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Required Reading for Americans? - Page 4

post #46 of 60
10/11/08 at 5:40pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by LabelKing View Post
Winnie the Pooh.

Quote:
Originally Posted by rach2jlc View Post
I was always a Wind in the Willows fan, myself (if we're discussing talking-animal children's books, that is...)

Aren't these both British?

How about anything by Horatio Alger Jr.? These are the quintessential books about the American dream.
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post #47 of 60
10/11/08 at 5:51pm
Anything by Bukowski.
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post #48 of 60
10/12/08 at 12:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by rach2jlc View Post
A light, relatively simple (and mercifully short) book that I often use in some of my undergraduate courses is Martha Nussbaum's Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism. It's quite good for getting discussions going when you have a diverse group at different levels...

First you bring up poststructuralism, then Michel Foucault, and now Nussbaum . . . You truly are an academic.

I'm not a fan of any of them (I considered doing the sad-faced smiley), but this isn't the time or place for us to fight a miniature philisophico-cultural war.
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post #49 of 60
10/12/08 at 1:41pm
Great Gatsby.
To Kill A Mockingbird
Grapes of Wrath
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post #50 of 60
10/12/08 at 5:21pm
David Halberstam , I wished he had lived to cover the George Bush years.

(1961) The Noblest Roman. Houghton-Mifflin. ASIN: B0007DSNRM.
(1965) The Making of a Quagmire: America and Vietnam during the Kennedy Era. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-555092-X.
(1967) One Very Hot Day. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin. ASIN: B000HFUAT4.
(1968) The Unfinished Odyssey of Robert Kennedy. Random House. ISBN 0-394-45025-6.
(1971) Ho. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-554223-4.
(1972) The Best and the Brightest. Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-449-90870-4.
(1979) The Powers That Be. Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-252-06941-2.
(1981) The Breaks of the Game. Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-29625-7.
(1985) The Amateurs: The Story of Four Young Men and Their Quest for an Olympic Gold Medal. Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-449-91003-2.
(1986) The Reckoning. Avon Books. ISBN 0-380-72147-3.
(1989) Summer of '49. Harper Perennial Modern Classics. ISBN 0-06-088426-6.
(1991) The Next Century. Random House. ISBN 0-517-09882-2.
(1993) The Fifties. Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-449-90933-6.
(1994) October 1964. Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-449-98367-6.
(1999) The Children. Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-449-00439-2.
(1999) Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made. Broadway Books. ISBN 0-7679-0444-3.
(2001) War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals. Scribner. ISBN 0-7432-2323-3.
(2002) Firehouse. ISBN 0-7868-8851-2.
(2003) The Teammates: A Portrait of a Friendship. Hyperion. ISBN 0-7868-8867-9.
(2005) The Education of a Coach. Hyperion. ISBN 1-4013-0879-1.
(2007) The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War. Hyperion. ISBN 1401300529.
(2008 - Never Finished; Project continued by Frank Gifford) The Glory Game: How the 1958 NFL Championship Changed Football Forever. HarperCollins. ISBN 0061542555.
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post #51 of 60
10/12/08 at 10:40pm
Has anyone read Bentley's Process of Government?
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post #52 of 60
10/13/08 at 6:15am
Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis http://www.amazon.com/Founding-Broth.../dp/0375405445
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post #53 of 60
10/13/08 at 6:25am
God grapes of wrath was shit, please don't subject anyone to that. ALSO BY ALL MEANS AVOID The Great Gatsby Death of a Salesman. Our Town BY ALL MEANS READ Catch-22 A Cambodia Odyssey
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post #54 of 60
10/13/08 at 9:13am
Quote:
Originally Posted by King Francis View Post
First you bring up poststructuralism, then Michel Foucault, and now Nussbaum . . . You truly are an academic.

I'm not a fan of any of them (I considered doing the sad-faced smiley), but this isn't the time or place for us to fight a miniature philisophico-cultural war.

I'll freely admit that Foucault's ideas helped to shape mine quite a bit, moreso "Archaeology of Knowledge" and even some of his interviews than some of the others that are more famous.

Nussbaum less so, certainly, but I had a couple of classes with her in college and she is quite a dynamic and interesting teacher. So, when I needed something short, clear, yet provocative for a class I was teaching, I thought that particular volume might work well.
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post #55 of 60
10/13/08 at 9:37am
Greg Mortenson's 3 Cups of Tea is notably missing.
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post #56 of 60
10/13/08 at 12:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Eason View Post
God grapes of wrath was shit, please don't subject anyone to that. ALSO BY ALL MEANS AVOID The Great Gatsby Death of a Salesman.
While I agree The Great Gatsby was awful, I really have to disagree with Death of a Salesman. Especially being such a quick read (approx. 100 pages), I feel that nearly anyone could identify with aspects of that story. Granted, it may not be quite as relevant today, it certainly does a great job portraying a pivotal time in America.
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post #57 of 60
10/14/08 at 1:10pm
America by Design, by Kostoff An excellent book on why /how America looks the way that it does -from highway systems to Federal Style architecture. American Visions, by Robert Hughes. Excellent read on American art by an Australian.
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post #58 of 60
10/14/08 at 1:23pm
Not sure if it's been mentioned, but I'll add The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
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post #59 of 60
10/14/08 at 1:47pm
classics: moby dick, twain, hawthorne, wash. irving, jfc, etc.

modern: john fante, on the road, cormac! , mcguane, carver, etc.
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post #60 of 60
10/22/08 at 3:33am
Quote:
Originally Posted by AntiHero84 View Post
Anything by Bukowski.

+1 Especially his poetry
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