When you ask someone from Arts and Science if they’ve read any good books lately, be prepared to be amazed, entertained and informed.

Richard McGregor (pictured), assistant professor of religious studies, is reading Production of Presence: What Meaning Cannot Convey by Hans Gumbrecht. 

Picture Theory by W.J.T. Mitchell (explores the conundrum that we fill our world with images, but then have no control over them)

Light of the Heavenly Bodies to Explain the Secrets of the Pyramids by Abu Jafar al-Idrisi 

On Suicide Bombing by Talal Asad (challenges our impulse to explain the motives behind acts of public violence)

Symptoms of Unknown Origin by Clifton K. Meador, BA’52, MD’55 (for a sociology of medicine class) 

Does My Child Have Autism? by Wendy Stone

Sports Illustrated 

—Gabrielle Levine, junior, psychology

The Daily Beast (a news blog with a cheat sheet of the important information out there)

The Saucy Sisters’ Guide to Wine by Barbara Nowak and Beverly Wichman

Ilium by Dan Simmons

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (for French 272)

The Art of the Short Story by Dana Gioia (for English 211)

—Katy Adams, senior, English and French

The Philosophy of Laughter and Humor edited by John Morreall 

How to Talk Dirty and Influence People by Lenny Bruce 

Women in Congress by Aristophanes 

Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

(I study comedy. I’m teaching Humor, Ancient to Modern this semester—I can’t deny it’s fun.)

—Amanda Krauss, assistant professor of classics

The Secret Lives of Citizens: Pursuing the Promise of American Life by Thomas Geoghegan

The Temple Gate Called Beautiful by David Kirby

Apollo’s Fire: A Day on Earth in Nature and Imagination by Michael Sims

A Natural History of Seeing: The Art and Science of Vision by Simon Ings

20 Questions to Ask if You Have a Great Idea or Invention by Michael H. Jester

—Jon Erickson, biological sciences bibliographer and coordinator, patent and trademark depository, Science and Engineering Library

The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman

Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome’s Greatest Politician by Anthony Everitt

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Performing Songwriter

Reader’s Digest

Prevention

National Geographic

USA Today and The State newspapers online

—Tonya Mills, administrative assistant, political science

          

Junior Vivien G. Haupt (pictured), psychology, is reading Brain Sex by Anne Moir and David Jessel for her neuroscience class. 

Other recent reads:

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

The Pickup by Nadine Gordimer (as part of a reading group with her mom)

The State Of The Earth by Paul Conkin, professor of history, emeritus (makes me want to meet the author)

Papers on the synchronous discharge of nerve cells in the cerebral cortex

The Bourne Betrayal by Robert Ludlum (airport reading)

—Ford Ebner, professor of psychology and professor of cell and developmental biology

The New Yorker

The New York Times (online)

Empire Falls by Richard Russo

Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama

The Republic in Print by Trish Loughran

The Postal Age by David M. Henkin

—Teresa A. Goddu,
director of American studies and associate professor of English

Ghost Riders by Sharyn McCrumb

Spider Woman’s Web: Traditional Native American Tales about Women’s Power by Susan Hazen-Hammond

Traditions of the Arapaho by George A. Dorsey and Alfred L. Kroeber

— Anne Hill, administrative assistant, history of art

Rethinking Expertise by Harry Collins and Robert Evans

Why Posterity Matters by Avner de-Shalit 

New Foundations of Cost-Benefit Analysis 
by Matthew D. Adler and Eric A. Posner 

Worst-Case Scenarios by Cass Sunstein 

Climate Change 2007, Vol II: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
by IPCC Working Group 2 

Experience and Nature by John Dewey

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
by Lawrence Sterne 

Judge Fogg by Randy O’Brien 

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (bedtime reading to my daughter) by J.K. Rowling

Out of the Labyrinth: Setting Mathematics Free by Robert Kaplan and Ellen Kaplan 

—Jonathan Gilligan, senior lecturer in earth and environmental science and public policy

Linda Tressel by Anthony Trollope

Miss Majoribanks by Margaret Oliphant

Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell

The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton

The Monk by Matthew Lewis

—Jo Ann Staples, senior lecturer in mathematics and director of teaching

The New Yorker 

Now a Major Motion Picture by Christine Geraghty

Scripts by a very talented Russian script writer of the 1970s, Iurii Klepikov

— Irina Makoveeva, Mellon Assistant Professor of Russian

Blogs: Hot Air, Protein Wisdom, The Next Right and American Thinker

Defending Identity by Natan Sharansky

— Mike Warren, junior, economics

Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet by Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon

Back issues of The New York Times and various books on the Vietnam War 

Propitious Esculent: The Potato in World History by John Reader (reading it was more fun than it sounds) 

—Peter Brush, librarian and East Asian studies bibliographer

Apple’s Steve Jobs recently uttered the bromide that people don’t read anymore. Don’t tell that to people connected to the College of Arts and Science. Here’s a selected bibliography of what we are reading now.

   

Senior Allison Riley (pictured), a French major, reads for class and pleasure:

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

La Princesse de Clèves

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Wicked by Gregory Maguire

Absurdistan: A Novel by Gary Shteyngart

Bearing Witness against Sin: The Evangelical Birth of the American Social Movement by Michael P. Young

The Art of Moral Protest by James Jasper

— Steven Jay Tepper, assistant professor of sociology and associate director, Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy

The New York Times and The New Yorker (faithfully but selectively, i.e. not cover to cover)

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

In the Midst of Chaos: Caring for Children as Spiritual Practice by Bonnie Miller-McLemore

— Patricia Armstrong, senior lecturer of French and Italian and assistant director, Center for Teaching

Photo by John Russell.