What Should I Read Next?

" I cannot live without books."
—Thomas Jefferson

Even the most well-read among us feel gaps in our knowledge. Former English majors or art students want to understand the monetary system; mathematicians or doctors just want a great novel. Travel sections in bookstores are full of authors ready to tell you the hundred places to visit before you die, but what about the best book to read on global warming?

What Should I Read Next? taps seventy University of Virginia professors in an array of fields for suggestions on how to satisfy this nagging intellectual curiosity. Each contributor recommends five titles that speak to their area of inquiry, providing both a general introduction and commentary on each selection. The results read like a series of personal tutorials: Larry Sabato considers how political power is acquired, used, and held onto; climatologist Robert E. Davis provides a timely navigation of global-warming literature; and Michael Levenson offers five ways to approach James Joyce’s Ulysses. Other topics include how computing changes thinking, the life and afterlife of slavery, understanding cities, and ecstatic poetry. The entries convey the contributors’ expertise but also, more importantly, the enthusiasm, the original kernels of curiosity, that drew these scholars to their life’s work.

Designed for the lifelong learner who wants to branch out from his or her own profession or discipline, these explorations—of art, science, history, technology, politics, and much more—offer an inspiring place to start.

University of Virginia Press

Even the most well-read among us feel gaps in our knowledge. Former English majors or art students want to understand the monetary system; mathematicians or doctors just want a great novel. What Should I Read Next? taps seventy University of Virginia professors for recommended readings in history, politics, literature, math, science, technology, the arts, and more. Each contributor picks five titles that speak to their area of inquiry, providing a general introduction and commentary on each selection.

The Barnes & Noble Review

What a great idea: ask some 70 colleagues at your university -- in this case the University of Virginia -- to provide a short essay with a list of five books on a subject in their fields. The result here is even better than the premise, since each prof responds in his or her own way, some recommending tried-and-true canonical works, others listing books in their areas that reach out to general readers, and others simply suggesting five ways of sampling a masterpiece. The contributions span the university curriculum and include suggestions on historical and political topics (the Founding Fathers, poverty in modern America, 19th-century Chicago); on science and mathematics (the evolution of visual perception, symmetry and group theory, the history of logic); and on literature and the arts (the poetry of mourning, 100 years of jazz, the 19th-century Spanish novel). Other essays explore religious ideas, child development, and issues in illness and mental health. In short, it's a real educational smorgasbord, much like an annotated course guide. Some authors find their way onto more than one list, but not always for the reason you might expect. Shakespeare shows up in readings for a study of ethical values as well on a more conventional list for the English "word hoard." Among contemporary writers and scholars, Jared Diamond, Michael Klarman, E. O. Wilson, Julia Alvarez, and Michael Pollan all make multiple appearances for their recent work in a wide range of disciplines. The delights here are many, and the intellectually curious will consult this clever collection time and again. Let's hope other universities follow the format -- a first-class education at your fingertips. --Thomas DePietro

Jessica R. Feldman is Professor of English at the University of Virginia. Her published works include Gender on the Divide: The Dandy in Modernist Literature and Victorian Modernism: Pragmatism and the Varieties of Aesthetic Experience. She teaches widely in nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature. Robert Stilling is a doctoral candidate in English Literature at the University of Virginia. He has published on Robert Frost in the Virginia Quarterly Review.