Summer Reading
 

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

Re: Summer Reading
 

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

Re: Summer Reading
 

Frankenstein
A Child called It
anything by Isaac Asimov

Re: Summer Reading
 

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

Re: Summer Reading
 

Motorcycle Diaries

Re: Summer Reading
 

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

Re: Summer Reading
 

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"

Re: Summer Reading
 

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 ]

Re: Summer Reading
 

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 [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Re: Summer Reading
 

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.

Re: Summer Reading
 

YOU MUST READ "FREAKONOMICS" BY DEVITT

ITS AWESOME. JUST A GOOD OUTLOOK TO INTERESTING QUESTIONS.

NY TIME BEST SELLER

Re: Summer Reading
 

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

link

Re: Summer Reading
 

[ 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

Re: Summer Reading
 

[ 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.

Re: Summer Reading
 

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.

Re: Summer Reading
 

[ 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

Re: Summer Reading
 

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

Re: Summer Reading
 

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.

Re: Summer Reading
 

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

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

Re: Summer Reading
 

I will recommend Pale Fire (Nabakov).

Re: Summer Reading
 

[ 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.

Re: Summer Reading
 

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

Re: Summer Reading
 

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?

Re: Summer Reading
 

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

-Diplomat

Re: Summer Reading
 

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

Re: Summer Reading
 

[ 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.

Re: Summer Reading
 

[ 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

Re: Summer Reading
 

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

Re: Summer Reading
 

ty

-Diplomat

Re: Summer Reading
 

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.

Re: Summer Reading
 

Anything by Easton Ellis.

Re: Summer Reading
 

Financial Calculus, Baxter and Rennie.

eastbay

Re: Summer Reading
 

HAVE YOU SEEN MY BASEBALL?

Re: Summer Reading
 

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.

Re: Summer Reading
 

"Guns, Germs &amp; Steel" by Jared Diamond is very very good. Won a Nonfiction Pulitzer a few years back.
A history of bombing, Sven Lindquist, is also very good and interesting

Re: Summer Reading
 

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)

Re: Summer Reading
 

[ QUOTE ]
Financial Calculus, Baxter and Rennie.

eastbay

[/ QUOTE ]

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

Re: Summer Reading
 

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

Also, The Art of War, by Sun Tzu.

-Zeno

Re: Summer Reading
 

[ 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.

Re: Summer Reading
 

I'm also considering re-reading Musashi by Yoshikawa.