Hi AP Lit Folks,
Thanks for a great year. Before you
head out to the world, you might take this summer to pause and reflect
on it. Here are a few important and enjoyable books that can help you do just that:
The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria (a hypothesis about where the US might be in the near future)
Ill Fares the Land
by Tony Judt (an assessment of the dangers facing the U.S. and the E.U.
and reasons why young people need to become engaged citizens concerned
about politics for the greater good. This is is what has been missing
from your intellectual diet.) See also the documentary
Inequality for All based on
Aftershock:The Next Economy and America's Future by Robert Reich
.
From Cradle to Cradle
by William McDonough & Michael Braungart (if you want to read
what a real "green" revolution would look like, read this. Your country needs
to make things and in order to do that we need to "remake" things.
"WASTE = FOOD")
Making Globalization Work by Joseph Stiglitz (what is wrong with the globalization and prescriptions to a more just and equitable world)
The World is Flat and
Thank You for Being Late by Thomas Friedman (get a sense of the other job applicants you might not see in the waiting room)...Also Check out
Cyber War
by Richard Clarke (it covers the unintended security risks created by
globalization and computers; yes, it affects you on an individual level)
Mindset by Carol Dweck (a favorite of your superintendent that just might help you in college when the going gets tough)
The Swerve
by Stephen Greenblatt (Interested in how the world became modern?
Perhaps it all has to do with one manuscript plucked from a
thousand years of neglect by Poggio Bracciolini...read the book to learn
about the poem that changed the course of human thought and made
possible the world as we know it)
A Whole New Mind
by Dan Pink (lead a richer and fuller life and learn how to offer more
in the business of life as well as in business)...Also check out his
latest:
Drive (It will give you some insight as to how to be self-directed, autonomous in work, and maybe a bit happier in life)
Why Him? Why Her?
by Helen Fisher (wondering why some relationships last and other just
never seem to get started? Why opposites attract as well as those who
are birds of a feather? What did the Shakespeare and the ancients know
that we are only now rediscovering through brain research? Find out and
learn a bit about how you might make your own perfect match)
Lean in: Women, Work and the Will to Lead
by Sheryl Sandberg (for anyone woman who wants to lead and any man
interested in knowing what is going on on the other side of the desk or
the partnership)
The Fourth Turning by William Strauss and Neil Howe (Talking about your generation, the
hero generation)
Good to Great by Jim Collins (why some people and companies are great and stay that way for a lifetime)
Amusing Ourselves to Death and
Technopoly by Neil Postman (where all this technology is leading and how you might protect yourself from it)
The Conscience of a Liberal
by Paul Krugman (indispensable economic history of the U.S. Why you
live where you live, work where you work, and why your neighbor is your
neighbor)
1Q84 by
Haruki Murakami (from the internationally
renowned Japanese writer...if you believe in soul mates, this is for
you)...Also check out
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and
Kafka on the Shore by Murakami
Moth Smoke, How to Get Filthy Rich in the Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid (get to know Pakistan in this author's first novel)
Options by Dan Lyons (a LOL novel for anyone who loves Apple products or is fascinated by Steve Jobs)
Clockers, Lush Life, The Whites by Richard Price (the master)
Falling Man by Don DeLillo (a penetrating look at 9/11) (see also
Zero K and
White Noise)
The Good Life
by Jay McInerney (a brilliant novelist who worked tirelessly in the
aftermath of 9/11 pens a love story with a perceptive, if unsettling,
conclusion)
Hygiene and the Assassin (the strangest interview you will ever read),
The Character of Rain (coming of age...Nothomb style),
Life Form (Nothomb's epistolary novel on Iraq)
Tokyo Fiancee (connects to
Fear & Trembling) and
Fear and Trembling (first jobs) by Amelie Nothomb
Look Who's Back by Timur Vermes (Hitler returns and he's amusing) and it is a serious satire that has also been made into a movie now on Netflix
Also, here is a great place to feed your head and meet the thought leaders in our world today:
TED Talks
Sample:
The Library of Human Imagination
English Mania (I know you don't believe me but...)
2 Million Minutes
