Are you ready for some fun summer reading? The staff of the SWC Library have picked some of their favorite titles for our latest book display (on the 3rd floor). Check them out!
Take home any of these books for four weeks with your SWC photo ID card.
Ann Willard
I have thought back on them many times over the years and they all influenced me.
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. NY : Simon & Schuster, 1993.
Stacks PS 3503 R167 F3 1993
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin. New York : Walker, 1969.
Stacks PS 3562 E42 L4
Welcome to the Monkey House; a Collection of Short Works by Kurt Vonnegut. [NY] : Delacorte Press, [1968].
Stacks PS 3572 O5 A6
Nate Martin
Here are a couple that I remember enjoying. Not much to say other than they're pretty easy to read and made me want to keep picking them up. I hate it when I start reading a book and I'm not interested that much in finishing. Not the case with these.
Bluebeard: a Novel. by Kurt Vonnegut. New York : Delacorte Press, 1987.
Stacks PS 3572 O5 B5
A Walk in the Woods; Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson. NY : Broadway Books, c1998.
Stacks F 106 B92 1998
Patty Torres
March : a Novel by Geraldine Brooks. New York : Viking, 2005.
Leisure Reading 2886
When I picked up this book I just went off the author. I didn’t really know what it was about. Just figured it would be a historical novel like most of Brooks’ works. Once I started it was hard for me to put down. To read about the experiences of the absent father from Little Women brought back memories of how I first got into reading. After all it was one of the first books I remember reading. I really liked March…it also makes me want to go back and reread Little Women.
The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency. (Series) by Alexander McCall Smith. New York : Anchor Books.
Stacks and Leisure Reading
I really enjoy this series. It’s a fun light read. They are a nice break in between more serious reads. The characters are simple and pleasant. Every time I read from this series I have a greater desire to visit Africa.
Tanya Carr
I loved my most recent read, The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls (NY : Scribner, 2005, Leisure Reading 3016). You may already be familiar with it; it's a memoir written by Jeanette Walls in which she invites readers into her family life growing up. It's very sad, but extremely touching as you "feel" the journey she endures with a nearly homeless family.
Diane Gustafson
Ladies of Missalonghi by Colleen McCullough. NY : Harper & Row, 1987.
Stacks PR 9619.3 M32 L3
This is a novel that I re-read every couple of years. It is about a small town in Australia in the early 20th century where everyone is related and where the men hold all the power. The heroine develops into a very strong woman, and the story is uplifting.
Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher. NY : St. Martin’s Press, 2000.
Stacks PR6066.I38 W56 2000
I re-read this novel every year sometime between early October and Christmas, which is the time covered by the book. It takes place in a very small town in northern Scotland where five people who ordinarily would not have celebrated Christmas at all come together as a kind of family. I re-read it because it’s like visiting them again.
Into Thin Air: a Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer. NY : Villard, 1997.
Stacks GV199.44.E85 K725 1997
This non-fiction title was the second College Book. My son, who doesn’t read much, says it’s his favorite book of all time and it’s one of mine. I come up with the discussion questions for the College Book each year, and this was my best work, I think. It’s a gripping story beautifully told.
Erika Prange
A Place to Stand by Jimmy Santiago Baca. NY : Grove Press, 2001.
Leisure Reading 2789
I love memoirs. This was a hard read for me because of the sad story of a young person without direction and help, but it has a positive message, how to overcome poverty and prison.
Rachael Smithey
West with the Night by Beryl Markham. San Francisco : North Point Press, c1983.
Stacks DT 365.75 M3 M3
Markham's 1942 autobiography is a fascinating account of her adventurous life in Kenya during the early 20th century. Markham was the first woman to solo pilot an aircraft from East to West across the Atlantic and the first person to successfully fly nonstop from England to North America.
I learned of this book from my mom, who sent it to me when I was attending graduate school at the University of Maryland in the early 90's. Busy with work and school, I didn't have time to read it until Spring Break when, bicycling through an intersection in Washington DC, I was hit broadside by a car that zoomed around a line of cars stopped at the stoplight. My helmet and gloves took the brunt of the impact, so I needed only a few days rest. To pass the time, I decided to read the book my mom sent. As I became engrossed in reading about the early 20th century female adventurer, flying without sophisticated navigation equipment, crash-landing her plane in Nova Scotia (and surviving, and living well into her 80s), well, the whole nearly-getting-killed-while-riding-my-bike thing seemed rather trivial!
Just Kids by Patti Smith. New York : Ecco, c2010.
Stacks ML420.S672 A3 2010
Smith's autobiography details her early friendship with the artist Robert Mapplethorpe and chronicles their rise from complete unknowns to cultural icons.
OK, 20 years after my mom gave me West with the Night to read, I gave her Just Kids to read. My mom is nearly 80 years old and is a Patti Smith fan but she was unfamiliar with Robert Mapplethorpe. Like my mom, I've been a Patti Smith fan since the 70's. I learned of Robert Mapplethorpe through my art history courses in the early 80's at Southwestern College, but I was unaware that Smith and Mapplethorpe knew each other before they became influential in the art world. The dedication to art that Smith and Mapplethorpe demonstrate (e.g. buying a book of poetry or art materials in place of a meal) - is simply amazing. They truly *lived* for their art from the beginning!
Naomi Trapp Davis
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. NY : Random House, 2000.
Stacks PS3553.H15 A82 2000
I remember thinking, I’ve never read anything like this before. The characters and story stay with you long after you finish the book. I didn’t want it to end.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. (Library owns various editions.)
Don’t be fooled by the romanticized movie versions of Austen’s books – her stories are tough, funny, and heartbreaking.
Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham. NY : Modern Library, 1930.
Stacks PR 6025 A86 O4
It’s rare to find a book like this – one that draws the reader into its world so completely.
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. NY : Modern Library, 2002.
Stacks PQ2226 .A385 2002
Summer reading at its finest – adventure, love, loss, revenge – this book is hands down one of the best soap operas ever written.
Tony McGee
My pick is Ripples of Hope, Great American Civil Rights Speeches edited by Josh Gottheimer. NY : Basic Civitas Books.
Stacks E 184 A1 R53 2003 (also available as e-book).
I selected this book because it is inspirational. It is an incredible collection of inspiring speeches on the social movements that have changed America. The collection begins with an antislavery speech by an unknown freedman in 1789, and focuses on five distinct social movements--African American, Asian American, Hispanic American, gay, and women's--from the colonial period to the present. The collection includes speeches by Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Eleanor Roosevelt, Cesar Chavez, Harvey Milk, Jesse Jackson, and Martin Luther King Jr., as well as lesser-known speakers.
Bruce MacNintch
The Civil War, a Narrative (3 vols.) by Shelby Foote. NY : Random House, [1958-1964].
Stacks E 468 F7
Cosmos by Carl Sagan. NY : Random House, 1980 and Barcelona : Planeta, 1982 (Español).
Stacks QB 981 S2 (English) & QB 981 S22 (Español)
The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil. NY : Viking, 2005.
Stacks QP 376 K85 2005
Ron Vess
Life of Pi by Yann Martel. Orlando, Fla. : Harcourt, 2003.
Stacks PR9199.3.M3855 L54 2003
This book, Life of Pi, is it reality speaking to us? Or, is it something more insidious? Is it the darkness of our nightmares, or is it the happiness of a life rich with allegory? I must confess I was a bit overwhelmed in thought by the depictions sent racing to me, but once I settled my feet and decided which way to go it became clearer, I think. The story, without giving too much away is one of a 15 year-old boy who becomes shipwrecked with some zoo animals being transported to another place. Through Darwin’s theory of natural selection we see the numbers dwindle to 2, you can imagine how a small boat with a Bengal Tiger as one of the occupants helps trim the passenger list. The tiger, aptly named Richard Parker, and the boy Pi (as he is called) manages to establish his own territory on the lifeboat and even gains alpha dominance over Richard Parker. Life of Pi is an allegory, the symbolic expression of a deeper meaning through a tale acted out by humans, animals, and in this case, even plant life. The author, Yann Martel, has written an unlikely tale involving zoology, botany, religious experience, ocean survival skills and more to explore the meaning of stories in our lives, whether they are inspired by religion to explain the purpose of life or generated by our own psyches as a way to understand and interpret the world around us. Once my feet became settled, I found this book amusing and also introspective. Try it, if you like to think, you will not be disappointed in a story that could be your life.
Laura Galván-Estrada
Because everyone should pick up something fun and inspirational, I recommend to you Dr. Seuss’ Oh, the Places You’ll Go (Stacks PZ 8.3 G276 Oh 1990) or The Lorax (Stacks PZ 8.3 G276 LO), to get up in arms and save the environment.
Julia Alvarez (PS3551.L845)
A Dominican American writer who became famous with How the GarcÃa Girls Lost their Accent ( PS 35551 L85 H66 1991), has been one of my favorites to read. If you are interested in becoming a writer, read Something to Declare (PS 35551 L85 Z47 1998).
Isabel Allende (PQ8098.1.L54)
My preference as a native Spanish speaker is to read her works in her original Spanish, though the translations are excellent. And, though she is famous for the fantasy and mixing history in her stories, my favorites are her more autobiographical accounts, El Plan Infinito, Paula and La Suma de los DÃas.
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