Summer Reading Recommendations for Adults

A random survey of Boston University (BU) professors yielded a wide and rich variety of summer reading recommendations for adults, ranging from Randy Pausch's inspirational "The Last Lecture," to Suze Rotolo's firsthand account of Bob Dylan and the new music scene, "A Freewheelin' Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties."

Reflecting the diversity of 17 schools and colleges that comprise the nation's fourth largest private institution, the suggestions from representatives from multiple departments include new releases (Scott McClellan's "What Happened") as well as personal favorites "Zen Golf" by Joseph Parent), and run the gamut from serious to entertaining:

School of Management Dean Louis E. Lataif
"The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable" by Nassim Nicholas
"Zen Golf: Mastering the Mental Game" by Joseph Parent

College of Engineering, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Catherine Klapperich
"And Then We Came to the End" by Joshua Ferris
"The Family That Couldn't Sleep: A Medical Mystery" by D.T. Max
"The Yiddish Policemen's Union" by Michael Chabon
"Gardens of Water" by Alan Drew

College of Arts and Sciences Assistant Professor of Biology Karen Warkentin
"Your Inner Fish" by Neil Shubin
"Bloodchild & Other Stories" by Octavia Butler.
"Friday Next and Nursery Crime" both part of a crime series by Jasper Fforde

College of Arts and Sciences Professor and Chair of Computer Science, Stan Sclaroff
"The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz.
"Babel-17" by Samuel R Delany.
"Call Me by Your Name" by Andre Aciman.

College of Arts and Sciences & Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, David H. Barlow, Ph.D
"Unaccustomed Earth" by Jhumpa Lahiri
"The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch
"Two Years in St. Andrews" by George Peper
"Fatal Forecast" by Michael Tougias
"Fall of Frost" by Brian Hall

College of Communications Dean Thomas Fiedler
"What Happened," by Scott McClellan
"Good Guys & Bad Guys," by Joe Nocera
"Downhill Lies," Carl Hiaasen

School of Public Health Dean Robert Meenan
"The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night-Time" by Mark Haddon

Environmental Health Professor and SPH Chair Emeritus David Ozonoff
"Nixonland" by Rich Perlstein
"The Stillborn God" by Mark Lilla
"Microcosm" by Carl Zimmer
"The Spies of Warsaw" by Alan Furst
"The Shield of Achilles" by Philip Bobbitt
"A Freewheelin' Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties" by Suze Rotolo

SPH Department Chair and Professor of Health Law, Bioethics, and Human Rights George Annas
"Armageddon in Retrospect" Kurt Vonnegut

School of Medicine Associate Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics Caroline Apovian, M.D.
"Independence Day" by Richard Ford
"The Lay of the Land" by Richard Ford
"American Pastoral" by Philip Roth
"I Married a Communist" by Philip Roth
"The Other Boleyn Girl" by Philippa Gregory
"The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold
"Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert
"The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd

Medical Center Professor and Chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery, Lawrence Chin, M.D.
"Sailing Alone Around the Room" (poetry) by Billy Collins.
"Heat" by Bill Buford
"The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell
"Solaris" by Stanislaw Lem
"Jesus' Son" by Denis Johnson
"In Persuasion Nation" by George Saunders
"Saturday" by Ian McEwan
"Bangkok 8" by John Burdett
"Geek Love" by Katherine Dunn
"Underworld" by Don DeLillo

Source: Boston University