Read a good book lately? Share it here and write a blurb about why it is worth reading.  Feel free to add your name as a recommender (might even want to include a mailto link). To begin with, let's just go in alphabet order by title...as we get a few things posted we might need to reorganize by genre as well.

In direct and flagrant violation of a "no commercial" directive elsewhere on this site, I sincerely recommend Abebooks as a great source for out-of-print and hard-to-find book (at excellent prices). ABE is an acronym for 'Advanced Book Exchange,' an assemblage of independent book sellers across the country (and beyond). Long live the independent bookstore! /dps

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 A critical theory of education: Habermas and our children's future. R.E. Young. 1990. Despite the ponderous title, this book is very readable and offers a truly exciting vision about what education could be and, building on John Dewey, must be if we have to a fully functioning democracy. Also serves as an excellent introduction to the critical theory of Jürgen Habermas. (recommended by Dann)

• At Play in the Fields of the Lord. 1965. Peter Mathiesson. I listened to this on-tape over my last couple trips to the UM and immediately bought a copy (first edition hardcover for $1 on Abebooks -- best buck I've spent in a very long time). Truly an amazing and compelling story; prescient in its understanding the complexities of people and nature. (Dann)
• Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue. Paul Woodruff 248 p. (30 are notes & index). Basing his premise that reverence is a virtue on ancient Greek and Chinese philosophies, Woodruff makes the case that western society has lost the original meaning of the word. Rather than defining reverence as a religious term, or even making a hard definition, he puts forward the following schema: “Reverence is the well developed capacity to have the feelings of awe, respect, and shame when these are the right feelings to have.” Thus he embarks on a journey citing examples and ancient references encouraging reverence on us until one comes away with the knowledge that hubris, not irreverence is the antonym -- in fact mockery of pomposity is considered reverent -- and that ceremony (not to be confused with ritual) plays an important role in reverence. Not a quick read but Reverence is worthy of your time. (recommended by Jack Shelton).
• The Fundamentalism Project: (1991-2004) comprehensive five volume analysis of fundamentalism in all its various guises around the globe. University of Chicago Press. Looks excellent -- Chapter 15 of Volume I lays out common denominators. (Dann)
• The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. This is just a good old fun book to take a break from all those thick books during semester. If you like word games, this is a fun book to read. It plays with words in an almost mind-boggling way. :) It's an easy read, and a classic. (Emily)
• A trilogy: Taliesin, Merlin, and Arthur by Steven Lawhead. A great historical fiction set about the legend of King Arthur. A bit hard to get into at first, but worth it.
• The Bounty: the True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty by Caroline Alexander. Many books have been written over the centuries since the notorious mutiny in 1789. In many of them, Captain Bligh is portrayed as a tyrant and Fletcher Christian as the young hero that rescues the crew. This is a well researched book that examines the circumstances that led to the mutiny as most previous books have done. Alexander looks at the aftermath in detail. She covers the courts marshall of all concerned survivors. She describes how many innocent lives were destroyed as a result of the mutiny. It is fresh telling of a tale that many have "heard about" but few actually "know about". (Larry)
• Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capetown by Paul Theroux. This is the latest (at least that I am aware of) from Theroux. This book captivated me. Theroux makes his way overland North to South across the African continent begging and bumming rides in any manner he is able to. But I was even more interested in his perspective in 2002. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer teaching in Malawi about the same time I was a PCV teaching in Sierra Leone. He had not returned to Africa since that time. Many things have changed in the meantime. Many not for the better. He has much to say about foreign aid and the activities of NGOs in the developing world. His perspective is very much the same as mine will be when I travel to Sierra Leone in November of 2004. This will be my first trip back since my days in the Peace Corps in the mid 60s. (Larry)

• Reading Lolita in Tehran -- Azar Nafizi

   

  I’m done at last!  After a two dozen page wind-sprint perhaps I can get you out of my hair, Literature Professor Nafisi.  Probably not!  Like the end of a love affair, a great book lingers on whether the ending be sweet or bitter.  Like Chinese cooking, mixing salt and sweet and bitter and sour and picante, Nafisi’s recipe contains joy and fear, hate and love, truth and deceit, mingled together.  Her result:  a work of history, fiction, and memoir:  a delectable dish and nourishing.  Prescient, perhaps, of our willingness to forgo freedoms for alleged security, Nafisi has parted the veil and I peeked through and shudder at the perfection of theocracy.  Make it not be so for us in America.  (Jack Shelton)