Suggested Reading List

Faculty

Fiction, Poetry, Drama, Humor

The Ender Quartet, by Orson Scott Card

These four futuristic novels address issues ranging from multiculturalism to "the ethics of ethnography," says Vernon Schubel of the Religious Studies Department. "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

This poetry collection by a Kenyon professor 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."

 

 

The March, by E.L. Doctorow

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, and many others novels.

 

Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen

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 recently spoke at Kenyon and returned to deliver the 2011 Commencement address.

A Sea of Poppies, by Amitav Ghosh

Historian Ruth Dunnell calls this "an amazing novel about the early nineteenth-century opium trade between India and China," enlivened by brilliant language and a motley cast of characters.

 

 

An Abundance of Katherines, by John Green

This prize-winning novel, written by a Kenyon alumnus, was praised in the New York Times for its "every detail considered, the action unrolling with grace and inevitability."

 

When Dreams Travel, by Githa Hariharan

Starting with the familiar tale of Scheherazade, this novel about the power of storytelling moves on to explore "when women's dreams create power for strange and mysterious characters," says Wendy Singer of the History Department.

 

Ambiguous Adventure, by Cheikh Hamidou Kane

Two cultures and two identities-one Islamic and African, one French-pull at the hero of this novel by a noted Senegalese writer. Assistant Professor of History Sylvie Coulibaly calls the book, originally published in 1961, "one of my most beloved novels."

 

Measuring the World, by Daniel Kehlmann

This insightful novel by a German writer traces the parallel lives of mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss and explorer Alexander von Humboldt. "An extremely funny, swift read," the book explores "interconnections between legend and everyday life," says Paul Gebhardt of the German faculty.

Biggest Elvis, by P.F. Kluge

A richly textured comic novel, about a band of Elvis impersonators performing in the Philippines, 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 two novels set in a Kenyon-like college, Final Exam and Gone Tomorrow.

Mal de Amores, by Angeles Mastretta

Titled Lovesick in English, this novel follows the fortunes and complex problems of a young woman during the Mexican Revolution. Clara Román-Odio of the Spanish faculty praises it as a "truly wonderful story."

 

The House of Yes, by Wendy MacLeod

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."

Feral, by Janet McAdams

A Kenyon professor, McAdams explores the vexed relationship between human and non-human nature in this poetry collection. Her first collection, The Island of Lost Luggage, won an American Book Award and the First Book Award for poetry of the Native Writers Circle of the Americas.

The Red and the Black, by Stendhal

Everyone's reading list should include this French classic by "a master of irony," says Mary Jane Cowles of the French faculty. The nineteenth-century novel, blending Romanticism and realism, "explores a young man's ambition and self-delusion."

 

The Complete Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson

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.

What I Did Wrong, by John Weir

Like Joyce's Ulysses, this novel centers on a single day in a single city-in this case, New York-and works its magic through word-play, introspection, humor, cultural allusion, and fragments of history. Dazzling and funny but deeply wrenching, the book, by a Kenyon alumnus, recounts a gay man's coming of age and the ravages of the AIDS epidemic.

 

Nonfiction

Darwin's Gift to Science and Religion, Franciso Ayala

A noted evolutionary biologist-who once trained for Catholic priesthood-argues that the truth of natural selection can coexist with religious truth in the realm of value and meaning. Ayala recently spoke to a packed house at Kenyon.

 

 

On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not, by Robert Burton

Biologist Raymond 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."

Off the Deep End, by W. Hodding Carter

The subtitle of this engaging, amusing book, by a Kenyon alumnus, says it all: "The Probably Insane Idea that I Could Swim My Way through a Midlife Crisis-and Qualify for the Olympics."

 

Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand

The inspiring and gripping best-seller, written by a Kenyon alumna, tells the dramatic tale of runner and World War II POW Louis Zamperini.

 

Common as Air: Revolution, Art, and Ownership, by Lewis Hyde

Hyde offers a stirring defense of our "cultural commons," that vast store of ideas, inventions, and works of art that we have inherited from the past and continue to enrich in the present, shedding light on everything from the Human Genome Project to Bob Dylan's musical roots. Hyde teaches in Kenyon's English Department.

 

The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World, by Lewis Hyde

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.

 

Mountains beyond Mountains, by Tracy Kidder

The story of how activist physician Paul Farmer transformed health care for the poor in Haiti and elsewhere in the developing world. "A great and eye-opening read," says Stephen Van Holde of the Political Science Department.

The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature, by Daniel Levitin

A cognitive psychologist (and music industry veteran) uses insights from neuroscience, anthropology, and evolutionary biology to explain the power of music. Levitin, who also wrote the popular This Is Your Brain on Music, recently spoke at Kenyon.

Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future, by Bill McKibben

A recent Kenyon speaker, McKibben argues that the key to surviving global warming lies not in globalism but in a people-centered communities promoting the quality of life over quantity in the production of goods.

Greasy Rider: Two Dudes, One Fry-Oil-Powered Car, and a Cross-Country Search for a Greener Future, by Greg Melville

Needing a new car, journalist (and Kenyon graduate) Greg Melville ended up with a new paradigm. Melville and his college pal "Iggy" take the ultimate eco-road trip, encountering adventures and learning about energy alternatives along the way.

 

Enrique's Journey, by Sonia Nazario

An engrossing, powerful account of a young boy's journey from Honduras to reunite with his mother in the United States. Economist David Harrington was fascinated by the "market" for coyotes, who help illegal immigrants cross the border.

 

Chinese Lessons, by John Pomfret

"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 faculty. "My students always love it."

 

The Music of the Primes: Searching to Solve the Greatest Mystery in Mathematics, by Marcus du Sautoy

"My favorite popular math book," says Judy Holdener, associate 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.

Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings (translated by Burton Watson)

This Taoist philosopher (who lived in the fourth century BCE) "did wonderfully playful things with language" in questioning conventional knowledge, says Joseph Adler of the Asian Studies Program. "It's one of my favorite books of all time."

 

This is Water, by David Foster Wallace

Thought-provoking and inspiring to countless readers, this book reproduces the text of Wallace's address to the Kenyon Class of 2005 on the occasion of their commencement.

 

In Pharaoh's Army, by Tobias Wolf

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."

 

Winning the Dust Bowl, by Carter Revard

In both prose and poetry, this memoir-by a medieval scholar and Native American poet-interweaves Depression-era Oklahoma, Oxford University, and the American Indian Movement. William Klein of the English faculty recommends this "poetic diary" to aspiring writers.