Summer Reading

[Diplomat]

All right,

Anyone reading anything interesting this summer? Usually I grab a bunch of things around this time and try to have them all read by September 1st. I usually shoot for 8-10 books over the summer, but this year my list is pretty short:

1. Fathers and Sons by Turgenev
2. The Grifters by Thompson
3. East of Eden by Steinbeck
4. Against the Gods by Bernstein

That's it. Anyone reading anything interesting?

-Diplomat

[tbach24]

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
(insert some classic American literature I havne't decided yet [suggestions?])
Harry Potter 6
Founding Fathers

[Reef]

Frankenstein
A Child called It
anything by Isaac Asimov

[Ulysses]

My last two:

Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Hollywood Animal by Joe Eszterhas

My next two:

Stranger Than Fiction by Chuck Palahniuk
Ugly Americans by Ben Mezrich

[ClaytonN]

Motorcycle Diaries

[RacersEdge]

Blink (Gladwell) is a good nonfic. Maybe applies to poker.

[tbach24]

If I get done with those I'd like to read "Mysterious Incidents of a Dog" or w/e it's called and "Tipping Point"

[jakethebake]

One day I'm going to get through The University of Texas List of Unrequired Reading. I start again every couple of years, and I'm about halfway through at this point. This thread's timing was very good. I'm currently deciding what to read from it this summer.

[ QUOTE ]
FRESHMAN
Unrequired Reading Substitutions
[Philosophy and other topics]
The Problems of Philosophy - B. Russell
The Worldly Philosophers - R. Heilbroner
The Religions of Man - H. Smith
The Republic - Plato
A History of Western Philosophy - B. Russell
The Social Contract - J.J. Rousseau

[Science]
The Double Helix - J. Watson
Awakenings - O. Sacks
The Lives of a Cell - L. Thomas
The Discoverers - D. Boorstin
The Panda's Thumb - S. Gould
King Solomon's Ring - K. Lorenz

[Literature]
The Odyssey - Homer (T.E. Lawrence translation)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
The Sun Also Rises - E. Hemingway
Antigone/Oedipus Rex - Sophocles
Pride and Prejudice - J. Austen
Heart of Darkness - J. Conrad

[History]
The Historian's Craft - M. Bloch
The American Political Tradition - R. Hofstadter
Young Man Luther - E. Erikson
Samuel Johnson - J. Wain
The Making of the Middle Ages - R. Southern
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin - B. Franklin

SOPHOMORE
[Philosophy and other topics]
The Nicomachean Ethics - Aristotle
Democracy in America - A. de Tocqueville
Genesis, Exodus, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, & Amos - Old Testament
Luke, John, Acts, Galatians, & Ephesians - New Testament The Prince - N. Machiavelli
Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed - P. Hallie
The Theory of Social and Economic Organization - M. Weber

[Science]
Microbe Hunters - P. De Kruif
Science and the Modern World - A.N. Whitehead
The First Three Minutes - S. Weinberg
The Creative Explosion - J. Pfeiffer
Knowledge and Wonder - V. Weisskopf
Einstein - J. Bernstein

[Literature]
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass - L. Carroll
Richard II - W. Shakespeare
Moby Dick - H. Melville
Paradise Lost - J. Milton
Tom Jones - H. Fielding
Brideshead Revisited - E. Waugh

[History]
The Defeat of the Spanish Armada - G. Mattingly
This Hallowed Ground - B. Catton
Melbourne - D. Cecil
The Education of Henry Adams - H. Adams
History of the Conquest of Mexico - W. Prescott
Origins of the New South - C. Vann Woodward

JUNIOR
[Philosophy and other topics]
Utilitarianism/On Liberty - J. S. Mill
Purposes of Art, Second Edition - A. Elsen
The Varieties of Religious Experience - W. James Pragmatism - W. James
Meaning in Western Architecture - C. Norberg-Schulz
Witness - W. Chambers

[Science]
A Mathematician's Apology - G. Hardy
The Rise of Scientific Philosophy - H. Reichenbach
The Cosmic Code - H. Pagels
On Human Nature - E. O. Wilson
The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution - C.P. Snow
Scientific Knowledge and its Social Problems - J. Ravetz

[Literature]
Candide - F. Voltaire
Hamlet - W. Shakespeare
The Norton Anthology of Poetry, Third Edition/Don Quixote - M. Cervantes
Hard Times - C. Dickens
To the Lighthouse - V. Woolf

[History]
The White Nile - A. Moorehead
The Crisis of the Old Order - A. Schlesinger
Hitler: A Study in Tyranny - A. Bullock
Huey Long - T.H. Williams
The Old Regime and the French Revolution - A. de Tocqueville
The Raven - M. James

SENIOR
[Philosophy and other topics]
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals - I. Kant
The Federalist - Hamilton, Madison, & Jay
Ed. B.F. Wright
The Screwtape Letters - C.S. Lewis
The Road to Serfdom - F. Hayek
The Road to Wigan Pier - G. Orwell
A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy - K. Marx

[Science]
Science: Good, Bad, and Bogus - M. Gardner
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions - T. Kuhn
Mankind Evolving - T. Dobzhansky
The Growth of Biological Thought - E. Mayr
Chance and Necessity - J. Monod
The Nature of Light and Color in the Open Air - M. Minnaert

[Literature]
A Midsummer Night's Dream - W. Shakespeare
The Brothers Karamazov - F.M. Dostoyevsky
Bread and Wine - I. Silone
War and Peace - L.N. Tolstoy
Light in August - W. Faulkner
The Magic Mountain - T. Mann

[History]
Russia and the West Under Lenin and Stalin - G. Kennan
Tumultuous Years - R. Donovan
Stillwell and the American Experience in China - B. Tuchman Stalin as Revolutionary - R. Tucker
The Rebel - A. Camus
Autobiography of Malcolm X - M. Little

[/ QUOTE ]

[shadow29]

Oh, Lost by Thomas Wolfe (also known as Look Homeward, Angel. http://tinyurl.com/b9psr) I couldn't find the Oh, Lost version (it's updated and expanded from author's notes, etc)

Anything by Faulkner, really.

Sanctuary (http://tinyurl.com/c2acw) is probably the most accessible (rmarrotti, feel free to comment).

The Sound and the Fury (http://tinyurl.com/a2lu5) is the best known, and got me hooked on Faulkner. If you can get through the first section (I recommend reading it thrice, twice at the beginning and once when you're done with the book) you can get through most anything in literature.

edit- Wolfe + TSATF should take the summer. Enjoy /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[StevieG]

I just read "The Devil In The White City" by Erik Larson and found it a great read. Stylized account of true events around the Chicago World's fair, with extensive citations.

I also recently read "Quicksilver" by Neal Stephenson. Dense, but enjoyable if you can wade through all the politics and name droppig of the first portion.

If you have not read the Harry Potter stories, now is a fine time, with book 6 due out in July. They make for fast reading, even the later, larger volumes.

I'll second the "Blink" nomination, too.

[DemonDeac]

YOU MUST READ "FREAKONOMICS" BY DEVITT

ITS AWESOME. JUST A GOOD OUTLOOK TO INTERESTING QUESTIONS.

NY TIME BEST SELLER

[rmarotti]

This was my required readinglist in college. All of them are pretty good /images/graemlins/grin.gif

link (http://thomasaquinas.edu/curriculum/index.htm)

[Diplomat]

[ QUOTE ]
YOU MUST READ "FREAKONOMICS" BY DEVITT

ITS AWESOME. JUST A GOOD OUTLOOK TO INTERESTING QUESTIONS.

NY TIME BEST SELLER

[/ QUOTE ]

SINCE YOU TYPED THIS OUT IN CAPITALS I WILL CHECK IT OUT. OR MAYBE I WILL NOT.

-Diplomat

[tbach24]

[ QUOTE ]
YOU MUST READ "FREAKONOMICS" BY DEVITT

ITS AWESOME. JUST A GOOD OUTLOOK TO INTERESTING QUESTIONS.

NY TIME BEST SELLER

[/ QUOTE ]

I GOT THIS AS A GRADUATION GIFT. I WILL CHECK IT OUT NOW THAT YOU HAVE RECOMMENDED IT IN ALL CAPS.

[RicktheRuler]

I like this list, but I would have chosen a different Faulkner novel. Absalom, Absalom and the Sound and the Fury are far better than Light in August.

[DemonDeac]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
YOU MUST READ "FREAKONOMICS" BY DEVITT

ITS AWESOME. JUST A GOOD OUTLOOK TO INTERESTING QUESTIONS.

NY TIME BEST SELLER

[/ QUOTE ]

SINCE YOU TYPED THIS OUT IN CAPITALS I WILL CHECK IT OUT. OR MAYBE I DEFINETLY WILL.

-Diplomat

[/ QUOTE ]

FYP

[sfer]

Like everyone I know read The Life of Pi. Like everyone I know hated The Life of Pi. Me too.

[gumpzilla]

A "great books" approach doesn't seem too bad to me from a liberal arts perspective. But good God, I cannot imagine trying to do a technical subject this way.

[Diplomat]

Yeah. That's a lot of reading. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Definitely some good ideas in there though.

I forgot to mention the first book of the summer for me, The Master and the Margarita by Bulgakov. It's a great read, and somewhat quick (445 pages or so). Tons of symbolism and humour.

-Diplomat

[RicktheRuler]

I will recommend Pale Fire (Nabakov).

[Ulysses]

[ QUOTE ]
Like everyone I know read The Life of Pi. Like everyone I know hated The Life of Pi. Me too.

[/ QUOTE ]

Weird. I and everyone I know liked it.

[Diplomat]

I've heard good things about Stranger than Fiction but haven't picked it up yet. I started reading Choke, but couldn't really get into it. Maybe that's what's putting me off..

*shrug*

-Diplomat

[gvibes]

East of Eden slays me every time I read it. I haven't read it since early in college, so maybe I need to read it again. I think I read everything by Steinbeck during high school, and you really can't go wrong.

Against the Gods is also pretty sweet.

I unfortunately am reading almost entirely trash right. I've never read Stephen King before, so I'm trying the Dark Tower.

I have a few books I never quite finished, such as Lost Languages, and Beyond Fear - I need to work on those.

Is it bad if I refuse to read Da Vinci Code and Devil in a White Dress only because just about everyone on the train is reading one or the other?

[Diplomat]

It took a while to gain momentum, but wasn't bad. Wouldn't call it fantastic though.

-Diplomat

[Diplomat]

Yeah I think Against the Gods will be pretty neat. I rarely read anything like it and have heard very good things.

I started East of Eden today, so far so good.

-Diplomat

[Ulysses]

[ QUOTE ]
I've heard good things about Stranger than Fiction but haven't picked it up yet. I started reading Choke, but couldn't really get into it. Maybe that's what's putting me off..

[/ QUOTE ]

Fight Club and Survivor are my two favorite books by him.

[mason55]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
YOU MUST READ "FREAKONOMICS" BY DEVITT

ITS AWESOME. JUST A GOOD OUTLOOK TO INTERESTING QUESTIONS.

NY TIME BEST SELLER

[/ QUOTE ]

SINCE YOU TYPED THIS OUT IN CAPITALS I WILL CHECK IT OUT. OR MAYBE I definitely WILL.

-Diplomat

[/ QUOTE ]

FYP

[/ QUOTE ]

FYFYP

[nbake]

<font color="white">blah </font>

[Diplomat]

ty

-Diplomat

[smurph]

I'll third or fourth this vote. It was good but short (about 200pgs)for $26, borrow it if you can. I'm just finishing Vonnegut's short story collection Welcome to the Monkey House which is excellent. Reading Slaughterhosue five next.

[thatpfunk]

Anything by Easton Ellis.

[eastbay]

Financial Calculus, Baxter and Rennie.

eastbay

[Jeff W]

HAVE YOU SEEN MY BASEBALL?

[wall_st]

The art of intrusion - Kevin mitnick, all about hacker exploits
Skinny dip - Carl hiaasen
Chronicles volume one - Bob dylan
some 2+2 books probably

I have a 50 gift certificate to border's, I need to explore some of these recommendations.

[Il_Mostro]

"Guns, Germs &amp; Steel" by Jared Diamond is very very good. Won a Nonfiction Pulitzer a few years back.
A history of bombing (http://www.svenlindqvist.com/main.asp?cat=2&amp;lang=2&amp;id=88), Sven Lindquist, is also very good and interesting

[Anders_G]

I feel an urge to promote some Swedish litterature. They're all good. Brackets are litteral english title.

Marianne Fredrikson - Simon och ekarna (Simon and the Oaks)
Pär Lagerkvist - Dvärgen (The Dwarf)
Pär Lagerkvist - Gäst hos verkligheten (Gues of Reality)
Hjalmar Söderberg - Doktor Glas (Doctor Glass)

[sfer]

[ QUOTE ]
Financial Calculus, Baxter and Rennie.

eastbay

[/ QUOTE ]

I think An Introduction to the Mathematics of Financial Derivatives by Neftci is better.

[Zeno]

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon.

Also, The Art of War, by Sun Tzu.

-Zeno

[Il_Mostro]

[ QUOTE ]
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon.

Also, The Art of War, by Sun Tzu.

-Zeno

[/ QUOTE ]
Along the same lines, I hear that "Collapse", Jared Diamonds new book is very good. Although can't vouch for it, have not read it yet.
Also, "The collapse of complex societies", Joseph Tainter is also supposed to be good, a bit on the dry and achademic side, but good.

[jakethebake]

I'm also considering re-reading Musashi (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/4770019572/qid=1118237736/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/002-6914544-2230407?v=glance&amp;s=books&amp;n=507846) by Yoshikawa.

[turnipmonster]

I didn't hate life of pi. except for maybe the part where it went all x-files.

[turnipmonster]

my general goal is to read more nonfiction, including a good book about islam. also "collapse" by jared diamond.

if I can make a recommendation, the best book I've read recently is jonathan safran foer's "extremely loud and incredibly close". it's much better and deeper than his first novel.

--turnipmonster

[Diplomat]

Slaughterhouse Five is a great quick read. If you dig Vonnegut, check out Breakfast of Champions; it's kinda messed (as you'd expect Vonegut to be) but excellent.

-Diplomat

[Diplomat]

Nice, will add this for sure.

BTW, happy birthday.

-Diplomat

[sfer]

[ QUOTE ]
It took a while to gain momentum, but wasn't bad. Wouldn't call it fantastic though.

-Diplomat

[/ QUOTE ]

I had the opposite reaction. I liked the first 80 or so pages and was then bored to tears, and then aggravated.

[sfer]

[ QUOTE ]
I didn't hate life of pi. except for maybe the part where it went all x-files.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah. That was weird.

[Jett Rink]

Island of the Sequined Love Nun
Summer of '42
Catcher in The Rye
A Prayer for Owen Meany
Jaws
Catch 22

[Anders_G]

How come noone has mentioned The Holy Bible yet? Or any kind of religios holy book like the Koran or whatnot..

[edtost]

Code Complete - Steve McConnell
Joel on Software - Joel Spolsky
The Intelligent Investor - Ben Graham
Harry Potter whenever it comes out
Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon (maybe)
The C Programming Language - Kernighan + Ritchie (maybe)

[tbach24]

[ QUOTE ]
How come noone has mentioned The Holy Bible yet? Or any kind of religios holy book like the Koran or whatnot..

[/ QUOTE ]

I've already read Liar's Poker and Moneyball.

[goofball]

[ QUOTE ]
Ben Mezrich

[/ QUOTE ]

Fellow who wrote 'Bringing down the House' which I enjoyed. Have you read any of his other stuff? Worthwhile?

[mmbt0ne]

I'm reading The Global Brain right now. I also just stole Caddy for Life from my mom, so I'll be reading that soon.

I wanted to get 12 Caesars after seeing some good reviews about it here, but the Borders I went to didn't have it. I'm gonna have to order it online.