Millikin English Summer Reading List 2008

Download a PDF file of the 2008 MU Summer Reading List to share with friends.

999: Twenty-Nine Original Tales of Horror and Suspense ed. Al Sarrantonio. (ISBN: 0380805189)
Of the many anthologies of horror & suspense, this is perhaps one of the best. Carefully compiled by award-winning horror and science fiction writer Al Sarrantonio, the collection includes macabre tales by such masters as William Peter Blatty, Stephen King, and Joyce Carol Oates. Each story is a haunting journey into the unnatural, and definitely compels one to leave the lights on and the doors locked on warm summer night. (Judi Crowe)

1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare by James Shapiro. (ISBN: 0571214819)
I spent a month last summer in Washington, D.C. Every morning I read this book with my morning coffee. It was good company. This is a compelling narrative of Shakespeare’s annus mirabilis, the year he wrote three of his most remarkable plays (Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like It) and most likely began Hamlet. Shapiro considers Shakespeare’s work and life—to the extent we know it—in the context of the events and anxieties that preoccupied Elizabethans in that ominous year before the century turned. (Lisa Klotz)

American Gods by Neil Gaiman. (ISBN: 0380789035)
Author Neil Gaiman has written comics, film scripts and fantasy/science-fiction novels. One of his best novels is the Hugo Award-winning American Gods. This modern day combination of fantasy and world mythology is a remarkable read, much of it set in the American Midwest. (And I suspect that some of the towns mentioned are from right here in central Illinois.) The protagonist, Shadow, finds himself embedded in a war between reincarnated gods from multiple cultures. His own quest to come to terms with his wife's death (and bizarre resurrection) make up a fun and evocative summer page turner. It stands alone as a good read, but I'd keep a mythology encyclopedia nearby to satisfy your curiosity. (Michael O'Conner)

An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England by Brock Clarke. (ISBN: 1565125517)
When he was 18 Sam Pulsifier accidentally burned down Emily Dickinson's house in Massachusetts. Being the son of a college professor and a high school English teacher, it was an event he was pretty sure he'd never hear the end of. Sam served a prison sentence at a minimum security prison among stockbrokers and the New York elite learning the difference between successful people and "bumblers." When he was released he found out that besides the many death threats and insults his family had received over the years, he had also received fan mail. "There were more letters, and they all wanted the same thing. All of them wanted me to burn down the houses of a variety of dead writers — Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott, Robert Lowell, Nathaniel Hawthorne. Some of the correspondents wanted me to burn down the homes of writers I'd never even heard of." Every last one of them offered money in exchange for Sam's services. And with those letters in mind, Sam goes to work... (Dana Williams)

Ash Moon Anthology: Poems on Aging in Modern English Tanka edited by Alexis Rotella and Denis M. Garrison. (ISBN: 978-0-6151-9642-8)
The Zen aesthetic of wabi-sabi demonstrates the recognition that things are often more beautiful, more treasured, more emotionally significant when they are somewhat broken, slightly worn out, aged by human use, subject to the natural laws of decay or uniquely unfinished. In the Ash Moon Anthology, contemporary tanka poets explore the aesthetics of aging, the wabi-sabi of the human experience. These tanka examine the feelings and psychological insights that can only come with a lifetime of surviving into old age, when we recognize the impermanence and transitory nature of our bodies, our minds, our selves. These English tanka of aging celebrate and explore a wide range of moments conveying the feelings of being fully alive in our imperfect, broken, unfinished bodies, minds and souls. (Randy Brooks)

Beloved by Toni Morrison. (ISBN: 978-0452280625)
Toni Morrison’s Beloved is a slave narrative of a feat not uncommon to the times: a mother killing her own child to keep her from the horrors of enslavement. In Beloved, however, the child returns. First, she, only known as “Beloved,” is a ghost haunting the house where her mother and sister live. Then, when exorcised from the home, she returns in corporeal form the age she would have been had she lived. Read the story to explore the haunting nightmares and realities of slave families in the historical context of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793 which made it illegal for anyone in any free or slave state to assist slaves in escaping or protect and house escaped slaves and their children (born before or after their initial escape). (Aubrie Cox & others)

Beloved: A Web Case Book edited by Dr. Carmella Braniger, Pat Steadman, Sarah Corso, and Amber McKinney. Designed & published by Dr. Randy Brooks, Justin Miller, Rachael Cummings, and Sarah Scharnett.
Web site: <http://www.millikin.edu/english/beloved/>
This casebook was developed by Millikin University students from Dr. Carmella Braniger’s “Writing About Literature” class (EN 202). As an entry level class focusing on learning to interact with and write about great works of literature, especially from a critical theoretical perspective, the course offers students the opportunity to integrate theory and practice in real-world writing situations. The class took as its final project an in-depth study of Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved. All students in the class researched, studied and wrote a critical essay about the novel using a theoretical perspective for interpretation. The essays chosen for publication in Beloved: A Web Case Book are the very best work by the students in this class. (Randy Brooks)

Catch Me If You Can by Frank Abagnale. (ISBN: 0767905385)
Anyone who enjoyed the high jinks of the DeCaprio and Hanks movie will love this memoir that inspired it. As daring and improbable as the deceptions are in the film adaptation, the real-life Abagnale seems to have even sturdier nerves of steel, assuming his way into more roles and professions, longer tenures, and more elaborate deceptions than the movie details. I opened this book at 11 on a week night and could not sleep for the romp and tension of it. I finished the book at about 7 the following morning and did not regret the loss of a night’s sleep. (Stephen Frech)

Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett. (ISBN: 0439372976)
As part of an Honors Seminar I taught last fall on "genius," Blue Balliett's Chasing Vermeer is a remarkable adolescent-level book that is both entertaining and educational. It follows the story of two children, Petra and Calder, members of a lab school six grade class at the University of Chicago, and their teacher Ms. Hussey, all on the trail of a stolen Vermeer painting. This sophisticated mystery mixes codes, puzzles, math and questions about art in such satisfying ways that it will please juvenile and adult readers alike. It also deals with fascinating issues of how accelerated children feel emotionally about their talents and provides excellent examples of ways to enhance education in this country. (Michael O'Conner)

Commas & Ampersands by Stephen Moore. (ISBN:978-0-9787441-5-1)
Commas & Ampersands is a collection of original short drama written by Steve Moore. He wrote these short plays as a daily exercise in playwriting, following the lead of Suzan-Lori Park’s 365 Days/365 Plays. While his project only made it to 63 plays, this is a chapbook of seven of the best. If you like a postmodern angst and solemn edginess, you will enjoy the playful approach to capturing the small dramas of life in these short shorts published by Bronze Man Books. (Randy Brooks)

Crabwalk by Gunther Grass. (ISBN: 0156029707)
Germany has constructed countless memorials to its victims in WW II. But what if it has failed to mourn its own dead—including those victimized by other nations' war crimes—because it is considered (and considers itself) guilty of history's worst nightmare? Gunther Grass's recent short novel, Crabwalk, deals with the Soviets' sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff and the death of some 9,000 German refugees, largely children, at the end of the war. The narrator's son, it turns out, is the teen-aged neo-Nazi whose website celebrates Gustloff as the Nazi martyr, assassinated by a Jew, after whom the ship is named. Repressed history re-appears in a gripping story of a maritime disaster worse than the Titanic. (Andy Matthews)

The Darjeeling Limited directed by Wes Anderson. [dvd]
This fine film begins as a story of three brothers’ “spiritual journey,” equipped with references to age, birth and death. But the exquisitely designed train trip through India leaves us thinking not only about sibling relationships, filial piety, and the importance of family, but also about what it means to be in the midst of a world that is irreparably global, to come to understand and misunderstand that world as much as we can. This is Wes Anderson’s finest film. Owen Wilson needs no introduction. But Jason Schwartzman’s return to the fold of Anderson’s filmmaking truly shows us the mark of a performer who has continually developed in the best ways a quite short leading man can. Adrian Brody’s sympathy and scorn radiate from his eyes at every turn. Angelica Huston’s matriarchal prowess has us raising our hands like schoolchildren. Bill Murray’s cameo (“symbol”) is priceless and sets the tone for an unrelenting trek through the time it takes to be human. This movie makes you know you don’t have it so bad after all, and at the same time that you can try just a little bit harder. (Carmella Braniger)

Dirty Napkin. Web literary magazine: <http://dirtynapkin.com/>
Jeremy C. Ellis and some friends have started an online literary journal called Dirty Napkin. Three of the five editorial board members are Millikin English alums including Jeremy Ellis '03, Tim Rhomberg '05, and Katie Schmid '06. In addition to the Millikin alums, Jennifer Howard is the fiction editor and Christopher Goodrich is the poetry editor. The first two issues have been published online and are available in print. All poems, stories and letters are published in both print and audio editions. The audio edition is available online. For an excellent reading of new poetry in the authors’ own voices, visit the web site and subscribe to this excellent new literary rag. (Randy Brooks)

Dissolution by C. J. Sansom. (ISBN:0142004308)
C.J. Sansom has both a Ph.D. in history and a career as a solicitor in England. The series starting with Dissolution has allowed him to combine his two areas of expertise. These novels are historical mysteries, set in the time of Henry VIII, featuring a hunchbacked lawyer named Matthew Shardlake. Shardlake expresses many of the mixed emotions of people during this time period and shows growth in his awareness of corruption and in his loss of naiveté in this novel. (Jim Meyer)

Eros the Bittersweet by Anne Carson. (ISBN:1564781887)
Starting with the earliest written Grecian fragments on love, Carson meditates on eros, exploring the concept philosophically and through the incisive lens of a poet. Her wit and irony intermingle with a deep sincerity as she carefully works to lift the veil, even if only for a moment, to show a glimpse of what it means to love, to be, to know—and to attempt do all these in writing that must for the first time harness the spoken word. Bittersweet, or sweetbitter (as Carson translates from Sappho’s fragment) embodies desire: the painful and alluring edge of being and knowing. If this book is about love it is also just as much about the drive and resistance toward knowing. A former cataloger, a classicist and poet by trade and at heart, Caron’s words are ones we read over and over again, finding something new each time. (Carmella Braniger)

The Girl with No Shadow by Joanne Harris. (ISBN:0061431621)
This sequel to Harris’s Chocolat has definitely been worth the wait. While initially a bit darker than its predecessor, Vianne Rocher is still at heart the same character we knew from her previous adventures, but her life is more complicated now as she navigates between love, business, and the safety of her family. Detailed, wonderfully crafted, and well-paced, it’s an intriguing and ultimately rewarding summer read. (Judi Crowe)

I Never Saw Another Butterfly by Hana Volavkova. (ISBN:0805210156)
This book represents a unique addition to a library on the Holocaust. The poems and drawings were done by children in the concentration camp at Terezin—children who for the most part did not survive. Thus the poems and drawings can complement other accounts of the concentration camps which are written by survivors (such as Elie Wiesel's Night, for example). (Jim Meyer)

If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho translated by Anne Carson. (ISBN:0375410678)
The music of a woman who devoted her life to composing and singing songs translated by a woman devoted to bringing language to life, If Not, Winter collects all of Sappho’s fragments, no matter how broken or lost, in a translation that illuminates the beauty of poiesis. Here we see Sappho reflecting on love, ceremony, tapestries, bees, betrayal, war, chickpeas, longing, loss, youth and old age, prayer, dance, shame, time and other struggles and celebrations of being human. Under the guidance of this poet and scholar of classical literature, Sappho shines forth in a new light—bright, awake and alive. (Carmella Braniger)

In Her Absence by Antonio Munoz Molina. (ISBN: 1590512537)
In Her Absence is a very amusing contemporary novella by Spanish writer Antonio Munoz Molina. It's about love and infatuation, art and artistic pretension. A provincial bureaucrat falls in love with a sophisticated lover of art—and artists. He manages to win her affections (and pretend to understand her tastes) after her disastrous affair with a fashionable new painter and before the arrival of a fashionable new "media artist." Bohemians will identify. (Andy Matthews)

Jean-Jacques Roussseau: Restless Genius by Leo Damrosch. (ISBN: 0618872027)
I love biography. I have a secret plan to write a biography. If you love biography too, then read Jean-Jacques Roussseau: Restless Genius. Damrosch clearly likes the surprising and unusual man Rousseau was, and I bet you will too. Uneducated and ill-suited for conventional work (he hated applying himself to any task not of his own making), as a young man Rousseau led a nearly vagabond life, trying his hand at alternative ways to make money (such as teaching music) and allowing himself to be supported by an older woman who also became his lover. In his mid-twenties, lonely and rejected in love, he consoled himself by turning in earnest to nature and books; as Damrosch notes, Rousseau’s innate love of learning “now became a substitute for relationships.” It’s hard to believe that one of the western world’s most influential philosophers and writers was self-taught, but Rousseau had a true hunger to learn; he later wrote, “To know nothing at almost twenty-five, and to want to learn everything, is to commit oneself to making the best use of one’s time.” You could do worse than commit your time to reading this account of a most interesting man, one whose revolutionary ideas (measuring the self by the expectations of society causes people to bury their authentic selves; one should probe one’s experiences to find out who one really is) we take for granted now. (Lisa Klotz)

Lake Wobegone Summer 1956 by Garrison Keillor. (ISBN: 9780142000939)
Garrison Keiller (host of NPR’s Prairie Home Companion and one of our great story tellers) hands the narrative reins of this novel over to Gary, a teenage boy in his urgent desire to become a writer and his growing desire for girls. In Keillor’s nostalgic glow, Gary covers the county baseball team for the local newspaper and watches from a frustrating distance his cousin’s romance. Fun and funny, this coming-of-age novel makes for a light summer read. (Stephen Frech)

Later, At the Bar by Rebecca Barry. (ISBN: 9781416563407)
Using a strategy similar to Steinbeck’s in Cannery Row and Anderson’s in Wineburg, Ohio, Barry constructs her novel as a series of stories and character portraits. We come to know the people of this working class town as the center of their own struggles or hovering, usually over a beer at the local tavern, on the periphery of others’. Booklist recognizes Barry’s humor, but asserts: “[H]er comedy isn't broad, loud, or pushy. No, Barry's wit is cunning and covert, sneaking up on the reader through the thicket of sorrow her characters create as they botch one marriage after another, have damaged children, go broke, drink much too much, get in fights and accidents, and land in jail. And yet what romantics they are.” Barry, a Barnes and Nobel Discover New Writers winner, participated in Millikin’s 2008 Literary Festival. (Stephen Frech)

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen. (ISBN: 0743296281)
Revised in both 2007 and 2008 (the latter is the hardback revision), this is a fascinating look at some of the most popular high-school history textbooks. Loewen, a sociologist, set out to determine why his college freshmen were ignorant of American history, and in the process learned about serious omissions, inconsistencies, and outright untruths in the major history textbooks adopted for our public high school. While historians I’ve spoken with indicate that this book isn’t good history, my take is that it isn’t supposed to be history. As a sociologist, Loewen is studying what students are being fed by history textbooks (and not history teachers, necessarily, as my own informal surveys of freshman would indicate). This is a sociological look at the texts our schools provide for students, and it ain’t pretty. Loewen is a really good writer, and the book reveals interesting connections among contemporary political/social problems that many in this country simply do not understand. Much of the information in this book isn’t necessarily new to someone who’s read widely, but the way that Loewen presents it, and the connections he makes, makes you think carefully about the textbook adoption process and what our children are learning in high school history classes. It also helps that Loewen went to school in Decatur, so there’s a local connection. It’s definitely worth a read! (Michael George)

The Lincoln Poems by Dan Guillory. (ISBN: 978-193227853-8)
In The Lincoln Poems Dan Guillory blends his scholar’s knowledge about Lincoln with his gifts of writing poetry to give us an imagined poetry memoir of the emotional life of Abe Lincoln. Borrowing from the Japanese tradition of haibun, Guillory begins each entry with a carefully researched prose introduction explaining the historical context or events and issues within a moment of Lincoln’s life. Then the lyrical poem leaps out of and beyond the historical prose into a dramatic monologue expressing the emotional perspective of Lincoln. Through these poems we join Guillory in imagining the possible inner life and mind of Abe the boy, the young man, the autodidact, the lawyer, the husband, the friend, the father, the politician, the emancipator and the commander in chief. What a pleasure it is to go on Guillory’s guided tour of significant but transcendent moments in Lincoln’s life and to imagine what Lincoln might have felt, thought, and expressed if he had been blessed with time to reflect on his life and write his own memoir. (Randy Brooks)

Looking Backward, 2000-1887 by Edward Bellamy. (ISBN: 1420925709)
"Bellamy's famed utopian novel, first published in 1888, stirred its original 19th century readers into forming clubs to propel Bellamy's ideas or to counter and stifle his popular ideology. The 21st century reader likely will not be similarly stirred by the book, but will find it to be an excellent way to actually "look backward" at late 19th century America and many of its problems, attitudes, and mores. Its funny that when looking at how someone envisioned the future, it often reveals MORE about the present in which they lived, and Bellamy's novel is no exception." (Todd Rudat)

Looking for Alaska by John Green. (ISBN: 0142402516)
This novel won the Printz Award (given by the American Library Association—like the Newbery, but for books aimed at high school readers). The narrator, Miles, deals with many typical teenage issues—relationships, death, snobbery at a boarding school. The overall message, however, is wonderfully life-affirming. (Jim Meyer)

The Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy by Robert Leleux. (ISBN: 0312361688)
OK, I admit it. Sometimes my emotions border on Schadenfreude (does that make me a bad person? Never mind; I do not want to know). However, in Leleux’s memoir, you can’t help but to feel for him. Abandoned by his father when he was a teen, left with no money, and the responsibility to rein in his over the top mother with a penchant for plastic surgery, each day is a new challenge for Leleux. First he needs to break free from his mother, all while she tracks down a new, rich husband. Then he discovers something about himself that was obvious to most others. If you like David Sedaris or Augusten Burroughs, then you will enjoy this. A fast read: great book to bring along on vacation! (Joe Hardenbrook)

No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy. (ISBN: 0739465317)
No Country for Old Men is a haunting tale of greed and desire and another heavy dose of Old West ethos. Through recollections from a retiring law man, McCarthy revisits the land of the outlaw, recapitulating themes from earlier novels like Blood Meridian, and showing just how little has changed since the sweeping “success” of westward expansion. Returning to the Texas-Mexico border, we meet with an innocent backwoods hunter, stumbling upon the remains of a drug deal gone wrong, and a villain whose weapon of choice is a pneumatic cow gun. Highlighting senseless, psychotic violence, carnage and depravity, the novel is just as good as the recent award-winning film, artfully produced by the Cohen Brothers. McCarthy is even able to render the placid insanity of the killer as well as do Javier Bardem’s still-water eyes. Read the book and watch the movie. (Carmella Braniger)

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan. (ISBN: 0143038583)
Once upon a time people used to hunt and gather their food. People ate plants that were pollinated by the natural order of the environment, or people ate meat, where the animal eaten had consumed a cornucopia of naturally occurring foods as they grazed. Now, most of what we eat is made up of or has been fed nothing but corn. Pollan illustrates how separated humans have become from their natural food sources. He also examines how people will survive as a species based on how we eat. (Dana Williams)

Only the Senses Sleep by Wayne Miller. (ISBN: 1930974655)
Poet Alan Michael Parker says of this book of poetry: “It’s often nighttime in these terrific poems, where sleep and poetry and desire sing a song of being.” Sing is indeed what Miller does; a lovely voice sounds through these thoughtful and imaginative poems. Wayne Miller participated in Millikin’s 2008 Literary Festival. (Stephen Frech)

People of the Lake: Mankind & Its Beginnings by Richard E. Leakey and Roger Lewin. (ISBN: 0380455757)
Leakey, son of Louis and Mary Leakey (paleoanthropologists who helped to establish the evolutionary progression of hominids in Africa), presents a fascinating look of the hominid findings at Lake Turkana in Kenya. In addition to categorizing the artifacts he and his team/parents have found, he posits interesting theories of social develop in early hominids. Though definitely popular archaeology, this book provides fascinating insight into the possible development of human society. (Michael George)

Pleasures of the Damned by Charles Bukowski. (ISBN: 0061228443)
As rough and broken are the things at which we wish not to stare, they still might draw us in. Bukowski is always this way. Pleasures is an excellent collection of work from one of the most great and terrible poets we have known. (He’s also a great novelist.) This is a poet’s voice, his own and what he becomes. As dirty and wasted the ground Bukowski treads might be, you always see his spirit. He does not lie. But that’s not the issue. His characters and his own character shine out and show us our world. You can’t ask for much more. (I hope you like going to the track.) (Greg Sullivan)

Postcards from No Man's Land by Aidan Chambers. (ISBN: 0142407887)
This book won the Printz Award (American Library Association award for literature aimed at high school students) in 2003. It combines two narratives—one featuring a seventeen-year-old English boy who visits the Netherlands in 1995, the other featuring a teenage Dutch girl during the war in 1944. The stories are intertwined, and serious contemporary issues of physician-assisted suicide and sexuality are introduced. (Jim Meyer)

Proust at the Majestic by Richard Davenport-Hines. (ISBN: 9781582344713)
It’s Paris, May 18, 1922. An elegant late-night party is taking place at the Hotel Majestic. Among the guests are James Joyce, Marcel Proust, Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky, and Serge Diaghilev. Those of us who love literary gossip will want to know: What did Joyce and Proust talk about? The answer is, not much. Joyce, socially ill-at-ease and embarrassed by his clothes, arrived stinking drunk and spent a good part of the evening with his head in his hands. Proust, ever the polite conversationalist, tried to engage Joyce but got mostly monosyllabic responses. Six months later to the day, Proust would die. You don’t have to have read Proust’s seven-volume masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time, to enjoy this relatively brief biography (the definitive biography, by Jean-Yves Tadie, runs about 800 pages). Read it for the fun of learning one writer’s idiosyncrasies (he lived in his bedroom and wrote sitting in bed; he had the walls lined with cork to keep out noise; he was nocturnal and experimented with drugs, including pure adrenaline), but also read it for its portrait of a man racing against death to finish his life’s work. Did Proust work himself to death, as he believed his father had? (Lisa Klotz)

Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey by Chuck Palahniuk. (ISBN: 0385663501)
Rant is an oral biography in many voices. Rant Casey ran through many lives. One was no better or worse than the other. Super spreaders of disease are everyday among us. The worst disease may be the misunderstanding of time. It may be that one person’s disease is the cure for another. But what flaming death will take the country boy back to his home? Palahniuk gives us his best here. The form, style, and detail are irresistible. The immediacy of finality, the openness of endless journey, these things bite and infect us at every phase of eternal return. (Greg Sullivan)

Revolutionary Road and Easter Parade by Richard Yates. (ISBN: 0312278284)
Richard Yates was a writer's writer, beloved by contemporary figures like Richard Ford and Tobias Wolff. His novels and short stories from the 1960s-1980s (including Revolutionary Road and Easter Parade) take suburban heartbreak and the self-delusion of would-be artists to new extremes. Yates writes about little other than the lies we tell ourselves. Like Hamilton, he was an alcoholic, but there is nothing arch in Yates' treatment of drunkenness—it's completely brutal. (Andy Matthews)

The Shoe Queen by Anna Davis. (ISBN: 141653735X)
I admit it—I bought the book because of the title, but through her main character—the wealthy and aspiring poet Genevieve Shelby King—Anna Davis skillfully offers readers a critique of the superficiality of post-WWI Paris and its bohemian community. Mrs. King, as she seeks to best her friends in lower leg adornment, becomes involved in a love affair with the crafter of the most expensive shoes in Paris, a man as self-involved as her many social acquaintances. Ultimately, she begins to question her marriage, her values, and her future as a member of this shallow society, and that perhaps there’s more to life than (gasp) cool shoes. (Judi Crowe)

Simple Universal by Jeff Allen. (ISBN: 978-09787441-8-2)
Written by Millikin alumni, Jeff Allen, Simple Universal features six poems and a short story published by Bronze Man Books. It also features the artwork of Millikin University student, Lauren Wika. Jeff Allen recently graduated from Millikin University with a degree in Music Business. While at Millikin, Allen was published in numerous issues of Collage, the university’s literary magazine. Dr. Stephen Frech writes in his preface of the book that Allen “doesn’t rest at emotion or felt experience. He always finds a way to push further, to pose questions about how we and how the speakers of these poems might behave in response to those feelings.” Allen’s book pushes readers to not be limited in their knowledge of the world, and it creates a unique lens with which to view the world. (Patrick Steadman)

The Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton. (ISBN: 978-0192813596)
As Nick Hornby notes in his blurb, The Slaves of Solitude, by the neglected British novelist Patrick Hamilton, is like a combination of Dickens and Martin Amis. From 1947, the novel is both arch and grim in its depiction of a modest spinster's amorous misadventures in war-time London. Hamilton was an alcoholic, and his depiction of drunkenness demonstrates first-hand knowledge. (Andy Matthews)

The Sneetches by Dr. Seuss. (ISBN: 9780394800899)
This old children’s story still has an applicable lesson for today about the treatment of people based on what they have (or don’t have). Read it for yourself and then find someone fun to read it with again. (Cindie Zelhart)

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See. (ISBN: 0812968069)
In nineteenth-century China, when wives and daughters were foot-bound and lived in almost total seclusion, the women in one remote Hunan county developed their own secret code for communication: nu shu ("women's writing"). Some girls were paired with laotongs, "old sames," in emotional matches that lasted throughout their lives. They painted letters on fans, embroidered messages on handkerchiefs, and composed stories, thereby reaching out of their isolation to share their hopes, dreams, and accomplishments. With the arrival of a silk fan on which Snow Flower has composed for Lily a poem of introduction in nu shu, their friendship is sealed and they become "old sames" at the tender age of seven. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a brilliantly realistic journey back to an era of Chinese history that is as deeply moving as it is sorrowful. This lyrical and emotionally charged novel delves into one of the most mysterious of human relationships: female friendship. (Peiling Zhao)

Stonehenge Decoded by Gerald W. Hawkins. (ISBN: 9780880291477)
For those of you interested in prehistoric monoliths, this is a book for you. While it was written by an astronomer, and contains information relating to astronomical applications for Stonehenge, it also provides some very interesting information about the history of Stonehenge and its development as a site. It’s a very interesting read, even if you don’t buy the overall argument. (Michael George)

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein. (ISBN: 0441788386)
As one of the “Big 3” of science fiction (the others being Arthur C. Clarke, who died this year, and Isaac Asimov), Heinlein has established himself as a science fiction tour de force. Stranger in a Strange Land is, perhaps, his most important work, both for its craft and for its impact on how we view encounters with other species, for at its center is a hybridized human, someone who has grown up on Mars and developed a way of living and seeing things from a Martian point of view. In an age where we think about first contact, Heinlein preceded us by 47 years. (MIchael George)

Sword of Truth Series by Terry Goodkind. (ISBN: 9780812548051)
For those of you who are into fantasy, this is a series for you. I received the first book in the series, The Sword of Truth (1995) as a birthday gift (November 29, 2007). I became addicted, which doesn’t often happen to me with fantasy series. Since November 2007 (it is now the beginning of April, 2008), I’ve completed 5 in the series and am almost done with the 6th. To my amazement, I’m still addicted. For me, many fantasy series exhaust their creativity after the first couple of books. This one hasn’t. Goodkind is, to my mind, a master of character development (over multiple novels, it should be noted) and weaves a tapestry that continues to draw me in. The plot is often fast-moving, though not lacking in detail, and the difficulties faced by Goodkind’s characters evoke emotions that many of us (to this reader’s mind) have faced. I do find that the fifth novel of the series, Soul of the Fire, has slowed in pace, but that is because much of it involves completely new characters in a completely new region of Goodkind’s world. After about 100 pages of slowed interest, I was again addicted to these new characters. If you are a fan of fantasy, or simply like good character development (albeit over several novels), you should definitely check this series out. It won’t disappoint. For a list of Goodkind’s novels in the series, go to http://www.prophets-inc.com/his_works/. (MIchael George)

The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex (ISBN: 9780786849000)
The True Meaning of Smekday is an apocalyptic road trip comedy/adventure told using a combination of school essays, drawings, and mini graphic novels starring twelve-year-old Gratuity “Tip” Tucci, Pig (her cat), J. Lo (no, not that J. Lo), and a hovercar named Slushious. It all begins when Tip’s mother starts receiving messages from the aliens through a mole on the back of her neck. By Christmas, the alien Boov have taken over Earth (now renamed Smekland in honor of their glorious leader Captain Smek) and the humans of North America are being relocated by rocketpod to their new reserve, the state of Florida. Tip decides to skip the rocketpod trip and drive herself to Florida to search for her abducted mother, but when she ends up trapping a lone Boov in a MoPo store freezer, her plans change. (Amanda Pippitt)

The Unworn Necklace by Roberta Beary. (ISBN: 978-1903543221)
This emotionally-packed collection of haiku, The Unworn Necklace, was one of two 2007 finalists for the William Carlos Williams Award given annually by The Poetry Society of America for a book of poetry by a single author, published by a small press, non-profit, or university press. The judge for the award, Ron Silliman writes that “The Unworn Necklace, which is really a 70-poem not-quite-narrative cycle that has the weight and emotional force of a novel. A sprawling & powerful novel. A novel specifically about a woman’s midlife relationships as her marriage goes south, her father dies, her daughter takes flight, a new relationship is tested.” Don’t miss this first collection of haiku by one of the best contemporary English language haiku writers of the twenty-first century. (Randy Brooks)

* English major recommendation

Disclaimer|Privacy Statement |Contact Millikin