Reading list revamped and sent to accepted freshmenANN ARBOR—Reference librarians at the University of Michigan can rest easy, knowing that they have done their best to ensure that no prospective student is bored this summer. Each year they put together a 130-book reading list that all accepted freshmen receive in their welcome packet.

The list is revised every three to four years to ensure that it keeps current with books that are important in the literary world.

These lists “do not include books that every college freshman should have read in high school, or should read while they are at U-M,” says Linda TerHaar, director of the Shapiro Undergraduate Library. Instead, she says that the books are “a glimpse of the type of literature students will encounter in their field of interest, and include topics that are considered important in subject areas.” And, says TerHaar, the list “includes books we think are cool.”

The list divides the 130 books into five subject areas. Among the recommendations:

Social Sciences: Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language by Robin Dunbar; Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus by Dinesh D’Souza; The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller and Ruth Ward; Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics and Creative Lives by Frank J. Salloway; The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich A. Hayek.

Arts: Tango! The Dance, Song and the Story edited by Simon Collier; Nothing but the Blues: Music and the Americans by Lawrence Cohn; My Life by Isadora Duncan; A Challenge for the Actor by Uta Hagen; Georgia O’Keeffe: A Life by Roxana Robinson.

Science, Medicine & Technology: Silent Spring by Rachel Carson; Digging Dinosaurs: The Search that Unraveled the Mystery of Baby Dinosaurs by John R. Horner and James Gorman; Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus that Caused It by Gina Kolata; The Hot Zone by Richard Preston; Serendipity: Accidental Discoveries in Science by Royston M. Roberts.

History: Jackie Robinson: A Biography by Arnold Rampersad; The Klan Unmasked by Stetson Kennedy; In the Spirit of Crazy Horse by Peter Matthiessen; Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography by Jean H. Baker; Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity by Sarah B. Pomeroy.

Fiction: The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan; Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez; Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston; 1984 by Goerge Orwell; Night by Elie Wiesel.

TerHaar says, “The list requires many hours to put together, and costs $2,500 in printing costs to publish.” Copies of the list
For more information, contact Linda TerHaar at [email protected] or (734) 763-5084, or contact the Shapiro Undergraduate Reference Desk.

Linda TerHaar[email protected]