Berkeley Book List

Living a few blocks of the UC Berkeley campus means I pick up a fair amount of academic detritus. Recently I ran across the 2013 Summer Reading list for incoming freshmen, the class of 2017. The theme of the list changes each year, in the past decade or so the topics have included: Social Media, Books for Future Presidents, War & Peace and Banned Books. For most of the 90s the books were picked by select groups: Berkeley librarians, Faculty who teach freshman introductory courses, Chairs of departments.

They've reverted to this older tradition this year, the list is titled: What Would Seniors Read and was selected by the graduating class of 2013. Here's this year's list, the webpage includes a few words of recommendation from the recommender:

Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert (2008)

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962)

Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv (2008)

The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson (2010)

Saturday by Ian McEwan (2008)

Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer (2009)

Extremely Loud, Incredibly Close by Jonathon Safran Foer (2005)

Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond (1997)

Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution by Paul Hawken (1999)

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Ablom (1997)

Garbage by A.R. Ammons (1993)

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell (2008)

Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852)

Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy and Everyday Life by Robert B. Reich (2007)

The Stranger by Albert Camus (1946)

The Plague by Albert Camus (1948)

American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America by Colin Woodward (2011)

Confessions of St. Augustine (397)

War and Peace by Leon Tolstoy (1869)

Interesting what current graduates see as relevant today.