Summer is rapidly approaching so we're working on our (almost annual!) Summer Reading show. This year's episode we're calling Time for Summer Reading in honor of our 500th episode. In it we'll be talking about, you guessed it, the concept of time! Meanwhile, if you've got some extra time on your hands and can't wait for that show to air, we've put together some of our past Summer Reading shows for your listening pleasure. We've also provided a list of the books discussed in each show, to help you decide which episode you want to listen to first.
With most of us continuing to stay home and socially distance during the COVID crisis, this is a perfect time to engage with some stimulating books. As featured contributor Antonia Peacocke says in her latest blog, "When your thought patterns stultify—into ruminations about your cat’s disdain for you, or the perpetually undone dishes, or the uninspiring task of responding to a flood of emails—you need an impetus from outside to shake you out of this mental languor." And a good book is the perfect antidote to any quarantine malaise you might be feeling. Indeed, as Antonia says, the kind of jolt to your system a good book provides could "spur you on to new and creative thoughts of your own."
Summer Reading Revisited
| Episode Title | Guest | Related Content | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Summer Reading (and Misreading) | Maryanne Wolf, UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies Thomas Pavel, Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures, University of Chicago Antonia Peacocke, Professor of Philosophy, Stanford University | Reader’s Block and Bad Philosophy | |
 | Summer Reading List 2018 | Steven Pinker, Professor of Psychology, Harvard University Kathleen Dean Moore, Professor of Philosophy, Oregon State University | In Praise of Reading | |
 | Summer Reading List 2015 | Lars Iyer, Newcastle University Berit Brogaard, University of Miami Poet Jane Hirshfield | ||
 | Summer Reading List 2014 | Shannon Stimson, Professor of Political Science, UC Berkeley | What's on your summer reading list for 2014? | |
 | Summer Reading List 2012 | Author Rebecca Newberger Goldstein |
Books discussed in each episode:
2019
- The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman
- Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
- The Lives of the Novel: A History by Thomas Pavel
- The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World by David Abram
- Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
- Homecoming (The Tillerman Cycle) by Cynthia Voigt
- A Game of Thrones / A Clash of Kings / A Storm of Swords / A Feast of Crows / A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin
- How to do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell
- Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf
2018
- An Argument Against the Divine Right of Kings by John Locke
- Discourse on Inequality by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman
- Constitution of Liberty by Friedrich Hayek
- Various books on Populism by Jan-Werner Muller
- Unequal Democracy by Larry Bartels
- Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker
- Great Tide Rising by Kathleen Dean Moore
- The Innocence of the Devil by Nawal El Saadawi
- The Overstory by Richard Powers
2015
- Wittgenstein Jr by Lars Iyer
- The Beauty: Poems by Jane Hirshfield
- Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World by Jane Hirshfield
- On Romantic Love: Simple Truth About a Complex Emotion by Berit Brogaard
- Love’s Work and Paradiso, both by Gillian Rose
- Map: Collected and Last Poems by Wislawa Szymborska
- Selected Poems by Tomas Transtromer
- Elegies and Other Poems by Lars Gustafsson
- Basic Writings by Zhuangzi
- Anatomy of Love by Helen Fisher
- Love’s Vision by Troy Jollimore
- The Paradox of Love by Pascal Bruckner
- The Third Violet by Stephen Crane
2014
- The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant
- An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume
- Capital in the 21
st Century by Thomas Piketty - Plato at the Googlelpex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
- The People of Plato by Debra Nails
- Mirror’s Fathom by Sheridan Hough
- Blameless in Abaddon by James Morrow
- Maimonides: Life and Thought by Moshe Halbertal
- The Guide for the Perplexed by Maimonides
- Why Propaganda Matters by Jason Stanley
- The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America by Khalil Mohammed
- “Criteria of Negro Art” by W.E.B. Du Bois
- The Fragility of Goodness by Martha Nussbaum
2012
- Problems in Philosophy by Colin McGinn
- The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker
- Moby Dick by Hermann Melville
- The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
- The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
- Open City by Teju Cole
- Backsliding: Understanding Weakness of Will by Alfred Mele
- Trusting What You’re Told: How Children Learn from Others by Paul Harris