Assignment 10 - Books I'd Like to Read

Assignment 10 - Books I’d Like to Read


1. Bstan-‘dzin-rgya-mtsho, Dalai Lama XIV, & Vreeland N. (2001). An open heart: Practicing compassion in everyday life. Boston: Little, Brown.
2. Brown, D. (1998). Digital fortress. New York: St. Martin's Press.

3. Brown, D. (2009). The lost symbol: A novel. New York: Doubleday.

4. Dennnett, D.C. (1995) Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meaning of Life. New York: Simon & Schuster Inc.

5. Hooper, M. (2008). Newes from the dead. New York: Roaring Brook Press.

6. Hooper, R. J. (2007). Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Lao Tzu: The parallel sayings : the common teachings of four world religions. Sedona, AZ: Sanctuary Publications.

7. Kantra, R. A. (1984). All things vain: Religious satirists and their art. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.

8. Mosse, K. (1998). Crucifix lane. London: Hodder & Stoughton.

9. Mosse, K. (2009). The cave. London: Orion.

10. Nichols, S. J. (2008). Jesus made in America: A cultural history from the Puritans to The passion of the Christ. Downers Grove, Ill: IVP Academic.

11. O'Dell, S. (1976). Zia. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

12. Rogak, L. (2009). Haunted heart: The life and times of Stephen King. New York: Thomas Dunne Books.

13. Silliman, R., & Silliman, R. (2007). The age of huts (compleat). New California poetry. Berkeley: University of California Press.



Using WorldCat, the Google Book Project, Library Thing, and GoodReads, I searched for books and authors that I would like to read. I particularly enjoyed this assignment in the sense that finding books to read for the pure sake of reading enjoyment is something that I never seem to find the time to do. I usually find myself reading school or work material with little time left over for reading for the pure pursuit of knowledge, a good story, or the appreciation of good prose. For this reason, I ended up with more ten books on my list.

I began my search on GoodReads, searching authors that I am interested in reading. In most of these cases I have read other books by these authors, enjoyed them, and have wanted to read more of their work. My terms for this part of my search included “Dan Brown”, “Kate Mosse”, and “The Dalai Lama”. The book “The Cave”, by Kate Mosse actually received mixed reviews which seemed to lean on the negative side, however, I have enjoyed her past work so much that I still added this work to my list.

I found several books simply by exploring these websites, using reviews and tag clouds. On Library Thing I clicked on the ZeitGeist tab, out of curiosity. There I was able to find books and authors categorized by many different methods, including the best rated, the worst rated, by user tags, and by author name. I clicked on a tag that read “the philosophy of science” and was led to the book “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meaning of Life.” Last fall I was able to visit the Darwin exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., and ever since I have wanted to read more about Charles Darwin and his work. This book got decent reviews on both Library Thing and Amazon, so I added it to my list.

Another major interest area of mine is that of religion and social justice. I had several favorite authors that I read during my previous master’s program at the seminary I attended, and would like to find the time to continue reading their work. Marcus Borg was my favorite author during that time in my education, so I searched his name. I didn’t find any new books by Borg, but I was led to another book by Richard Hooper who used Borg in his work. This book was called “Jesus Buddha Krishna Lao Tzu: The Parallel Sayings: The Common Teachings of Four world religions”. I have always been interested in world religions, especially regarding the comparisons and contrasts between Eastern and Western cultures, so I found this title interesting. After looking through the sample pages available for preview on Google Books, I added it to my list. While conducting this search on the Google Book Project, I also searched the terms “Jesus progressive Christianity” and “Jesus and Social Justice”. This led to discovering the title “Jesus Made in America”, which I also added to my list. While searching the Google Book Project I also came across a book by Scot O’Dell titled “Zia”. I found this book by searching the title “Island of the Blue Dolphins”, which is a book that impacted me as a child. I added this book to my list because it continues the story of the main character in that novel.

Lastly, I searched the WorldCat database and found that this website also offers the option of searching by clicking a tag cloud found on the main page. I clicked on several tag clouds including “historical fiction” and “satirical non-fiction”. These searches led me to the titles “All Things in Vain: Religious Satirists and their Art” and “Newes from the Dead”. While on WorldCat, I also searched “Stephen King”, whose work I have always enjoyed, and found the title “Haunted Heart: The Life and Times of Stephen King.

I found this assignment to be useful and enjoyable, and hope that I find an opportunity to read these books. This was an excellent final assignment for this course.