July 3, 2000
Need a good summer read? The experts have some tips
By Barbara McKenna
Summer wouldn't be summer without certain things: barbecues, beach outings, mosquito
bites, and, of course, a great book or two to get lost in. For those who are still
searching for that perfect read, UCSC faculty and staff have some recommendations
(after all, we know a lot about books around here).
 |
Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner (Doubleday, 1971; Modern Library, 2000).
A retired professor imagines the experiences of his grandparents as he pieces together
their pioneer life in San Jose, Santa Cruz, Colorado, Idaho, and finally Nevada City.
As he interprets the traces they left behind in an abundant collection of letters,
sketches, reportages, and photographs, glossed by his own memories, he has painful
realizations about the likely reality of their interior lives as well as his own.
--Janet Jones, Assistant, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat (Soho, 1994). A luminous book that
explores a Haitian woman's relationship with her mother, and moves between the Haiti
of her childhood and New York. Very powerful.
--Patricia Zavella, Professor of Community Studies
Close Range: Wyoming Stories by Annie Proulx (Scribner's, 1999). It's fantastic--a
short story collection that captures the essence of the West. Each one different,
each one a gem.
--Sandra Faber, University Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (various publishers; originally
published in French in 1844). This is not great literature, but it is a great read.
It's more than just a melodramatic story of personal revenge, although it is that,
but it's chiefly a novel of manners: pages, for example, on the differences between
how audiences behave at the opera in Rome and in Paris. --Gary Miles, Professor of
History
Dancing at the Rascal Fair by Ivan Doig (Atheneum, 1987). A chronicle of western
pioneering, this is a vivid account of the glorious dreams and harsh realities of
two untried but highly principled young Scots who settle in the Two Medicine area
of western Montana in the late 1800s--one as a sheep rancher, the other as a schoolteacher.
Doig follows his protagonists, who sail away in steerage from unpromising futures
as apprentice wheelwrights in a poor, muddy village, to the wild, raw, open-sky foothills
of the Rockies. This page-turner tells the compelling story of their friendship and
enmity, of frustrated love, and a mismatched marriage, through four decades of western
history.
--Janet Jones, Assistant, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester (Henry Holt, 1996). A great summer
read: funny, quirky and intellectually satisfying. Part Don Quixote, part Martha
Stewart gone mad. The narrator embarks on writing a great work of art, a cookbook.
The mix of ingredients, however, create instead an offbeat, neurotic, and snobbish
mix of philosophy, travelogue, gastronomy, and mischief. I never get tired of reading
excerpts of this hilarious book to friends.
--Martin Wollesen, Director, Arts & Lectures
Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee (Secker & Warburg, 1999; Viking, 1999). A
South African writer. This book won the Booker Prize in 1999. A university professor
lost in postmodern South Africa. Bleak but brilliant.
--Paul Whitworth, Professor of Theater Arts and Shakespeare Santa Cruz Artistic Director
The Hours by Michael Cunningham (Picador, 2000). A beautifully conceived novel
by Pulitzer Prize-winner Cunningham. Sensitively and finely written as an homage
to Virginia Woolf and, more than that, a stunning meditation on the strength of art
as well as the ordinary to give meaning to the fragility of life. You need not have
read any Virginia Woolf to appreciate this wonderful novel.
--Martin Wollesen, Director, Arts & Lectures
My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki (Viking, 1998). A brilliant novel about meat,
about being half, about domestic violence, about reproductive choices and impositions,
about cultures, about hormones, about race, and about a lot more.
--Gwendolyn Mink, Professor of Politics
My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki. This is an amazing first novel by a documentary
filmmaker. I don't get to read enough fiction--this book I could not put down.
--Chip Lord, Professor of Film and Digital Media
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (William Morrow, 1994). About 12th-century
life and the building of a cathedral and monastery, based in part on Salisbury and
Canterbury Cathedrals and the chaos surrounding King Stephen's rule in England. Although
I found most of his history believable, political and social historians find it fairly
awry. It's a good read in any case.
--Virginia Jansen, Professor of Art History
Plainsong by Kent Haruf (Knopf, 1999). Life stories of a multigenerational
community on the Great Plains of northeastern Colorado. Classic literary style and
heartfelt stories.
--Connie Creel, Linguistics Research Assistant
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink (translated by Carol Brown Janeway) (Vintage,
1999). Set in postwar Germany, the story is told by a 15-year-old boy who falls in
love with an older woman. She resurfaces later in his life when she is a defendant
in a war crimes trial who is accused of an unspeakable crime. Beautifully written.
Winner of Boston Book Review's Fisk Fiction Prize.
--Connie Creel, Linguistics Research Assistant
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant (St. Martin's Press, 1997). It's the biblical
story of Dinah (the only daughter of Jacob) retold from the female point of view.
It was one of those books that I couldn't put down for two days until I finished
it.
--Leta Miller, Professor of Music
Remembering Babylon by David Malouf (Vintage, 1994). Malouf is an acclaimed
Australian novelist and essayist, and his novel deals with the ways in which race
happened in Australia--specifically through the eyes of a fictional young white lad
who is raised by Aborigines, then seeks to return to "his people." Wonderfully
written, thoughtful, and thought-provoking, it's just the thing for summer.
--Terry Burke, Professor of History
The Romantics by Pankaj Mishra (Random House, 2000). A novel about a poor
Brahmin student in Benares who gets entangled in two widely different social worlds:
the western expatriate community and Indian student radicals. During this time, the
protagonist also attempts to plow his way through the corpus of western literature,
and his thoughts on how these people think and act are framed around the writings
of Gustave Flaubert and Edmund Wilson.
--Melanie DuPuis, Assistant Professor of Sociology
The Story of San Michele by Axel Munthe (first published in 1929). A fictional
account of the life of a doctor based loosely on the author's own life. Munthe was
a very popular doctor at the beginning of the 20th century who worked during the
great plague pandemic in Naples, and who eventually built a house (San Michele) in
Capri.
--Giacomo Bernardi, Assistant Professor of Biology
The mystery series by Donna Leon. Her novels take place in Venice, have a
very attractive cast of leading characters, and often focus on political issues such
as the failure of the Italian government to adequately control the dumping of toxic
waste due to vast political corruption. These novels are literate, fun to read, sometimes
disturbing--also hard to get in the U.S.
--Gary Miles, Professor of History
The Catherine LeVendeur series by Sharan Newman (Forge). Death Comes as Epiphany
(1993), The Devil's Door (1994), The Wandering Arm (1995), Strong As Death (1996),
Cursed in the Blood (1998). The "detective" is Catherine LeVendeur, who
starts out as a novice at the convent run by Heloise (of Medieval Abelard and Heloise
fame). So far, volumes have to do with Abbot Suger who is building St. Denis (that's
a true historical part) and Medieval life in Paris and northern France. I find that
they are lots of fun and enjoy a bit of "lite" history, knowing the author
isn't distorting, as she is a serious historian.
--Virginia Jansen, Professor of Art History
Steven Saylor's mystery series. Each book focuses on a real historical event
that took place during the late Republic of ancient Rome and follows the main lines
of our historical knowledge very closely. These books try to re-create the minds of
ancient Romans, to imagine the personal relationships between masters and slaves,
between free Roman men and their freedwomen wives, between patrons and clients. I
think these books do a good job of putting flesh on the bones of ancient evidence.
--Gary Miles, Professor of History
Nonfiction
Against the Gods, The Remarkable Story of Risk by Peter Bernstein (John
Wiley & Sons, 1996). This is an amazing book that ties philosophy, mathematics,
religion, investing, and risk assessment all together in a very readable way. It
also gives very interesting perspectives on the history of science.
--Todd Wipke, Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry
The Clock of the Long Now: Time and Responsibility by Stewart Brand (Basic Books, 1999). Brand writes
a proposal for a monumental clock, really a public artwork, that thinks long-term--it
strikes once a century--as a way of reshaping ideas of time and responsibility.
The book is a series of short essays that expand on this theme. Stewart Brand is
a good writer and a visionary thinker.
--Chip Lord, Professor of Film and Digital Media
The Code Book: The Evolution of Secrecy from Mary, Queen of Scots, to Quantum
Cryptography by Simon Singh (Doubleday, 1999). A readable, clear history of codes
and ciphers, from ancient days to the WW II Enigma machine (featured in the movie
U-571) to the latest in electronic cryptography. Even the nonmathematical will enjoy
the stories and the cryptographic challenges in this book.
--Nirvikar Singh (no relation), Professor of Economics
The Dons: Mentors, Eccentrics, and Geniuses by Noel Annan (University of Chicago
Press, 1999). The book offers fascinating portraits of British professors from the
Victorian era to the present. The late Noel Annan was a brilliant storyteller as
well as a great intellectual historian, and his last book is a pleasure to read.
--Bruce Thompson, Lecturer in History
Floreana: A Woman's Pilgrimage to the Galapagos by Margret Wittmer (Moyer
Bell, 1990). Mrs. Wittmer recounts the story of her life, how she ended up with her
husband and son in the 1930s in one of the most remote islands of the Galapagos,
living the life of true "natural" people.
--Giacomo Bernardi, Assistant Professor of Biology
The Greek Achievement: The Foundations of the Western World by Charles Freeman
(Viking, 1999). At last there is a really good book on Greek history that is accessible
to the nonspecialist, well-written, and very up-to-date in its scholarship. I recommend
it highly to anyone who wants a good, readable overview of ancient Greek history.
--Gary Miles, Professor of History
I Wish I'd Made You Angry Earlier: Essays on Science, Scientists, and Humanity
by Max Perutz (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 1998). A collection of essays
from Nobel Laureate Perutz, exploring a range of topics on both science and his own
life, including the story of one woman's love affair with crystals, a man's gruesome
fascination with poison gas, his internment in the U.K. as an enemy alien, and his
involvement in a plan to create ships out of ice for refueling aircraft in the North
Atlantic during WW II.
--William Scott, Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Iraq Under Siege: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War, edited by Anthony
Arnove (South End Press, 2000). A documentation of the impact of a decade of sanctions
by the U.S. and the U.K. against Iraq.
--William Scott, Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry
The Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman, and the Struggle to Save the
Redwoods by Julia Butterfly Hill (Harper San Francisco, 2000). This is by and
about the woman who sat up in the redwood tree for two years to try to stop some
of the clearcutting going on just north of us. I was struck by the power, dedication,
and presence of this young woman, which stayed steady through time, through physical
harassment, El Niño storms, and international attention. I was also struck
by how much effect one dedicated person can have on the course of events. She started
with almost no resources beyond a strong desire and religious foundations. It is
not particularly well-written, but the story is gripping and quite moving.
--Richard Montgomery, Associate Professor of Mathematics
The Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto "Che" Guevara, translated by
Ann Wright (Verso Books, 1995). A journal begun in 1951 when Che and a friend traveled
around South America on a Norton 500. The motorcycle didn't last very long, but the
trip was an important formative experience for the emerging revolutionary. A great
biker read with some history and social studies that elevate the book beyond the
average.
--Rick Ortenblad, Lecturer in Theater Arts
Moving Violations: War Zones, Wheelchairs, and Declarations of Independence
by John Hockenberry (Hyperion, 1995). Hockenberry is an Emmy-award winning reporter
who is confined to a wheelchair. He describes his adventures as a disabled person
in a candid tone that is at times hilarious and at other times challenges your ideas
of what it means to be disabled.
--Karen Holl, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies
My Own Country: A Doctor's Story by Abraham Verghese (Random House/Vintage,
1995). An eloquent memoir by a compassionate doctor about his 1980s AIDS practice
in the Smoky Mountains of eastern Tennessee. Born in Ethiopia to expatriate Indian
teachers and trained in medicine in India and the U.S., Verghese understands the
yearning for a true home, and that understanding becomes central to his doctoring.
--Sarah Rabkin, Lecturer in Writing and Environmental Studies
The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester (Harper Perennial, 1999).
A great tale of the making of the first Oxford English Dictionary along with murder
and insanity.
--Tricia Sullivan, Lecturer in Linguistics
Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea by Gary Kinder (Atlantic Monthly Press,
1998; Vintage Books, 1999). The story of the shipwreck in 1857 of a sidewheel steamship
carrying 21 tons of gold and the salvage effort led in 1989 by Tommy Thompson. I
thought it one of best I've read recently, particularly as it describes, in a wonderfully
rich context, the kind of scientist/engineer we would naturally encourage amongst
our students at UCSC.
--Peter Scott, Professor Emeritus of Physics
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman (Noonday/Farrar,
Straus and Giroux, 1997). An evenhanded and fascinating inquiry into the cultural
collision that ensues when a Hmong immigrant family in Merced, California, bring
their infant daughter to the local hospital for epilepsy treatment.
--Sarah Rabkin, Lecturer in Writing and Environmental Studies
Wanderlust: A History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit (Viking, 2000). An insightful
history full of social insights and analysis of what has been lost with the dominance
of the automobile in American life. The last chapter describes a walk from the center
of Las Vegas out to the distant foothills.
--Chip Lord, Professor of Film and Digital Media
