Tapping The Great Wisdom, #2: Great books for the college-bound.

[silveradept]

So, my workplace is putting together a book list of books that kids who are college-bound should read. The lists that are the base point for such a thing are remarkably full of old dudes, white dudes, dead dudes, straight dudes, and a good smattering of old, dead, white, straight dudes. A little diversity is in order, and it's been actively solicited from us.

So, while they're still in the formative stages, any suggestions for good books for the college bound that can bring some color and alternative thinking into their lives before they go?

(Not to say that really good books by men, white men, dead white men, and straight dead white men won't be accepted, but they're already pretty well represented, yeh?)

Comments

[tuzemi]

Are they looking for literature (i.e. fiction) or good stuff in general? If the latter, there is always Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed or Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine. I know it's still a white dude, but Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt builds an entire world without Europeans and has some really great women in it too.

[silveradept]

I think "good stuff in general" is the point here, because the lists they're pulling from have mixes of fiction and nonfiction. So hit me with your best stuff.

[jenett]

Alex Award winners? (adult-aimed fic + nonfic that's a great read for younger readers). They've made a decent attempt to have diverse voices, though it's imperfect.

[silveradept]

I think they want something a little less year-based and something more "we only want to reprint this every five years or so."

[mischiefpeace]

June Jordan (some of us did not die), Langston Hughes, Marge Piercy, Sandra Cisneros (the house on mango street), Naomi Wolf and Sherman Alexie.

[southernmyst.livejournal.com]

Maya Angelou's always a favorite.

I'm thoroughly enjoying Claire Tomalin's Charles Dickens: A Life at the moment, though not sure if that fits. Did you know Charles Dickens lived paycheck to paycheck for many years after he hit it big? Craziness.

Malcolm Gladwell, though a white man (but neither old nor dead), is a favorite of mine, and his stuff makes me think, though I'm not sure how accurate it is really, or how appropriate for your list. But it might help with critical thinking, which is what college is supposed to be about, after all.

The Lacuna (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lacuna-Barbara-Kingsolver/dp/0571252672/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319630779&sr=1-1) by Barbara Kingsolver is one of my favorite novels. Since it intertwines America, Mexico, and Russia, as well as various types of writing (prose, newspaper articles, letters), it could be good for showing not only parts of American history not usually taught in high school, but also what it's like to do research, finding something out from a variety of sources.

That's all I can think of right now, hope some of this helps.

[silveradept]

Thanks for the suggestions. They'll definitely help add some new material to the base lists they were starting with.