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As passionate readers, many alumni are interested in knowing what books Dartmouth faculty are reading and recommend. Although the Alumni Council meets often with faculty in discussions on the academic life of the College, Good Reads is a chance for the council to interact a little more informally with faculty around a shared love of reading. This feature is updated each summer and winter: Here, faculty share book recommendations perfect for a long winter's night. |
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Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel. This historical novel has it all – theology, politics, envy, lust. Portraying the life of Thomas Cromwell, an adviser to King Henry VIII, Mantel steers readers through the Reformation, the cut-throat (literally) jockeying in the royal court, Cromwell's rivalry with Sir Thomas More, and the king's political and theological moves to get papal approval for his plan to divorce Queen Katherine and marry Anne Boleyn. A great read. |
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Professor of French and Comparative Literature Des Hommes, by Laurent Mauvignier. This novel is about men from a small French town who fought in the Algerian war for independence in the 1960s. They were ill equipped and didn't feel like soldiers, but simply like des hommes - "some men." Forty years later, the after-effects of their war experience have been devastating for them. This novel is very sad but beautifully written. It was published in France in the fall, and I imagine it'll eventually be translated into English, like some of Mauvignier's other novels. Night Train to Lisbon, by Pascal Mercier. In this novel, translated from the Swiss German, a teacher of Latin and Greek meets a Portuguese woman on a bridge in his hometown of Bern, and the chance encounter inspires him to buy a book in Portuguese and take the night train to Lisbon. There he investigates the life and death of the book's author, who lived under the fascist regime that ended with the Portuguese revolution in 1974. Mercier makes 1970s Portugal come alive through the sympathetic eyes of his curious protagonist, whose life is changed by this experience of reading, travel, and investigation. |
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Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the Future of America, by Thomas Fleming. This is a fascinating exploration of the internal struggles for power in post-Revolutionary America. The Idea of Justice, by Amartya Sen. Justice as a philosophical concept has been a focal point of scholarship, but Sen's analysis brings the discussion of public reason to a new level of understanding, one that attempts to absorb divergent points of view. |
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Dora Bruder, by Patrick Modiano. I've read this book at least a half-dozen times, most recently for my class on 20th-century France. A narrator - Modiano himself - goes looking for traces of a young Parisian Jewish runaway who was found by the Gestapo and deported, and then died in Auschwitz. Modiano was born in 1945 but has written many novels set during the Occupation. In this book, both a memoir and a work of imagination, Modiano reveals how he writes, and why. It's a fascinating read and a powerful demonstration of why literature matters. The Melodramatic Imagination, by Peter Brooks. The melodrama genre (or mood, or style, or worldview) as a concept has much to offer. Whether on TV, at the theater, in the novel, or at the movies, melodrama is capable of articulating personal stories with broader social issues. Brooks traces the history of the melodramatic imagination to its roots around the time of the French Revolution, and he outlines how its typical preoccupations probe deep anxieties about the moral universe today. This book can completely transform your understanding of popular culture. In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead, by James Lee Burke. I read this novel as background for studying the 2009 film adaptation by Bertrand Tavernier, Dans La Brume Electrique, and in the process, I discovered a wonderful American crime writer. Burke's protagonist, Dave Robicheaux, is a Cajun Vietnam War veteran and police detective in the New Orleans area. His frustration with the social ills of contemporary Louisiana takes us through the heritage of slavery and the Civil War. Burke's writing packs a wallop. He's an artist with words and sentences and a powerful storyteller and creator of characters, with a deep understanding of American society. |
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A History of American Higher Education, by John Thelin Old Dartmouth on Trial: The Transformation of the Academic Community in 19th-Century America, by Marilyn Tobias. Before 1920, no one knew what an American university would look like, which makes the decades around 1900 a wonderfully interesting period in the history of higher education. Why did Dartmouth choose to remain a college in the 1890s, when other old colleges, including Harvard and Yale, were becoming universities? Did this choice make any difference at the time? Tobias tells a fascinating story of change at Dartmouth in the 1880s; Thelin provides the broader context. Both books offer useful insights as we think about what comprises the "Dartmouth Experience" today. |
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The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science, by Richard Holmes. This is an exciting, beautifully written history of how science and art influenced each other in 18th- and 19th-century Britain. The results changed the way we view the universe! The Help, by Kathryn Sockett. The story of a black maid in a white household in Mississippi in the 1960s. I'm in the middle of this book and thoroughly loving it. Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth, by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou, illustrated by Alecos Papdatos and Annie Di Donna. This graphic novel about the mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell takes us on a wild ride through Russell's life and work. |
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The Power and the Glory, by Graham Greene Silence, by Shusaku Endo The first novel inspired the second, and both are riveting accounts of the power of faith put to the extreme test. |
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and Literature; Professor of Comparative Literature and Women’s and Gender Studies Fever of the Bone, Val McDermid. I can't resist well-written mystery novels. The plot of this one develops around a serial killer, but each character has a masterfully developed psychological profile. The protagonists are flawed individuals who chase really, really flawed individuals and still have time to perform changing gender roles. Clash of Civilizations for an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio, by Amara Lakhous. Another mystery novel. But not really. The focus of the story is actually Rome as it's experienced by migrants in Italy. This is a very funny book that my students love. Palace Walk; Palace of Desire; and Sugar Street, by Naguib Mahfouz. In this trilogy of novels, Mahfouz, who won the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature, portrays the daily rhythms and changing traditions of Cairo in the first half of the 20th century. World War II is the background for a thought-provoking narration of both Egyptian and Western history. |
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Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World, by Liaquat Ahamed. In preparation for my course on globalization and global development, I'm reading about the actions of the world's central bankers that led to the Great Depression of the 1930s. I'm trying to discern the background events leading up to the Great Depression and the similarities, and dissimilarities, between them and the events leading up to today's global financial crisis. For Prophet and Tsar: Islam and Empire in Russia and Central Asia, by Robert Crews. Russia and then the Soviet Union pragmatically incorporated Islamic structures in Central Asia to maintain their empire for more than a century. My interest is in comparing the Russian/USSR strategy with the current U.S. strategy of confronting Islam in independent Central Asian states. Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang, by Zhao Ziyang. In preparation for my introductory course on comparative politics, I'm reading the insider's account of Chinese politics by the country's premier who was forced out of politics after his support of students at Tiananmen Square in 1989. |
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Searching for the Sound: My Life with the Grateful Dead, by Phil Lesh. This is the only account of the band written by a member. Lesh captures the creativity, chaos, and magic of the band and the Bay Area music scene of the 1960s and 1970s. As the saying goes, "When Phil is on, the band is on." The Worst Journey in the World: Antarctic, 1910–1913, by Apsley-Cherry Garrard. This is perhaps the best account of polar exploration ever written. Cherry was the youngest member of the team on Scott's 1911-13 attempt at the South Pole. His description of the midwinter journey to recover the first emperor penguin egg for science is epic. I read this book nearly every year before my trip to McMurdo Station, n=15, Antarctica. |
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Why Socrates Died: Dispelling the Myths, by Robin Waterfield. In this enjoyable and insightful overview of the social context in which the trial of Socrates took place, Waterfield makes the case that the charges against Socrates – that he did not acknowledge the gods of Athens and he corrupted the city's youth – can be understood only against the backdrop of the moral turmoil in that city. Speaking into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication, by John Durham Peters. Peters examines how technology has affected our understanding of communication through the ages. This isn't light reading, but it's time well spent for anyone who wonders how we know when communication has accomplished its goals. |
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Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis.This isn't just another baseball book. On the surface, it's the compelling story of how the Oakland Athletics have achieved baseball success with one of the smallest payrolls in the game. So on one level, the book, chock-full of colorful characters – including Dartmouth alum Sandy Alderson '69 – can be read as the application of innovative statistics to a game where data are abundant. Another reading is broader: Lewis shows how institutions can gain an edge by being open to new perspectives, rigorous self-evaluation, and, yes, a little luck. The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation, by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff. The authors explore why the black press was left alone to vigorously protest the plight of African Americans in the postwar United States and how that dissent gradually diffused to include white, "mainstream" journalism. Today, as newspapers struggle to survive, fall under the thumb of monopoly ownership, and often seem unable to drag their gaze away from banal sensationalism, The Race Beat reminds us that journalists have been able to keep their eyes on the prize and that if democracy is to flourish, an unfettered, inquisitive press is central to that project. |
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Good Reads Summer 2011 | Winter 2011 | Summer 2010 | Winter 2010 | Summer 2009 |
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