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What’s On Your Summer Reading List?
Posted 7/20/2005
The dog days of summer are upon us, and for many people, there is no better way to spend a lazy summer afternoon than with a good book.
We asked faculty and staff from across the university to share their summer reading lists with us, and their responses are being published in a series of installments in UNotes. This is the fourth installment in the series.
Read the first article in the series.
Read the second article in the series.
Read the third article in the series.
We’d love to know what’s on your summer reading list! If you would like to share it, please write to unotes@hartford.edu, and tell us what you’re reading this summer, and why.
Here’s a look at what some of your colleagues are reading this summer:
Mark Blackwell, Associate Professor of English, Chair of the English Department, A&S
I just re-read Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy for a number of overlapping reasons. The unofficial reason is that it’s a hoot, a book good for both the heart and the head, as Sterne himself suggested, and one that rewards re-reading. The official reasons are many. I’m attending a National Humanities Center Summer Literary Institute focused on the novel in July, so it’s my homework. I’ve been writing about Sterne and hope to continue doing so this summer. I’m also teaching Tristram Shandy in the fall, and it’s a notoriously tough book for undergrads, so I’m getting myself revved up for the challenge.
I also recently read a few 20th-century rewritings of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. This particular jag grew out of my continuing interest in J. M. Coetzee’s work. I just finished teaching part of Coetzee’s Elizabeth Costello, with which I’m a bit obsessed. I’ve been intrigued for a while by the fact that the lecture Coetzee gave upon winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003 was a narrative—perhaps allegorical, perhaps not—about Robinson Crusoe. This speech represented a return of sorts for Coetzee, who reworked Defoe’s famous book in a 1986 novel entitled Foe. So I resolved to read Foe, and have followed up by reading Muriel Spark’s 1958 novel, Robinson, and Norman Denny’s translation of Michel Tournier’s Friday (published in France in 1967 as Vendredi, ou, Les limbes du Pacifique). I’m hatching a plot to teach some sort of course about Robinson Crusoe and its aftermaths, and all these books are terrific reads, though they quickly sabotage any fantasies one might have about spending the summer on a desert island with a good book.
My plans for the rest of the summer are still gelling, though fiction reading will remain the focus. Allan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty came highly recommended by a friend, so that’s on my list, as is Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. I also must make time for Ian McEwan’s Saturday, because I’m a big fan and because his Atonement is perhaps my favorite novel of the last five years or so. Atonement also offered me an important reading lesson, for I hated the first fifty pages or so of the novel before falling in love with it. If I’m lucky, some of my students will have a like experience with Tristram Shandy.
Michael Yaffe, Executive Director, The Hartt School
Books I have read recently include:
The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman
The Plot Against America, by Philip Roth
What's the Matter with Kansas, by Thomas Frank
Stradivari's Genius, by Toby Faber
. . . and surprising for me (as a life-long Yankee Fan), The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty, by Buster Olney
Warren Goldstein, Professor of History, Chair of the History Department, A&S
I read James Hynes' The Lecturers Tale, because summer is the time to read novels making fun of academia, and Hynes is wickedly hilarious.
And because I'm starting a book about liberal religion after World War II, I'm reading Patrick Allitt's Religion in America since 1945, Andrew Heinz's Jews and the American Soul, and Robert Orsi's Between Heaven and Earth: The Religious Worlds People Make and the Scholars Who Study Them.
By the end of August I hope to have gone through the pile of Harpers, The Nation and The New York Review of Books that has been growing for the last year.
Susan Coleman, Professor of Finance, Barney School of Business
My husband and I visited Germany in May including Munich, Bertesgaden, and “The Eagle's Nest.” As a follow-up to that, I have just finished re-reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William Shirer. I had read it many years ago, but know a lot more history now, so it was good to go back to it.
Other planned reading includes:
Delta Wedding, by Eudora Welty. I am in a book group and one of our members has a daughter who is getting married this summer so we chose this to honor her. I have never read any Welty before, so I am looking forward to it.
1776, by David McCullough. I love reading history, particularly history about how this country was founded. It always amazes me how many sacrifices the patriots made and the risks they took. I have read a number of McCullough's books and always enjoy his perspective and style of writing.
The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova. As I understand it, this is a historical novel woven around the Dracula legend. I'll probably have nightmares for weeks.
A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens. I am a member of a Charles Dickens book club so I am continuously reading and re-reading Dickens. I have read A Tale of Two Cities several times, but always enjoy going back to it because it has some great characters and an interesting perspective on the French Revolution.
Richard Cote, Associate Athletics Director
Chris Matthews’ book, Now, Let Me Tell You What I Really Think
Tommy Franks’ book, The American Soldier
Laura Ingraham's book Shut Up and Sing
I love listening to talk radio, especially Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. I am not necessarily a conservative Republican, however, I do enjoy the entertainment and the talking points. Chris Matthews’ “Hardball” TV show has always been a favorite of mine. I salute our troops and think every 18-year-old should do something for his or her country. It does not necessarily have to be serving in the military, but something. I have a lot of respect for the young men and women who serve our country and are fighting the war. That is what steered me to reading General Tommy Franks’ book. The other reasons I read these books is because I want to read something that is not sports related.
Otto Wahl, Director, Graduate Institute of Professional Psychology
I am still waiting for an opportunity to read something other than student papers, dissertation proposals, and faculty and fellowship applications during the summer. But, when and if I get an opportunity to read other things, my intention is to finish Augusten Burroughs’ Running with Scissors. It is a very funny memoir of the author's growing up experiences, focusing on some embarrassingly eccentric mental health practitioners he encountered.
Also on my reading list are the following:
Standing in the Shadows: Understanding and Overcoming Depression in Black Men, by John Head. It is a book written by one of the journalists participating in the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism (a program I have been involved with for many years now) and deals with a very important and neglected topic in mental health – depression among black men and the barriers that prevent many from seeking help. I try to keep up with the work of the Carter Fellows but have fallen behind. So, it's time for catch-up over the summer.
Living Outside Mental Illness: Qualitative Studies of Recovery in Schizophrenia, by Larry Davidson. When I discuss my own work looking at the stigma experienced by individuals with psychiatric disorders, many people have asked me if I am familiar with Larry Davidson's work at Yale concerning the subjective experiences of those who live with mental illnesses. So I thought it was about time I did become more familiar with his work.
We asked faculty and staff from across the university to share their summer reading lists with us, and their responses are being published in a series of installments in UNotes. This is the fourth installment in the series.
Read the first article in the series.
Read the second article in the series.
Read the third article in the series.
We’d love to know what’s on your summer reading list! If you would like to share it, please write to unotes@hartford.edu, and tell us what you’re reading this summer, and why.
Here’s a look at what some of your colleagues are reading this summer:
Mark Blackwell, Associate Professor of English, Chair of the English Department, A&S
I just re-read Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy for a number of overlapping reasons. The unofficial reason is that it’s a hoot, a book good for both the heart and the head, as Sterne himself suggested, and one that rewards re-reading. The official reasons are many. I’m attending a National Humanities Center Summer Literary Institute focused on the novel in July, so it’s my homework. I’ve been writing about Sterne and hope to continue doing so this summer. I’m also teaching Tristram Shandy in the fall, and it’s a notoriously tough book for undergrads, so I’m getting myself revved up for the challenge.
I also recently read a few 20th-century rewritings of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. This particular jag grew out of my continuing interest in J. M. Coetzee’s work. I just finished teaching part of Coetzee’s Elizabeth Costello, with which I’m a bit obsessed. I’ve been intrigued for a while by the fact that the lecture Coetzee gave upon winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003 was a narrative—perhaps allegorical, perhaps not—about Robinson Crusoe. This speech represented a return of sorts for Coetzee, who reworked Defoe’s famous book in a 1986 novel entitled Foe. So I resolved to read Foe, and have followed up by reading Muriel Spark’s 1958 novel, Robinson, and Norman Denny’s translation of Michel Tournier’s Friday (published in France in 1967 as Vendredi, ou, Les limbes du Pacifique). I’m hatching a plot to teach some sort of course about Robinson Crusoe and its aftermaths, and all these books are terrific reads, though they quickly sabotage any fantasies one might have about spending the summer on a desert island with a good book.
My plans for the rest of the summer are still gelling, though fiction reading will remain the focus. Allan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty came highly recommended by a friend, so that’s on my list, as is Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. I also must make time for Ian McEwan’s Saturday, because I’m a big fan and because his Atonement is perhaps my favorite novel of the last five years or so. Atonement also offered me an important reading lesson, for I hated the first fifty pages or so of the novel before falling in love with it. If I’m lucky, some of my students will have a like experience with Tristram Shandy.
Michael Yaffe, Executive Director, The Hartt School
Books I have read recently include:
The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman
The Plot Against America, by Philip Roth
What's the Matter with Kansas, by Thomas Frank
Stradivari's Genius, by Toby Faber
. . . and surprising for me (as a life-long Yankee Fan), The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty, by Buster Olney
Warren Goldstein, Professor of History, Chair of the History Department, A&S
I read James Hynes' The Lecturers Tale, because summer is the time to read novels making fun of academia, and Hynes is wickedly hilarious.
And because I'm starting a book about liberal religion after World War II, I'm reading Patrick Allitt's Religion in America since 1945, Andrew Heinz's Jews and the American Soul, and Robert Orsi's Between Heaven and Earth: The Religious Worlds People Make and the Scholars Who Study Them.
By the end of August I hope to have gone through the pile of Harpers, The Nation and The New York Review of Books that has been growing for the last year.
Susan Coleman, Professor of Finance, Barney School of Business
My husband and I visited Germany in May including Munich, Bertesgaden, and “The Eagle's Nest.” As a follow-up to that, I have just finished re-reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William Shirer. I had read it many years ago, but know a lot more history now, so it was good to go back to it.
Other planned reading includes:
Delta Wedding, by Eudora Welty. I am in a book group and one of our members has a daughter who is getting married this summer so we chose this to honor her. I have never read any Welty before, so I am looking forward to it.
1776, by David McCullough. I love reading history, particularly history about how this country was founded. It always amazes me how many sacrifices the patriots made and the risks they took. I have read a number of McCullough's books and always enjoy his perspective and style of writing.
The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova. As I understand it, this is a historical novel woven around the Dracula legend. I'll probably have nightmares for weeks.
A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens. I am a member of a Charles Dickens book club so I am continuously reading and re-reading Dickens. I have read A Tale of Two Cities several times, but always enjoy going back to it because it has some great characters and an interesting perspective on the French Revolution.
Richard Cote, Associate Athletics Director
Chris Matthews’ book, Now, Let Me Tell You What I Really Think
Tommy Franks’ book, The American Soldier
Laura Ingraham's book Shut Up and Sing
I love listening to talk radio, especially Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. I am not necessarily a conservative Republican, however, I do enjoy the entertainment and the talking points. Chris Matthews’ “Hardball” TV show has always been a favorite of mine. I salute our troops and think every 18-year-old should do something for his or her country. It does not necessarily have to be serving in the military, but something. I have a lot of respect for the young men and women who serve our country and are fighting the war. That is what steered me to reading General Tommy Franks’ book. The other reasons I read these books is because I want to read something that is not sports related.
Otto Wahl, Director, Graduate Institute of Professional Psychology
I am still waiting for an opportunity to read something other than student papers, dissertation proposals, and faculty and fellowship applications during the summer. But, when and if I get an opportunity to read other things, my intention is to finish Augusten Burroughs’ Running with Scissors. It is a very funny memoir of the author's growing up experiences, focusing on some embarrassingly eccentric mental health practitioners he encountered.
Also on my reading list are the following:
Standing in the Shadows: Understanding and Overcoming Depression in Black Men, by John Head. It is a book written by one of the journalists participating in the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism (a program I have been involved with for many years now) and deals with a very important and neglected topic in mental health – depression among black men and the barriers that prevent many from seeking help. I try to keep up with the work of the Carter Fellows but have fallen behind. So, it's time for catch-up over the summer.
Living Outside Mental Illness: Qualitative Studies of Recovery in Schizophrenia, by Larry Davidson. When I discuss my own work looking at the stigma experienced by individuals with psychiatric disorders, many people have asked me if I am familiar with Larry Davidson's work at Yale concerning the subjective experiences of those who live with mental illnesses. So I thought it was about time I did become more familiar with his work.
