Bridge for Advanced Beginners: Play of the Hand
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Required reading: Play of the Hand in the 21st Century: The Diamond Series , Audrey Grant.
This is the 2nd in the American Contract Bridge League's series of bridge books for beginning and advancing players. Successfully used by students and teachers for over 20 years, this edition has been updated to reflect current standards for playing bridge. This book concentrates on the play of the hand (making a plan, promoting winners, finessing, trumping losers, etc.). The initial bidding concepts are reviewed and Jacoby transfers and slam bidding are introduced. |
Celebrating Women Over Sixty: Choices! Choices!
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Recommended reading: The Fountain of Age, Betty Friedan.
Friedan has been an extremely important figure in examining society's views of women. This book is somewhat dated, with her initial realization that there were few images of people over sixty-five in the studies she was examining. There was an obsession with the problem of age and how to avoid it through diet, exercise, chemical formulas, plastic surgery, etc. |
Contemporary American Short Stories of 2007: More Fuel for Reflection
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Required reading: The Best American Short Stories 2007, Stephen King
Wonderfully eclectic, The Best American Short Stories 2007 collects stories by undeniable talents, both newcomers and favorites. These stories examine the turning points in life when we, as children or parents, siblings or friends or colleagues, must break certain rules in order to remain true to ourselves. |
Contemporary Classical Music: Principles & Performance
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Required reading: The Rest is Noise, Alex Ross.
Anyone who has ever gamely tried and failed to absorb, enjoy, and--especially--understand the complex works of Schoenberg, Mahler, Strauss, or even Philip Glass will allow themselves a wry smile reading New Yorker music critic Alex Ross's outstanding The Rest Is Noise. Not only does Ross manage to give historical, biographical, and social context to 20th-century pieces both major and minor, he brings the scores alive in language that's accessible and dramatic. |
Doctors on the Edge: Will Your Doc Break the Rules for You?
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Required reading: Doctors on the Edge, Fredrick R. Abrams, MD.
This book exposes some of the hardest decisions to be made in a profession in which bodies are vulnerable and souls are laid bare. Doctors on the Edge is the true account of doctors who are faced with wrenching moral dilemmas, thrust upon them uninvited and unexpected. Sometimes complementary and sometimes conflicting--law, medicine, and morality intrude on the daily practice of medicine. In gripping stories that often include life-and-death decisions, doctors maneuver through ambiguities, subjectivity, and the essential principles of medical ethics. |
Evolution of the American Constitution
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Recommended reading: The Anti-Federalist Papers and the Constitutional Convention Debates, Ralph Ketcham.
Pamphlet containing the full texts of::The Constitution of the United States, with the Bill of Rights and all of the amendments, Ther Declaration of Independence, and the Articles of Confederaltion. |
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Recommended reading: America's Constitution, a biography, Akhil Reed Amar.
Scholarly, reflective and brimming with ideas, this book is miles removed from an arid, academic exercise in textual analysis. Amar evokes the passions and tumult that marked the Constitution's birth and its subsequent revisions. Only rarely do you find a book that embodies scholarship at its most solid and invigorating; this is such a book. |
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Recommended reading: Miracle at Philadelphia, Catherine Drinker Bowen.
This book is a history of the Federal Convention in Philadelphia that resulted in the Constitution of the United States. |
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Recommended reading: The Making of the Constitution, lectures by Gordon S. Wood.
Wood presents important information about the founding period in our nation's history, conveying not only the content but also the spirit of the debates surrounding the Philadelphia convention and its aftermath. |
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Recommended reading: The Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison & John Jay.
Three of the founding fathers brilliantly defend their revolutionary charter: the Constitution of the United States, a milestone in political science and a classic of American history. |
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Recommended reading: We the People, The Citizen & the Constitution, cics textbook on the Constitution.
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Recommended reading: The Bill of Rights, Akhil Reed Amar.
With The Bill of Rights, Amar aims to put the pieces back together and take a longer view of a document few Americans truly understand. Part history of the Bill, part analysis of what the Founding Fathers' intentions really were, this book provides a unique interpretation of the Constitution. |
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Recommended reading: Government by Judiciary, Raoul Berger.
It is Berger's theory that the United States Supreme Court has embarked on "a continuing revision of the Constitution, under the guise of interpretation", thereby subverting America's democratic institutions and wreaking havoc upon Americans' social and political lives. |
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Recommended reading: Decision in Philadelphia, Christopherr & James Lincoln Collier.
Includes a complete copy of the Constitution. Fifty-five men met in Philadelphia in 1787 to write a document that would create a country and change a world. Here is a remarkable rendering of that fateful time, told with humanity and humor. "The best popular history of the Constitutional Convention available." |
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Recommended reading: The Summer of 1787, David O. Stewart.
This is, of course, a story that has been told before. But like most great stories, it is worth retelling, especially when told exceedingly well. Stewart, a former law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, is a fine writer whose narrative unfolds like a well-structured novel. |
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Recommended reading: Plain Honest Men, The making of the American Constitution, Richard Beeman.
Beeman (Patrick Henry), a noted historian of the late 18th century, does his best to dramatize the writing of the American Constitution. As the convention's hot summer weeks rolled on, tensions built, agreements were reached and compromises (especially, alas, about slavery) were made. |
History of the Theatre: from Aeschylus to Zillur
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Recommended reading: The Art of Theatre Then and Now, William Missouri Downs.
This text explores issues of diversity and creativity, presents a full day-in-the-life of theatre, and offers comprehensive coverage of theatre history. The authors make timely and relevant connections between theatre and the familiar world of television and film to help students understand how the living art of theatre relates to and influences today's screen entertainment. |
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Recommended reading: Oedipus Rex, Sophocles.
Oedipus Rex has never been surpassed for the raw and terrible power with which its hero struggles to answer the eternal question, "Who am I?" The play, a story of a king who—acting entirely in ignorance—kills his father and marries his mother, unfolds with shattering power; we are helplessly carried along with Oedipus towards the final, horrific truth. This vibrant, new translation invites its readers to lose themselves in the unfolding of this tragic tale—as suspenseful as a detective mystery, yet with an outcome long ago determined by Fate. |
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Recommended reading: The Misanthrope, Moliere.
"The Misanthrope," considered to be one of Moliere's greatest works, is a truly original and sophisticated dramatic comedy. |
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Recommended reading: Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde.
Oscar Wilde's madcap farce about mistaken identities, secret engagements, and lovers' entanglements still delights readers more than a century after its 1895 publication and premiere performance. The rapid-fire wit and eccentric characters |
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Recommended reading: A Doll's House, Ibsen.
Norwegian-born Henrik Ibsen's classic play about the struggle between independence and security still resonates with readers and audience members today. Often hailed as an early feminist work, the story of Nora and Torvald rises above simple gender issues to ask the bigger question: To what extent have we sacrificed our selves for the sake of social customs and to protect what we think is love? |
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Recommended reading: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Tenessee Williams.
The play exposes the emotional lies governing relationships in the family of a wealthy Southern planter of humble origins. The patriarch, Big Daddy, is about to celebrate his 65th birthday. His two married sons, Gooper (Brother Man) and Brick, have returned for the occasion, the former with his pregnant wife and five children, the latter with his wife Margaret (Maggie). The interactions between Big Daddy, Brick, and Maggie form the substance of the play. |
Hot Stuff! Painting with Wax
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Recommended reading: The Art of Encaustic Painting, Joanne Mattera.
According to Roman historian Pliny the Elder, encaustic was used as early as the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E. It is made by melting beeswax with a small amount of resin and then adding pigment while the mixture is still molten. The artist works quickly out of the pot, for the wax begins to harden as soon as it leaves the heat source. |
Human Behavior & Neurobiology: Are We Hardwired? Part 1
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Recommended reading: The Ethical Brain, Michel S. Gazzaniga.
The rapid advance of scientific knowledge has raised ethical dilemmas that humankind has never before had to address. Questions about the moment when life technically begins and ends or about the morality of genetically designing babies are now relevant and timely. |
Intro to Sci-Fi
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Required reading: Masterpieces: The Best Science Fiction of the 20th Century , Orson Scott Card, Editor.
Editor Orson Scott Card has assembled 27 standout stories by the biggest names and best writers in the genre. |
Impressionism, Part 1
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Recommended reading: A Fuller Understanding of the Paintings at Orsay , Francoise Bayle.
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Recommended reading: Impressionism, Robert L. Herbert.
In this "provocative study," Herbert explains how Paris's architecture became raw material for the impressionists and analyzes the social forces that shaped individual painters. According to PW , "Picture after picture is given a fresh, often unexpected reading, and the more than 300 plates (two-thirds in color) are deftly interwoven with the sprightly narrative." |
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Recommended reading: Impressionism, Editors of Réalités.
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Math to Keep Your Mind Sharp
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Recommended reading: The Math Gene, Keith Devlin.
Mathematics merely involves a relatively high level of abstraction--but one we can all cope with, if we work at it. "Doing mathematics is very much like running a marathon," writes Devlin. "It does not require any special talent, and 'finishing' is largely a matter of wanting to succeed." |
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Recommended reading: Innumeracy, Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences, John Allen Paulos.
This is the book that made "innumeracy" a household word, at least in some households. Paulos admits that "at least part of the motivation for any book is anger, and this book is no exception. I'm distressed by a society which depends so completely on mathematics and science and yet seems to indifferent to the innumeracy and scientific illiteracy of so many of its citizens." |
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Recommended reading: The Glass Wall, Why Mathematics Can Seem Difficult , Frank Smith.
Following his years of studying human intellectual accomplishments such as language, reading, writing, thinking, and learning, Frank Smith now turns his critical lens on the teaching and learning of mathematics. In The Glass Wall, Smith helps us to understand why some people find the world of mathematics so compelling while others find it so difficult. |
Myths of War
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Required reading: Sex and War, Potts, Malcolm and Hayden, Thomas.
As news of war and terror dominates the headlines, scientist Malcolm Potts and veteran journalist Thomas Hayden take a step back to explain it all. In the spirit of Guns, Germs and Steel, Sex and War asks the basic questions: Why is war so fundamental to our species? And what can we do about it? |
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Required reading: Worshipping the Myths of World War II, Wood, Ed W., Jr.
"Wood has written a heartfelt and searing indictment for anyone who would imagine that World War II should be called good or its warriors great. He was there. He knows the life-long scars of war for those who do the killing. Relentlessly he unmasks the romancing of war and reminds of its brutality, especially in industrial war with its inevitable murder and maiming of thousands if not millions of civilians. He critically reviews much of the literature about World War II and finds hope for a world without war only through an honest recognition of what war really is." |
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Required reading: Just and Unjust Wars, Walzer, Michael.
This classic work of political ethics has radically reconfigured the way that we think about war. From the Athenian attack on Melos to the My Lai Massacre, from the wars in the Balkans through the first war in Iraq, Michael Walzer examines the moral issues surrounding military theory, war crimes, and the spoils of war. |
Say Ahhh! The Doctor-Patient Relationship in Literature & Art
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Recommended reading: The Death of Ivan Ilych, Leo Tolstoy.
Ivan Ilyich Golovin, a high court judge in St. Petersburg with a wife and family, lives a carefree life and like everyone he is aware of, he lives a life spent almost entirely in climbing the social ladder, and his life begins to amass more hypocrisy as it goes on. Enduring life with a wife whom he often finds too demanding, he works his way up to be a magistrate focusing more and more on his work as family life becomes more miserable. |
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Recommended reading: Songs From the Black Chair, Charles Barber.
Barber presents a haunting account of the suicide of a boyhood friend, his own youthful struggles with mental fragility, and his journey to becoming a psychiatrist and treating the mentally ill at Bellevue. He recounts his friendship with Henry, who, like Barber, was a rootless young man resisting the success and heritage of his family. They both drifted for a while, in and out of college and dead-end jobs. When Henry killed himself, Barber was left to wonder about the power of his own disjointed thoughts and how people who are similarly depressed and profoundly disengaged can come to different ends. |
Teen Lit: It's Not Little Women Anymore, Dorothy!
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Recommended reading: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian, Alexie, Sherman.
Exploring Indian identity, both self and tribal, Alexie's first young adult novel is a semiautobiographical chronicle of Arnold Spirit, aka Junior, a Spokane Indian from Wellpinit, WA. The bright 14-year-old was born with water on the brain, is regularly the target of bullies, and loves to draw. He says, "I think the world is a series of broken dams and floods, and my cartoons are tiny little lifeboats." |
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Recommended reading: Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, Blume, Judy.
If anyone tried to determine the most common rite of passage for preteen girls in North America, a girl's first reading of Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret would rank near the top of the list. |
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Recommended reading: A Separate Peace, Knowles, John.
The volatile world of male adolescence provides the backdrop for John Knowles' engrossing tale of love, hate, war, and peace. Sharing a room at Devon, an exclusive New England prep school, in the summer prior to World War II, Gene and Phineas form a complex bond of friendship that draws out both the best and worst characteristics of each boy and leads ultimately to violence, a confession, and the betrayal of trust. |
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Recommended reading: A Wrinkle in Time, L'Engle, Madeleine.
A Wrinkle in Time, winner of the Newbery Medal in 1963, is the story of the adventures in space and time of Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin O'Keefe (athlete, student, and one of the most popular boys in high school). They are in search of Meg's father, a scientist who disappeared. |
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Recommended reading: The Giver. Delacorte, Lowry, Lois.
When Jonas turns 12, he is singled out to receive special training from The Giver. Now, it’s time for Jonas to receive the truth. There is no turning back. |
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Recommended reading: Twilight, Meyer, Stephanie.
Bella Swan's move to Forks, a small, perpetually rainy town in Washington, could have been the most boring move she ever made. But once she meets the mysterious and alluring Edward Cullen, Bella's life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn. Up until now, Edward has managed to keep his vampire identity a secret in the small community he lives in, but now nobody is safe, especially Bella, the person Edward holds most dear. |
The Big Bang: Stars, Galaxies & Dark Stuff
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Recommended reading: Dark Side of the Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Fate of the Cosmos, Iain Nicolson.
For the general reader and armchair astronomer alike, Iain Nicolson's fascinating account shows how our ideas about the nature and the content of the universe have developed. He highlights key discoveries, explains underlying concepts, and examines current thinking on dark matter and dark energy. He describes techniques that astronomers use to explore the remote recesses of the cosmos in their quest to understand its composition, evolution, and ultimate fate. |
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Recommended reading: The Infinite Cosmos: Questions from the Frontiers of Cosmology, Joseph Silk.
Silk covers everything you might hope to find in a book by one of the world's leading cosmologists, and much more besides... Accessible and informative. |
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Recommended reading: The Little Book of the Big Bang: A Cosmic Primer, Craig J. Hogan.
The Little Book of the Big Bang explains what modern cosmology is all about simply, clearly, and with no technical expertise required. |
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Recommended reading: Cosmology: A Very Short Introduction, Peter Coles.
Written in simple and accessible language, this non-technical introduction to cosmology, or the creation and development of the universe, explains the discipline, covers its history, details the latest developments, and explains what is known, what is believed, and what is purely speculative. |
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Recommended reading: The Origins of the Future: Ten Questions for the Next Ten Years, John Gribbin.
With his trademark facility for engaging readers with or without a scientific background, the author explores ideas concerning the creation of the universe, the possibility of other forms of life, and the fate of the expanding cosmos. |
The Cinema: 1932-2004, Part 2
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Recommended reading: Cinema, Year by Year, DK Publications, Karney, Robyn.
From the earliest flickering pictures to the triumph of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, this year-by-year guide to the films, the stars, and the innovations of movie-making brings the silver screen to life. With Oscar results from the first awards ceremony to the latest 2004 winners, this is the most entertaining and detailed visual history of cinema you will ever read. |
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Recommended reading: Book of Film, Ebert, Roger.
This is the best film book of the mid-'90s and probably the best anthology of writing about the movies ever published. Choosing from the work of novelists and essayists as well as directors, actors, screenwriters and technicians, Ebert places the best that has ever been said or thought about the movies on parade. |
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Recommended reading: (Anything!), Maltin, Leonard.
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Recommended reading: (Anything!), Ebert, Roger.
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The Crusades: Their History & Legacy
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Required reading: The New Concise History of the Crusades (Updated Student Edition), Thomas F. Madden.
How have the crusades contributed to Islamist rage and terrorism today? Were the crusades the Christian equivalent of modern jihad? In this sweeping yet crisp history, Thomas F. Madden offers a brilliant and compelling narrative of the crusades and their contemporary relevance. |
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Recommended DVD: The Kingdom of Heaven.
The Kingdom of Heaven is greater than the sum of its parts, delivering a vital, mostly engrossing tale following Balian (Orlando Bloom), a lonely French blacksmith who discovers he's a noble heir and takes his father's (Liam Neeson) place in the center of the universe circa 1184: Jerusalem. Here, grand battles and backdoor politics are key as Scott and first-time screenwriter William Monahan fashion an excellent storyline to tackle the centuries-long conflict. |
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Recommended DVD: The History Channel presentation of "the Crusades".
The Christian invaders were regarded as infidels. The Arabs were scorned as lawless pagans. The Westerners saw their quest as literally a sanctified crusade, while the Muslims launched their own holy war, called a jihad, in retaliation. Sound familiar? It should, because although the events depicted in the History Channel's The Crusades - Crescent & The Cross took place nearly a thousand years ago, they are but a distant mirror to what's going on in the Middle East right now. |
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Recommended Reading: The Crusades: Idea and Reality, 1095-1274, Riley-Smith, Louise, and Jonathan Riley-Smith.
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Recommended reading: The Crusades, Christianity, and Islam, Riley-Smith, Louise, and Jonathan Riley-Smith.
This slender volume provides an interesting insight into the way in which contemporary history has had an impact on studies of the crusades.. |
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Recommended reading: The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives, Hillenbrand, Carole.
This is ground-breaking work, and its value lies not only in the detailed reportage, but also in the way Carole Hillenbrand gives western historians a guide to source material, either unknown to them or available only in partial translation, and introduces her readers to the mindset of medieval Muslims, providing an entirely different angle from which to look at the crusading movement. By putting modern ideas into context the book will enable readers in both the western and Islamic worlds to understand better events which to some extent are shaping the present. |
Unconventional Warfare, Winning Wars in the 21st Century
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Recommended reading: "The Sling and the Stone" On War in the 21st Century, Colonel Thomas.
The Sling and the Stone was written to appeal to a vast and diverse audience. It provides numerous jewels of information for the general reader as well as senior military leaders, military operational planners and supporters, interagency personnel, and U.S. political leaders who are looking for a provocative read to aid them in making informed decisions in support of U.S. national security. |
What If? Re-imagining More Turning Points of History
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Recommended reading: The Collected What If? Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been, Robert Crowley.
Many armchair historians have spent hours daydreaming of what might have been if some turning point in history had gone another way. The appeal of the What If? books is that editor Robert Cowley gets professional historians to concentrate on these imaginative questions. |
What is Modern Art?
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Recommended reading: The Shock of the New, Robert Hughes.
A beautifully illustrated hundred-year history of modern art, from cubism to pop and avant-guard. More than 250 color photos. |
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Required reading: Twentieth-Century American Art, Erika Doss.
This exciting new look at twentieth century American art explores the relationships between American art, museums, and audiences in the century that came to be called the "American century". Extending beyond New York, it covers the emergence of Feminist art in Los Angeles in the 1970s; the Black art movement; the expansion of galleries and art schools; and the highly political public controversies surrounding arts funding. |
Write to Save Your Life: Beginning Memoir Writing
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Required reading: Writing Your Life, Lou W. Stanek.
We all have stories to tell -- of a rapturous first kiss, a life-altering moment of choice, or the shocking revelation of a long-guarded secret. And these stories are often as distinctive, fascinating, exciting and entertaining as those found in the memoirs and autobiographies that currently top the nation's bestseller lists. We just need to know how to tell them best. |
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Recommended reading: Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg.
Wherein we discover that many of the "rules" for good writing and good sex are the same: Keep your hand moving, lose control, and don't think. Goldberg brings a touch of both Zen and well... *eroticism* to her writing practice, the latter in exercises and anecdotes designed to ease you into your body, your whole spirit, while you create, the former in being where you are, working with what you have, and writing from the moment. |
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Recommended reading: Your Life As Story, Tristine Rainer.
Every person's life tells a story, but few of us dare to consider our own story worthy of being written. Tristine Rainer shows us how to apply the structure of story telling to an ordinary life to give it shape, meaning, and clarity. |
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Recommended reading: How to Write the Story of Your Life, Frank Thomas.
How to Write the Story of Your Life shows writers how to mine the depths of their experience to write an engaging and saleable memoir. Frank P. Thomas gives readers the instruction they need to write the stories of their lives, including: The five Rs essential to the completion and publishing of a life story; research, remembering, 'riting, reading and reproduction Hundreds of memory sparkers to get readers started Organizational techniques for developing a writing plan and how to work with photos and documents Memories and the author's expert guidance are all writers need to leave a legacy for generations to come. |
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Recommended reading: Old Friend Far Away, Natalie Goldberg.
Millions of Americans want to write about their lives. With Old Friend as the road map for getting started and following through, writers and readers will gain a deeper understanding of their own minds, learn to connect with their senses in order to find the detail and truth that give their written words power and authenticity, and unfold the natural structure of the stories they carry within. |
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