

…

Jim Hart, Academic Technology Project Manager:

I often like mysteries by British authors, especially the series that feature a central cast of characters through a number of books. In that vein are the Lord Peter Wimsey books by Dorothy Sayers. While the early ones are good to excellent mysteries, the Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane books are even more interesting. They interlace a sophisticated love story into a series of 4 mysteries. Sayers’ command of dialogue in these books is outstanding and, sometimes, memorable. She conveys so much without having to tell the reader overtly what the characters are thinking and feeling.

The books are: Strong Poison, Have His Carcase, Gaudy Night and Busman’s Honeymoon.

Do read them in that order. While the mysteries in each stand alone, the progress of the romance between the two protagonists moves in a continuum through them.

…

Sarah Strong, Associate Professor of Japanese

I recommend Ceremony by Leslie Silko. Written in the 1970s and set in northern New Mexico, it tells a story of recovery from the trauma of war. Healing comes in multiple ways but especially through the power of traditional stories of the Laguna Pueblo people and Navaho ceremonies. There are lots of cool desert springs, warm sandstone cliffs, rhythmic voices and wise animals. The narrative thread is both engaging and complex. I really like this book.

…

Paul Kuritz, Professor of Theater:

Will in the World. How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt

Father Joe. The Man Who Saved My Soul by Tony Hendra

Right Turns. Unconventional Lessons from a Controversial Life by Michael Medved

Gilead. A Novel by Marilynne Robinson

…

Sawyer Sylvester, Professor of Sociology:

John Adams by David McCullough is an immensely readable biography of the quintessential New Englander and second president of the United States, without whose efforts there probably would not be a United States. If this book rekindles your interest in early American history, you might also enjoy Joseph Ellis’s Founding Brothers and Alden Vaughan’s The Puritan Heritage in America.

A Solitude of Space is a collection of paintings by Thomas Crotty. I suppose it’s not necessary to have been born and raised in Maine to like Crotty’s spare, cold, silent landscapes—but it helps. For those not fortunate, go alone to a place like “Backyard Winter South”, “Wolf’s Neck Pasture” or—especially—“Frost Gully, New Snow”, take a deep breath of the frozen air, and listen.

Oxymoronica by Marty Grothe is a little collection of those pithy sayings with the snap of illogic at the end. One from a church bulletin is: “The cost for attending the Fasting and Prayer Conference includes meals.”

Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code, with some suspension of critical faculties, is a romp. P.D. James’s The Murder Room is a solid read, requiring no such suspension.

In an age enamored of alternative medicine, Dangerous Garden by David Stuart is a sober reminder of the double edge to herbal remedies.

Sailing the Wine Dark Sea is the fourth in Thomas Cahill’s “Hinges of History” series, and a book-long paean to ancient Greek culture—including its language which he says had a word for just about everything. Hebrew, by contrast, was a language of silences, and Latin, “a language ideal for recordkeeping.” That last is a bit harsh, I think.

Outwitting History by Aaron Lansky is the story of a college student who, in order to gain a “sociological view of Jewish history,” takes a course in Yiddish and soon discovers that there are very few Yiddish books. This is because such books in America are rapidly being lost, abandoned, or destroyed. The author begins a country-wide rescue, raiding attics and dumpsters, and finally establishing the National Yiddish Book Center.

…

Anthony Shostak, Education Coordinator/Museum of Art:

The Elementary Particles by Michel Houellebecq
This tale of two half-brothers encompasses genetic engineering, wife swapping, and the consequences of growing up motherless.

Platform by Michel Houellebecq
This homage to Camus focuses on how sexual tourism and religious intolerance change the life of a middle-aged French bureaucrat.

…

Sylvia Federico, Resident Learning Associate/Classical and Medieval Studies:

I recently read, and thoroughly enjoyed, Jonathan Lethem’s novel titled Motherless Brooklyn. It’s about a detective with Tourette’s syndrome, set in contemporary New York.

…

Leigh Weisenburger, Assistant Dean of Admissions:

Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingslover

Camille by Alexandre Dumas

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

11 Minutes by Paulo Coehlo

The Big House by George Howe Colt

…

Rob Farnsworth, Lecturer in English:

I recommend: Ian McEwan’s new novel Saturday, skillfully done and quite absorbing/disturbing; John Banville’s strange novel Athena; William Trevor’s novel pathetique The Story of Lucy Gault; Botanies of Desire by Michael Pollan, engagingly written horticultural and cultural musings in four chapters concerning respectively the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato; and for those still picking up thin volumes of verse, of whom I wish there were many more, poetry: by James Richardson–Interglacial: New & Selected Poems; by Glyn Maxwell–The Nerve and The Boys At Twilight: Poems 1990-95; by Sydney Lea–Ghost Pain.

Roxanne Prichard, Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology:

Oryx & Crake- Margart Atwood

…

Maggie Maurer-Fazio, Associate Professor of Economics/Associate Dean of the Faculty:

Books that I read this year and would recommend are:

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Michael Haddon

Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Lipstick Jihad by Azadeh Moaveni

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

…

Karen McArthur, Systems Administrator/ILS:

For those of you who enjoy a bit of humor, I recently read Yiddish with Dick and Jane by Ellis Weiner and Barbara Davilman. It’s very enjoyable! And it has a Yiddish index in the back that helps you figure out that childhood mystery … What “Bobe” was saying?

…

Ray Potter, Environmental Health and Safety Specialist:

I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe
I was looking for some answers. I hoped to gain some understanding of today’s college student. I found more questions. I don’t know whether the novel is an accurate reflection of Wolfe’s research or a serious case of literary and “older generation” exaggeration. There seems to be a convergence of what I have observed and what Wolfe writes but it’s not clear how widespread the behaviors are in the population.

Anyway, it’s an interesting tale of one young woman’s painful maturing process in the first six months of college. It’s not a good read for a parent sending a teenager off for the first time. The end product of this process is not thoroughly likable. It might make one consider home schooling at the collegiate level.

Ice Hunt by James Rollins
For sheer escapism featuring science fiction, international intrigue, marriage rebuilding under extreme circumstances with a side order of Navy Special Forces, this is the book for you. Rollins seems to have a formula which he sticks to in his books but if you’re not looking for great literature, it’s a good entertaining read. This tale takes place in the extreme northern hemisphere beginning in the Alaskan wilderness and proceeding to a research station buried in the ice above the arctic circle. There are prehistoric creatures, a favorite of Rollins, evil scientists, a wolf, an Alaskan Fish & Wildlife agent and an Alaskan law enforcement person. All these characters are wrapped up into a compelling adventure that’s pretty hard to put down. Other books by Rollins that might be of interest: Excavation, Subterranean, and Amazonia.

Jack Whyte has written a series of books that put a new, and perhaps more believable spin on the Arthurian legend. He starts with Roman legionnaires in the fifth century and weaves an earthy and fascinating story of how Arthur and his knights may have evolved. There are characters of all kinds: likable, despicable, endearing, lovable, creative, bellicose. I liked the new Merlin, a real, clever person, not a wizard. It’s a great series and I’m not sure we’ve come to the end yet. There was a new book released in hardcover in November 2004. The titles, including the newest are: The Skystone, The Singing Sword, The Eagles Brood, The Saxon Shore, The Fort at River’s Bend, The Sorcerer: Metamorphosis, Uther, and The Lance Thrower.

…

Bill Hiss, Vice President for External Affairs:

Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilization. A lovely slender volume to cover eons of history, this book tells how the Irish monks copied the classics and Biblical texts during the Dark Ages when the books were being lost almost everywhere else. Gracefully and sympathetically written, hopping nimbly about the Western and Middle Eastern world over centuries, it is a rewarding short read about what we owe the Irish and especially the unpromising, isolated Irish monasteries, from which no one then alive would have expected much in the way of cultural contributions.

Dallas Murphy, Rounding the Horn. A well-written history and sailing tour of Cape Horn, with its hideously difficult weather and seas, and some fascinating portraits of who ended up there, by choice or literal accident. A good summer read, perhaps an amalgam of “The Perfect Storm” and Patrick O’Brien’s wonderful sea novels.

William H. Tucker ’67, The Funding of Scientific Racism: Wickliffe Draper and the Pioneer Fund. Bill Tucker, a professor of psychology at Rutgers, has written a powerful scholarly account of how a wealthy man funded a foundation–The Pioneer Fund–which for decades has surreptitiously funded much of the very worst racist research to try to establish the genetic superiority of the Nordic races and influence public policy against any forms of civil rights or opportunity for non-whites.

Charles E. Clark ’51, Bates Through the Years: An Illustrated History. Charlie Clark, an emeritus professor of New England history at UNH, was commissioned by Bates to prepare a volume of topical essays on the history of Bates as part of the Sesquicentennial celebrations. Written with an eye for detail and some humor, the book deals with major facets of Bates–the Presidents, the faculty, the curriculum, student life–and is illustrated with many dozens of wonderful photographs from Bates history over the decades. The book will be published for the opening of College in the fall.

Michael Shapiro, The Last Good Season: Brooklyn, the Dodgers, and Their Final Pennant Race Together. Another good summer read, on the last season the Dodgers played at Ebbets Field before moving to Los Angeles. It is certainly for baseball aficionados, but also for those interested in the social and political history of the 1950′s. The collection of very fallible players have survived as cult heroes: Pee Wee Reese, Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Roy Campanella. But the equally engrossing story is the political battle between team owner Walter O’Malley and city planning czar Robert Moses over whether the Dodgers could build a new stadium in Brooklyn–imagine a time when public housing and transportation was a higher priority for tax dollars than a professional sports stadium!

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Jane K. Frizzell, Network Services Administrator:

May I recommend Eric Garcia (Matchstick Men) and his 3 book series about the dinosaurs who walk amongst us. Anonymous Rex, Casual Rex and Hot and Sweaty Rex are lots of fun to read. They are adult detective mysteries, and Garcia is a good writer. The writing is the best part along with the humor, strange plots and absurd situations. Dinosaurs are not extinct, just in hiding. You may not know it, but many of the people you see every day are actually dinosaurs in sophisticated people suits. They have a sub-culture that helps keep their secret, can get inebriated when exposed to sage and oregano and have great senses of humor.

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Kimberly Hokanson, Director of Alumni and Parent Programs:

Paranoia, by Joseph Finder
A great story of corporate espionage–easy reading, lots of suspense to keep you turning the pages. Added bonus for me–Joe was my expository writing teacher way back in graduate school, at which point he was writing his first novel!

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Holly Lasagna, Service Learning Program Coordinator:

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri. Even though I have been so busy that I don’t get to do much reading these days, this book was great to pick up, read one of the stories and then come back to it at any point. She has an incredible eye for the detail that defines a person, relationship, life. Great subtle commentary on the immigrant experience.

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Sue Hubley, Senior Researcher/Office of College Advancement:

This is my first time submitting a book. I’ve meant to other years, but got sidetracked and never did. But right now I’m reading a book that I’m finding so powerful that I just had to submit it. It’s titled, At Hell’s Gate, and the author is Claude Anshin Thomas, a Soto Zen Buddhist monk. He was in Maine a couple of weeks ago to publicize the book and to do daylong retreats on mindfulness, and I attended one of those retreats. He was a soldier who went to Vietnam believing the war was right, was severely traumatized by what he saw and did there, came back, had a breakdown, and has spent years trying to achieve peace inside and to atone for his actions. He experienced a complete turnaround, believes that war and violence are wrong, and is trying to spread the message that violence — and peace and compassion as well — begin inside each of us.

The book is absolutely compelling, from my point of view. It’s not light reading, though. It was published in 2004 by Shambhala Publications.

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Sagaree Sengupta, Lecturer, Asian Studies:

Books I have read that would make good summer reading:

Pico Iyer, The Lady and the Monk

Monica Ali, Brick Lane

Michael Chabon, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh

Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence

Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf (yeah, on a stormy day at the shore!)

There is some great English poetry from India, but I’m afraid they’d be hard for people to get their hands on. Names of poets:

Arvind Krishna Mehrotra
Jayanta Mahapatra

The book I really want to read this summer:

Suketu Mehta, Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found (non-fic).

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Bonnie Shulman, Associate Professor of Mathematics:

Don’t Think of an Elephant by George Lakoff–I know it’s “trendy” and all the rage in some political circles, but I STILL want to recommend this book by an academic linguist, written for a more general audience. He boils down some principles about “framing” (marketing?) one’s issues and values to get them across to a larger public. Some have criticized the book as touting form over substance (“it’s all spin”), but I do NOT think that is what he is saying. Many of us were perplexed in the last election cycle about how and why we were ineffective at communicating with others, especially about “values.” This book helps one to understand some of the dynamics that might be going on, and, ultimately is a primer on how to communicate respectfully with those with whom you might disagree. A good antidote to polarizing rhetoric!

Wild Steps of Heaven by Victor Villasenor–Second book in the series after Rain of Gold, but I would read this one first. It’s the history of the paternal branch of “la familia” telling the story of his grandfather’s life as a young boy in Mexico, during the Revolution. A little reminiscent of the magical realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the sometimes quite violent scenes are tempered by passion, faith, and love. It is a great summer read.

The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove by Christopher Moore
How to describe this book? It’s not easy…but trust me, you will laugh out loud from page 1! As a parody of Monster Who Ate New York (Godzilla) type fiction, it is a real send-up! But there is more–characters like a stoned constable, a pharmacist with a fish-fetish, a bartender with more “augmented” (artificial) body parts than her originals, and more. I know it sounds weird (wired?) but it’s even weirder than it sounds, and 100 times as funny!

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Michael Sargent, Assistant Professor of Psychology:

Amsterdam, by Ian McEwaw
As is typical for McEwan, this novel begins with a great deal of rich character development, which continues for a while, until something dreadful happens. If you like dry, witty banter and also have a dark sense of humor, you’re likely to enjoy this book. It’s a quick read too. Once you’ve finished, if you’re in the mood for more McEwan, I also recommend The Comfort of Strangers.

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Tanisha Scottham, College Advancement:

Isabel Allende’s newest book Zorro: A Novel looks like a good read!

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Anita Charles, Instructor/Dept. of Education:

Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri
A Pulitzer-Prize-winning collection of short stories featuring families from India integrating into American culture. I do not recommend, however, her later novel The Namesake. Guess she doesn’t do longer fiction as well as she does short stories.

Beloved, by Toni Morrison
One of my all-time favorite books. I could read it over and over, and it would definitely be one I’d want if I were stranded on a desert isle. It’s not an “easy” read, but it’s beautifully written and thematically deep.

The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner
It’s like a puzzle that you get to put together as you read, with many moments of sudden realizations. Faulkner’s influence on Toni Morrison is evident in the previously-mentioned book. This is another book worth reading a few times.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy, by Tolkien
Yes, okay, I’m behind the 8-ball on these and probably the last person on earth finally reading them, but I am thoroughly enjoying the language and the story. I am reading them bit by bit with my boys, ages 9 and 11.

Don’t forget to revisit Shakespeare! Some great ones to read or reread would include Twelfth Night, Othello, and of course Macbeth and Hamlet.

City of the Beasts, by I. Allende
This is actually a Young Adult coming-of-age novel about a 15-year-old boy who takes a trip into the Amazon with his grandmother, while his mother faces cancer back at home. It’s a wonderful novel by a wonderful author.

Walk Two Moons, by Sharon Creech
Another Young Adult coming-of-age novel, this one about a girl who travels by car with her grandparents to try to discover more about her mother.

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Lois Griffiths, Alumna and Retiree:

My favorite book this year was Doomsday Book by Connie Willis, recommended by my granddaughter – I read it last fall, and still think about it often.

It is set in Oxford in the near future, when scientists are perfecting a time travel method, and the same Oxfordshire area in the fourteenth century. The modern academic scene contrasts ironically with the 1300′s.

If you have ever wondered what it would really be like to go back there, especially with a chance of never returning, try this!

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Jack Pribram, Professor of Physics:

Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, 2003
Fiction. A good story line narrated by a British teenager with autism and special math skills. The book is beautifully constructed and gives the reader a sense of the logic this boy uses as he negotiates life with his parents and neighbors. Think a young Rain Man with different skills and personality. A fast read.

Simon Winchester, Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883, 2003
An account of one of the greatest volcanic explosions of all time and the impact on the people of Indonesia and the world. The first event to be reported almost instantaneously around the earth because of the recent completion of the laying of telegraph lines. Winchester is an experienced writer [The Professor and the Madman] whose training is in geology. He also brings in the history of Dutch colonialism. The December tsunami renewed interest in Krakatoa.

Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America, 2003.
The magic was the Chicago’s world fair (the white city) of 1893, the murder and madness were the unnoticed disappearances due to a serial killer. The parallel stories of lead architect and the killer make for a good narrative, even when you’d rather not read about deaths. Larson gives a good sense of the incredible effort to put the fair together by the major architects of the day, of parts of America before 1900, and of Chicago coming into its own as a major city.

Ruth Wilson, Alumna and Retiree:

Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss.
Right down and editor’s “alley.”

One Man’s Meat by E.B. White
Reprise with one of my favorite writers.

Madam Secretary, a memoir by Madeleine Albright
What a woman! Should be on everyone’s reading list.

Abe by Richard Slotkin
Interesting, probably somewhat fictional, good account of Lincoln’s early days.

Numerous mysteries by P.D. James, Elizabeth Peters, Anne Perry, and the Laurie King series about retirement years of Sherlock Holmes sleuthing with his wife.

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Ellen Peters, Institutional Planning and Analysis:

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
A beautifully written book about the intersection of a boy’s emotional development and war-torn Afghanistan.

Odd Girl Out: the Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls by Rachel Simmons
A ground breaking study of the passive bullying of girls.

Under the Banner of Heaven : A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer
An admittedly biased account of fundamentalist Mormonism, sprinkled with history.

Postville:A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America by Stephen G. Bloom
About the influx of a group of Orthodox Jews into a rural Iowa community.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
An old classic I’d never read and am delighted to have finally found the time to pick up…a telling book about a girl’s coming of age in a working poor family a century ago.

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Zach Potter, Bookstore:

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison and The Autobiography of an Ex-colored Man by James Weldon Johnson
Great, classic stories depicting the “passing” between black and white society and the main characters’ finding of themselves within these societies.

Nobody’s Fool by Richard Russo
Great story. Even better that the movie with Paul Newman.

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Pat Meader, Local Bibliophile:

March Cost, The Year of the Yield

J.B.Priestly, The Good Companions

Margery Allingham’s The Estate of the Beckoning Lady

Lillian Beckwith’s The Hills are Lonely

Margery Sharpe: Britannia Mews

Most of these entertaining reads will be out of print but perhaps you can find them at your local library! They are worth the hunt. If you can’t find them, anything by Elizabeth Berg is good.

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Carole Parker, Library Assistant/Acquisitions:

I got 2 new books for Christmas, and I actually got to read them. Bob Dylan’s Chronicles I is great if you’re a Dylan fan; it reads very much like he sings. Frieda Hughes’ release of Sylvia Plath’s Ariel: The Restored Edition: A Facsimile of Plath’s Manuscript, Reinstating Her Original Selection and Arrangement was interesting for its history together with her fine poetry.

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Lorraine Groves, Bookstore:

The only suggestion I have is The Power of NOW by Eckhart Tolle. Visit your inner self for a transforming experience.

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Debbie and Dick Williamson, Charles A. Dana Professor of French:

Ron McLarty, The Memory of Running. Why does Smithy Ide, an overweight, chain-smoking 43 yr old, drunk go on a cross-country bike ride?

Michael Sanders, Families of the Vine. Sanders from Brunswick, Maine and the author of From Here, You Can’t See Paris, presents the insider’s view of winemaking in Southwestern France.

Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea. In French, Les Travailleurs de lamer, this novel by Hugo is as profound and as challening as Moby Dick. Great beach reading.

And we are sure that this one will appear on other lists:

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner.

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Erica Rand, Professor of Art and Visual Culture:

I recommend the novel Crybaby Butch (Firebrand Books, 2004) by Judith Frank. It’s a great read about gender, generation, dyke identities, and adult literacy.

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Claire Schmoll, Administrative Assistant to the President:

Trace by Patricia Cornwell is the most recent book I’ve read.

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Laura Juraska, Associate College Librarian for Reference Services:

Master Butcher Singing Club by Louise Erdrich
If you’ve not read anything by Louise Erdrich, this is a good place to start because she is at her best once again in this story weaving together tales of life and love like no other.

Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler
What is striking about this book is that the narrators in most of these stories are women, Vietnamese women. How an American male author can write in the feminine voice, about the feelings and experiences of the Vietnamese diaspora here in America, is what amazed me. Butler has written a beautiful, sensitive collection of stories about their lives past and present. Not like any novel or collection of stories written after the war that you have read. It won, and deserves, the Pulitzer Prize.

Lusty Lizard of Melancholy Cove by Christopher Moore
The author of “Coyote Blue” has done it again. Moore has a way with putting words together that often brings a chuckle. He is irreverent, given to the absurd, and has an imagination that catches one unawares and makes one shake one’s head at the preposterousness that just seems to flow out of his mind – yet it all makes sense in the context of the story. Can’t imagine what it would be like to live with someone whose synapses are so twisted, but it sure was fun reading it.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
I finally got around to this revived classic and found that one of the best ways to enter is through this wonderful audiobook edition. The story and language come to life through the artful interpretation and reading of Michele-Denise Woods.

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John Harrison, Associate College Librarian for Collection Development:

Two extremes, both wonderful in their way:

Bleak House by Charles Dickens

The Stories of John Cheever

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Anne Thompson, Professor of English

Brick Lane, by Monica Ali
This novel tells of the life of a Bangladeshi woman in an arranged marriage, in a community of Bangladeshi in London. It’s a wonderful read, both serious and funny, and also illuminating about a culture with which I was completely unfamiliar. Recommended to me both by a Bates professor and a Bangladeshi undergraduate, so you know it must be good.

The Spiral Staircase, by Karen Armstrong
The spiritual autobiography of a woman who spent seven years as a Catholic nun, beginning when she was seventeen, and has now become an authority on all the world religions. I think what I liked best about this book was the tracing of her journey from her initial complete disaffection and indeed hostility to Catholicism, to her current profound engagement with and respect for all religious and spiritual traditions, though without committing herself to a conventional belief in any.

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Kerry O’Brien, Dean of the Faculty’s Office:

The Plot against America, by Philip Roth
By far my favorite read of the year. Roth places his own family in an alternate-history scenario, as seen through his own 9-year-old eyes: what if Nazi-sympathizer Charles Lindbergh had become president in the 1940s? The ominous anti-Semitic escalation is harrowing, as what was one thought to be impossible begins to unfold. The family is wrenched apart as they take various sides; the broader message is a warning about the dangers of chummy, plain-spoken ideologues in the White House and their catastrophic influence on clueless Americans.

Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
It’s astonishing that this book was written by someone who was barely out of his teens. It’s at once hilarious and tragic, crossing back and forth across several centuries as it depicts life and death in Jewish shtetls and a present-day American’s search for the truth about his family’s near-annihilation in the Holocaust. Maybe the person who gets most enlightened is the Ukrainian translator-tour guide coming to terms with the past, his family’s complicity, and the future.

Another chronological moving target is The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.
Weird as it got sometimes, I could not put this book down. Talk about love standing the test of time: could you stand it if your husband disappeared for days on end, genetically predisposed to time-travel, only to reappear naked and beat up in the stacks of the library?

Runaway by Alice Munro
Alice Munro is amazing at capturing the lives of women, which are filled with traps and opportunities. Her stories are like tiny epic novels, huge in scope, yet she has cut away all the extra junk: perfectly distilled.

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Lorelei Purrington, Area Coordinator:

A Painted House by John Grisham
A Novel written about rural Arkansas in 1952 and a little boy, Luke, who lives with his parents and grandparents in a house that’s never been painted. They hire a truck-load of Mexicans and a family from the Ozarks to help harvest the cotton. Luke sees and hears things that he never should. Excellent book, which I loved and could not put down!

Joy Comes in the Morning by Jonathan Rosen
A novel about a woman rabbi who has passionate contradictions, doubts and desires and who searches for something sacred in the midst of modern chaos. Wonderfully written.

An Enduring Love, My Life with the Shah by Farah Pahlavi
A memoir about the empress, Farah Pahlavi, wife of the last emperor of Iran—Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi and her devotion to social and cultural causes. Farah tells the heart-wrenching story of love she had for a man and his country during a tragic national struggle. Terrific book along with being very informational.

Good Harbor by Anita Daiment
A quick read about a new friendship that empowers two women going through personal challenges in their lives. Very realistic and touching.

Victorine by Catherine Texier
A story of adventure and self discovery of a woman’s struggle between duty and independence, tradition and freedom, longing and regret as she looks back at her life told by her great granddaughter. Very enjoyable read.

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Sue Martin, Assistant Director of Center for Service Learning:

Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst
An unlikely topic- teaching a dog to talk- that turns into a great book.

Taft by Ann Patchett
I keep hoping one of her books will come up to Bel Canto. This one doesn’t but it’s entertaining.

The Ground Beneath Her Feet by Salman Rushie
A wonderful book I just got around to this year.

Unless by Carol Shields
The struggles of watching young adult children lead their own lives.

Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Hadden
I kept ignoring it because I thought it was overrated, but it was intriguing.

John Adams by David McCullough
I’m reading it in sections and really enjoy the integration of original letters, journals, etc.

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Laurie Henderson, Director of Office Services:

Mental-pause…and other midlife laughs by Laura Jensen Walker
Good simple and fun read. Looking at your mother’s face in the mirror? Or forgetting simple words for the common things, like husband and sink? If subzero temperatures are suddenly pleasant, this is a good “been there, done that” book.

Phillips’ Treasure of Humorous Quotations, Bob Phillips
What can I say, a quote a day keeps me happy.

Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris
Great quick read. David has a unique sense of humor recalling many childhood and adolescent memories.

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Jane Costlow, Professor of Russian:

Mary Gordon’s new novel Pearl took me a while to get into – her narrator’s voice was off-putting at first; but I was glad to have persevered – this is a mother/daughter story in which the study-abroad year ends with Pearl (the daughter) staging a hunger strike in front of the American embassy in Dublin. Many of Gordon’s persistent themes are here – women’s relationships to Catholicism, to their bodies, and to each other. And perhaps the naivete of Americans meddling in other folks’ politics?

Gilead is an extraordinary book – an elderly protestant minister’s long letter to his very young son, about the history of the family, which is also a history of religiously-grounded protest against slavery. A wonderful, wonderful book, with a gentle voice and great wisdom.

Finally – short stories by Alice Munroe, who is quite simply an AMAZING writer. Just read her Friendship, Hateship, Courtship…. (there’s more but I’ll get it wrong). Her evocation of character is extraordinary – the lives of women in Canada in a generation just on the cusp of feminism – written with wit and insight into the ways in which people do marvelous things with lives that are in many ways constrained.

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Leslie Hill, Associate Professor of Political Science:

Turtle Baby: A Mystery Novel by Abigail Padgett
I found this a good read because the detective was a flawed character.

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Jill Reich, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty:

I fear my reading habits are rather prosaic – but perhaps there are others among us who seek calm in their good reads. My favorites from the past year are: Joseph Ellis’ George Washington and R. Chernov’s Alexander Hamilton.

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Michael Hanrahan, Assistant Director and Instruction Coordinator, ILS:

Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux
Recounts overland journey form Cairo to Cape Town. Quite a good read!

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Denise A. Begin, Staff Assistant/Dean of the Faculty’s Office:

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, by John Gray.
A first-year marriage manual!

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Kirk Read, Associate Professor of French:

Arabian Jazz by Diana Abu-Jaber, family sadness and humor and hijinx among Lebanese immigrants in Upstate New York

In Search of Time Past by Proust. Just bathe in the first volume if that’s all you have time for. At 3500 pages total, your French professor would understand. Extra credit for the original, A la recherche du temps perdu. Great summer reading. Torpor, angst, poetic prose, the most gorgeous impressionistic prose imaginable.

Testament of Devotion, Thomas Kelly for the spiritual questers, Quaker, Christian.

Annie Lamott, Plan B: Further thoughts on faith; more spiritual questing, great sense of humor, hilarious, christian.

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Rebecca Fraser-Thill, Visiting Instructor in Psychology:

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett is an excellent novel that I highly recommend! It’s one of those books that I never wanted to end. An aristocratic party in South America is taken over by terrorists, and Patchett weaves a beautiful tale of how the terrorists and hostages become emotionally entangled over the course of months. The descriptions are elegant, the characters are completely believable, and the emotions evoked are powerful. It’s clear why this novel won the PEN/Faulkner award.

Little Children by Tom Perrotta is a novel about a stay-at-home dad and stay-at-home mom who get wrapped up in an affair. What I loved about it was the biting humor Perrotta employs as he explores suburban life, and how round and real the characters are. I found myself dying to get home each evening so that I keep reading, and even though the ending didn’t quite hit the right note for me, I still highly recommend it.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold has probably been on this list in the past. The narrator is a young murdered girl who witnesses how her family changes after she’s died. I found this novel to be beautifully written, emotionally compelling, and, despite the somber topic, containing lightheartedness and hope.

Ernie’s Ark by Monica Wood is a set of connected short stories that take place in Maine and are written by a Maine author. The stories have well-defined characters and subtle themes that kept me pondering each story long after I read them.

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden is a novel that follows a girl from being sold by her parents up through her life as a famous geisha. Not only did I learn a lot about Japan’s history and geisha life by reading this book, but I was also transported by the detailed descriptions, the surprising number of plot twists, and the theme of true love that runs through the book.

The novel Life of Pi by Yann Martel tells about a family whose boat sinks as they are trying to transport themselves and their zoo from India to Canada. The son, Pi, gets stuck on a lifeboat with a small menagerie, including a tiger. I didn’t expect to like this book, but found myself enthralled by the use of details that made me suspend logical thought (I mean, a man and a tiger on a tiny boat? Really?). I also respect Martel’s ability to keep me completely engaged even though there is only one human character, and therefore basically no dialogue, for a majority of the novel.

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Lori Ouellette, Administrative Assistant/Dean of the Faculty’s Office:

A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on her Diary 1785-1812 by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
Fabulouly great (but dry) reading. Martha Ballard is the aunt of Clara Barton, foundner of the American Red Cross.

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Anne Williams, Professor of Economics:

For Democrats (NOT Republicans) who enjoy thrillers and information processing, I recommend The Librarian by Larry Beinhart. The movie, “Wag the Dog”, is based on another one of his novels.

On a more serious note, I recommend Year of Wonders, historical fiction about an unusual English Village during an outbreak of the Black Death, by Geraldine Brooks.

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Rebecca Lovett, Assistant Bookstore Manager:

The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi by Jacqueline Park
A pair of letters from Renaissance Italy was the inspiration for this wonderful work of historical fiction. Accurate in detail, full of great characters, reads well in small doses as well as on long plane rides.

Aloft by Chang-Rae Lee
This quiet novel stayed with me months after I finished reading it. Subtle writing on deep emotions, descriptions that put you right into the character’s skin (and aloft over Long Island) – an amazing author not to be missed.

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David Das, Study Abroad Advisor and Mentoring Coordinator:

The Empire Trilogy by J.G. Farrell — The Siege of Krishnapur, Singapore Grip, Troubles. Wonderful evocations of British imperial folly that have much to teach 21st century builders of empire.

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S. Marie Henderson, Library Assistant, Government Documents:

The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou
Contents: I know why the caged bird sings — Gather together in my name — Singin’ and swingin’ and gettin’ merry like Christmas — The heart of a woman — All God’s children need traveling shoes — A song flung up to heaven

This was an excellent collection of the autobiographical stories of Maya Angelou. A very interesting read… Some of the stories made me feel sad, and depressed because of what this woman faced in her life –but through it all Maya proved to be a strong and courageous woman. A very admirable book.

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Smriti Rao, Visiting Instructor of Economics:

I just thought of one that I’ve tremendously enjoyed (if it isn’t already on the list): The Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh. Science fiction meets post-colonial critique!

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Beth Sheppard, Associate Director of Alumni & Parent Programs:

Based on many recommendations last year, I enjoyed The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. And I loved The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.

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Perrin Lumbert, Library Assistant, Interlibrary Loan:

The Notebook the Proof the Third Lie, by Agota Kristof

Sea of Fertility, tetralogy by Yukio Mishima (this remains my favorite read of all time)

Casanova in Bolzano, and Embers, both by Sandor Marai

For witty detective mysteries, anything by Swedish writer Henning Mankell

All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville West

Embroideries by Marjane Satrapi (latest book from the author of Persepolis)

The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life (utterly fascinating and disturbing story of Lev Nussimbaum, who reinvented himself and became the writer Kurban Said)

The Crimson Petal and the White, by Michel Faber (an unforgettable take on the Victorian novel)

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Ken Emerson, Associate Director/Human Resources:

I really haven’t read much leisure reading in the past year. I did read Angels and Demons by Dan Brown just before the Pope died so it was a timely book regarding all the processes and protocol involved in choosing a new Pope. I guess I had a kind of Dan Brown year as I also read Da Vinci Code , Digital Fortress and Deception Point. All have the same characteristic of engaging you in the story and characters in the first few pages. All quick, interesting reads.

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Bill Low, Assistant Curator/Museum of Art:

My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk (translated by Erdag Goknar).
Great, entertaining story. I loved the descriptions of cultural and religious differences between East and West seen through artistic traditions.

“In 16th-century Istanbul, master miniaturist and illuminator of books Enishte Effendi is commissioned to illustrate a book celebrating the sultan. Soon he lies dead at the bottom of a well, and how he got there is the crux of this novel. A number of narrators give testimony to what they know about the circumstances surrounding the murder. The stories accumulate and become more detailed as the novel progresses, giving the reader not only a nontraditional murder mystery but insight into the mores and customs of the time. In addition, this is both an examination of the way figurative art is viewed within Islam and a love story that demonstrates the tricky mechanics of marriage laws.” (Library Journal)

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Sarah Potter, Bookstore Director:

Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell
Publishers Weekly describes this Russell novel as “busy, noisy and heartfelt… sprawling…a striking departure from her previous two acclaimed SF thrillers, The Sparrow and Children of God—chronicles the Italian resistance to the Germans during the last two years of WWII. Three cultures mingle uneasily in Porto Sant’Andrea on the Ligurian coast of northwest Italy—the Italian Jews of the village; the Italian Catholics, who befriend and shelter the Jews; and the occupying Germans invited by Mussolini’s crumbling regime.” Keeping track of characters can be tricky but is well worth the effort. It is a story that lingers with you long after the reading.

A Walk on the Beach: Tales of Wisdom from Unconventional Women by Joan Anderson
This memoir, set on Cape Cod, details Anderson’s remarkable relationship with Joan Erikson, wife of psychoanalyst Erik Erikson. Anderson, in her mid-fifties, is taking a year off from her marriage while Erikson, in her early nineties, is observing her husband’s rapid decline in health. This is a quick read, full of wisdom and insight as well as energy and life.

I’ve also just finished Meg Wolitzer’s The Wife: A Novel
This review from Booksmith: “A diabolically smart and funny assault against the literary establishment and the tacit assumption that only men can write the Great American Novel. As Joan recounts the misery she and her fellow writers’ wives endure, popular and shrewd novelist Wolitzer choreographs her ire into kung-fu precision moves to zap our every notion about gender and status, creativity and fame, individuality and marriage, deftly exposing the injustice, sorrow, and sheer absurdity of it all.” It’s worth the summer read!

…

Aslaug Asgeirsdottir, Assistant Professor of Political Science:

I would like to include William Easterly’s book, The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists’ Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics. While not exactly beach reading, it is a fascinating account of some of the misguided policies pursued by the World Bank in developing countries.

Some good detective novels that do qualify as beach reading are any of Henning Mankell’s mysteries featuring Swedish detective Kurt Wallander. Police work in Sweden has a slightly different flavor than Law and Order. Good titles include: Faceless Killers, The Dogs of Riga, Sidetracked, One Step Behind and Firewall. It is good to begin with the first one (Faceless Killers) and work down the list as the books build on history a bit.

…

Terry Beckmann, Vice President for Finance and Administration/Treasurer:

Trace by Patricia Cornwell

And for truly light, entertaining summer reading, anything by Mary Higgins Clark.

…

Camille Parrish, Learning Associate/Environmental Studies:

Terror in the Name of God by Jessica Stern. This book contains interviews that Jessica Stern, a Professor at Harvard, had with religiously motivated terriorists. The book spans the globe and covers the range of terrorists from individuals to highly organized terrorist organizations. I highly recommend it for those who want to better understand and see inside the lives of people involved in terrorist activity. It is one of those books that stays with you long after reading it.

…

Kathy Low, Professor of Psychology:

The Known World, by Edward Jones

…

Kerry Maloney, College Chaplain:

Here’s a brief list of a few of my favorites from this and last year — probably several repeat titles from other contributors to you list.

Anne Lamott. Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith. Riverhead, 2005.

Marilynne Robinson. Gilead. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004.

Jon Kabat-Zinn. Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the

World Through Mindfulness. Hyperion, 2005.

David Sedaris. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. Little, Brown and Company, 2004.

Marcus Borg. The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith. HarperSanFrancisco, 2003.

Dorothee Soelle. The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance. Fortress, 2001.

Tony Hendra. Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul. Random House, 2004.

Heidi Neumark. Breathing Space: A Spiritual Journey in the South Bronx. Beacon Press, 2004.

Gary Schmidt and Susan M. Felch, eds. Autumn: A Spiritual Biography of the Season. Skylight Paths Publishing, 2004. (See also their 2003 publication, Winter: A Spiritual Biography of the Season.)

…

Julie Retelle, Assistant College Librarian for Access Services:

I would recommend all of the books by Maine author Van Reid. The titles are:

Cordelia Underwood, or, The marvelous beginnings of the Moosepath League

Daniel Plainway, or, The holiday haunting of the Moosepath League

Fiddler’s green, or, A wedding, a ball, and the singular adventure of Sundry Moss

Mollie Peer, or, The underground adventure of the Moosepath League

Mrs. Roberto, or, The widowy worries of the Moosepath League

…

Peter Schlax, Research Technician/Chemistry:

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
From Publishers Weekly:

Not long after Jack the Ripper haunted the ill-lit streets of 1888 London, H.H. Holmes (born Herman Webster Mudgett) dispatched somewhere between 27 and 200 people, mostly single young women, in the churning new metropolis of Chicago; many of the murders occurred during (and exploited) the city’s finest moment, the World’s Fair of 1893. Larson’s breathtaking new history is a novelistic yet wholly factual account of the fair and the mass murderer who lurked within it. Bestselling author Larson (Isaac’s Storm) strikes a fine balance between the planning and execution of the vast fair and Holmes’s relentless, ghastly activities. The passages about Holmes are compelling and aptly claustrophobic; readers will be glad for the frequent escapes to the relative sanity of Holmes’s co-star, architect and fair overseer Daniel Hudson Burnham, who managed the thousands of workers and engineers who pulled the sprawling fair together 0n an astonishingly tight two-year schedule. A natural charlatan, Holmes exploited the inability of authorities to coordinate, creating a small commercial empire entirely on unpaid debts and constructing a personal cadaver-disposal system. This is, in effect, the nonfiction Alienist, or a sort of companion, which might be called Homicide, to Emile Durkheim’s Suicide. However, rather than anomie, Larson is most interested in industriousness and the new opportunities for mayhem afforded by the advent of widespread public anonymity. This book is everything popular history should be, meticulously recreating a rich, pre-automobile America on the cusp of modernity, in which the sale of “articulated” corpses was a semi-respectable trade and serial killers could go well-nigh unnoticed.

Kitchen Confidentialby Anthony Bourdain
A world class chef revels tales from the underbelly of fine cuisine.

…

Doug Hubley, Communications and Media Relations:

I’m likely not the first to suggest it, but Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink is an engrossing, enlightening and eminently readable survey of what the subconscious mind can do — and what it can’t. For people (like me) who can’t think in a straight line but still somehow manage to get the job done each day, Blink also affords a boost in the self-esteem/self-congratulation department.

…

Jim Lamontagne, Library Assistant/Cataloging:

I would recommend two new works by Rick Bass, the novel The Diezmo (confirms his status as a distinctive voice in current American literature that is largely a literary wilderness, but if you’re at all squeamish about the rough edges of existence skip it), and his new piece of nature writing entitled Caribou Rising (confirms his status as a determined voice for the increasingly threatened real American wilderness, specifically in this case the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, but if you like George W. Bush, well, skip this one too)

…

Mary Meserve, Associate Registrar:

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger was an amazing read. The classic sci-fi element of time travel is beautifully interwoven with a deeply felt love story. I also was entranced by The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. This story, about an autistic teenager compelled to solve the mysterious death of a neighbor’s dog, is very compelling and moving. On a different note, The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson was a fascinating look at the events surrounding the Chicago’s World Fair in 1893 from the perspectives of Daniel Burnham, the chief architect of the fair, and H. H. Holmes, a doctor who became one of this country’s first serial killers. I had to remind myself repeatedly that this wasn’t just an inventive, fictious thriller but that it was non-fiction and just over one hundred years ago this story was front page news!

…

Judith Robbins, Learning Associate/Dean of Faculty’s Office:

Setting aside momentarily the request for titles of note, I would like to recommend to Constant Readers a manner of reading, viz., listening. I may be the last person on campus who has gotten hooked by audio books, but in case there is another soul out there with at least 8 CD tracks worth of commute, a soul who lives by the printed word and has not yet succumbed to the seductiveness of the audio word, this one’s for you.

My first was a book whose title I don’t remember but which was of the caliber of the B movie you can watch between Boston and Portland and enjoy but would never pay money for at the video store. I knew I was spoiled for good when I couldn’t wait to drive home from work and hear the vapid heroine’s latest Important Decision. Pathetic but true.

I’m only on my third book now, Chaim Potok’s The Chosen, and it’s too early in the game to make a call on “readability,” but I certainly recommend Yann Martel’s Life of Pi. I still have a thousand pictures in my head from reading… hearing that book.

…

Mark Semon, Professor of Physics:

Ann Coulter, Slander

…

Phyllis Graber Jensen, Senior Staff Writer and Photographer:

Truth & Beauty : A Friendship by Ann Patchett
This memoir of the author’s friendship with writer Lucy Grealy examines the depths of pleasure and pain in a friendship.

The Inextinguishable Symphony: A True Story of Music and Love in Nazi Germany by Martin Goldsmith
The author writes about how his parents — both talented musicians — coped with the Nazis and escaped the Holocaust. But they paid a price.

Family Circle : The Boudins and the Aristocracy of the Left by Susan Braudy
This is a gossipy account, a true “guilty pleasure.” I indulged.

…

Brenda Reynolds, Audio Supervisor, Ladd Library:

Sabriel. Lirael. Abhorsen, Garth Nix
Strong female characters, magic, putting down the Dead and a text that doesn’t dumb down. What more can you ask for in a Young Adult series? I already have my pre-order in for the 4th installment.

Selling the Work Ethic: From Puritan Pulpit to Corporate PR, Sharon Beder
It made me mad, frustrated and quite introspective. If even half of us read it, we might stand a chance at a better existence.

You Got to Dance with Them What Brung You, Molly Ivins
She’s a Texan, a liberal and she writes biting, witty political commentary. This collection is from 1998 but it’s a fun look back at ourselves.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel, Susanna Clarke
OK its 800 pages and I haven’t finished it yet but it is absolutely wonderful! It opens in 1806 England, with lots of social positioning, think Pride and Prejudice. It has fairies but not like you’d envision from childhood. It has magicians but there’s not actually any magic done in England at the start of the book. It also has the Napoleonic Wars… I’ve heard it described as Harry Potter for adults. (Of course every adult I know has read and loved every Potter book). It’s really nothing like Potter except that it’s funny and you’ll love it.

…

Michael Murray, Charles Franklin Phillips Professor of Economics:

The Namesake (by Jhumpa Lahiri)
A fine story.

And there’s Freakonomics, by Steven Levitt and Steven someone else (Dubner). As the jacket says: “Prepare to be dazzled!” Economics for anyone, yet deep and rich! (What do Sumo wrestlers and school teachers have in common?)

Hardball by Chris Mathews
A list of principles of practical politics with lively real-world examples.

The Price of Loyalty by Paul O’Neil
A sad inside look at the Bush administration by Bush’s former treasury secretary.

…

Karen Palin, Lecturer in Biology:

Well, in preparation for (a trip to) Denmark, I DID re-read Hans Christian Andersen…and I highly recommend doing so for all. He was an awfully prolific writer, and I enjoyed taking another look at his work.

And then there is May Sarton, always worth another read!

…

Judy Marden, Director at Shortridge:

Wesley McNair’s The Maine Poets
Wonderful in itself, and also for why he chose the poets and poems he did. See if you agree! Especially notable: Bob Chute’s ‘A Revolutionary Soldier’s Reward’ (and not ONLY because it’s about Morse Mountain!) and Mekeel McBride’s ‘A Little Bit of Timely Advice’ (“You say you got no makings for a song? Sing anyway. Best music’s the stuff comes rising out of nothing.”)

Beth Gutcheon’s More Than You Know: A Novel
In a small town called Dundee on the coast of Maine, an old woman named Hannah Gray begins her story: “Somebody said ‘true love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen.’ I’ve seen both and I don’t know how to tell you which is worse.” Quoth the book jacket–bet you can’t wait to get inside!

Nancy Taylor Rosenberg’s Sullivan’s Law
One of her best. Wraps you up in a plot that won’t let you put it down til you find out–and, it doesn’t end too soon. Plan on an all-nighter.

Bill McKibben: Wandering Home
A long walk through Vermont and New Hampshire, called by McKibben “America’s most hopeful landscapes.” He quotes a virtually unknown poet, Jeanne Robert Foster, a woman contemporaneous with Robert Frost “but lacking his great ego”, who wrote but one book:

I gave the mountainside to keep it wild,
Free for the life that it has had so long
The trail will always be what it is now
The summit, with its scrubby balsam trees…
In future years, you will come here
And touch the trees as I have done
And think that I did right.”

His question of how much human intervention can a place stand before it loses its essence is one for all of us.

…

Marita Bryant, Assistant in Instruction/Geology:

Simon Winchester, Krakatoa
Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire, Shake Hands with the Devil

…

Year of Wonders, by Geraldine Brooks.
Engrossing novel, set in England 1666 during an outbreak of plague. Makes great use of language of the period and is in the tradition of picaresque tales, like Moll Flanders.
Blood Doctor, by Barbara Vine (Ruth Rendell). I take the risk of recommending a book I’m still reading because Rendell is such a good mystery writer. Her Barbara Vine series tends to be darker and more disturbing than her Wexford mysteries. This book follows two story lines–the research of a biographer into the life of his great grandfather (the blood doctor of the title), and the move to do away with heredity peerage in Parliament.
The 3,000-Mile Garden, by Leslie Land. I came late to this collection of letters exchanged between two gardeners. Leslie Land, then gardening in Maine, and her British friend (whose name escapes my addled and aged brain) exchanged letters over several years, discussing their gardens, struggles against encroachments on London’s park squares, recipes, love and life. I read these letters over breakfast in the dead of this past winter–they got me through the worst of it.
And finally, for those who enjoy well-written books on gardens and gardening, I recommend Louise Beebe Wilder, who wrote between 1908 and 1935. A number of her books are available in reprint or in used editions. Many of the great standards in garden writing are by British authors, who contend(ed) with the mild (zone 7) climate of the UK. Wilder was an American, fully aware of the demands of gardening in our much more extreme climate(s). For the power of her descriptions alone, I’d recommend her works.
— Joyce Seligman, Director of the Writing Workshop

My Year of Meats, by Ruth Ozeki.
— Leslie Winston, Visiting Assistant Professor of Japanese

The Shipping News, by Annie Proulx
Message in a Bottle, by Nicholas Sparks
The Redemption of Sarah Cain, by Beverly Lewis
Who Moved My Cheese? , by Spencer, M.D. Johnson
Self Help, by Lorrie Moore
All the Pretty Horses, by Cormac McCarthy
— Simone Marie Henderson, Government Documents Library Assistant

Anything by Nelson DeMille is a must-read. He writes crime fiction that usually revolves around the government and the military. His most recognizable book is probably The General’s Daughter, because it was made into a film with John Travolta. However, while that is a great book (and of course, the book is much better than the movie), I do not think it is his best. My favorites are The Charm School and The Lion’s Game. His books are fast paced, edge-of-your-seat page-turners, perfect for the summer. The Talbot Odyssey is another great one, and like The Charm School, tells a tale of Russia-U.S. relations during the cold war days of of the 1980s. Happy reading!
— Kristen Andersen, Assistant Director of Annual Giving

Good Poems, collected and with an introduction by Garrison Keillor. “The Writer’s Almanac” on public radio is part of my morning ritual, and this collection of short, accessible poems is a nice companion.
The Hours , by Michael Cunningham.
After all the fuss about the movie, I needed to read this and am glad I did in conjunction with rereading Mrs. Dalloway.
The Painted Bed, by Donald Hall. Poems about the death of his wife, poet Jane Kenyon, and his life without her.
And, for the beach, I Don’t Know How She Does It: The Life of Kate Reddy, Working Mother, by Allison Pearson. Marred by a fairy-tale ending, it still has drop-dead funny moments — such as the opening scene, which finds the heroine “distressing” store-bought goodies to take to the school bake sale so that they’ll look homemade. Ouch! Too close to home!
Also for the beach (but cover it up with a towel so no one can see what you’re reading), Martha Inc : The Incredible Story of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, by Christopher M. Byron. Meow, meow.
— Beth Sheppard, Director,,Office of Alumni Relations

Guns, Germs, and Steel, by Jared Diamond
A fine example of the synthesis of science, history, and anthropology for the general reader. Makes a nice companion read for The Botany of Desire. You’ll never look at an ear of corn the same way again.
Midnight’s Children, by Salman Rushdie
A history of modern India and Pakistan filtered through the lens of fantasy, Bollywood style.
Whale Rider, by Witi Ihimaera
A familiar coming of age story, integrated with Maori creation myths. Read it before you see the film adaptation.
Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, by Alexandra Fuller
Unforgettable scenes and thoroughly unlikable characters.
— Andrew White, Director of Academic Technology Services

The Brothers of Gwyneddquartet, the Heaven Tree Trilogy all of the Brother Cadfael mysteries, by Ellis Peters. I had read a few of these before, but wanted to read them again as well as try some new ones – she creates a compelling vision of 12th century Shropshire.
A Painted House, and The Client, by John Grisham
All of his books have a jaded view of the legal profession, but the plots are page-turners, and his childhood memories are compelling.
Peter Loon, by Van Reid
The author lives and works in the Damariscotta area. This is a historical novel of a teen-age boy in the War of 1812 era, living in the wilderness and then discovering the wider world. It has the most amazing description of traveling through the woods at night, in a “world lit only by fire.”
— Lois Griffiths, Alumna and Retiree

Well, of course I would have suggested Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett as my absolute number one pick of the year, but was advised by the editors that EVERYONE will be suggesting Bel Canto. So I will refrain from gushing (but you MUST read it!).
Two less recent books but haunting and thoughtful: In the Fall, by Jeffrey Lent (begins in the Civil War and traces a biracial family across three generations) and Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier (amazing journey on foot but also through two people’s lives during the Civil War).
My favorite not so new book by far was The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx, a corker of a book about redemption amidst the kelp in Newfoundland.
The Hours, by Michael Cunningham (How did a man write this book about the ways women are defined by others and by themselves?).
In the really-not-so-new literary classics department, just finished Babbitt, by Sinclair Lewis, which I had never read. You’ve got to love any book that uses terms like “swell” and “for the love of Mike” – and don’t we all KNOW Babbitt himself?
Also read: Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood, by Alexandra Fuller. A memoir of growing up in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe and Malawi and in the years when white farmers in Africa were losing their century-old grip on the continent. Amazing, I highly recommend.
In the children’s lit dept, I recommend many by Raold Dahl, but especially Esio Trot, a love story; The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar, in which goodness triumphs over greed; The BFG, in which goodness prevails over everything.
My next book is Three Junes by Julia Glass.
— Kerry O’Brien, Assistant Dean of the Faculty

For Children:
The Worst Band in the Universe, by Graeme Base explores a planet where music is censored and something happens to those who don’t conform. The lyrical text and detailed illustrations are absorbing, as the exiled bands battle for their right to create music. A music CD is also included with a diverse collection of original songs.
— Andrea L’Hommedieu, Muskie Oral History Project

Seabiscuit: An American Legend, by Laura Hillenbrand
Read it before the July movie. Others have recommended this before; it’s a great story and reads like a novel.
Trains of thought: Memories of a stateless youth, by Victor Brombert
Beautifully written memoir of life in Paris as a teenager in the 1930′s followed by escape to the United States and back to Europe to serve in the US armed forces. Brombert is an emeritus professor at Princeton.
— Jack Pribram, Professor of Physics

Robert Cowley, Ed., No End Save Victory. Essays on W.W.II by 46 authors, some historians, some participants. A good book to read a chapter at a time or in any order. A helpful reminder for all of us who think of wars as having a few weeks duration.
John Adams, by David McCullough. 650 pages , arguably a fine read for the uninitiated into the Adams family or interested in the “life and times” approach, and less satisfying for a serious reader of revolutionary history. The voluminous Adams correspondence is partly due to John and Abigail spending about half their married life apart, as he helped invent America, and she, while providing him with constant political and moral advice, somehow kept farm, family and finances afloat for years at a time.
Personal History, by Katherine Graham. Published in 1997, it is a powerful and revealing book by a most honest journalist who was front and center at many of the important events of the 20th century. Born to privilege in 1917, she took over the Washington Post after her husband’s suicide, and built the paper into a national institution. Annoying for name dropping of the famous, but admirable for her unflinching telling of painful experiences, both her own and the country’s.
After the Fall, by Jeffrey Lent. A five-star historical novel that follows four generations of a farm family in rural Vermont, after the son comes home from the Civil War with a wife who is an escaped slave. Beautifully written, with subtle and complex characters.
— Bill Hiss, Vice President for External and Alumni Affairs

These five short science fiction novels include clever revelations about the experience of consciousness, the soul, emotions, and individual rights, mostly as related to artificial intelligence and/or technology-based reality.
Archangel Protocol and Fallen Host, by Lyda Morehouse
In a complex, technology-dependent society, cybernetic manifestations take on lives and missions of their own. Humans socialize with angels, electronic page-identities assist humans against psychotic hackers, AI’s discover “self,” and rebellions bear fruit in freedom.
Technogenesis, by Syne Mitchell
An outcast from the plugged-in world discovers that the Net’s human controllers are neither fair nor completely sane – and are possibly being controlled by an AI, the Net-consciousness itself.
Vectors, by Michael Kube-McDowell
A neuroscientist researches the existence of the human soul by utilizing “virtual reality” technology to map personalities and, finally, to explore the concept of reincarnation.
Body Electric, by Susan Squires
A hacker-turned-legit computer programmer creates an AI who must upload into a human body to survive. When electronic impulses trigger conscious emotion during the crisis, their love converts from virtual to real reality.
— Theresa L. Arita, Secretary, Development Services & Corporate and Foundation Relations

The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, by Zbigniew Brzezinski.
For those among you who share my “shock and awe” and incredulity at this administration’s Middle East actions and apparent policy priorities, here is the definitive statement of rationale, including a blueprint that proposes a clear set of highest priority US actions and goals. That Brzezinski wrote this short, readable tome in 1997 as a parting gift to his foreign service “students” and colleagues and that it accurately “predicts” our nation’s policies and actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, China and the Koreas over the past 3 years is just plain spooky. Whatever my opinion of the man and his politics, his command of historic and current geopolitical and geostrategic imperatives of global alliances and nation states is breathtaking. If you have a fairly strong interest in the topic, this can be beach reading. Honest!
Andorra, by Peter Cameron. A light, romantic mystery that is pleasant and easy reading with a surprising twist at the end.
— Dennis Brown, Director of Leadership and Planned Giving

Mysteries, Romances and Adventures: a wide selection is found in Lane’s Hall Lunch Room on the ground floor. I have read many of these and new selections appear now and then.
‘RealSimple’: a magazine that features ways to simplify your life/home/body/soul. Lots of great information and relaxing to read. Even my fiance will pick it up now and then.
‘Sports Illustrated’: my fiance gets this one but I do pick it up and read some of the interesting articles. This magazine is not just sport facts but also the human side of sports.
‘The Lewiston SunJournal’ – read it everyday to keep up with the local news and the Portland Paper on Sunday especially for the comics (it has different ones than the SunJournal).
— Denise Schreiber, Secretary, Dean of the Faculty’s Office

I’d recommend a book I just read after hearing a review on NPR. It’s called Leaving Mother Lake: A girlhood at the edge of the world, by Yang Erche Namu and Christine Mathieu. It’s about a Moso woman in China who leaves her remote village to embark on a singing career. Very interesting perspective on her culture (in which there is no such thing as marriage) and her transition between her village and more industrialized settings.
— Amy Bradfield, Assistant Professor of Psychology

This year, in my reading I have looked for well written and books about the resilience of the human spirit. My favorites are:
The Secret Life of Bees and Bel Canto
Both are remarkable for their subtlety and character development. I would recommend reading them slowly and savoring them. I felt very alone after finishing them; it was hard to start another book because I knew that it couldn’t be nearly as good.
Another must read–The Map of Love. It’s a wonderful book, a story within a story and a look at Islamic Egypt in the 19th century and today.
— Vicky Devlin, Vice President for Development

I highly recommend:
This Present Darkness: Piercing the Darkness; The Prophet; and The Visitation, all by Frank Peretti
A Day Late and a Dollar Short, by Terry McMillan
— Monica Parker, Technology Support Specialist

I will be the 28th person to recommend Atonement, by Ian McEwan which is one of my new favorite books about forgiveness, atonement (strange…) and really good on the inner mind of a confused, creative and vengeful 13 year old girl. Reminded me of myself. Beautiful writing. I’ll be the 290th person to recommend Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett which is about a hostagetaking in a South American country, a diva and the spell she casts on the imprisoned party-goers. The best prose description of music I’ve read. I think everyone who ever heard of South Park, Fear Factor or Jackass should reread Rabelais’s Gargantua (16th century), a man who got bodily humor and satire really well. David Sedaris: Me Talk Pretty One Day and Naked. If you don’t like him you’re a bad person.
— Kirk Read, Associate Professor of French

The Translator, by John Crowley–A novel set during the Bay of Pigs crisis, involving a college student/poet and her relationship with a visiting Russian poet whose political connections are ambiguous. Beyond being politically timely in its presentation of the various ways the crisis was spun for public consumption and the surveillance and subtle suppression of dissent, this novel is a thoughtful meditation on the act of translation.
Whistling Woman, by A.S. Byatt–The fourth book following the various members of the northern English Potter family through the turbulent sixties–following Virgin in the Garden, Still Life, and Babel Tower.
The Master Butcher’s Singing Club, by Louise Erdrich–A multi-faceted novel loosely based on the life of Erdrich’s German immigrant grandfather in post WWI America. Erdrich’s depiction of life in a small prairie town teems with life, mystery, and the sweetness of the every day.
— Rose A Pruiksma, Music Department

Beethoven’s Hair, by Russell Martin is a sort of mystery, the travels of a lock of hair – Ludwig van Beethoven’s hair – until it comes into the hands of forensic scientists who finally discover the cause of Beethoven’s chronic ill health, deafness, and death.
Mauve, by Simon Garfield is the story of William Perkins, a chemist, who tried to make artificial quinine and ended up making dye – mauve. The color became hugely fashionable, and Perkins stood at the threshold of modern chemistry.
In the Beginning, by Alister McGrath is the history of writing the King James Bible – surely a masterpiece of English literature and one of the few things ever done well by committee. McGrath also demonstrates that it was the product of bitter political strife within the Protestant Reformation in England.
Suspect Identities, by Simon Cole, although slightly redolent of Foucault, is probably the best history of the forensic use of fingerprints. Cole details the gradual acceptance of fingerprinting by the courts to the point of near infallibility – until our own time when DNA analysis has so raised the bar that some now question the very premises on which identification by fingerprints is based.
— Sawyer Sylvester, Professor of Sociology

A lot of my reading this year has been done in the company of children. Looking back, two books jump to mind. The first is called Who Will Comfort Toffle, by Tove Jansson. It is an intricately metered and rhymed book, mind-bogglingly translated from Finnish with beautiful illustrations. It’s sort of a Scandinavian version of Dr. Seuss, but with more characterdevelopment. I’ve read it at least 20 times and haven’t tired of it yet.
My second recommendation is much more well known. If you haven’t read Oliva, or Oliva Saves the Circus, by Ian Faulkener, you should! It’s the story of a sassy and classy pig and all of her big little adventures. Both books are great for the 4 to 84 year old set.
— Alison Hart, Dance Festival

Strong Motion, by Jonathan Franzen
Bel Canto (exceptional)
— Kathy Low, Associate Professor of Psychology

Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight,, by Alexandra Fuller.
Somewhat opaque title but a wild truth-is-stranger-than-fiction account of a childhood in Zambia-Zimbabwe.
Yann Martel, Life of Pi. This year’s Booker (fiction) Prize and I started it without expecting to like it much, thinking it sounded pretentious and dull. BUT, it turned out to be a very entertaining and imaginative yarn about a shipwrecked youth who spends nearly a year in a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger. Go figure.
Sigh. Some of us never quite grow up so Ursula LeGuin’s The Other Wind was kind of a nostaglia trip for the part of me that still loves to reread her Earthsea books. I think this one is really the last and it’s a little sad to find Ged and Tenar getting old. It’s probably not quite as good as the original trilogy but sometimes it’s impossible to read objectively, especially when you’ve grown to love the characters over time.
— Anne Thompson, Euterpe B. Dukakis Professor of Classical and Medieval Studies

The Heart of the Soul, by Gary Zukav and Linda Francis
Three Club Juggling: An Introduction, by Dick Franco
Mindfulness, by Ellen J. Langer.
Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys, by Dan Kindlow and Michael Thompson.
The Mathematics of Juggling, by Burkard Polster
The Verbally Abusive Relationship: How to recognize it and how to respond, by Patricia Evans.
Healing the Addictive Mind: Freeing Yourself from Addictive Patterns and Relationships, by Lee Jampolsky
Un mundo para Julius, by Alfredo Bryce Echenique,
— David Haines, Professor of Mathematics

Summer in Baden Baden, by Leonid Tsypkin, but you must read Dostoevsky’s short work The Gambler.
— Dennis Browne, Associate Professor of Russian

Leading Quietly. An Unorthodox Guide to Doing the Right Thing, by Joseph L. Badaracco, Jr.
Leadership can be studied but in the final analysis, it must be lived. Courageous risk taking, the larger-than-life tabloid and hero stories, are not discussed in this book. Rather the author takes a look at the “quiet leaders” folks like most of the people we meet every day “… who choose responsible, behind-the-scenes action over public heroism to resolve tough leadership challenges.” There are abundant lessons and case examples of quiet leaders in this book. It is easy, and challenging, to realize that we all can be and in fact are called on to be responsible, ethical, moral decision makers every day of our lives. Well written, easy read, and an eye opener.
The Tipping Point. How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, by Malcolm Gladwell.
The author – a former business and science writer at the Washington Post; currently a staff writer for The New Yorker – takes us on a fascinating journey into the biography of an idea. In essence, according to the Gladwell, “…the best way to understand the emergence of fashion trends, the ebb and flow of crime waves, or…the transformation of unknown books into bestsellers…is to think of them as epidemics.” Gladwell traces the evolution of trends as behaviors – virus really that infect and spread – that have predictable growth curves and points. We need just to read the clues each phenomenon presents to understand when at what point it will “tip in” to a trend. The book, like its subject matter, is infectious. Smoothly written with many “ah ha!” discoveries.
— Charles Kovacs, Director of Career Services

The Danish Girl, by David Ebershoff. A “gender bender” with lots of provocative passages about art, love, and some disturbing questions about what constitutes the self. The writing is lyrical and at times stunning. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. I’m sure others will also recommend this one. Many people told me to read it, but when they told me what it was about, I resisted: a group of people in a nameless South American country are taken hostage, and bond with their captors. It sounded like it didn’t end well (I saw my husband crying when he finished it). But finally, yielding to pressure, I read it. It was as good as everyone said. And THEN I found out it was based on a “true story” (liberties taken, for instance there was no opera singer involved in the actual takeover in Peru). This made the epilogue even more poignant. Finally, let me recommend an old one, Robber Bride, by Margaret Atwood. An absolutely despicable female villain and the havoc she wreaks on the lives of her three “best friends”–I kept thinking, there’s going to have to be some redeeming quality in her–but there wasn’t!!! Riveting and characters that stick to your ribs long after you’ve finished reading.
— Bonnie Shulman, Associate Professor of Mathematics

Among the books I have found provocative and engaging this year are the following:
Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science, by Atul
Power Politics, by Arundhati Roy
The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy
Learning to Fall: The Blessings of an Imperfect Life , by Phillip Simmons
The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance, by Dorothee Soelle
Firebird: A Memoir, by Mark Doty
Reading the Bible Again for the First Time: Taking the Bible Seriously But Not Literally, by Marcus J. Borg
Small Wonder, by Barbara Kingsolver
Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue, by Paul Woodruff
— Kerry Maloney, College Chaplain

I just finished a book by Margaret George called Mary, Called Magdalene, which is written in the first person (from Mary’s perspective) about the life of Mary Magdalene. The author took into account secular history and Biblical history when creating Mary’s character. Margaret George has also written other books in the same way – The Autobiography of Henry VIII, Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles and The Memoirs of Cleopatra. All of them were also fabulous.
Another series I’ve recently read is called the Camulod Chronicles, by Jack Whyte. They are The Sky Stone, The Singing Sword, The Eagle’s Brood, The Saxon Shore, The Sorcerer, the Fort at the River’s Bend, The Sorcerer, Metamorphosis, and Uther. The books are about 5th century England and the probable “truth” underlying the legends of Merlin, Arthur, and Excalibur. Whyte set out to tell the story in a realistic and feasible historical context. In my opinion, he succeeded.
— Karen McArthur, System Administrator

I read and liked Rivertown by Peter Hessler(sp?). This is about his experiences teaching in China. I liked the book so much that I even gave copies to my dad and my mother-in-law. They can’t stand each other, but they both loved the book…it must be good.
— Melinda Harder, Mathematics

I have a suggestion for summer reading–a collection of short stories called Officer Friendly; the author’s last name is Robinson, I think, and he lives in Maine. Perhaps someone else has already suggested this.
My favorite story is called “Puckheads,” in which high school students (at a school based on NYA) put on a production of “Oliver!” but with some hilarious variations in the plot.
— Lillian Nayder, Associate Professor of English

In a Dark Wood Wandering,by Hella Haasse. This historical novel, set in the late 14th and early 15th centuries, is the story of the life of Charles d’Orleans.
— Anthony Shostak, Education Coordinator~Museum of Art

John Adams,by David McCullough – History – the way it should be.
The Wild Flag, E.B. White – A series of essays on world government.
The Rapids, by Doris Provencher-Faucher – Second novel of Le Quebecois Series. The first was The Virgin Forest. Interesting historical fiction. Great for those interested in the French settlement of Canada.
Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast, Bill Richardson – Reads like a Bibliophiles’ Prairie Home Companion.
Anything by Jane Austen – reread every 5 years or so. The longer you live, the more you get out of them.
The Children’s Corner:
Not Now Said the Cow, Joanne Oppenheim for grades 1-3, also loved by the preschool set.
One Morning in Maine, Robert McCloskey – Little Sal loses her first tooth.
Scrambled Eggs Super, Dr. Seuss – good for giggly preschoolers.
Ramona Forever, Beverly Cleary – great if you are prepping the kids to be in or attend a wedding.
— Carol Thomas, faculty spouse

I have discovered Kathy Reichs (at the suggestion of my niece) and I have read four of her five books (I have just started the last one). I would recommend her first book, Deja dead, but the others are equally as good (Death du jour, Deadly decisions, Fatal voyage, and Grave secrets). These make for wonderful recreational/vacation reading. The central character, Tempe Brennan, is a forensic anthropologist who teaches at UNCC but also does some work for the Laboratoire de Medecine Legale in Montreal. Tempe, of course, gets caught up in solving murders and it makes for some very suspenseful reading!
— Sarah Bernard, Programmer/Analyst

The Discworld Series, by Terry Pratchett – the first several books in the series are sci-fi/fantasy but they evolve into fiendishly funny satires that leave you chuckling (and thinking) for a long time afterwards. A wonderful cast of characters.
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson – a vivid and compelling story of cryptography, soldiers and hackers in WWII and the present. Three years after reading it some scenes still make me laugh out loud and others still haunt me.
Susan Elizabeth Phillips – Nobody’s Baby but Mine; Heaven, Texas; Dream a Little Dream; This Heart of Mine, etc. – intelligent, witty romances. You’ll fall in love with her characters.
Nursery Crimes, by Ayelet Waldman – One in a series of “Mommy Track Mysteries” about a stay-at-home mom turned detective. The characters are funny and lovable and the mystery plot is high on twists and low on gore.
The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Orczy – a breathless, riveting adventure and romance all tied up in one incredibly fun package. Enjoyable and accessible.
Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris – a collection of autobiographical essays that left me laughing so hard I was gasping for air.
Founding Brothers, by Joseph Ellis – a wonderfully written history of the creation of our country and Constitution. I was amazed at Ellis’ ability to make the reader feel the uncertainty of the times. Despite my years of schooling in American history I actually found myself wondering “will they be able pull it off?”
— Hilary Rice, Assistant Dean of Admissions

Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics, by Diarmid O’Murchu.
After the Ecstasy, the Laundry: How the Heart Grows Wise on the Spiritual Path, by Jack Kornfield.
The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism, by Fritjof Capra.
The Fourth Dimension: Toward a Geometry of Higher Reality, by Rudy V.B. Rucker.
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, by Edwin A. Abbott.
Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps and the Tenth Dimension, by Michio Kaku.

— Jim Fergerson, Director of Insitutional Planning and Analysis

For anyone interested in knowing more about Afghanistan I can suggest West of Kabul and East of New York, by Tamin Ansary. It’s a beautifully written book by an Afghan-American who tries to bridge the two cultures. In a much different vein, there’s Ted Rall’s To Afghanistan and Back. This is about his experiences covering the war in Afghanistan.
— Jan Lee, Audio Supervisor, Ladd Library

Daniel Deronda, by George Eliot
— Cristina Malcolmson, Associate Professor of English

Three books by Peter Kreeft. The full titles are:
Socrates meets Jesus: History’s Greatest Questioner Confronts the Claims of Christ
The Best Things in Life: A 20th Century Socrates Looks at Power, Pleasure, Truth and the Good Life
A Refutation of Moral Relativism: Interviews with an Absolutist.
— Paul Kuritz, Professor of Theater and Rhetoric

In preparation for #1 grandchild (Ethan Christopher, due May 14th), I have been reading and recording:
Pat the Bunny, by Dorothy Kunhardt
The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams Bianco
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, by Bill Martin, Jr./Eric Carle
Goodnight, Moon, by Margaret Wise Brown
The Runaway Bunny, by Margaret Wise Brown
The Very Hungry Caterpillar (to match Master Ethan’s new little clothes) by Eric Carle
Guess How Much I Love You, by Sam McBratney
Sam and the Firefly, by P.D. Eastman
Miss Rumphius, by Barbara Cooney
Blueberries for Sal, by Robert McCloskey
The Far-Away Grandma, by Kathleen Haines
— Kathy Haines, Associate Director of Student Financial Services

My favorites this year are the series by Alexander McCall Smith (I think ) that starts with the book called The Number One Ladies Detective Agency. Second is Tears of the Giraffe. Third is Morality for Beautiful Girls.
They are mysteries, but more than that they are vehicles for gentle musings about cultures (Botswana in particular) and life in a changing world.
— Pam Baker, Associate Professor of Biology and Associate Dean of the Faculty

The Passion of Artemisia, by Susan Vreeland.
A novel about a female post-Renaissance painter in Italy. This book is a powerful portrait of woman who challenged the norms for women at the time because of her passion to paint. The author also wrote The Girl in Hyacinth Blue.
Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett.
Who would think that a novel about a diverse group of people held hostage in a vice-president’s house somewhere in South America could be so riveting? Instead of terror and hopelessness, though, the reader sees friendship and love develop and “hears” some beautiful music.
— Anne Dodd, Visiting Senior Lecturer in Education

Good Poems, selected and introduced by Garrison Keillor.
This is a selection of poems from the Writers Almanac, on NPR every morning. Lots of old familiars and some new ones, too.
Couldn’t Keep It to Myself, by Wally Lamb and the Women of York Correctional Institution. An amazing collection of work that defies easy description.
Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys. Story of a young woman’s life as she grows up in the Carribbean and marries an Englishman. Narrated from several points of view. Easy read, engaging writing.
Any work by Alice Hoffman.
— Karen Palin, Lecturer in Biology

After fumbling around with different instruction programs for the Italian language, my wife, Gretchen Schaefer, and I have concluded that Hugo’s Italian in Three Months is the best so far. What works for us is its light tone, a nice balance between conversational and grammar exercises, and a pace that convinces one that actual progress is being made. Trade-offs: lax copy-editing and a certain, probably inevitable, superficiality. An Italian-English dictionary and 501 Italian Verbs are good supplements, as is the Learn in Your Car cassette series. (The Hugo is available from Amazon.uk with cassette tapes that are of some use, but are too badly mastered to use in the car, and the price is shocking.) What could be better for a summer in Maine than preparing for a summer in Italy?
— Doug Hubley, Staff Writer, College Relations

Here is a book that gives you a first-hand experience and understanding of how ethnic and religious differences and nationalism destroyed the Balkans and how complicated it is for people like us Americans who might want to “fix it.” Christopher Merrill’s Only the Nails Remain tells the story of the Balkan wars through lots of brief vignettes of people he meets and works with in Slovenia, Croatia, Dalmatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Kosovo, Sarajevo and Albania, letting them speak in their own words. He himself was there in a cultural exchange program as a poet, author and teacher of English that got cancelled. The confusion of views that emerge through the leaders and intellectuals, artists and ordinary people that he interviews is astounding. You come out of this reading with a good understanding of the political complexity created by nationalism and ethnicism (if there is such a word) in this part of the world. Each part begins with a brief history of the region in layman’s terms, and because it is composed in short vignettes, it can be read in short snippets if, like me, you’ve only got brief moments for reading each day.
— Robert Allison, Professor of Religion

These four novels I discovered while teaching here on the CBB Cape Town program:
Dance with a Poor Man’s Daughter/Jooste
And They Didn’t Die/Ngcobo
The Heart of Redness/Mda
Madonna of Excelsior/Mda
— Elizabeth Eames, Associate Professor of Anthropology

PRESIDENTIAL BIOGRAPHIES
The Years of Lyndon Johnson : Volume 1: The Path to Power ;Volume 2: Means of Ascent ; and Volume 3: Master of the Senate , by Robert Caro.
My summer reading project for 2002. You might think that this monumental biography is strictly for LBJ fans, or at least die-hard history fans. Actually, quite the opposite. Caro gives an amazing amount of detailed information and so much historical background, it’s a great introduction for the history neophyte. All three books are riveting, but if you were to choose just one Vol 3 would be my recommendation. It opens with a mini-history of the U.S. Senate which every American should read.
Johnson himself comes across as a jerk, but a jerk on a grand scale. Caro’s thesis: LBJ was the ultimate lying, scheming, cynical, vote-stealing, power-hungry politician, until the final attainment of power allows him to reveal his humanity. A grand, sweeping, eminently readable political biography.
President Kennedy, by Richard Reeves (1993)
Omnipresent fear of nuclear war; the Berlin wall; Cuba; nuclear test ban treaties; civil rights struggles in the South. The issues here are never boring … well, until the end, when Kennedy and the book gets bogged down a little too much in Vietnam. Reeves’ almost day-by-day “journal” format gives a good sense of Kennedy’s almost surreal daily life. In a single day he might have a meeting about a test ban treaty, then one on Vietnam, then a phone conversation with Martin Luther King on civil rights; squeeze in a quick meeting with high school students in-between (including young Bill Clinton), and cap it off at the end of the day with a hot bath for his back and a secret liason with a mistress.
Truman, by David McCullough (1992)
Harry Truman, world’s most boring man, is “accidently” thrust into the Presidency during some of the 20th Century’s most interesting times. Funny how Republicans love him today, they hated his guts when he was President …
TRAVEL ESSAY
Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going where Captain Cook has gone before (2002) Tony Horwitz
Truly an easy, fun, but informative read. Not a biography of Captain Cook, it is a compelling hybrid of two genres: travelogue and history. It’s informative and interesting, while managing to maintain a light touch and breezy style. Not unlike Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods in its mix of breezy humor and serious research. This is exactly the kind of book I would love to write, if I had the talent for it. My only complaint with the book was that I wish Horwitz was a photographer as well as journalist; I wanted to see the places that he visited. After this, I had to read Horwitz’ other books:
Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the unfinished Civil War The formula of mixing contemporary travelogue with serious historical background again won me over. He has a terrific way of finding out ordinary people’s attitudes about big topics such as history, race, oppression, and such, and does it with a deft, even light, touch. Horwitz is the perfect travelling companion, and he manages to ask the probing questions that I wish I was smart enough to ask people when I travel.
Baghdad without a map and other misadventures in Arabia
Although this book seems cobbled together from news reports that did not get published at the time he wrote them, the essays offer an interesting picture of the mix of cultures in Middle East, mostly before the first Gulf War.
One for the road: an outback adventure
Frankly, the Australian outback doesn’t offer Horwitz much to go on. It’s a whole lotta nothing, although he does his best with what he has. The book would be helped by an amusing sidekick, or at least a more interesting part of the world to visit. That said, it’s still a pretty good — and short — travelogue of Australia and its people.
HISTORY
Look Away! A history of the Confederate states of America , by William C. Davis. I picked up this book thinking I would give the Confederacy the benefit of the doubt: “hey, this was an experiment where they built a new society and government! They must have had at least some interesting improvements and reforms on the American system.” I came away simply depressed at the small-mindedness of the whole enterprise. Davis confirms that the Confederacy really was as bad as you thought it was, maybe even worse. Not only were Confederate ideals bankrupt, even immoral, they were compromised from the start. This book was so depressing that I could not finish it.
FUN
The Nanny Diaries: A Novel , Emma McLaughlin, Nicola Kraus
This best-seller about a NYU student who works as part-time nanny to a Park Avenue family is a really weak book, but a good guilty pleasure. In truth, I could not put it down; it was a wonderful distraction from *ahem* taking care of my own kids over a long Thanksgiving weekend. Definitely recommended if you take care of young children, or if you love to poke fun at the foibles of the ultra-rich.
Live from New York , Tom Shales etc
Absolutely compelling “oral history” of Saturday Night Live, as told by the show’s performers, writers, producers, and guests over the years. Especially fun is seeing each of the stars revealed. Who is a major jerk? Who is a sane pragmatist? Who’s a whiny insecure crybaby? Which performers were generous, which were screen-hogs? And of course there’s all kinds of inside dope on celebrity excesses, drugs, sex, and the like.
FICTION
Empire Falls, byRichard Russo
At first I was blown away by the way Russo can add so much background detail into seemingly meaningless encounters and situations … but frankly it started to annoy me about halfway through. Every conversation becomes an excuse for a page-and-a-half of expository background detail. And in the end, the characters seemed too calculatedly drawn to be real (our research tells us that most book buyers see themselves as smarter than their jobs, so let’s make our main character like that! And we need a hot babe for him to lust after! And a crazy old man for comic relief!). On the other hand, it’s by no means a bad book. Russo is truly talented, he just doesn’t live up to the hype.
— Ken Zirkel, Web and Systems Coordinator

Atonement, by Ian McEwan.
As of the writing of this recommendation, I haven’t actually finished the book, but I can’t wait to tell others about it. After 100 or so pages, I can tell that this is an insightful, imaginative, and beautifully written novel, worthy of the acclaim it has already received.
— Michael Sargent, Assistant Professor of Psychology

I used this in a course but think that it would be of general interest, especially for readers who are looking for stories coming out of where we are–the northeastern woods. Howard Frank Mosher’s Where the Rivers Flow North is a collection of stories set in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom near the Vermont border. The title story especially is memorable, depicting the responses of an old lumberman and his Penobscot “housekeeper” to an electrical company that wants to drive them off the family land in order to build a dam. All the voices and the personalities are “just right.”
— Sarah Strong, Associate Professor of Japanese

Sometimes a Great Notion, by Ken Kesey
Dahlgren , by Samual Delany
The Sirens of Titan, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Also if anyone is traveling long distances by car I highly recommend listening to The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings Trilogy on books on tape. I read these years ago but having them read to you was so much better because someone else gets to pronounce all the weird names and they even sing the songs that when I read the book I would typically skip through. I found the book on tape a much more enriching experience.
In the same manner I found listening to Les Miserables and the Count of Monte Cristo also much better than reading because they pronounce all the French names for me. The Dickens classics, with some of the old English grammar, I find is also easier to listen to than read.
— Ken Emerson, Assistant Director of Human Resources

You Shall Know Our Velocity, by Dave Eggers
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, by Dave Eggers – - a memoir (Pulitzer Price Finalist)
You’re An Animal Viskovitz!, by Alessandro Boffa
Close to Shore, by Michael Capuzzo
A light summer, hair-raising page-turner about shark attacks of 1916 on NJ shore.
— John Illig , Men’s and Women’s Squash Coach

Non Campus Mentis, by Anders Henriksson
A hilarious book of malapropisms and other blunders compiled from history students’ college exams and term papers (none from Bates, of course).
— Anonymous Recommendation

Carro’s third LBJ volume, Master of the Senate is superb.
— Jim Carignan, Dean of the College

A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue, by Wendy Shalit
Generation X Goes to College: An Eye-Opening Account of Teaching in Postmodern America, by Peter Sacks
The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis
I chose the first book because it critiques a part of the modern world these students experience, emulate, and help to shape every day. The author is a graduate of Williams College, so the students might identify with her perspective. The second book will help them view their college experience from a new perspective that they might not have considered before. The Chronicles are always good for leisure reads, for people of any age, and were my favorite books growing up, so I had to include them.

— Kent Ratajeski, Visiting Assistant Professor of Geology

The Missing Piece, by Antoine Bello (Harcourt, 2003) is mystery novel cum sendup of both academia and professional sports. Highly recommended for those who enjoy puzzles.
— Anne Williams, Professor of Economics

These are both quick reads and great for a rainy day or day at the beach.
Two For the Money, by Janet Evanovich
Field Guide, by Gwendolen Gross
— Joline Froton, Office Coordinator, Bates College Store

The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold
This is the story about the murder of a young girl, named Susie. Susie narrates the story from “her” heaven. You get to follow, the grieving family, friends as they come to grips with life without Susie, as told through the eyes of Susie. I am a grieving mother and many friends and family, told me not to read this book but, I did, and I do not regret it. Yes, I cried but, I also laughed, was a little scared and thoroughly enjoyed the book. Unless you have been down this road yourself, there is no way, you can understand. I found the range of emotions Susie watched her family deal with, were quite accurate.
— Kathy Peters, Costume Shop Supervisor

Dreamcatcher, by Stephen King
A Beautiful Mind, by Sylvia Nasar
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, by J.K. Rowling
Several of Anne McAffery’s Dragonriders of Pern series
The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien
All the President’s Men, by Bernstein and Woodward
Re-read Contact, by Carl Sagan
— Gary Dawbin, Programmer/Analyst

I would recommend Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex (and it just won the Pulitzer…)
I just finished reading this wonderful book: The Blackwater Lightship, by Colm Toibin
(It was short-listed for the Booker Prize, last year I think…)
Dirty Weekend, by Helen Zahavi (the feminist answer to American Psycho) was an interesting one also…
— Perrin Lumbert, Library Assistant, Interlibrary Loan

I’ll stick my neck out and add the book I have almost finished reading. The title is Welcome to the World Baby Girl, by Fannie Flag.
— Julie Retelle, Assistant College Librarian for Access Services

Science Fictions,by John Crewdson. This is a very detailed account of the discovery of HIV and the behavior of Dr. Robert Gallo at the National Cancer Institute. It is well written and well documented.
Robert Gallo made numerous statements (in high profile journals such as Nature and Science, and even in Scientific American) that were later shown to be blatantly untrue. The book chronicles, among other things, the investigation of misconduct by the Office of Scientific Integrity and congress (led by Dingell). At stake was potentially the Nobel prize, the patent earnings of the HIV blood test and recognition for the first discovery of HIV.
Coraline, by Neil Gaiman. A spooky fairy tale. Coraline moves to a new flat and finds a door in her living room is locked. After her parents are gone, the door opens into a world where she has an “other” mother and an “other” father that allow her to eat better food (not made from recipes) and play with fun toys. The condition for staying is that she must have black buttons sewed over her eyes (and really, lose her soul). The story develops quickly and is aimed at young readers, but its very well done.
Empire Falls and The Whore’s Child: and Other Stories, by Richard Russo
Russo is adept at making his characters seem very real.
Germs, by Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg and William Broad
A good description of germ warfare programs around the world and biodefense in the US. It includes a variety of topics, including the deliberate salmonella poisonings in Oregon nearly two decades ago and what we learned after the first Gulf War about Iraq’s biowarfare capabilities.
The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, by Alexander McCall Smith. An interesting and entertaining read for a rainy day. The novel describes how Precious Ramotswe becomes the only lady detective in Botswana and some of her first cases.
— Paula Schlax, Assistant Professor of Chemistry

Savage Beauty, by Nancy Milford
Nancy Milford is never tedious and always thorough in her deeply researched biography of Edna St. Vincent Millay–Savage Beauty–that features the often-testy personal responses of the poet’s sister Norma to the author’s probing questions. The immediacy of those personal interviews enhances Milford’s credibility even as it gives rise to questions of reliability on the part of the sister-witness, whose personal shared history with her sister was at least fraught. Edna we hardly knew y’.
— Judith Robbins, Learning Associate, Dean of the Faculty’s Office

An Arrow Through The Heart,by Deborah Daw Heffernan. This book is probably one of the best I have ever read regarding a patient’s view of coping with an illness. Whether you are a caregiver or the person dealing with an acute or chronic illness, much insight is shared from Ms. Heffernan. It is very easy to read and is not at all sad and draining as so many books are that chronicle a severe illness. I found this story to be accurate with medical information, and to answer some of the mysteries that are often felt by patient, family, and friends during recuperation and the aftermath of a crisis. Very uplifting!
La Cucina, by Lily Prior
A book of RAPTURE! Very entertaining and different from anything I have ever read. You will learn how to appoint spices to a meal leaving you craving Italian Food! Sex , murder, and a mystery is really what it is all about. I hated the ending, and I hated to see it end, but it was entertaining. I have given this book as a gift to several people with pasta and a bottle of wine, and they still consider me their friend!!
— Lorraine Groves, Sales Floor Supervisor, College Store

The Whore’s Child and Other Stories, by Richard Russo
Richard Russo read this first story when he was at Bates. If you are a short-story fan you will really enjoy his true to life characters.
The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd
A very easy-to-read coming-of-age story set in the South in the 1940s.
Memoirs of a Geisha, by Arthur Golden
A long but enjoyable book that chronicles a young Chinese girl as she grows up and grows old in two different cultures.
The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother, by James McBride
This was a recent suggested book for first-year students. It deals with growing up and raising one’s children in an environment of cultural and racial struggle.
Girl in Hyacinth Blue, by Susan Vreeland
A different historical novel that combines art history and a family saga
— Sue Martin, Coordinator, Longley School Project, Center for Service Learning

I recommend Robert McNamara & James Blight’s Wilson’s Ghost. A chilling account of contemporary foreign affairs, placed in the context of Woodrow Wilson’s post-WW I proposals for international conduct. It is chilling because of the numerous parallels between what he warned against and the mistakes he and others made … and our foreign policy today. History is repeating itself.
— Richard Wagner, Professor of Psychology

Agents of Innocence, by David Ignatius. A very readable trip into the multiple layers of espionage and loyalties in the Middle East.
**Avoid Tom Clancy’s latest book, Red Rabbit. He must have fired his editor as the book is laboriously long and redundant.
— Stephen Sawyer, Associate Dean of Students

The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd. A moving story of a 15 year old girl’s search for familial love and forgiveness; set in South Carolina during the summer of 1964. Moved me to laughter and tears! Great characters! A good summer read!
— Camille Parrish, Learning Associate, Environmental Studies

Here are five good reads all available at Ladd Library.
The Moon Pearl, by Ruthanne Lum McCunn
Rather than be married off to become slaves to their husbands and mother-in-laws, three girls in 1830′s China take a vow of spinsterhood.
Look at Me, by Jennifer Egan
Charlotte, a model from New York, suffers a disfiguring accident and has to rebuild her life. The stories and quirky characters that surround her will be what keeps you reading.
Drop City, by T.C. Boyle
A group of hippies get kicked out of their commune by “the man” in 1960′s California. They head to the Alaskan bush to live off the land.
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, by Sijie Dai
Two teenage boys are taken from their families in the city to be “re-educated” in the countryside of Communist China. Lonely, faced with a life sentence of manual labor, the boys uncover a hidden treasure: a suitcase full of western-lit.
When the Emperor was Divine, by Julie Otsuka
Four chapters narrated by different members of a Japanese-American family faced with evacuation during World War II. This is a very short read but says a lot about prejudice and politicies of the times.
— Sarah McLellan, Library Assistant, Public Services

Middlesex,by Jeffrey Eugenide
Trans-sister Radio, by Chris Bohjalian
The Nautical Chart, by Arturo Perez-Reverte
The Fencing Master, by Arturo Perez-Reverte
The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold
The Secret History, by Donna Tartt
The Little Friend, by Donna Tartt
The DaVinci Code, by Dan Brown
The Dante Club, by Matthew Pearl
Blood in the Sun Triology, by Nuruddin Farah, Somali Novelist: Maps, Gifts, and Secrets
— Heather Lindqvist, Lecturer in Anthroplogy

For a true summer read that will deliver you immediately to the water’s edge, read James Sterba’s Frankie’s Place. Sterba combines a fine sense of place–the very banks of Somes Sound on Mt. Desert Island–with the tempo of a true Maine summer life, adds some marvelous recipes, the idiosyncrasies of an old Volvo and a new love, and creates a wonderful story. Sterba may be familiar to many as a foreign correspondent, writing for the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times for the past three decades.
And I have just begun Pat Conroy’s Losing Season, because I am told, by someone who seems to know, that I will learn something about life’s great lessons, and I am itching to discover them! From Publishers Weekly: “In a re-creation of the losing basketball season Conroy and his team endured during his senior year at the Citadel, 1966- 1967, Conroy gives readers an intimate look at how suffering can be transformed to become a source of strength and inspiration. Drawing on extensive interviews with his teammates, he chronicles, game by game, their talent and his sheer determination and grit. In Conroy’s hands, sports writing becomes a vehicle to describe the love and devotion that can develop between young men. Toward the end of this moving work, Conroy explains that writing books became ‘the form that praying takes in me.’ But readers will see how basketball can also be a way of reaching for something finer than a winning score. What emerges is a portrait of a young man who isn’t a soldier but a knight with a great and chivalrous heart. Anyone who was a son or knows a son will be touched by this book.”
— Sarah Potter, Bookstore Director and Contract Officer

Cassada,by James Salter
This novel is based on Salter’s experience as a fighter pilot in Europe, during the 1950′s. Also recommended is his novel about flying during the Korean War, The Hunters; Solo Faces , about his experiences climbing in Europe, and his autobiography, Burning the Days.
— Bill Low, Director, Museum of Art

John Maynard Keynes: Hopes Betrayed 1883-1920, by Robert Skidelsky.
This is the first of a three-volume biography; the last volume came out quite recently. For an academic (not necessarily an economist), the account of Keynes’ years as a young hotshot at Cambridge is fascinating. There’s also lots of stuff on the Bloomsbury group, if you like that sort of thing.
Harvard and the Unabomber, by Alston Chase
This author feels himself uniquely qualified to discuss the unabomber, in that he was a Harvard undergraduate several years before Ted Kaczynski was, and he also dropped out of academia and moved to Montana (albeit to somewhat better accommodations) in the early 1970s. Chase puts a great deal of the blame on the Harvard years in this very interesting if ultimately unsatisfying account. One wishes that Chase knew more about mathematics, and Kaczynski’s years as a graduate student at Michigan cry out for greater scrutiny.
Number 9 Dream, by David Mitchell
This is the most interesting novel I read in the past year. Mitchell aims to show he can write a weird Tokyo novel just as well as any Japanese author, and he succeeds at it remarkably well.
Why Orwell Matters, by Christopher Hitchens
This short book is reminiscent of Nicholson Baker’s classic discussion of Updike, U and I, though naturally concerned much more with politics. Hitchens’ main point is that Orwell was right about the three most important issues of his time: communism, fascism and imperialism.
— Warren Johnson, Department of Mathematics

Three Junes,by Julia Glass
I’m most of the way through the second June in this beautifully written novel in three parts set in Scotland, Greece and New York City. The author brings you inside the main characters so well that you feel like a member of this family that struggles with death, happiness, bonds between siblings, parents and children. This book is a quiet, deep drink of the small and large parts that make up life.
Other novels I’ve read recently and recommend:
The Quiet American, by Graham Greene
Written in the 1950s and set in Vietnam as the French are battling the Vietminh. The main characters are an aging British journalist and a young American military advisor who love the same Vietnamese woman. A remarkable interweaving of the personal and the political.
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, by Dai Sijie – two city boys are exiled to a remote mountain village in China during the Cultural Revolution and there find a cache of Western classics.
— Rebecca Lovett, Assistant Manager, Bates College Store

An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin, by Gad Beck
The narrator tells his story of survival with candor and character, both remarkable given his surroundings. But Gad Beck did more than survive, and he describes his life and exploits in the most joyous of terms.
— Phyllis Graber Jensen, Senior Staff Writer, College Relations

She’s Come Undone, by Wally Lamb.
I really enjoyed it although it was not an upbeat read. It was still a great book.
— Erin Foster Zsiga, Housing Coordinator, Ass’t. Coordinator of Student Activities

Cordelia Underwood, Mollie Peer, and Daniel Plainway
The first three titles in the Moosepath League series of novels by Mainer Van Reid take a look at turn-of-the-century (that’s the 20th century) Maine with a dazzling combination of dry, folksy, and slapstick humor. Best read in sequence (two other titles follow the Plainway episode, both soon to be read by this observer).
Himalayan Quest , by Ed Viesturs.
A photographic and cartographic account of an American climber’s attempt to join the exclusive club of those who have summitted the earth’s 14 8000-meter peaks; entering the 2003 spring climbing season Viesturs lacked only Annapurna and Nanga Parbat. The astonishing photographs here owe their uniqueness to the spontaneous nature of their creation, i.e. en route, on steep pitches, away from the relative safety of campsites. One shot of Everest’s shadow, snapped just below the summit at first light from within the shadow, is breathtaking. For a muggy summer day.
— Jim Lamontagne, Library Assistant, Cataloging

The First American. The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin, by H.W. Brands
The Autobiography of Quincy Jones, by Quincy Jones
Body for Life: 12 Weeks to Mental and Physical Strength, by Bill Phillips
Muscle and Fitness Training Notebook (can’t remember author)
Magazines – Muscle and Fitness, Oxygen, Fitness, and Energy
— Lori Ouellette, Administrative Assistant, Dean of the Faculty’s Office

As an innocent and poorly informed bystander, I usually hang around the area while the famous Mel is tuning our piano. He and my husband discuss the resonance of various woods or the sources of “old ivory keys”.
While keeping his professional demeanor, Mel lies on his back under the piano installing the new “waterworks” while we stand nearby at the ready with the vacuum cleaner or the pliers should he need them. It’s a wonderful and mysterious business this piano tuning, and through the years I’ve caught snippets of conversation that let me know that pianos have personalities and idiosyncrasies; but even more wonderful are those who deal in used pianos…all of which leads up to this book recommendation: The Piano Shop on the Left Bank, a nice story for players or owners.
— Jane Zocchi, Staff Nurse, Health Center