I completely recommend Ecology of Fear. It's about how Los Angeles is situated and built in such a way as to maximize the social consequences of any (extremely likely) natural disaster. There's a section on long-term climate changes and weather patterns that I thought would be deadly boring, but it was riveting. Honestly, I really don't like nonfiction much, but I loved this.

Kathleen R. Ryan
Assistant Professor, Plant & Microbial Biology

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Imagine if your professors were able to hang out with you in the dorms, sit next to you in lecture, or had to wait like you in long lines for services. In other words, really get a sense of your day-to-day life as a student. Well, anthropologist Cathy Small (writing under the pseudonym "Rebekah Nathan") did just that by enrolling as an undergraduate at Northern Arizona University, where she teaches. Although her intentions were to uncover why students just seemed to be "surviving" through the curriculum by doing minimal work, Small discovers that students have a desire to be challenged even when they are being discouraged by their peers or poor teaching. This ethnography is a must-read for any undergraduate wanting to thrive, and not just survive, at a research university.

Gonzalo Arrizon
Study Strategies Coordinator, Student Learning Center

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This lovely work by biologist and naturalist—and science writer—Bernd Heinrich details dozens of examples of physiological and behavioral strategies animals use to survive winter. Full of stories and beautiful hand-drawn figures, the book exposes the miraculous variety of approaches employed by turtles, mice, squirrels, bats, bears, beavers, bees, beetles, birds and butterflies.

Philip Stark
Professor, Statistics

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I read this book as a graduate student, one hot summer in Iowa. It's set in a frightening, falling-apart California of the future, a place where drought, pollution, drugs, and violence have made life almost impossible outside of gated communities. Lauren, a young Black woman with a vision, leads a small band of survivors north toward what she hopes will be a better life. Butler's prophecy for California's environmental and social future is bleak and scarily accurate—if you read this alongside Mike Davis's City of Quartz, you may not sleep for a few nights. But at its root this is a hopeful book; it's about learning to look squarely at the world as it is, and then work to make it better.

Karen Munro
E-Learning Librarian

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In 1863, the political survival of the United States was in doubt. Americans were amid a Civil War, a horrific conflict that divided the nation and whose outcome was very much in doubt. By most accounts, the turning point of the war was the battle of Gettysburg which tens of thousands of soldiers did not survive. Garry Wills's Lincoln at Gettysburg explores President Lincoln's address following the battle from a variety of viewpoints and illustrates Lincoln's hope that the American nation would survive. Wills' book has been selected as the featured text for the Letters and Science "On the Same Page" program for fall 2007, and the author will visit campus in September to meet with students and discuss the book.

Jon Gjerde
Professor, History

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This eminently sane utopian novel, Huxley's last, begs for comparison with our present-day dystopian anti-society. Its vision of child-rearing, particularly the refusal of the Island's life-guides to treat children as unthinking sheep and its uncensored sex education methods, stands out among the society's admirable policies. So admirable, of course, that they can't withstand the darker impulses of a greedy, unenlightened, world that never ceases to tempt the Island's rulers. Enjoyable AND an invitation to students to exercise their analytical skills before arriving on campus.

Will Seng
Lecturer, Technical Communication Program, College of Engineering

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We're slowly becoming aware of how significantly we effect the world around us, and how that in turn effects our future. Clearly these are important issues. But not every prediction comes true, and it's important that we temper our fears with a little humility about how much we can see that future. The Population Bomb of 1970 was the An Inconvenient Truth of today: An attempt to project out to a not-so-distant future, and explain how immense change was needed to moderate the disaster that was coming by the end of the century. It's very interesting to read the predictions, and then look at the world of today.

Bob Jacobsen
Professor, Physics

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Gilgamesh is the ultimate survivor—horrified by the death of his buddy Enkidu he sets out on a journey to find eternal life. In his quest he crosses the waters of death, meets Utnapishtim, the sole survivor of the deluge, and receives the secret of the Plant of Rejuvenation. But the plant is stolen by a snake and Gilgamesh returns home empty handed. Although in the story Gilgamesh fails to win eternal life, in some way he succeeds because his story is still an exciting read—more than 4000 years later. Andrew George's translation from the original cuneiform texts is smooth and his introduction contains an up to date introduction to the modern Gilgamesh research.

Niek Veldhuis
Associate Professor, Assyriology

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