U Reads: who is reading what

List for U Reads 2007 is now available

Each year, the U Reads program publishes a list of books recommended by a chosen number of people in the University of Minnesota community.

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 Barceló, 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 Gómez: A Mexicotexan Novel by Américo 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.)