David Dalrymple, Sophomore, Computer Engineering
Flatterland by Ian Stewart (Perseus Publishing, 2002)
Flatterland is a 21st century sequel to the 19th century bestseller Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott. It explores not just three dimensional space, but curved space, finite space, hyperbolic space, and much more. This book is a great introduction to non-Euclidian geometry and is recommended for those who enjoy math. It doesn't just teach math -- it also amuses with distorted pop songs and other such cultural fun.
Xenocide by Orson Scott Card (Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, 1991)
If you've ever read Ender's Game or any of the books in that series, Xenocide is a good next choice. It serves as a sequel to Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead, making it third in the six book Ender series. Three species (maybe four, as it is undecided by those in the story as to whether one of them is a species or a virus) are intertwined in a dangerous mix on the planet Lusitania that could send humanity to destruction. Thus, the governing body of all settled worlds, Starways Congress, has assembled a fleet of warships to destroy Lusitania in order to alleviate all their problems. However, the people of Lusitania do not want to be destroyed, and make use of a mysterious "secret computer program" to make the fleet disappear. The task of finding out what happened to the fleet is left to Gloriously Bright, a superintelligent young woman who can no doubt solve the problem. The secret computer program emerges as a sentient being itself, and Gloriously Bright is forced to choose life or death for Lusitania and the computer program. Be prepared for a book that is better than Speaker for the Dead, but not quite as good as Ender's Game, though still very good.
Marilyn Goldberg, Chair, Ancient Studies
The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif (Anchor Books/Random House, 1999)
The Map of Love is a wonderful combination of a love story and an intimate view of the Nationalist movement, both set in turn-of-the-century Egypt. "This is a story conjured out of a box; a leather trunk that travelled from London to Cairo and back...It is the story of two women: Isabel Parkman, the American who brought it to me, and Anna Winterbourne, her great-grandmother to whom it had originally belonged." So the author, Ahdaf Soueif, pulls the reader into the time when Britain had just taken Egypt from the ailing Ottoman Empire and an English aristocrat falls in love with an educated landowner and Nationalist. The book was a finalist for the Booker Prize.
Stephanie Lyon, Senior Research Analyst, Center for Health Program Development and Management
The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan (Random House, 2001)
This is a fascinating and well-written exploration of the interactions between us(humans) and four plants: apple trees, tulips, marijuana, and the potato. Theauthor posits that each plant evolved to respond to a particular desire on our part, the apple to our desire for sweetness of taste, tulips for beauty, marijuana for intoxication, and the potato to our desire for control. The book includes a history of each plant and interesting horticultural information. For example, Johnny Appleseed's apples were not of much use for eating, but satisfied the desire of early settlers for alcohol in the form of hard cider.
Chris Steele, Director of Program Development, Program Development Unit, Professional Education and Training
Spectacular Happiness: A Novel by Peter D. Kramer (Scribner, 2002)
Chip Samuels is an English teacher, part-time handyman, and devoted husband and father. He is also a one-man protest movement. Egged on by an ex-girlfriend, Chip has been blowing up trophy homes along the beaches of Cape Cod. The fastidiously crafted explosions capture the public's imagination -- and rather than being reviled as a terrorist, he finds himself the idealized center of a media circus.
The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade by Thomas Lynch (Penguin USA, 1985)
The author, a poet and an undertaker in a small Michigan town, presents twelve literary essays about the disruption death causes to his fellow townspeople, reflecting on the languages of love and grief and the lessons of mortality.
Steven Wiley, Sophomore, IFSM
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque (translated by A. W. Wheen) Ballantine Books, 1996 (originally published 1922)
A gripping, realistic war story which served to humanize the young troops of the vanquished German army a few years after the end of the Great War, later known as World War I. One cannot help but sympathize with the narrator, Paul Bäuman, who struggles to retain his sanity and resolve as he and his friends press on through a mostly miserable existence, wishing only to survive another day and return home. The novel, as written by Remarque, who actually fought in the German military, became a classic because of its extraordinary sense of humanity in the face of desperation and death.
The Unkindest Cut by Joe Queenan (Hyperion, 1996)
The humorist and entertainment columnist recalls how he, as the subtitle of the book states, "made his own $7,000 movie and put it all on his credit card." If the writer's goal of the earlier part of the twentieth century was to write the "great American novel," maybe with today's advances in feature filmmaking, all of us can aspire to write and direct the great American movie, or so thinks Queenan at the beginning of the book. After all, if Robert Rodriguez could make El Mariachi with some friends for only $7,000 (a figure that the author quickly finds out is mostly bogus- more hype than fact), it should certainly be possible to make one for a few dollars less. On his humorous quest to make "the cheapest movie ever made," Queenan learns the hard way that most of the time you get what you pay for, and that the nature of movie-making demands that you keep paying until you are satisfied with the result, and have a very deep hole in your wallet.
Bad Astronomy by Philip Plait (John Wiley & Sons, 2002)
In his excellent explanation of all things cosmological, Plait helps debunk popular notions of astrological significance, false impressions of lunar events, and theorists like Velikovsky. This, however, is anything but a dreary "I'm right, you're wrong" polemic. Rather, it is a fairly lighthearted work from someone who could easily go into much greater scientific detail, but opts instead to give simple answers to common problems, so as to keep the interest of even the most astronomically ignorant (myself included). The author's love for and knowledge of the subject at hand come through very well and, as I just noted, Plait cleverly walks the fine line between condescending to some readers and bewildering others with mountains of math.
Larry Wilt, Director, Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery
Monkey Bridge by Lan Cao (NY: Viking, 1997).This is a work of fiction but it evidently arises from the author's personal experience as a Vietnamese American who is a recent immigrant. It is quite engaging and would be good beach reading, even though it is richer in human insight than the typical summer page turner. It spans and connects the perspectives of two continents, two cultures and three generations. Of course the UMBC Library owns a copy.
Science fiction readers might try Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson (NY:Bantam Books, 1992). Though it is now ten years old, it still presentsa vision of a future that we have not quite reached but could possiblyreach. It's key notion, an online virtual environoment called "the street," presaged and inspired the efforts of antarcti.ca (see http://antarcti.ca/about.html) to organize information in a geographical format. It is a great read, full of reasons to believe that your Pentium III desktop computer is just a crude precursor ofthings to come. Of course the UMBC Library owns a copy, but it is in the non-circulating science fiction collection, so you want to check the public library or buy a copy.
Do you have a favorite book you'd like to share? Email Insights@umbc.edu. Please include title, author, publisher and a brief paragraph explaining why you are recommending the book.
