Books that get "under our skin"...

Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

2009-12-16T20:38:00.000-08:00

Butler's milieu is so frighteningly close to ours. I've never seen a near-future dystopia that seems so plausible, possible, and imminent.

Submitted by Brook Brayman
btbrayman@interact.ccsd.net

Guaymas Chronicles by David Stuart

2009-02-10T10:36:00.001-08:00

This book gave me whole new perspective about life on the streets of Mexico and the courageous people who are trying to make a life for themselves and their families. I will never forget the street children portrayed in this book with such rrealism and compassion for their lives. Makes me want to change the world for these kids.

Submitted by Jenny
jewhite@unm.edu

What is the What by Dave Eggers

2008-09-04T17:57:00.001-07:00

This brilliantly written novelization of the story of one of the so-called Lost Boys of the Sudan goes back and forth from the present in America to his life in the Sudan.
It is a wrenching story of how much a human being can suffer and how they can survive against all odds.

I came to understand the greatness in humility. I have not stopped thinking about this book even though I read it a few months ago.

It inspired me to give money to the foundation started by the gentleman on whose life the book is based.

Submitted by Candelaria
candelaria_s@yahoo.com

Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan

2008-07-07T12:34:00.001-07:00

I enjoy gritty science fiction and this does it all. Imagine living when your essence is all on a disk sitting in the back of your neck in your spine. Your body gets fatally injured? No problem! If you've got the bucks, you can have an account that allows the appropriate medics to take out your disc (making you a DH, a digitized human)and upload you into another body, hopefully someone's who doesn't want it back.

Extrapolate from this and you get a great mysterty involving privilege (the Methuselas have lots of money--enough to copy their own original body for future uses and live for hundreds of years-imagine what this does to how one thinks about humanity), corruption and identity. I will read it again.

It was, bottomline, a police procedural, sort of, where the protaganist is put in someone else's body without his consent to do some private investigation. Think Philip Marlowe in the year 2500. Love it!

Submitted by cecile

Love in the time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

2007-12-20T01:11:00.000-08:00

In a simple sentence the book is about life. I have been inspired by this book. It really teaches one about love and the kinds of love that exist. It relates to every kind of love: the blind love, the passionate love, the obsessed love, the passing love, and the lasting love.. The book teaches and i have been learning while being entertained the entire time. (I'm moving on to his other books now)

Submitted by Anahid

Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz

2007-12-03T12:13:00.001-08:00

This book isn't exactly going to win Mr. Horowitz a Pulitzer Prize or anything. It is the first book in the Alex Rider series about a 14 year old boy who becomes a spy. Nevertheless this book is fun, funny, thrilling, and entertaining. I was getting bored with some of the recent books I had been reading but this book is awesome. if you are just looking for a great read it is really entertaining even for someone who doesnt like too read or doesn't read that often.

Submitted by Evan Christensen

The House Of The Spirits by Isabel Allende

2007-10-31T09:12:00.001-07:00

Though this is in the category of a fiction novel, it horrifically resembles the realities which occurred in the govenment of Chile durring the mid 1900s. But what is even more disturbing about this story is how well it parallels the reality of government all over the world. Most specifically, I mean the govenment of the United States, which is unfortunately a social and cultural example for the rest of the world. Live The Revolution!

Submitted by Richard W. Hasselberger
ritch_hass@yahoo.com

The Slave Community by John W. Blassingame

2007-10-30T19:12:00.000-07:00

Click To Play Flash Video
Click To Watch Windows Media Video
Click To Watch QuickTime Video

Transcript of Video:

The book that got under my skin was the Slave Community by John Blassingame.
And why did it get under my skin, for me it was that it was the first work that I read that spoke from the slave communities’ perspective.

It was published in the early 70s, maybe 1972 and Dr. Blassingame used primary source materials, slave narratives and just really gave the story from the slave perspective as opposed to works that examined the slave community spoke from the slave holders perspective.

There is some debate in the history community about whether or not is it entirely accurate but every single work that has been published has that discussion. Who is to say, but that is the books that got under my skin.

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

2007-10-30T16:28:00.000-07:00

Click To Play Flash Movie
Watch Windows Media Video
Click To Play QuickTime Video

Transcript of Video:

My name is Susan and the name of the book is Eat, Pray, Love by Gilbert. It is an amazing story of a woman and her journey to find herself, her travels…it speaks to every woman and every woman’s journey.

I loved it.

The Painted House by John Grisham

2007-10-29T20:21:00.000-07:00

Click To Play Flash Video
Click To Play Windows Media Video
Click To Play QuickTime Video

Transcript of Video:

My name is Leslie Henry and the book that I really enjoyed was The Painted House by John Grisham. I really liked this book. It tells the story of a rural family, they owned farm land. They can never seem to get ahead. As much money as they make, they rent their farm land. They always have to pay their landlord. If they have a good crop the landlord makes them pay a lot of money and if they don’t have a good crop they end up owing the landlord.

I just thought it was a great book because it details the human struggle to g et ahead and how this little boy, Stanley ends up leaving and going to the city because they can’t make a living on the farm.

It takes place during World War 2, so the central character, his older brother has been sent off to war. He is just struggling to understand why his brother is gone and if his brother is ever going to come back. I think that in the end it really shows that that family has to rally around itself and take care of each other. I like the book a lot; I really have remembered reading it. I read it about three years ago and I still remember it.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

2007-10-27T18:59:00.001-07:00

From the moment I read the last word of this book I knew my life had changed. I believe at one point in all of our lives each of us thinks, if only for a second, "I just don't belong here." Neil Gaiman turns the London Underground into a vibrant world of adventure, myth and perhaps somewhere along the lines, reality. There are velvet witches that will guide through the Undergrounds mazes for a price you may not be willing to pay; Black Friars that guard a relic too secret of which to be spoken; bloodthirsty cutthroats so skilled you do not know they are there until you've been slit from gizzard to gullet. His eerie, yet desperately enticing description of what life is like after you "slip through the cracks," has stayed with me throughout the last 8 years. For those of you who are here, and those of you who are here no longer - this book is for you.

Submitted by Dawn MacCarthy
imourningstar@yahoo.com

War Against the Panthers by Dr. Huey P. Newton

2007-10-26T22:45:00.000-07:00

This book goes deeply into historical facts about how the Government (FBI, COINTELPRO, etc.) spent over 100 million of dollars to destroy student activism/dissent groups during the civil rights movement. A very concise yet mind-boggling read!

Submitted by E.S.P.
espsetmefree@gmail.com

The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy

2007-10-26T18:12:00.000-07:00

Click To Play Flash Video
Click To Play Windows Media Video
Click To Play QuickTime Video

Transcription of Video:

You know I only read half of the book because I feel that the book is really scary. It is really scary because, you know if this really happened in the United States; to kill a lady like that and it is really disturbing. To kill a lady into how many pieces?

I couldn’t image that this was a real story in a country like this one. I think that there are too many psycho people here. There are too many stressors. To be honest in this country there are too many temptations. To (want to) live in luxury because of the advertisements, or the lifestyle. People always copy from the high class people to the lower class. They are like social climbers. They do anything to reach that level.

I don’t like the book anymore, not the author, I think it is too scary to finish that book.

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

2007-10-24T22:43:00.000-07:00

Click To Play Flash Video
Click To Play Windows Media Video
Click To Play QuickTime Video

Transcript of Video:

My father suggested that I read it, this was the first classical novel that I read and I liked it. I read it when I was very young, maybe when I was twelve or thirteen years old. I can’t remember.

I remember when David Copperfield was very young when his father died and his mother remarried. He had a very sad life with his step-father. His step-father sent him away. I forgot a lot.

This was the first time that I got to know a boy from England and about their life. My name is Annie and my book is David Copperfield by Charles Dickens.

Dune by Frank Herbert and Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs

2007-10-24T05:35:00.000-07:00

Click To Play Flash Video
Click To Watch Windows Media Video
Click To Play QuickTime Video

Transcript of Video:

My name is Jeryd Pojawa and I have chosen two books, one is Frank Herbert’s Dune which is an epic story of humanity and it is an analogy of the imperialism of the middle ages until modern day and it is actually a pretty good analogy for what is going on now.

I read the book first when I was ten and it really blew my socks off because I had never read a book that large in terms of the scope. The fact that this man created the whole universe that had politics and interactions and all kinds of things. Much more than even a Star Wars type of situation because he gets into the interpersonal type of situation the families and the warring families.

There are people fighting for power and all sorts of pathos. There are all sorts of characters good guys and bad guys. It is just this tremendous human drama set in a slightly other world in a slightly other time.

If you think of it as Science Fiction, well yes it is. There have been two films or more done on this particular book. Both major takes have been very interesting and quiet different. But I think the best movie what the one that I made in my head when I was ten when I was reading it because it was the first time that I read anything that grabbed me and made me say “yeah, I want to be a part of that” I want to be writer this is amazing that this guy could write this wonderful story and influence people as he did. Frank Herbert is a brilliant writer and Dune is a major piece.

The other book is a book by William S. Burroughs called Naked Lunch. Naked Lunch is less a novel than an entire group of booklets or novellas, I guess you could say. Burroughs style is very disjointed and in many ways has a quality of magical (?) Now his work, which he was also interested in a homosexual who lived for years with his wife who wound up shooting his wife accidentally under the influence of drugs.

This book was influential to me because, this was around when I was 13 years old or so, I’ve read it several times since. This book showed me that there are other ways to write and other ways to tell a story. I have always been interested in performing and storytelling.

I am an actor and filmmaker now. I think that these two books pushed me in that direction as much as anything else. I learned two ways of telling a story, two valid ways of telling a story. One the epic saga, which I enjoy the historical novels; the Vikings, the Romans the story of the Greek migrations just the wonderful building up of culture or our own cultures in south America the Mayan & the native American cultures how they interacted and all these things came to me from a better understanding of reading Dune.

The understanding of the human id, the human psyche as I understand it came more from the works of Burroughs. Naked Lunch being a good example because it has a series of stories that are very unusual and tell a different kind of story but with a laconic bazaar style and it made me realize that you could tell a story in many ways. You can tell a story of a down and out character as easily as you can tell the story of a hero. In many ways the characters in Burroughs books are very heroic in their own way it is just that they are more human because they are more broken. They are more like ourselves in a lot of ways.

In Dune we identify with Baron Atrides who is this tremendous figure, this King Arthur type figure and in Burroughs books who are junkies and peculiar characters and I think that is the one note that has always kept me interested in both these books and that is what keeps me from coming back to them and read them. I enjoy Burroughs style of writing. He has an odd sense of language but a wonder sense of language. It is a strange almost kind of a Beat poetry. That is what I enjoy about his work

Summing the whole thing up the two books together as polar really talk about the same thing which I find really interesting is the human condition from history into the future. I think that is basically the summary that I would like to leave with. My name is Jeryd Pojaw and my books are Frank Herbert’s Dune and Naked Lunch by William Burroughs.

The Color of Water by James McBride

2007-10-23T16:43:00.001-07:00

My favorite book having to do with SKIN is The Color of Water by James McBride, writer and jazz musician, whose mother, in 1975, emptied her pockets of all her nickels, dimes, and quarters so that he would have "lunch money" on the Greyhound-bus ride from the East Coast to his freshman year at Oberlin College, where I was also a student at the time. The Color of Water is the only book that has ever made me cry.

"As a boy in Brooklyn's Red Hook projects, James McBride knew his mother was different. But when he asked about it, she'd simply say, 'I'm light-skinned.' Later he wondered if he was different, too, and asked his mother if he was black or white. 'You are a human being,' she snapped. 'Educate yourself or you'll be a nobody!' And when James asked what color God was, she said, 'God is the color of water.' As an adult, McBride finally persuaded his mother to tell her story--the story of a rabbi's daughter, born in Poland and raised in the South, who fled to Harlem, married a black man, founded a Baptist church, and put twelve children through college. The Color of Water is James McBride's tribute to his remarkable, eccentric, determined mother --and an eloquent exploration of what family really means." (From the back cover)

I'm dead.

You want to talk about my family and here I been dead to them for fifty years. Leave me alone. Don't bother me. They want no parts of me and me I don't want no parts of them. Hurry up and get this interview over with. I want to watch Dallas...

My family mourned me when I married your father. They said kaddish and sat shiva. That's how Orthodox Jews mourn their dead. They say prayers, turn their mirrors down, sit on boxes for seven days, and cover their heads. It's a real workout, which is maybe why I'm not a Jew now. There were too many rules to follow, too many forbiddens, and 'you can'ts' and 'you mustn'ts' but does anyone say they love you? Not in my family we didn't. We didn't talk that way. (From Chapter 1)

Submitted by Prof. Diana Savas, ESL & English

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hossenini

2007-10-22T22:41:00.000-07:00

Click To Play Flash Video
Click To Play Windows Media Video
Click To Play QuickTime Video

Transcript of Video:

Hi, my name is Paula Hanson and I loved the book The Kite Runner. It was very emotional for me. Just learning that the boys that thought that the other one was a servant only to find out he was his brother and to try and say his brother’s son, it was very emotional at the end. (I) was really happy at the end to find out also that he took over for his brother’s son and that he was the one that was chasing the kite at the end.

Anyway, it was really a good book, very emotional, very entertaining. It kept you interested. Couldn’t wait to hear what was going to happen.

Tapping The Source by Kem Nunn

2007-10-22T19:38:00.000-07:00

Click To Play Flash Video
Click To Play Windows Media Video
Click To Play QuickTime Video

Transcript of Video:

My name is John Hanson, I’m talking about a book called Tapping the Source; which basically reminds me of back in the Sixties when I use to go to Huntington Beach. That is why the book has always fascinated me because the descriptions are just like the Huntington Beach I remember in the Sixties in the early surfing around the coast in that era.

And if anybody has been to Huntington Beach recently they can see how much it has changed. It is nowhere near what it was at that time Tapping the Source was written. I recommend the book to anyone that wants to get a feel for what the old California surfing era was like. The descriptions of the streets and the area were perfect.

LIES MY TEACHER TOLD ME by James W. Loewen

2007-10-21T19:56:00.000-07:00

THIS BOOK PROVIDES A DISHEARTING LOOK AT THE WAY ARE NATIONAL AND POLITICAL HISTORY IS MANUFACTURED BY OUR GOVERNMENT WITH THE AID OF CORPORATE AMERICA. FROM THE INCEPETION OF OUR NATION AND OUR ANNIHILATION OF NATIVES, OUR RACIAL INTOLERANCE OF ONE ANOTHER, TO OUR GOVERNEMNTS ROLE IN NATION "BUILDING", THIS BOOK IS HAS BEEN A EYE-OPENING READ THAT WILL RESHAPE MY THOUGHTS ON SOCIAL CLASS, RACE, AND THE ROLE WE AS A NATION HAVE IN THE OPPRESSION OF PEOPLE ON THIS PLANT.

Submitted by NOAH RIOS
NXR67@YAHOO.COM

The Sound and The Fury by William Faulkner

2007-10-19T18:39:00.000-07:00

Click To Play Flash Video
Click To Play Windows Media Video
Click To Play QuckTime Video

Transcript of Video:

My name is Diane McGee, I live in Pasadena. I am not a regular reader so I am going way back to remember a book that had an impact on me. It was in college and the author is William Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury”

It had…I still remember the feeling that it gave me about the south. I love to visit the south and in fact lived there for a while. So I just remembered the strength of his characters; many of the characters ability to endure and go on in the hardest of circumstances. And that stayed with me, really, all of my life.

I think that is one reason that I love the south. I and my parents lived in New Orleans for awhile so I experienced it and really felt more for New Orleans partly because of what I read. Unfortunately I am not a regular reader anymore.

Life And Fate by Vasily Grossman

2007-10-19T13:41:00.000-07:00

Click To Play Flash Video
Click To Play Windows Media Video
Click to Play QuickTime Video

Transcription of Video:

Hi, My name is Keith Boseman, You can see I am an Ohio Buckeye fan. The book that really moved me was “Life in Fate” by Vasily Grossman, the great Russian novelist. I just read it two months ago. It is about 800 pages long and it is just devastating. He takes you through what life was like during World War Two in the Soviet Union among ordinary people. They are oppressed by both the fascists and the Marxist state. They are just trying to survive. It centers around the battle of Stalingrad.

That is not the half, he takes you through these wonderful vignettes where occasionally you will see real life people like Hitler and Stalin and they will have little entries and how they will affect an ordinary person lives under totalitarianism, the person that is actually fighting the war and how the human spirit is just resilient and somehow survives under oppression.

It is the greatest novel I’ve read since Orwell. He’s been called now the best writer in the 20th century in Russia, even more so than Solzhenitsyn. This guy, Grossman was a very famous war correspondent for the Red Army. After the war was over he saw the evils of Marxism he wrote this great novel. He gave it to Khrushchev in 1960 thinking that Khrushchev, who had turned anti-Stalin, would publish it. Khrushchev said ‘No, the book is too honest. Too terrifying’. He actually has a scene in there where he walks inside of an oven and takes you through the last moments of his family in the oven as the Germans are putting the gas in. Terrifying book.

The book is also resilient. Life goes on and triumphs. It outlives Stalin and it outlives Hitler. The book never got published in Russia. It was smuggled out by Sakharov, the great physicist. It is now just seeing its day in English. It is on the New York Review of Books in Print. Amazon has it; it is being praised all over the world. It is finally in English and the imprint was so hot when it came off the presses there was a misprint of 80 pages, upside down. That is the printing that just came out. Don’t be deterred by that. The book is a masterpiece. It is called “Life and Fate” by Vasily Grossman. It makes you re-think your purpose on Earth. It makes you rethink who you are. It gives you hope, vision and insight. It does what a book should do, change your world.

RE: Search Modern Primatives

2007-10-17T22:14:00.000-07:00

Click To Play Flash Video
Click to Watch Windows Media Video
Click to Watch QuickTime Video

Transcript of Video:

My name is Jane Pojawa and my book is Modern Primitives. It is a strange little book, it came out in 1989 and it kind of turn me on to the photojournalism and documentary style of reporting.

On the surface it is about tattoos, piercing and scarification and it is an exploration of the modern primitives movement which has since come up and gradually gone away, it came out of the 80s punk movement kinda of way of hippies.

In the book you got, for instance, you have explorations of the sort of material general covered by publications like National Geographic or ethnology. You also have interviews with people where it is basically talking about lifestyle in their own words. I found that very interesting that a subculture that could be considered very, very out there, that it could be presented in an intelligent and touching kind of way.

It has interviews with some of the old guard tattoo artists, some of the newer people coming up, people that were exploring the possibility of an SM lifestyle. Other people that were trying to find ways to meld technology and also a primitive aesthetic if you will people that preferred the simplicity aesthetic of so called primitive cultures and in some ways maybe even more advanced than our own in some aspects.

So anyway it was a very thought provoking book. I wouldn’t say that I agreed with all of it or anything like that but it got under my skin and led me to think about journalism in different ways, about body modification and about different subcultures as well and documenting them as well.

House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski

2007-10-14T22:30:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking about this since I heard about the blog. So I have been thinking about the books that have gotten under my skin. And you know the book that really got under my skin was The House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski. It is an incredible book because it is about a haunted house.

It is not just about the haunted house; it is also about the way the book is written. There is all these footnotes. There are architectural footnotes. There is a story within a story and it was a really scary story. It made you think just because of the way it was written. It was a long time ago that I read it but I have never forgotten it and it sort of...things will happen and I would think about it.

PCC student

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

2007-10-14T21:27:00.000-07:00

Click To Play Flash Video

Click To Play Windows Media Version
Click To Play QuickTime version

Video Transcription:

My name is Daniel Larios. I'm a photography student here at PCC and one book I really enjoyed and that I still remember after five years is The Poisonwood Bible.

It is a story about Africa and this family that moves there. It is a really great story and a really great kind of mystery. Well this family, there are from America, they move to Africa because they are missionaries and they are trying to convert Africans to Christianity. They get into all of these troubles.

It is just a great read.

Memoirs by Pablo Neruda

2007-10-11T10:03:00.001-07:00

Neruda's passionate embrace of life is described with lustrous poetic imagery. His world was a bouquet of unique, exotic experiences full of political and romantic rectitude. Reading this book caused me to adopt a more curious and appreciative approach to life - to recognize that every experience is profound and to pursue experiences that are different and bountiful. Neruda was a man whose life was joyous because he was propelled by courage and conviction rather than fear.

Submitted by John Wood
jcwood@pasadena.edu

Housekeeping by Marilyn Robinson

2007-10-11T07:39:00.001-07:00

I haven't read this book in over a decade, yet scarcely a week goes by that I don't think about it. Family ties, home, roots, a sense of community--these things are so fragile.

Submitted by Frank Hoppe
fphoppe@pasadena.edu

The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: A Practical Guide to the Fulfillment of Your Dreams by Dr. Deepak Chopra

2007-10-08T13:09:00.001-07:00

The book is simple and straight in words, the meaning driven out of the writing is very much influencing in our day to day lives. I finished this book in one day and the words will always be with me. There a great factor of motivation and inspiration in this book. It is the perfect book to read for anyone, anytime. It sure will lead you to self discovery.

Submitted by: anonymous

What Color is Your Parachute? by Richard Nelson Bolles

2007-10-08T09:04:00.001-07:00

As an undergraduate student, circa 1976, a workshop and later a book, touched my life. Every few years I check in to the revised version to see 'where I am'.

Submitted by Elizabeth L Walsh
elwalsh@pasadena.edu

Manuale Typographicum by Zapf, Hermann

2007-10-05T11:52:00.001-07:00

Letters are the musical, lyrical servants of literature and commerce. How is it possible that those 26 shapes give voice to every human aspiration? These inky marks bring us every turn of human life--noble, pedestrian, even evil. This book asserts that typefaces themselves are as worthy of awe as the stories they present.
(Available for viewing in PCC Library, reference section 655.24 Z 1. )

Submitted by Dave Cuatt
mrquat@hotmail.com

Lost in translation by Hoffman, Eva

2007-10-05T11:11:00.001-07:00

It is about emigration and about new life in new country, and, as the subtitle says, "in a new language". This book got under my skin, because I could so much identify with it, because I had the same feelings leaving my country and coming to this country, as the author did. It came all back to me with reading this book, it was like re-living my life again.

Submitted by Jitka/PCC staff

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

2007-10-04T13:40:00.001-07:00

An amazing read, "The Road" takes the reader into a world of nuclear winter and the struggle to survive of a father and his very young son. It is terrifying, vivid, dark, and uplifting all at the same time. McCarthy's prose is spare (very Hemingwayesque at times) and moves along quickly. It's a stunning work.

Submitted by Amy Ulmer
axulmer@pasadena.edu

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

2007-10-03T20:53:00.001-07:00

As most reviews of this books say, I think this book is 'an unforgettable story'. It provides sensory glimpse of modern Afghanistan's traditions and recent turbulence and struggles. I was privileged to hear the author speak about the book when he came to Pasadena as part of One City One Story. He is as good a speaker as he is a storyteller.

Submitted by kg

The Journey is the Destination by Dan Eldon

2007-10-03T13:06:00.000-07:00

The journals of Dan Eldon are an astonishing glimpse into the private life of a very remarkable young man. Eldon was a prolific artist, writer and photographer, leaving a vast body of work behind, especially for someone who died at the tender age of a mere twenty-two years of age. In July 1993, Eldon, a photographer for Reuters was stoned to death by a mob in Somalia who were in an uproar over a bombing raid on the alleged headquarters of General Farah Mohammed Aidid. Simply there to do his job as a reporter, Dan Eldon's life was taken by the very people he was trying help.

Since I first discoverd this book in 1997, I have found myself returning to it over and over again in the past 10 years for various reasons. I find this book very inspirational on a couple of different levels. As an artist it is a smorgasboard of images that would delight and inspire any visual addict. Every time I look at his journals I see something that I hadn't noticed before.
More importantly, this book has served as a constant reminder to myself that when I'm feeling low or sorry for myself, that life can be taken from us at any moment, regardless of our age, sex, or race and therefore should be celebrated and embraced the way that Dan Eldon did with his own short time on this planet.

Submitted by Leela Grace Perea

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare

2007-10-03T09:12:00.000-07:00

I read this play for the first time when I was 12, launching my first investigation into mortality, depression, and morality. It was there for all the angst that fills teen-dom and I remember it, and it's gloomy protagonist, to this day fondly.

Submitted by katrina

The Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand

2007-10-03T09:02:00.001-07:00

Rand has had her way of getting "under my skin" with all of her work, but this one in particular seems to have stuck with me the longest. I am dismayed by the person who finds moral ground to stand on with this book's ideas. On the other hand, I encourage anyone interested in developing their debate skills to read it.

Submitted by J.P. Burton

Finding George Orwell in Burma by Emma Larkin

2007-10-02T22:54:00.000-07:00

This is such a wonderful book. I have been obsessed with George Orwell and with Burma ever since I read it the first time. This is the book that showed me how beautiful nonfiction can be.

Submitted by Christie
cdannaster@gmail.com

Flatland by A. Square (Edwin A. Abbott)

2007-10-02T14:41:00.001-07:00

After reading this book, I couln't stop thinking about what it would be like to be 2 dimensional or what the 4th or nth dimension would be like.

Submitted by ken

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

2007-09-26T22:28:00.001-07:00

Perhaps cruelty and relentless admonition is easier to understand between enemies when the parties involved do not have a vested interest in the survival of each other. When this same deep-seated reproach occurs among the intertwining relationships of families and friends, it is much more difficult to swallow. Set in a hazy, fantastical town of Macondo that floats somewhere in between hysterical absurdity and unnerving believability, One Hundred Years of Solitude pits a single family-line bound by convoluted aspirations of glory, honor and peace against a century of unstoppable social and political transformations. Are we supposed to pity the misfortune that comes with jealousy and war, or simply condemn destructive behavior in all its forms? The legendary Colombian novelist Marquez leaves this question open for all to ponder, only to reveal that the answer sits in the same solitude that shrouds this tragedy and its characters from beginning to end.

Submitted by Mazen Ali
mazen_ali1@hotmail.com

Native Son by Richard Wright

2007-09-24T22:27:00.001-07:00

I first tried to read this book as part of a High School English class but there is a point in the book where the main character suffocates another character. I threw the book across the room. Since then (about 30 years), I have tried to read that book about 10 more times and I get to that point and bam! the book goes across the room. As my teacher said all those years ago - it comes down to the fact that I am a white woman who will never be able to understand what it was (is) like to be a black man in that kind of situation. So I guess I'll never get it or finish that book

Submitted by Lisa Fischelis
lisafischelis@aol.com

Flashbacks: An Autobiography by Timothy Leary

2007-09-22T10:09:00.000-07:00

My first impressions of Tim Leary were from the magazine articles of the early 1960s chronicaling his work while he was still in good graces at Harvard. I was 13 at the time and knew then that our lives would cross as they did in the 1980s. My library contains almost all his work with a few priceless and signed first editions, among them "High Priest." This autobiography is a Who's Who of the 60s and 70s and in particular you will enjoy reading Tim's narrative of his first encounter with G. Gordon Liddy the night Gordon raided Tim's house at Millbrook. Liddy relates the same evening from his viewpoint as a Duchess County Assistant District Attorney in his autobiography "Will." Needless to say they are humorously different.

Submitted by Jim Blakely
jimblakelyusa@yahoo.com

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

2007-09-22T09:52:00.001-07:00

Apart from the obvious reference to the Book of Exodus this novel was the defining element of the sixties experience. I read it later than most of my friends, at age 20, and found the universe into which I will evolve when my journey in this one is complete.

Submitted by Jim Blakely
jimblakelyusa@yahoo.com

1984 by George Orwell

2007-09-11T14:22:00.001-07:00

I read 1984 when I was 16 years old (in the 1970's). I was bummed out for three weeks and have never trusted government since then.

Submitted by Philly Kid

Child of the Dark: The Diary of Carolina Maria de Jesus by Carolina Maria de Jesus

2007-09-06T21:40:00.001-07:00

"July 17: I got out of bed at 5:30 and carried water. At the spigot there's always a row."

I've read this book when I was twelve. It wasn't meant to be read by twelve year olds. Being an impressionable youth, how could this book not get under my skin?

Six years later (I am now eighteen) I still remember Maria de Jesus's terse descriptions of the harsh life in the slums of Sao Paulo. Written on scraps of paper in which she could have traded in to the trash vendor for a handful of cruzeiros to buy black beans--the type of beans only poor people eat, so shameful it is for her to cook them that the windows of the house had to be shuttered as to not let anyone know--but instead wrote on them with what little education she had and saved them.

She could have made us feel sorry for her. She could have moralized this story , and taught us something gloriously didactic. But then that meant cheapening the impact of Maria's suffering. She didn't compromise with us people who lived with such luxury and leisure. She looked at us square in the eye and told us that's life. Well. At least my life.

12 years old and I had the gall to look Maria in the eye. I read each horrifying passage. And felt the closest I'll ever have of experiencing endless hunger and want in my life. I'm still utterly thankful she let me live it with her.

Submitted by
piiyoh@gmail.com/PCC Student

Subtractive Schooling: U.S. Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring by Angela Valenzuela

2007-09-03T14:25:00.001-07:00

Many of you have been where this book takes you--into the world of high students whose culture, values, and language are stripped by the policies and practices of assimilationist educational leaders. Valenzuela contends that the Mexican youth whom she studied did not oppose education; rather they opposed a system of schooling that neither respected nor cared about them and their cultural values. For these students, schooling was a subtractive process that weakened their social and cultural capital to the detriment of their academic success.

Submitted by Alicia Vargas/PCC Faculty

Wind, Sand, Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

2007-08-29T14:52:00.001-07:00

Art, love, modern life, struggle for meaning.

Submitted by dave

Black Riders by Stephen Crane

2007-08-27T19:45:00.001-07:00

Crane's spare use of language contrasts with his rich metaphors making for short but memorable poems. An example:

I stood upon a high place,
And saw, below, many devils
Running, leaping,
and carousing in sin.
One looked up, grinning,
And said, "Comrade! Brother!"

Submitted by Greg V
gversteeg@gmail.com

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khalid Hosseini

2007-08-27T16:45:00.001-07:00

I don't even read much. And who wants to read a book about Afghan women written by a young guy living in America?!? But Hosseini is too incredible. I read this book in one day and then cried like a baby. Mr. Hosseini has not only single-handedly brought thousands of people to a better understanding of Afghanistan, we now care more. I passed the book on to my niece.

Submitted by Susie Ling
shling@pasadena.edu

1984 by George Orwell

2007-08-26T14:13:00.001-07:00

There are many chilling scenes I'll never forget from this quintessential dystopian novel. Just when Julia and Winston feel safe in their secret double life comes the voice from behind the wall "You are the dead." Or the final line that signals a defeat more complete than any other: "He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother." As if these scenes weren't enough, the media reminds us of Newspeak on a daily basis.

Submitted by Greg V. (Caltech)
gversteeg@gmail.com

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

2007-08-26T13:22:00.001-07:00

This book still has me thinking, months after reading it, about the brutality routinely accepted as normal in our society, and about the sacrifices we allow others to be pressured into making so that we can enjoy some of the things we do.

Submitted by Jill Davis Doughtie
jilldoughtie@gmail.com

The Iliad by Homer

2007-08-21T16:00:00.001-07:00

The great war poem of all time, with gory, hideous battle scenes, petty squabbles, the anguish of those who die and those whose loved ones are bereft because of their loss, the folly and heroism of leaders.

Submitted by Dr. Harry Smallenburg/PCC faculty
hrsmallenburg@pasadena.edu

The Ramayana by Valmiki

2007-08-21T15:56:00.001-07:00

This is one of the great epics of the Hindu culture. The main characters, Rama, Sita, and Hanuman, are wonderful human beings. Except for Hanuman, who is a monkey, but humane, loyal, generous, brave.

Submitted by Dr. Harry Smallenburg
hrsmallenburg@pasadena.edu

Restoree by Anne McCaffrey

2007-08-20T18:09:00.001-07:00

I had to think about this for a few days. I have always had a love of comics and science fiction. As a teen I had no great desire to read romance novels.

I wanted action, adventure and I didn't want to waste 300+ pages before there would be any action only to find out I'd have to spend x amount of time figure out exactly what that "action" was about.

Hey, It was the 1970s, I was 15 and curious.

Restoree is a story about a plain woman who is a researcher/librarian type who is kidnapped by aliens and plunked down in a new world. She finds love, adventure and she is the hero of the story.

I read it straight through as if I was drinking water.

Plus it didn't take more than 75 to 100 pages before she got some action, which was very important.

I still have the book. It is an old friend that I pick up and learn a bit more about the craft of telling a good story.

Submitted by Gena Haskett/PCC student

The Angle of Repose by Wallace Stenger

2007-08-16T07:47:00.001-07:00

The book is about 30 years old now, but a fascinating look into the "building of the west" and the challenge of aging and incapacitation.

Submitted by Robert Eaton/
Performing and Communication Arts/PCC reeaton@pasadena.edu

Dom Casmuro by Machado de Assis

2007-08-15T15:25:00.001-07:00

In Brazilian literary circles, the novel Dom Casmurro (1899) has been debated for more than a century. The story seems simple: childhood friends Bento and Capitu fall in love, get married, have a child, and then separate. For decades the debates questioned "did she or didn't she?": was Capitu unfaithful or did Bento destroy his own happiness out of unfounded jealousy? The writer teases the reader with enough clues to strongly justify either position. However, the narrative is told as a flashback by an old Bento, who effectively serves as gatekeeper for all information that the reader gets. The reader can never fully overcome the filter imposed by the self-serving narrator.

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (Rio de Janeiro: June 21, 1839â?"September 29, 1908) was a Brazilian realist novelist, poet and short-story writer. He is widely regarded as the most important writer of Brazilian literature, and his works had a great influence on Brazilian literature of the late 19th century and 20th century. JosÃ© Saramago, Carlos Fuentes, Susan Sontag, Efrain Kristal and Harold Bloom are among his admirers. Kristal considers him the most important Latin American literary figure of the 19th century, and Bloom calls him "the supreme black literary artist to date."

In 1960, Helen Caldwell wrote a book comparing the Shakespearian play "Othello" to Dom Casmurro: "The Brazilian Othello of Machado de Assis - A study of Dom Casmurro". Although the main character had not killed his wife, as Othello had, both are stories of how jealousy can destroy a happy life in marriage.

One clear conclusion that can be drawn from Dom Casmurro is that to a great extent each one of us controls our own happiness - or unhappiness.

Submitted by Ted Young/Division Dean, Languages/PCC
tryoung@pasadena.edu

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

2007-08-15T13:29:00.001-07:00

I wouldn't call it a "good read," as the cliche goes. Instead, it is an intense, graphic, tender experience. It is still "under my skin" when I drink a glass of water, go to the market, or have a friendly chat about the weather with colleagues.

Submitted by Susan Clifford/Division Dean, Health Sciences/PCC
sbclifford@pasadena.edu

The Life of the Skin by Arthur & Loretta Balin

2007-08-15T12:55:00.001-07:00

A very entertaining book on dermatology for even the layperson. A description struck me as familiar and led me to get a biopsy of a small bump, which turned out to be skin cancer. It's since been removed completely and is no longer "under my skin"!

Submitted by Teri Trendler/Faculty, Natural Sciences/PCC
tatrendler@pasadena.edu

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

2007-08-14T11:07:00.001-07:00

This is one of those loveable books that makes you laugh and cry all through it. It is a woman's craving for "..one year of life". A year where she is free to do what she pleases and so feeling depressed and lost after a divorce, she dives into a year of travel for pure joy during which she visits three dissimilar countries, where she re-discovers herself and finds delight and joy. Italy is where she savors the food and language, India, she connects to her deeper self and purges away all the old pain, and Indonesia is where she finds her balance between her own inner joy and finding love in an unusual way. When you put this book down, you, too, will want to give yourself ..."a year of life."

Submitted by Maddie Costa/PCC
mjcosta@pasadena.edu

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

2007-08-13T15:38:00.001-07:00

Imagine going to college, getting through medical school, being certified as a psychologist and psychiatrist, being married only a few months, and then being arrested and sent off to a Nazi concentration camp! The last thing he was stripped of as he entered the camp was the manuscript of a book in which he had invented a new kind of psychotherapy with which to help humankind. Viktor Frankl transforms four years of unspeakable suffering into a positive contribution that helps heal the suffering of humanity. If you read no other book this year, read this one.

Submitted by Bob Doud/Social Sciences/PCC

Atlas Shrugged; The Fountainhead; We the Living by Ayn Rand

2007-08-13T12:53:00.001-07:00

I was only about 18 when I got introduced to the works of Ayn Rand. They have influenced me greatly in how I perceive the world and relate to others. Even now, decades after she wrote them, we can see the ideas in these books resonate in the events going on in our country and in the Middle East. These books should be required reading for all college students!

Submitted by Jude Socrates/Faculty/PCC Mathematics

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

2007-08-08T22:10:00.001-07:00

As one of the many readers who loved the story of The Kite Runner, I could hardly wait to read the new novel by Khaled Hosseini. When my daughter walked in with it one day shortly after it was released, I begged to read it first!

This is a story of two women who come together under unusual circumstances and within a society where brutality against women and subservience is fully accepted. Miriam is the illegitimate daughter of a successful businessman who is forced at the age of 15 to marry against her will. Hosseini also tells the tale of 14 year old Lalia whose life is forever changed against the backdrop of an unending war and the brutality of human abuse. The intersection of these two lives within the oppressive society of Afghanistan is unforgettable and it touches the reader in a powerful way.

I was mesmerized once again by his narrative style and his strong voice...As I read, I felt like I was eavesdropping on the complexities and challenges of their lives. And as I turned the last page and read the last line, I felt the emotion of the story fall heavy all around me. It haunted me for days and weeks as I reflected on the women, men and children who live their lives in a country torn so apart by oppression, brutality, violence and war.

Submitted by Mary Ann Laun
malaun@pasadena.edu

"Skin" at Pasadena City College (A Pasadena Arts and Ideas Festival, October 10-31, 2007)

2007-08-08T15:38:00.000-07:00

“Skin,” is the theme adopted by the City of Pasadena for this year’s festival of Arts and Ideas and has broad implications. It will encompass and engage a wide range and aspects of human experiences and expressions. It will provide forum for the discussion of issues regarding the politics of skin, race, changing demographics, skin adornments, music performances, art exhibitions, human relationships, environmental issues, young persons’ perspectives as well as historical context of “skin,” race relationships and human rights. “Skin” is both what holds us physically together as a vessel, and also, as a membrane, keeps us apart...

The inclusion of Pasadena City College in the city-wide festival of “Arts and Ideas” will bring to the campus, for the first time, an opportunity to coordinate our activities within our own community and with the cultural institutions of our city and address from a “ground zero” community perspective, issues existing in the forefront of contemporary discourse dealing with:

1. Racial, cultural and ethnic tensions.
2. Biological, medical and health concerns,
3. Environmental, ecological and natural environment initiatives,
4. Architecture, language and other aesthetic interventions, such as, tattoos and plastic surgery.
5. Socioeconomic and political narratives.
6. Sexuality, sensuality and other tactile experiences of skin
7. Internal nature versus outward appearance explorations.
--Alex Kritselis
Dean, Visual Arts and Media Studies