Summer Reading List 2007

Sunday, June 10, 2007

What Is It

Are there philosophers, philosophies, or philosophical issues you want to read up on over the summer? Kant's Critique of Pure Reason probably isn't the obvious choice to take to the beach (though it does make great radio), but there are a lot of readable, beach-friendly classics and non-classics to add philosophical depth to your Summer Reading. Plus, new and classic fiction books with a philosophical bent. Join John and Ken and John to share some of the philosophically-minded reading on your list for this summer.

Listening Notes

 
Fiction and Poetry

Tom Thomson in Purgatory
Troy Jollimore

Labyrinths
Jorge Luis Borges

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
JK Rowling

Cat's Cradle
Kurt Vonnegut

Confessions of Max Tivoli
Andrew Sean Greer

Unbearable Lightness of Being
Milan Kundera
Non-Fiction

Dreams from My Father
Barak Obama

Assault on Reason
Al Gore

The Black Swan
Nassim Nicholas Tuleh

Mistakes Were Made (but not by me)
Tavris and Aronson

Wild
Jay Griffiths

What is your Dangerous Idea?
John Brockman
Philosophy

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Robert Pirsig

Story of Philosophy
Will Durrant

Meditations
Descartes

Philosophy as Cultural Politics
Richard Rorty

Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar
Cathcart and Klein

Prince
Niccolo Machiavelli

What's the Use of Truth?
Richard Rorty

I am a Strange Loop
Douglas Hofstadter
 
   
   
Recommendations from Listeners
Fiction

Stories of Beatrix Potter

Lord of the Rings
JRR Tolkien

The Autumn of the Patriarch
Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Animal Family
Jarrell and Sendak

Demian
Herman Hesse

Galapagos
Kurt Vonnegut

Way of all Flesh
Samuel Butler
  
Non-Fiction

Golden Age
Gore Vidal

Soldier
Karen DeYoung

Art & Lies
Jeanette Winterson

Unprejudiced Palate
Angelo Pellegrini

Shackleton
Gavin Mortimer

Tipping Point
Malcolm Gladwell

Built to Last
Collins and Porras

My Life in Germany
Karl Lowith

Invasion of Party Snatchers
Victor Gold

Universe in a Single Atom
Dalai Lama

Embodied Mind
Francisco Valera

About Love
Robert Solomon

Transcript