Past Reading Lists
| Month | Book Title | Author |
2005 - 2006 Reading List |
||
| September | The Kite Runner | Khaled Hosseini |
| October | The Exquisite Risk: Daring to Live an Authentic Life | Mark Nepo |
| November | Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books | Azar Nafisi |
| December | The Annual Poetry Reading at the Balcony Club | |
| January | The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of The Oxford English Dictionary | Simon Winchester |
| February | Benjamin Franklin: An American Life | Walter Isaacson |
| March | Challenges Facing Higher Education at the Millennium: (American Council on Education Oryz Press series on Higher Education) | Werner Z. Hirsch (Editor), Luc E. Weber (Editor) |
| April | TNickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America | Barbara Ehrenreich |
| May | TBA-an Uncommittee wrap-up | |
2004 - 2005 Reading List |
||
| September | The Elegant Universe | Brian Greene |
| October | Bill Jason Priest: Community College Pioneer | Kathleen Whitson |
| November | Copenhagen | Michael Frayn |
| December | The Annual Poetry Reading at the Balcony Club | |
| January | Life of Pi | Yan Martel |
| February | In the Time of Butterflies | Julia Alvarez |
| March | The Rise of the Creative Class | Richard Florida |
| April | The Bootlegger's Other Daughter | Mary Cimarolli |
| May | TBA-an Uncommittee wrap-up | |
2003 - 2004 Reading List |
||
| September | Roseborough | Jane Roberts Wood |
| October | From a Violent Redemptive Way of Learning | Henri Nouwen |
| November | The Medusa Tree | Mylene Dressler |
| December | The Annual Poetry Reading at the Balcony Club | |
| January | Sophie and the Angel; The Answer is No |
Dora Alonso; Naguib Mahfouz |
| February | Dogs Don't Bite When a Growl Will Do | Luke Barber |
| March | The Progress of Love | Alice Munro |
| April | Jim Bowie's Letter and Bill Buckner's Legs | Stephen J. Gould |
| May | TBA-an Uncommittee wrap-up | |
2002 - 2003 Reading List |
||
| September | A Bend in the River | V.S. Naipaul |
| October | Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature | Janine M. Benyus |
| November | The Lady Who Liked Clean Restrooms: The Chronicle of One of the Strangest Stories Ever to Be Rumored About Around New York |
Patrick Donleavy |
| December | The Annual Poetry Reading at the Balcony Club | |
| January | If on a Winter's Night a Traveler | Italo Calvino, William Weaver (Translator) |
| February | Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World | Edward W. Said |
| March | The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World | Michael Pollan |
| April | The Futurological Congress (From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy) | Stanislaw Lem, Michael Kandell (Translator) |
| May | TBA-an Uncommittee wrap-up | |
2001 - 2002 Reading List |
||
| September | Grace | Jane Roberts Wood |
| October | Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life | Thich Nhat Hanh |
| November | Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader | Anne Fadiman |
| December | The Annual Poetry Reading at the Balcony Club | |
| January | Naked | David Sedaria |
| February | Rethinking Life & Death: The Collapse of Our Traditional Ethics | Peter Singer |
| March | Chicano Chicanery: Short Stories | Daniel Chacon |
| April | Tom Dodge Talks About Texas | Tom Dodge |
| May | TBA-an Uncommittee wrap-up | |
2000 - 2001 Reading List |
||
| September | Baltasar and Blimunda | Jose Saramago |
| October | A General Theory of Love | Thomas Lewis, M.D. |
| November | The White Hotel | D.M. Thomas |
| December | The Annual Poetry Reading at the Balcony Club | |
| January | Genome: The Autobiography of a Species | Matt Ridley |
| February | The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven | Sherman Alexie |
| March | Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge | Edward Osborne Wilson |
| April | The Woman in the Dunes | Kobo Abe |
| May | TBA-an Uncommittee wrap-up | |
1999 - 2000 Reading List |
||
| September | The Journey of Ibn Fattauma | Naguib Mahfouz |
| October | The Debt to Pleasure | John Lanchester |
| November | Dom Casmurro | Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis |
| December | A poetry collection to be named | |
| January | The Language of Mathematics: Making the Invisible Visible | Keith J. Devin |
| February | Reindeer Moon | Elizabeth Marshall Thomas |
| March | Cereus Blooms at Night | Shani Mootoo |
| April | In a Narrow Grave: Essays on Texas | Larry McMurtry |
| May | Tuesday With Morrie | Mitch Albom |
1998 - 1999 Reading List |
||
| September | Krik? Krak! | Edwidge Danticat |
| October | Lost in the Cosmos | Walker Percy |
| November | Cold Mountain | Charles Frazier |
| December | In Mad Love and War | Joy Harjo |
| January | Einstein's Dreams | Alan Lightman |
| February | Puerto Rico: The Four Storeyed Country | Jose Luis Gonzalez |
| March | Clicking | Faith Popcorn |
| April | Kinds of Love | Mary Sarton |
| May | Goodbye to a River | John Graves |
1997 - 1998 Reading List |
||
| October | Go | Holly Uyemoto |
| November | Technopoly | Neil Postman |
| December | Faculty/staff seasonal poetry readings at Club Dada in Deep Elm | |
| January | Cane | Jean Toomer |
| February | Among the White Moon Faces | Shirley Geok-Lin Lim |
| March | River Out of Eden | Richard Dawkins |
| April | El Senor Presidente | Miguel A. Asturias |
| May | TBA-an Uncommittee wrap-up cultural activity to be determined by Uncommittee members | |
1993 - 1994 Reading List |
||
| September | A Thousand Acres | Jane Smiley |
| October | Praying for Sheetrock: A Work of Nonfiction | Melissa Fay Greene |
| November | Backlash: Undeclared War Against American Women | Susan Faludi |
| December | no selection - Holiday | |
| January | Their Eyes Were Watching God | Zora Neale Hurston |
| February | Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit | Al Gore |
| March | All the Pretty Horses | Cormac McCarthy |
| April | The House of the Spirit | Isabel Allende |
| May | TBA-an Uncommittee wrap-up | |
1992 - 1993 Reading List |
||
| September | The Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy | Kirkpatrick Sale |
| October | The Bean Trees | Barbara Kingsolver |
| November | A Natural History of the Senses | Diane Ackerman |
| December | July's People | Nadine Gordimer |
| January | Letters to a Young Poet | Rainer Maria Rilke |
| February | Refuge | Terry Tempest Williams |
| March | Simon's Night | Jon Hassler |
| April | Coming Home Crazy: An Alphabet of China Essays | Bill Holm |
| May | Lakota Woman | Mary Crow Dog |
1991 - 1992 Reading List |
||
| September | The Education of Little Tree | Forrest Carter |
| October | The Star Thrower | Loren Eiseley |
| November | The Art of War (Translation by Thomas Clearly; "The Cosmology of Peace", excerpt from The Dream of the Earth, Thomas Berry |
Sun Tzu |
| December | Darkness Visible | William Styron |
| January | Things Fall Apart | Chinua Achebe |
| February | Middle Passage | Charles Johnson |
| March | The Call of Stories: Teaching and the Moral Imagination | Robert Coles |
| April | Selections from The Magic and the Real, ed | Celia Correas de Zapata |
| May | Ceremony | Leslie Silko |
1990 - 1991 Reading List |
||
| September | The Joy Luck Club | Amy Tan |
| October | Bridges to Infinity | Michael Guillen |
| November | Hunger of Memory | Richard Rodriquez |
| December | Midaq Alley | Niguib Mahfouz |
| January | The 100 - A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History | Michael Hart |
| February | And We Are Not Saved | Derrick Bell |
| March | From Beirut to Jerusalem | Thomas Friedman |
| April | The End of Nature; 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth |
Bill McKibben; John Javna |
| May | House Made of Dawn | N. Scott Momaday |
1989 - 1990 Reading List |
||
| September | Chalice and the Blade | Riane Eisler |
| October | Love in the Time of Cholera | Gabriel Garcia Marquez |
| November | A Summons to Memphis | Peter Taylor |
| December | Amusing Ourselves to Death | Neil Postman |
| January | The Needs of Strangers | Michael Ignatieff |
| February | Mama Day | Gloria Naylor |
| March | Women's Ways of Knowing | Mary Field Belenky, et al. |
| April | She Who Remembers | Linda Lay Shuler |
| May | A Brief History of Time | Stephen Hawking |
1988 - 1989 Reading List |
||
| September | Dallas Stories | Marshall Terry |
| October | Molecules of the Mind | Jon Franklin |
| November | The Train to Estelline | Jane Roberts Wood |
| December | Film (TBA) | |
| January | To Know As We Are Known | Parker J. Palmer |
| February | The Old Gringo | Carlos Fuentes |
| March | Essays | E.B. White |
| April | Beloved | Toni Morrison |
| May | Film (TBA) | |
1987 - 1988 Reading List |
||
| September | Goddesses in Everywoman | Jean Shinoda-Bolin |
| October | Cold Sassy Tree | Olive Ann Burns |
| November | Mayonnaise and the Origin of Life | Harold J. Morowitz |
| December | Film (TBA) | |
| January | Teaching as a Conserving Activity | Neil Postman |
| February | The Handmaid's Tale | Margaret Eleanor Atwood |
| March | Metaphors We Live By | George Lakoff |
| April | Selected Short Stories | DCCCD Writers |
| May | Film (TBA) | |
1886 - 1987 Reading List |
||
| September | Surely You Must Be Joking, Mr. Feynman; The Periodic Table |
R.P. Feynman; Primo Levi |
| October | Gideon's Trumpet | Anthony Lewis |
| November | Habits of the Heart | Robert Bellah, et. al. |
| December | To the Lighthouse | Virginia Woolf |
| January | Lonesome Dove | Larry McMurtry |
| February | The Courage To Be; Laches |
Paul Tillich; Plato |
| March | My Quest for Beauty | Rollo May |
| April | Silences | Tillie Olsen |
| May | Selections from Shadow Dancing in the USA, Michael Ventura | |
1985 - 1986 Reading List |
||
| September | Ironweed; Falconer |
William Kennedy; John Cheever |
| October | Pedagogy of the Oppressed; Animal Farm |
Paulo Freire; George Orwell |
| November | Civilization and its Discontents | Sigmund Freud |
| December | Poetry and Art (Selections of poems by Seamus Haney and Sylvia Plath, and two short articles on art) | |
| January | Jitterbug Perfume | Tom Robbins |
| February | The Heart of Philosophy | Jacob Needleman |
| March | Selections from Discoverers | Daniel Boorstin |
| April | A Stroll with William James | Barzun |
| May | "Myth of Sisyphus" and a short story(ies) from Exile and Kingdom | Camus |
1984 - 1985 Reading List |
||
| September | The Tao of Physics; The Tao of Pooh |
Fritjof Capra; Benjamin Hoff |
| October | Blue Highways | William Least Heet Moon |
| November | The Color Purple; In A Different Voice |
Alice Walker; Carol Gilligan |
| December | The Book of Laughter and Forgetting | Milan Kundera |
| January | One Hundred Years of Solitude | Gabriel Garcia Marquez |
| February | The Structure of Scientific Revolution; Flatland |
Thomas Kuhn; Edwin Abott |
| March | Selected Essays by Montaigne | |
| April | On Human Nature | Edward Wilson |
| May | Time Trilogy | Madeleine L'Engle |
1983 - 1984 Reading List |
||
| September | Anatomy of An Illness; The Death of Ivan Llych |
Norman Cousins; Leo Tolstoy |
| October | On Caring | Milton Mayeroff "Of This Time, Of That Place," Lionel Trilling; Perry Scheme |
| November | Wise Blood | Flannery O'Connor |
| December | Denial of Death | Ernest Becker |
| January | The Revolution of Hope | Erich Fromm |
| February | Snow Leopard | Peter Mathiesson |
| March | Lives of a Cell, and Medusa and the Snail, (excerpts) | Lewis Thomas |
| April | Brother to a Dragonfly | Will Campbell |
| May | Selected poetry readings | |