Each year, the U Reads program publishes a list of books recommended by a chosen number of people in the University of Minnesota community.
U Reads: who is reading what
List for U Reads 2007 is now available
From eNews, April 19, 2007
As a young boy living in Belgium, University of Minnesota professor Jon Hallberg fell in love with comic books. He read the standards like Mickey Mouse, Uncle Scrooge, and Archie, but the "Tintin" series was his favorite. Today, he continues to enjoy comics--with his 10-year-old son--and graphic novels. For U Reads 2007, he chose Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, an engaging tale of modern Iran in a graphic novel form.
Hallberg's selection is one of 10 that appear on this year's U Reads list. Since 2002, the College of Continuing Education has selected people from the University community to recommend a book that has inspired them or that they would encourage others to read.
This year's list is especially diverse, and contains the U Reads program's first-ever book of poetry, Incomplete Knowledge: Poems by Jeffrey Harrison, and first graphic novel, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi. Also new this year is a revamped Web site, featuring videos of the selected U readers talking about their choices and discussing why reading is important.
The U Reads 2007 selections are:
The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional
and Personal Life by Rosamund Stone Zander and
Benjamin Zander
Recommended by Darlyne Bailey, dean, College of Education and Human
Development
Telling to Live: Latina Feminist
Testimonios by The Latina Feminist Group
Recommended by Rusty Barcel?, vice president and vice provost,
Equity and Diversity
Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature and
Climate Change by Elizabeth Kolbert
Recommended by Robert Crabb, director, U of M Bookstores
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
by Marjane Satrapi
Recommended by Jon Hallberg, professor of family medicine
Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul
Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy
Kidder
Recommended by Larry Jacobs, director, Center for the Study of
Politics and Governance
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan
Didion
Recommended by Mary Jo Kane, director, Tucker Center for Research
on Girls and Women in Sport
George Washington G?mez: A Mexicotexan
Novel by Am?rico Paredes
Recommended by Louis Mendoza, chair, Department of Chicano
Studies
On Late Style: Music and Literature Against the
Grain by Edward W. Said
Recommended by Clarence Morgan, chair, Department of Art
Incomplete Knowledge: Poems by Jeffrey
Harrison
Recommended by Julie Schumacher, director, Creative Writing
Program
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
Recommended by Jenny Weber, U student and host of "Rock and Roll
Over" on Radio K
To learn more about these titles and read about their impact on the people who recommended them, see U Reads 2007. (The U Reads 2004, 2005, and 2006 lists are also available on the Web site.)