Favorite Books - Students in REL 353 Dark Self E & W W07
- Joseph Aubry: Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game
- I like this book because it Card does such a good job creating
his universe. The characters are well developed and likeable. He
sucks you into the story and makes you question what you would do
in Ender's situation.
- Lila Bichel: Leaves of Grass. Walt Whitman
- When I originally encountered this collection of poems, the
expansive inclusion of just about everything overwhelmed and even
annoyed me. But ultimately Whitman helped me to let go of my ideas
of how a poem or piece of literature 'should' be to create
whatever meaning. I even found myself enjoying and appreciating
his expansive inclusion of everything because of how it
illuminates meaning in everything. As he says in "Song of Myself"
"take everything in for what its worth, and not a cent more."
- Will Brundage: Stardust by Neil Gaiman.
- An illustrated novel by one of the modern masters of fairy
tale fantasy. It is a tale of what happens when Tristan makes a
promise to bring a fallen star to his love in the small village
where he grows up. In order to get it, he must pass through the
gate that borders the village, and enters into another kind of
world entirely. Full of growth, and a vivid tale of love and
treachery.
- The Last Unicorn by Peter Beagle.
- A poetic tale about a Unicorn who seeks to find the rest of
her kind. In order to do so, she must set out on the road less
traveled. She leaves her forest home and discovers that her kind
have all been captured by King Haggard's Red Bull, a fierce and
heartless beast. She seeks to be free of their domination and
release her family from the trap that they are in. Features a
wonderful sense of character and how love can be fostered in the
smallest of crannies, the tightest of nooks.
- Sarah Daegling: J.D. Salinger, Franny & Zooey
- This book contains two longer short stories about the youngest
children in the Glass family. Franny comes home from college after
a sort of breakdown. Her family is weirded out because she won't
stop muttering prayers and crying. Zooey is a stubborn actor and
doesn't want to do anything his family thinks he should.
- Dennis Duran: Autobiography of Malcolm X
- I first read the autobiography of Malcolm X when I was a
sophmore in high school, and it impacted me far more then any
books I had previously read. I knew very little about Malcolm X
when I decided to read the book, but by the time I was done I had
great respect for him. His stories of such horrific
discrimination and persecution allowed me to understand why he had
chosen a life of crime and drug using, but the most important part
of the story is the transformation that Malcolm goes through.
While doing time in prison Malcolm learns of the Nation of Islam,
and this opens his eyes to the sinful nature of his previous
activities. Malcolm X left prison and went on to be one of the
most prolific and a symbol of African-American strength and unity,
but I believe the most amazing part of the story is the
inspiration for such an amazing individual comes from prison of
all places. This book is my favorite because it is a unique rags
to riches story which involves the complete transformation of a
poverty stricken black man into one of the most prolific religious
figures of our time.
- Brenda Hagele: Anne Rule, The Stranger Beside Me
- Description: This book is written by a close friend of Ted
Bundy's. Throughout all the suspicion, arrests, and trial Ann Rule
believed that Ted Bundy was innocent. She only later sees the dark
side of Ted Bundy. I really enjoyed this book because it shows how
close one can get to a person without really knowing who they are,
or the evil they are capable of.
- Ted Haley:
- My favorite book is One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel
Garcia Marquez. It is a work of magic realism, and follows the
history of an imaginary town from its founding to its destruction.
Like the genre suggests, it is filled with magic, incredible
situations, fantastic people, all intermixed with reality. I
enjoyed the book the first time I read it, then I studied abroad
in Latin America and found that it is actually based on more facts
than one would think. It does follow the history of Garcia
Marquez's Colombia fairly well, which makes the book both great
literature and a rough sketch of the Latin American reality.
- Jonathan Henderson:
- Author: Neil Stephenson, Title: Snow Crash
Desc: It's a futuristic cyberpunk novel "the United States exists
as a patchwork of corporate-franchise city-states, and the
Internet--incarnate as the Metaverse--looks something like last
year's hype would lead you to believe it should."-amazon.com . I
like the speed of the novel, the way its written and the main
character is named hiro, who is a "Protagonist--hacker, samurai
swordsman, and pizza-delivery driver". This is part of a series of
books that looks at the future development of technology and how
it has changed human existence. Most of the boundaries that we
would never dream of crossing have been crossed, largely
illegally, but it deals with the repercussions of how we try to
regulate technology but in many ways its moves us toward the dark
side.
- T. Knox: David Abram, The Spell of the Sensous.
- I read this book while I was in India and Tibet this past
autumn, and it is probably the most influential book that I have
encountered in my lifetime. The reason that I love it so much is
because it provides a philosophical foundation for
environmentalism. While a more ecocentric perspective has seemed
intuitively correct to me for quite some time now, reading "The
Spell of the Sensuous" made the perspective come to life and make
sense on a personal level. The passion that infuses each page is
contagious and I walked away from the book (and into the
Himalayas) with a new, passionate way of relating to the natural
world.
- Sam Leeds: "Life of Pi"- Yann Martel
- This book is a layered and creative story involving a
shipwreck, a boy, and a tiger. A philosophical storyline with a
suprise ending that is a testament to the survival of the human
spirit and the belief in God. Highly recommended.
- Ross Logan: Angels and Demons, by Dan Brown
- This book is so different than other book that I have read. A
normally boring subject was brought to life, and explored in a new
way. To be honest, I don't read much, so my reading background to
which I compare this book is minimal. But the plot was well
thought out and exciting, and kept me reading as often as possible
until I was able to finish the book. What is also great about Dan
Brown is that he brings some sort of historical background to his
works. So while the story as a whole may be fictional, some of
the facts and figures and artifacts are real. I think this is a
great book, and I believe that this book is also currently in pre
production to become a movie.
- Jazz McGinnis: Ursula LeGuin, "The Dispossessed".
- It's probably the best sci-fi, based in a fictional universe,
dystopian novel with underlying anarchist and socialist ideas.
LeGuin uses her gifts as a descriptive author to set the scene on
a planet and a moon colony, and create such great
characterizations of philosophies. Probably my favorite "utopian"
novel.
- Joel Reynolds: Bible
- While I could have picked a lesser known text as my favorite
book, the Bible is the only book I truly would not want to go
without. Besides being integral to my life as far as faith is
concerned, the historical and cultural information it details,
albeit problematically (from at least historian's viewpoint), is
extremely rich and fascinating. Also, regardless of whether or
not one believes in God, there is a diversity of viewpoints and
portraits of who God might be and the myriad intricacies of the
relation of such a being to his creation. Many of these are left
unresolved over the course of the Biblical text, leaving one to
ponder for themselves the question of God qua God as well as God
as Savior, among numerous other inquiries. Granted, everything I
have stated greatly understates the depth of the texts and
multiplicity of probed truths in the Hebrew Scripture and
Christian New Testament. That being said, it is, in one way or
another, a life-changing book.
- Angel L. Scott: Living on the Border of the Holy: Renewing the
Priesthood of All, L. William Countryman.
- William Countryman really captures the metaphysical essence of
how each person lives in contact with the HOLY, DIVINE, UNIVERSE
(whatever one wishes to call it). I really enjoyed his
presentation of the subtle distinctions between ordained and lay
ministers. His arguments have convinced me that the work of the
Church and the life of the world is led by human beings not
super-human Priests.
- Heleana Theixos: A Confederacy of Dunces.
- The lead character is an obese college drop-out with a
self-proclaimed 160 IQ but completely socially inept, still living
at home with his reluctant yet sweet mother, in 1960's New
Orleans.
This excerpt is the only time we see the college professor, Dr.
Talc. I share the small excerpt with you because it is hilarious,
and gives you an idea not only of the lead character but also a
humorous peek at some college professors:
Dr. Talc lit a Benson and Hedges, looking out of the window of his
office, in the Social Studies Building. Across the dark campus he
saw some lights from the night clases in the other buildings. All
night he had been ransacking his desk for his notes on the British
Monarch of legend, notes hurriedly copied from a 100 page survey
of British history that he had once read in paperback. The
lecture was to be given tomorrow, and it was now almost 8:30. As
a lecturer Dr Talc ws renownd for the facile and sarcastic wit and
easily digested generalizations that made him popular among the
girl students, and helped to conceal his lack of knowledge about
almost everything in general, and British history in particular.
But even Talc ralized that his reputation for sophistication and
glibbness would not save him in the face of his being unable to
remember absolutely anything about Lear and Arthur aside from the
fact that the former had some children. He put his cigarette in
the ash tray and began on the bottom drawer again. In the rear of
the drawer was a stack of old papers that he had not examined very
thoroughly during his first search through the desk. Placing the
papers in his lap, he thumbed through them one by one, and found
that they were, as he had imagined, principally unreturned essays
that had accumulated over a period of over 5 years. As he turned
over one essay, his eye fell upon a rough yellowed sheet of Big
Chief tablet paper on which was printed, in red crayon:
"Your total ignorance of that which you profess to teach merits
the death penalty. I doubt whether you would know that saint
Casian of Imola was stabbed to death by his students with their
styli. His death, a martyrs honorable one, made him a patron
saint of teachers. Pray to him, you deluded fool, you "anyone for
tennis" golf-playing, cockatil-quafing pseudo pedant, for you do
indeed need a heavenly patron. Although your days are numbered,
you will not die as a martyr--for you further no holy cause--but
as the total ass which you really are."
- ---ZORRO
A sword was drawn on the last line of the page. "Oh, I wonder
whatever happened to him," Talc said aloud.
Edie Wyrick: Here is my fave book: "Beloved" by Toni Morrison
- Jessie Zumbiel: Still Life With Woodpecker by Tom Robbins
- I really enjoy love stories and this book is one of favorites.
It is not your conventional love story. What makes the love
story so unconventional is Tom Robbins' quick-witted philosophical
(slightly strange) writing style. He has a way with words that
keeps your attention and expands your thinking. The book is a
love story but through out it other ideas, such as, the difference
between an outlaw and criminal, the moon's purpose and the
conflict between social activism and romantic individualism are
discussed. The different topics addressed add to the book's
greatness, but the question that the book poses in the first few
pages and that is discussed throughout is the main reason I love
this book. It asks, "how do you make love stay?" I had a
personal interest in this question the first time I read this
book.