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Still Hitting
the Books
School is out, but that doesn’t
mean the Denison community
trades in its books for beach
towels. The brains around here
are too hungry for that.
So we asked students, faculty,
and staff for summer reading
suggestions, and the replies
included everything from the
Twilight series to the Bible.
So consider these faves while
you’re catching your rays, and
don’t forget your sunscreen.
photography by sarah wilson
Seeds of Terror: How Heroin is
Bankrolling the Taliban and al Qaeda
by Gretchen Peters
An investigative breakdown of how the heroin trade funds
the al Qaeda in Afghanistan. As Afghanistan becomes the
primary battleground in the war on terror, this book gives
an inside look at the different challenges the U.S. faces
there—challenges not often shown on the evening news. —julie dean ’10
Turtle Island
by Gary Snyder
A book of poems that was published more
than 30 years ago, but continues to haunt me.
Snyder’s words describing nature are quiet,
simple, and command attention. These poems
help me understand ecology through a non-
scientific lens, which can be very good for a
scientist! —andy mccall,
assistant professor of biology
B d eniso n magazin e wint er 2007 1
Asian American Dreams: The
Emergence of an American People
by Helen Zia
This book details personal and political issues that
surround Asian-American women. It is historical and
undercover—most of the depicted events are not well
known, but they are brought to light here with clarity,
passion, and intelligence. Asian American Dreams
illuminates the strength of making the political personal and, sometimes,
the personal political. —jessica wang ’11
Still Alice
by Lisa Genova
Alice Howland, a cognitive psychologist at Harvard,
is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.
This graceful and candid book reveals the two years
of Alice’s life (and that of her family) immediately
following her diagnosis. —mary tuominen,
professor of sociology and anthropology
The Hitchhiker’s Guide
to the Galaxy
by Douglas Adams
The Hitchhiker’s Guide trilogy is all
you ever wanted to know about everything
that ever existed in the history of existence,
and it’s delivered in the most excellent
style of Douglas Adams. He’s witty.
He’s insightful. He’s British. Enough said.
—kaitlyn grissom ’12
Some of It Was Fun:
Working with RFK and LBJ
by Nicholas de Bellevile Katzenbach
Katzenbach was the product of a prominent family, attend-
ing Princeton, Oxford University (as a Rhodes Scholar),
and Yale Law. He exemplifies the “Establishment.” In 1961,
he was selected as legal counsel to the Department of
Justice, under Bobby Kennedy. Among his many tasks was
to play key roles in opening Ole Miss and the University of Alabama to
black Americans. Upon JFK’s death, Katzenbach became Attorney General
of the United States under Lyndon Johnson. His book provides fascinating
insights into the 1960s and the evolution of American politics—some points
have a strong message for the contemporary scene. —ken bork,
professor emeritus of geoscience
Dune
by Frank Herbert
Academics tend to knock science fiction for its lack
of literary content. Frank Herbert’s masterpiece has more
content than any sci-fi book I’ve ever read, including a
delicious allegory to our current dependency on foreign oil.
—rob flax ’10
2
Straight Man
by Richard Russo
If you really want to know what college life is like on the
other side of the desk, read Straight Man. It’s so accurate
(it’s fiction, but Russo is a college professor), that I try to
re-read it every other August right before classes start, just
to get me in the right frame of mind. —dave boyd,
associate professor of economics
Atlas Shrugged
by Ayn Rand
This masterpiece is a must-read for anyone with a vested
interest in freedom and living a just, moral life. Rand
paints the picture of the ideal man, and the events of this
amazing novel eerily mirror those of our lives today as
government control continues to expand and freedom
is eroded. —nic ennen ’12
Whatever It Takes:
Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to
Change Harlem and America
by Paul Tough
Whatever It Takes describes Canada’s efforts to create
an education system for Harlem that would effectively
move children through a sound development process
toward their participation in higher education. But that makes it sound like
a dry read. It’s great non-fiction: incisive history, touching profiles of both
people who struggle against the odds and people who struggle to change
the odds, inspiration, and a thoughtful reporting of research on a program
that appears to be working. —laurel b. kennedy, director,
alford center for service learning
Middlesex
by Jeffrey Eugenides
The story of a Greek family, as narrated by Cal,
the grandchild afflicted with sexual dimorphism,
a condition that would define his adult life. The
story deals with immigration in the early 20th
century, the automobile assembly line, prohibition,
the Detroit riots, a pilgrimage to San Francisco,
and the connections and secrets of a family
through it all. —paige kercher ’10
Hot, Flat, and Crowded:
Why We Need a Green Revolution—
and How it Can Renew America
by Thomas L. Friedman
This book is timely because of the urgent global and
environmental challenges it deals with, and Friedman is an
incisive and entertaining writer. —lyn boone, senior
development officer, major and planned giving
4 d eniso n magazin e spring 2009 5
Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s
Mission to Promote Peace ...
One School at a Time
by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
Mortenson was a mountain climber who happened
upon a rural Pakistani village called Korphe. He prom-
ised the Korphe people that he would return and build
them a school. An incredibly inspirational book about
Mortenson’s commitment to literacy in Pakistan.
—emily nemeth ’04, admissions counselor
Predictably Irrational:
The Hidden Forces That Shape
Our Decisions
by Dan Ariely
Written by an MIT behavioral economist, this book is not
“about your grandfather’s dismal science,” as noted in The
New York Times Book Review. Rather, it is filled with examples of how
consistently our economic choices belie the iconography of rational behavior.
That is, it explains why “people tend to behave irrationally in a predict-
able fashion.” Read this book and you will be extra wary the next time you
either make a significant financial expenditure or go shopping for the most
insignificant item. —keith boone, associate provost
Breath: A Novel
by Tim Winton
Winton has crafted a compact and powerful coming-of-age
tale centered around surfing. Breath explores how
risking death ultimately pales in comparison to confronting
the vicissitudes of one’s life, even the apparent monotony
of taking the next breath. Although Winton has long been
acknowledged as Australia’s foremost novelist, Breath
distills his gifts: compelling yet lyrical prose, an abiding interest in
plumbing the depths of the human condition, and an almost spiritual
engagement with the untamed nature of western Australia.
—andrew law, director of international and off-campus study
The Pillars of the Earth and
World Without End
by Ken Follett
I have gazed and wondered at some of the world’s great
cathedrals and thought about the “how” of them, but I
had never considered the “why.” Follett addresses the
subject masterfully in his historical novels, The Pillars
of the Earth and World Without End. Although he is a
fiction writer, Follett offers a fantastic glimpse into life in the Middle Ages
and both books are full of characters you will miss when you are through
reading. Think life is a challenge right now? A whiff of the 12th century
will cure that. —jacqueline pelasky, visual resource curator,
departments of art and art history
And if you plow through these in one week at the beach, you can find even
more suggestions at magazine.denison.edu.
6 d eniso n magazin e spring 2009 7
