Easy Reader: Faculty and staff share their summer reading plans

It’s no mystery that whodunits make great reads for the beach or mountains or any other vacation spot, and in TIMES’ annual summer reading list, faculty and staff share many of their favorite authors in the genre: Jeffery Deaver, Elizabeth George, Sue Grafton, and Patricia Cornwell. If biographies are more your taste, you’ll find new works on J. Robert Oppenheimer and William Shakespeare. If you like to keep up on current events while you’re taking a break this summer, you might enjoy New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s new book. And for the last word on building a successful life and career, check out two books by Tom Gegax. “This summer I am turning to murder mysteries—The Commissario Brunetti Series by Donna Leon. Venice provides the perfect backdrop for this series of books featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti. Guido is a born-and-bred middle-class Venetian who investigates murder and high crime among the patrician families of old Venice. Woven within the stories are interesting insights into the current social and political climate in Italy and Europe.” —Mary Anne Fitzpatrick, dean, College of Arts and Sciences “I am quite keen on J. Robert Oppenheimer right now, and both the new biography American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin (Knopf, 2005), and the more limited history 109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos, by Jennet Conant (granddaughter of James Conant, a main figure in the events leading up to the atomic bomb) (Simon and Schuster, 2005), are books I am looking forward to. The biography has been more that 25 years in the making and is the first full biography of an enormously interesting and important person of the 20th century. Conant's book provides an intimate look at Los Alamos during the frantic design and construction of the first atomic bomb, largely from the point of view of the women involved. I also intend to read the final two volumes of the fantasy/science fiction trilogy His Dark Materials, by Philip Pullman (Yearling Books, 2003).” —Davis Baird, dean, Honors College “I recommend Elizabeth George’s new book, With No One As Witness, which I just finished. George is an American writer who sets her stories in Great Britain. In the series, of which this is the latest one, she partners a Scotland Yard inspector named Thomas Lynley, an aristocrat, with a working class woman, Barbara Havers, who is really the core character. The two learn to appreciate each other's abilities, but their different class backgrounds provide an interesting interplay between them. George’s books tend to be long, as this one is, but it’s a page-turner whose characters and the London setting drew me into the story. I like reading books that are part of a series because when you open the book to the first page you’re already familiar with the characters. Some of George’s books have been dramatized on PBS’s Mystery, and she was at USC a couple of years ago as part of Janet Turner Hospital’s Caught In The Creative Act writing workshop. She’s a wonderful writer. To me, summer also is the time I catch up with my favorite mystery writers who seem to write the books faster than I can read them. Some I like who have new books are: Eleven on Top, by Janet Evanovich The Twelfth Card, by Jeffery Deaver Cross Bones, by Kathy Reichs Crusader's Cross, by James Lee Burke R Is for Ricochet, by Sue Grafton Dead Man's Bones, by Susan Wittig Albert All the Flowers are Dying, by Lawrence Block Ten Little New Yorkers, by Kinky Friedman All that Remains, by Patricia Cornwell Therapy, by Jonathan Kellerman It had to Be You, by Jill Churchill.” —Nancy Washington, director of publications, University Libraries “When I’m at the beach, I love to read Pat Conroy’s books. Conroy has a gift with descriptive language. My favorite is The Prince of Tides, especially when I’m in Beaufort. I like it because while I’m reading about the coastal marsh I can look up and see it. I re-read it every few years because of the beautiful descriptions of that part of South Carolina and the human element of the story about overcoming tragedy. I’ve read all of his books except My Losing Season, his story about playing on The Citadel’s basketball team, and have enjoyed them all. I might read that one this summer.” —Gayle Douglas, associate dean, College of Mass Communications and Information Studies “I liked The Da Vinci Code, the Dan Brown thriller about clues found at the scene of a murder in the Louvre that become a sort of treasure map for the Holy Grail. The book’s fast action made it a page-turner and kept me up at night reading it. The book is fiction, but the facts it contained were educational and added to the book’s appeal.” —Allison D. LoCicero, head of access services, USC School of Medicine Library “I’m reading Thomas Friedman’s new book, The World Is Flat, A Brief History of the 21st Century. He’s the columnist for The New York Times who has written extensively on the Middle East. The book has started out as fascinating as I thought it would be. His premise is that the world has flattened back out because of the connectivity of technology. This means that when I was a child my competition was other American students my age in school, whereas today, because of connectivity, our children’s competition is someone sitting in Bangalore who is working at a call center at night so he or she can go to a university in the daytime. This book discusses 10 forces that have flattened the world, and all of them are technology-driven, with the exception of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which Friedman argues clearly tipped the balance of power toward free-market economies eager to exploit technology for economic gain. My chief interest in this is concern over the current generation of Americans still in school and wondering about what connectivity is going to mean for their careers. It’s an informative book, and Friedman brings an excited writing style to his reporting.” —David Hunter, director of academic and student support services, Regional Campuses and Continuing Education “One of my favorite books is Jeffrey Deaver’s The Bone Collector, and ever since his visit to the 2003 S.C. Book Festival, I have been trying to read all 17 of his best-selling thrillers. I just finished Garden of Beasts: A Novel of Berlin 1936, an historical fiction, which is a twist for Deaver. The novel covers only 48 hours in the life of Paul Schumann, a hit man for hire, but Deaver packs enough action, intrigue, and plot-twists into that time span to create a totally satisfying trip through time for this reader. Schumann is captured by officers in U.S. Naval Intelligence and offered a deal he finds hard to refuse: go to Germany and kill a high-ranking Nazi official and be exonerated or … die. The plot is set against the backdrop of Hitler’s growing power and the 1936 Olympics. It’s obvious that Deaver has done a lot of research. The detail about the Gestapo and the SS; characterization of the Nazi officers Goring, Hitler, and Himler; and the lifelike fictional characters Reinhard Ernst, the chief architect of Hitler's militarization, and Willi Kohl, an inspector with the Berlin Police, allowed me to be involved with a lot of espionage … at a safe distance. My next book? The curious incident of the dog in the night-time, a novel by Mark Haddon. As a teacher of Materials for Young Adults, I want to see what the USC freshmen will be reading this year.” —Pat Feehan, associate professor, library and information science “If I can claim a stretch of time, I will re-read John Edgar Wideman's Homewood Trilogy (including Damballah, Hiding Place, and Sent for You Yesterday), a fictionalized version of the family and community in which he grew up. The trilogy bowled me over when I read it 20 years ago. It is not light reading, but it is compelling. Anything by Anne Tyler is worth reading. She writes of families and relationships with humor and sympathy, within a framework of Baltimore neighborhoods, and her characters have a way of living with you long after you have closed the book. I have just finished The Amateur Marriage and will move on to Back When We Were Grownups. I have read and admired many short stories by Ireland's William Trevor, and The Hill Bachelors should be just the thing to keep for reading on the porch with the fan blowing on a Saturday afternoon. His stories are often sad, usually gentle, and sometimes humorous in such a quiet way that it takes a moment to realize there's a smile on your face." —Sara Krome, director of communications, School of Law “I am reading two books that I think are wonderful. Both are by Tom Gegax. Winning in the Game of Life—Self-Coaching Secret for Success is a self-help book that will give you a wonderful game plan to be successful in life and work. Tom Gegax has battled through a divorce, cancer, and business troubles and has learned how to balance work and family. I am not finished with it yet, but I find it both interesting and helpful. By the Seat of Your Pants—The No-Nonsense Business Management Guide has an ROI on every page for those who desire to be an entrepreneur or a corporate executive. I am reading it for the second time. It gives you many ideas that you can use personally and share with others." —Annette Hoover, Sam Walton fellow and instructor, College of Hospitality, Retail, and Sport Management “I’m reading Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare, a biography by Stephen Greenblatt. It’s a fast read and offers fascinating 'behind-the-scene' facts about Will. You may have thought you knew Shakespeare through his writings, but now you can learn about Shakespeare the man. The pages come alive. I would also recommend The Life of Elizabeth I, a biography by Alison Weir. It’s about power, deception, treachery, poverty, wealth, a woman's emancipation—and this is just the first 18 years of Elizabeth's life and the first few chapters. If you enjoy history and/or biographies, this book is a true page-turner. I had read about Elizabeth previously, but this book provided a wealth of information. Who needs soap operas when real life provides such details as this book?" —Marianne C. Bickle, professor and chair, Department of Retailing "Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell, is an interesting book about how humans 'thin slice'—taking a small bit of information from a larger pool of data to make quick decisions. Sometimes that’s good, and sometimes it’s not. He gives examples of how it can work and how it can fail extravagantly. Another book of his, also in the conventional wisdom, pop psychology vein, is Tipping Point. It’s a look at what it takes to tip something in another direction. He cites some simple things, like how Hush Puppies came back and what factors tip the STD rate in a certain area; the law of 150, which suggests that 150 people doing something is the critical number that begins to steer things in a different way. If you’re interested in studying the game of life and how things work, it’s kind of cool. The Broker, by John Grisham, is a page-turner; I couldn’t put it down. It’s about a Washington power broker who is pardoned and whisked off to Italy and then realizes a lot of people are out to kill him. He has to try to survive with his newly learned language skills in Italian. And Moneyball: The Art of Winning and Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis, is about the clash between old-school and new-school baseball. It’s fascinating—the new-school talent scouts in baseball are data driven number crunchers. For them, the core comes down to on-base percentage. As an old baseball player, I can’t put it down." —Skip Valois, professor, Department of Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior “Though May and June don't quite feel like summer to me yet (man, the year has gone quickly so far!!!), I just finished reading The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, and Shem Creek, by Dorothea Benton Frank. Both books are set in S.C. locales near the Lowcountry and offer, though fictitious, an interesting perspective on life in this state—one during the civil rights movement, the other set in modern day. I have enjoyed both books immensely … as much the interesting facts about S.C. foliage and nature, as well as the fun and strong personalities and 'life moments' of the characters. Though we now live in different parts of the country, I have a strong friendship with my mother, so it was interesting to live through the eyes of motherless Lily in Bees and comforting to feel the love that Linda Breeland had for her daughters in Shem Creek. I highly recommend both books to male and female readers!” —Jill M. Bratland, public information coordinator, USC Beaufort “I am actually reading several books right now, but my favorites (at this moment) are The River of No Return, by Cleveland Sellers; Dear Senator: A Memoir by the Daughter of Strom Thurmond, by Essie Mae Washington-Williams and William Stadiem; and The Promise, by Oral Lee Brown and Caille Millner. I would highly recommend anything by Toni Morrison. Each of these books challenge me to think about the world in a way a bit different than I did yesterday and to grow in ways never imagined every time I read them." —Tanya Brice, assistant professor, College of Social Work “I recommend Alone by Lisa Gardner, a New York Times bestselling author. Alone is a murder thriller filled with deceit, revenge, and suspense. It’s a very quick read—perfect for the beach!” —Michelle Dodenhoff, assistant vice president for development, University Development 6/05