The Carleton alumni mailing list has come up with lists of suggested summer reading each of the last few years. Most of the recommendations include little if any commentary, so I was never tempted to include them in Reading.

But, online is a different matter.

So here's a list of suggestions for summer reading from some of the august alumni of Carleton College. The list is finally alphabetized by title, I think, though now that it's done I'm not sure it matters, even if alphabetizing creates some interesting "neighbors."

• Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund
• The Alphabet Versus the Goddess by Leonard Shlain
• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay by Michael Chabon
• American Tabloid and The Cold Six Thousand by James Ellroy
  • "These are extremely intense and graphic alternative histories for the years 1950-1968, with politicians, the mob, crazy anti-Castro types, and other interesting wackos. He also wrote "L.A. Confidential" which is equally gritty and intense." -Mike Joy
• Anything by Jodi Picoult
• Ian McEwan's Atonement
• Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
• Bitter Grounds by Sandra Benitez
• The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan
• The Brothers K by David James Duncan
• Brunelleschi's Dome by Ross King
• The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
• Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres
• The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff
• Nick Danziger: Danzier's Britain - A Journey to the Edge
• Francis Parkinson Keyes: Dinner at Antoine's
• Ann Baer: Down the Common
• The Emperor of Ocean Park by Stephen L. Carter
• Fire on the Beach by David Wright and David Zoby
• Gould's Book of Fish by Richard Flanagan
• The Ground Beneath Her Feet by Salman Rushdie
• Hardball by Chris Matthews
• Sky of Stone by Homer Hickman
  
  • "The third in a trilogy of books by the author of "October Sky" (made into a movie) about growing up in a coal-mining town in West Virginia. I love these books so much I went to West Virginia and met the author!" -Mike Joy
• Independence Day by Richard Ford
• Introducing Islam by Ziauddin Sardar and Zafar Abbas Malik
• Island by Alistair MacLeod
• J. A. Jance mysteries
• The Jaws Log by Carl Gottlieb
  • "Funny, a look behind-the-scenes at the filming of the great movie which is often unfairly blamed for the crummy summer movies we are treated to every year." -Mike Joy
• Jews for Buchanan by John Nichols
• Jihad vs. McWorld by Benjamin R. Barber
• King Suckerman by George Pelecanos
• Christine Wiltz: The Last Madam - A Life in the New Orleans Underworld
• The Lost Continent by Bill Bryson
  • "I actually haven't read this in awhile, but in my opinion is the absolute funniest of all of Bryson's very funny books. A road trip through the USA, in the late 80s. My ranking of the other Bryson books, from most to least hilarious: Neither Here Nor There (Europe), Notes From a Small Island (England), I'm a Stranger Here Myself (newspaper columns about USA), In a Sunburned Country (Australia), A Walk in the Woods (Appalachian Trail). All are very good summer reading." -Mike Joy
• Richard Adams (author of Watership Down): Maia
• The Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson
• Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur S. Golden
• Motherland by Vineeta Vijayaraghavan
• William Boyd: The New Confessions
• A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram
• Nine Parts of Desire by Gwendolyn Brooks
• No Great Mischie by Alistair MacLeod
• Non Campus Mentis a compilation (by Anders Henriksson) of hilarious answers given by college students to history exam questions.
• Plainsong by Kent Haruff
• The Practice Effect by David Brin
• The Princess Bride by William Goldman
• Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
• Rainlight by Alison McGhee
• The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
• Senior Vivo and the Coca Lord also by Louis de Bernieres
• A fairly sensible book on nutrition, The Schwarzbein Principle by Diana Schwarzbein, M.D. and Nancy Deville
• Evelyn Waugh: Scoop
• A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket (sp?) [Daniel Handler]
• Shame by Salman Rushdie
• Richard Adams (author of Watership Down): Shardik
• Chiang Lee: The Silent Traveller in New York
• George R. R. Martin's series, A Song of Ice and Fire
• Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
• The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
• Mary S. Lovell: Straight on Till Morning - biography of Beryl Markham
• Thief of Time by Tony Hillerman
• The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
• Thunder from the East by Nicholas Kristof & Sheryl Wudunn
• An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison
• The Wailing Wind by Tony Hillerman
• West of Kabul, East of New York by Tamim Ansary [Carleton grad]
• Beryl Markham: West with the Night
• Robert Jordan's series: The Wheel of Time
• Marjorie Kinnan Rawling: When the Whippoorwill
• White Noise by Don DeLillo
• White Oleander by Janet Fitch
• Wine & War by Don & Petie Kladstrup
• The Year of Wonders by Gwendolyn Brooks
• The Years of Rice and Salt by Stanley Robinson

For more reading evaluations, check out ReadingOnTheWeb.