Summer Reading Suggestions
Find out what other students are reading.
Fiction, Poetry, Drama, Humor
The Ender Quartet, by Orson Scott Card
Recommended by Vernon Schubel, Professor of Religious Studies
These four futuristic novels address issues ranging from multiculturalism to "the ethics of ethnography," says Vernon Schubel, professor of religious studies. "A wonderful example of how great writers can simultaneously transcend, challenge, and incorporate their own world view by presenting the view of others with empathy."
Invisible Tender, by Jennifer Clarvoe
Professor of English
This poetry collection by Kenyon professor Jennifer Clarvoe won the Poets Out Loud Prize, and the prestigious Kate Tufts Discovery Award. The New York Times praised it for a "strength and wisdom that any poet would be lucky to approximate." This was followed by her second book of poems, Counter-Amores, which responds to Ovid’s long Latin poem on love and sex, the Amores.
The March, by E.L. Doctorow
Class of 1952
A powerful, richly sensory, and many-stranded novel of the Civil War, this book by one of Kenyon's most prominent literary alumni interweaves the stories of soldiers, deserters, former slaves, and former owners. Doctorow is well known as the author of Ragtime, World's Fair, The Book of Daniel. His latest novel, Andrew's Brain, tells a tragic, convoluted life (and love) story that embraces the college classroom, the 9/11 tragedy, and the White House.
Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen
2011 Commencement Speaker
The most recent novel by the author hailed by Time magazine as "the great American novelist" and praised by Professor of English Sergei Lobanov-Rostovsky for "showing us the beauty of complexity in characters and culture, syntax and human sympathy." Franzen delivered the 2011 Commencement address at Kenyon, which was published in the New York Times.
The Fault In Our Stars, by John Green
Class of 2000
John Green breaks out of the young-adult category with his fourth novel, The Fault in Our Stars, which wins acclaim among critics who recommend it for readers of all ages. Time praised the novel for its brisk pace, sharp prose, humor, and fearlessness in exploring its fraught subjects—teenagers suffering from cancer—with powerful authenticity. Green, a Kenyon alumnus, spoke at Kenyon in 2014.
Biggest Elvis, by P.F. Kluge
Class of 1964 and Writer-in-Residence
A richly textured comic novel about a band of Elvis impersonators performing in the Philippines, Biggest Elvis is written by a Kenyon alumnus and the College's writer-in-residence. Kluge is also author of the acclaimed Alma Mater, about a year in the life of Kenyon, and Final Exam and Gone Tomorrow, two novels set in a Kenyon-like college.
One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez
Taught by Clara Román-Odio, Professor of Spanish
Calling him one of the world’s greatest fiction writers, Clara Román-Odio says that Gabriel García Márquez internationalized Latin America by reclaiming magic realism or “lo real maravilloso” as an element con-substantial to Latin American realities. This widely acclaimed book, considered by many to be the author's masterpiece, tells the multi-generational story of the Buendía family, whose patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, founds the town of Macondo, the metaphoric Colombia.
The House of Yes, by Wendy MacLeod
Class of 1981 and Playwright-in-Residence/Professor of Drama
Kenyon's playwright-in-residence won wide praise for this dark comedy, which the San Francisco Chronicle called "a blend of frivolous family politics and menacing political allegory," involving both incest and an obsession with the Kennedy assassination. The paper called the play "wickedly funny, disturbing, and vividly written."
Say What You Will, by Cammie McGovern
Class of 1985
Amy is an intellectually gifted high-school senior with cerebral palsy. Matthew, who struggles with a disability of his own, reluctantly volunteers to be one of her “peer helpers.” A friendship, then a romance, take surprising turns.
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs
Class of 2001
In his first novel, Riggs conjures a fascinating dream world with just enough reality mixed in to keep things interesting. The result, which quickly became a national best-seller, reads like young-adult fantasy with the psychological depth to appeal to adults.
Dreamers of the Absolute: A Book of Hours, by Anna Sun
Professor of Sociology
Sun, a Kenyon sociology professor, has written a novella-length meditation centered on a young woman who spends seven days at a Trappist monastery. Kenyon Review editor David Lynn calls the beautifully produced book “austere and yet scorching in its passions.”
The Last Flight of Poxl West, by Daniel Torday
Class of 2000
This engrossing novel, released in 2015, tells a war story and a love story, but it unfolds into much more. Centering on a Jewish refugee from Czechoslovakia who pilots a Royal Air Force bomber during World War II, this book explores our very need for stories.
The Complete Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson
Class of 1980
Not many years before creating one of the greatest comic strips of all time, Watterson was a Kenyon political science major who drew cartoons for the Collegian, the student newspaper. This three-volume set includes the strip's entire ten-year run, and laughs that never go stale.
Nonfiction
A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson
2014 Commencement Speaker
Publishers Weekly writes, "Returning to the U.S. after 20 years in England, Iowa native Bryson decided to reconnect with his mother country by hiking the length of the 2100-mile Appalachian Trail. Awed by merely the camping section of his local sporting goods store, he nevertheless plunges into the wilderness and emerges with a consistently comical account of a neophyte woodsman learning hard lessons about self-reliance."
On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not, by Robert Burton
Recommended by Ray Heithaus, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Studies and Biology
In this book, neurologist Robert Burton shows that feeling certain—feeling that we know something--- is a mental sensation, rather than evidence of fact. Kenyon biologist Ray Heithaus values this book for "linking neuroscience and the phenomenon of belief in a way that is highly relevant in a world of extremism and fundamentalism."
The Hidden Mechanics of Exercise: Molecules that Move Us, by Christopher Gillen
Professor of Biology
Gillen, a Kenyon professor of biology, explores the biochemical intricacies at work in exercise and athletic performance—with clear explanations, deft analogies, and a sense of wonder. Gillen masterfully explains the science while capturing its “deep intrinsic splendor.”
Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand
Class of 1989
The inspiring and gripping best-seller, written by a Kenyon alumna, tells the dramatic tale of runner and World War II POW Louis Zamperini. This is Hillenbrand's second book and worthy successor to her runaway hit, Seabiscuit. The story of survival and forgiveness is both gripping and inspiring.
The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World, by Lewis Hyde
Professor of Creative Writing
Ranging widely through anthropology, mythology, economics, and biography, this hugely influential book examines the relationship between art and commerce, and the way a commodity culture undercuts creativity. Hyde teaches in Kenyon's English department.
Enrique's Journey, by Sonia Nazario
Recommended by David Harrington, Professor of Economics
An engrossing, powerful account of a young boy's journey from Honduras to reunite with his mother in America. Economist David Harrington was fascinated by the "market" for coyotes, who help illegal immigrants cross the border. Based on the Los Angeles Times newspaper series that won two Pulitzer Prizes, this story puts a human face on the ongoing debate about immigration reform in the United States.
The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan
2013 Kenyon Speaker
What should we have for dinner? The question has confronted us since man discovered fire, but according to Michael Pollan, how we answer it today, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, may well determine our very survival as a species. What’s at stake in our eating choices is not only our own and our children’s health, but the health of the environment that sustains life on Earth.
Chinese Lessons, by John Pomfret
Recommended by Michelle Mood, Assistant Professor of Political Science
"A great look into China now and how it came to be what it is, by a great journalist," says Michelle Mood of the Political Science department. "My students always love it."
Bowling Alone, by Robert Putnam
Kenyon Speaker
In a groundbreaking book based on vast data, Robert Putnam shows how we have become increasingly disconnected from family, friends, neighbors, and our democratic structures– and how we may reconnect. Putnam, a political scientist at Harvard, spoke at Kenyon in 2014.
The Music of the Primes: Searching to Solve the Greatest Mystery in Mathematics, by Marcus du Sautoy
Recommended by Judy Holdener, Professor of Mathematics
"My favorite popular math book," says Judy Holdener, professor of mathematics. Du Sautoy, an Oxford mathematician and BBC commentator, takes readers into the alluring puzzles of the famed Riemann Hypothesis, a long-unresolved problem involving the pattern of prime numbers.
This is Water, by David Foster Wallace
2005 Commencement Speaker
Thought-provoking and inspiring to countless readers, this book reproduces the text of Wallace's Commencement address to the Kenyon Class of 2005. The speech lives on in popular consciousness, in social media, and in print, years after its delivery and the suicide of its author.
In Pharaoh's Army, by Tobias Wolf
Recommended by Harry Itagaki, Professor of Biology
This memoir "illustrates the possibilities of life," from merchant seaman to teacher and writer, says biologist Harry Itagaki. "Funny, absurd, and picaresque, it makes most fiction seem tame."
Here's what you told us you are reading
Emma, by Jane Austen
Thirteen Reasons Why, Jay Asher
Last Chance To See, by Douglas Adams
The House of the Spirits, by Isabel Allende
A Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing, by Melissa Bank
The Man Who Loved Books Too Much, by Allison Hoover Bartlett
The Savage Detectives, by Roberto Bolaño
Behind the Beautiful Forevers, by Katherine Boo
Don Juan, by Lord Byron
Life and Times of Michael K, by J. M. Coetzee
House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, by Philip K. Dick
The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green
The Art of Fielding, Chad Harbach
My Petition for More Space, by John Hersey
Everybody Sees the Ants, A.S. King
Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer
The Earthsea Chronicles, by Ursula la Guin
Left Behind, by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, by E. Lockhart
Throne of Glass, by Sarah J. Maas
One More Thing, by BJ Novak
Animal Farm, George Orwell
V., by Thomas Pynchon
Divergent series by Veronica Roth
The Mistborn series, by Brandon Sanderson
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
East of Eden, by John Steinbeck
Laddie a True Blue Story, by Gene Stratton-Porter
Walkin' On the Happy Side of Misery, by J. R. "Model T" Tate
Panther in the Sky, by James Alexander Thom
These is My Words, Nancy E. Turner
Old School, by Tobias Wolff
The 5th Wave, by Rick Yancey
The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak