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Recommended Reads

...an exhibit featuring faculty & staff members with
books they want to share with the OCCC Community.

Melinda Barr, Professor of History
Rachel Butler, Reference Librarian
Jane Carney, Professor of Sociology
Chuck Carselowey, Professor of Sociology
Dr. David Charlson, Professor of English
Nancy Cook, Professor of Nursing
Mindie Dieu, Communications Lab Supervisor
Sue Hinton, Professor of Journalism/English
Dr. John Hughes, Professor of Political Science
Jon Inglett, Professor of English
Dr. Thomas Jones, Professor of Psychology
Barbara King, Director of Library Services
Catherine Kinyon, Director of Curriculum and Assessment
Bonnie Lynn, Library Technical Services Assistant
Yaisa Mann, Adjunct Professor of English
Ray McCullar, Professor of History
Dr. James McKenna, Professor of Chemistry
Steve Morrow, Professor of Learning Skills
Nancy Pietroforte, Professor of Sociology
Cecilia Pittman, Professor of Child Development
Clay Randolph, Professor of English
Michael Reeves, Information Technology Computer Lab Assistant
Claudette Robertson, Adjunct Professor of History
Richard Rouillard, Professor of English
Dr. Paul Sechrist, President
Dr. Jessica Sheetz-Nguyen, Adjunct Professor of History
Dr. Steve Shore, Professor of Chemistry
Kyron Smoot, Library Circulation Assistant
Sally Strebig, Secretary to the Director of Library Services
Dr. Susan Tabor, Professor of Child Development
Dana Tuley-Williams, Systems Librarian
Mary Turner, Learning Support Specialist
Susan Vanschuyver, Dean of Arts & Humanities
Rebecca Weber, Communications Lab Assistant
Bertha Wise, Professor of English
Jennifer Wood, Library Technical Services Assistant
Dr. Cecelia Yoder, Acting Dean of Social Sciences/Professor of Psychology

Melinda Barr - Professor of History

Gods in Alabama
by Joshilyn Jackson

I'm a big fan of the Southern dysfunctional family genre, and this book is clever, at times suspenseful, has a great twist that I did not see coming, and is a quick read. But what I liked most about Gods in Alabama was the complexity of its narrator. Although Arlene is Southern and religious, she is anything but typical. She has a slutty past, academic degrees, intense loyalty to her friends and family, a pact with Jesus never to tell a lie and ... what else? Oh, yeah, she once murdered someone. And the great thing is -- it's all believable.
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Rachel Butler - Reference Librarian

All Fisherman are Liars: True Tales from the Dry Dock Bar
by Linda Greenlaw

It's been about 200 million years since Oklahoma was under the sea-why should anyone care about sea stories? With perfect storytelling and entertaining "bar snacks," you'll be swept into a lifestyle that is off our Okie radar screens. Linda is the first and only woman swordfish boat captain on the Grand banks off eastern North America. In the background she is trying to give health advice to her long time mentor and crusty buddy Alden, 27 years her senior. In the foreground is life-one story after another-hilarious, personal, amazing and just plain human. Friends with idiosyncrasies, hopes and screw ups. The Dry Dock Bar. Big Waves. You will be there! And as Linda says, All fishermen are liars, but not all liars are fisherman.

Shell Shaker
by LeAnne Howe
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Jane Carney - Professor of Sociology

Amagansett
by Mark Mills

This novel is set in post-WWII Long Island, in a community made up of the villagers who have fished the local waters for several generations, and the wealthy who come to claim the island each summer. It is by turns funny, suspenseful, and includes both a murder and a poignant love story. The characters are wonderful, the plot is tight, and it is well researched. It is hard to categorize: a thriller, a novel with a sense of place, or a novel so well written that category doesn't matter. Highly recommended!

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America
by Erik Larson

This is the well-researched and completely true story of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. The fair was to be America's answer to the celebrated fair that had been held in Paris, and the idea was for the new world to "show up" the old. There are really three separate stories to be told: the amazing story of the fair, how it was finally completed against immense odds; the true tale of a psychopathic murderer who lived near the site of the fair and lured many attractive young women to their deaths; and the story of the assassination of an important person related to the fair. It is an extraordinary picture of what life was like in Chicago (the black city) at the time, and features the introduction of many "modern" ideas such as electric lights, clean water, and sewage treatment. It reads like a novel, but you will learn a great deal.
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Chuck Carselowey - Professor of Sociology

The Meaning of Everything
by Simon Winchester

This is the story of the making of the first comprehensive English language dictionary. If this sounds like a book you might read in an attempt to win a battle with insomnia, it is not. Winchester is quite a storyteller and he has a good tale to tell: the story of the OED, The Oxford English Dictionary. It appears that virtually every person involved in this seventy year-plus project was at least eccentric, and some are clearly beyond. One of the hundreds of contributors was a man named W.C Minor. His story and the circumstances under which his contributions took place are the subject of another Winchester book entitled, The Professor and the Madman. I learned some surprising things about the language I use in reading The Meaning of Everything, including a little about why the language is so wacky. I also got to step into a remarkable tale.

I Never Met a Man I Didn't Like: The Life and Writings of Will Rogers
by Joseph H. Carter
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Dr. David Charlson - Professor of English

Radio On: A Listener’s Diary
by Sarah Vowell

If you are interested in good pop music and Jon Stewart’s take on politics on THE DAILY SHOW (I’m in on both counts), this book might be for you. The author is brave enough to take on two radio giants: Garrison Keillor (whom I love) and Rush Limbaugh (whom I don’t). She also has a connoisseur’s taste in rock’n’roll, pop music, and good alternative radio of all kinds. A key word she uses about what she loves is what I do with all her books: “revere.” Author Sarah Vowell was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma.

Breakfast of Champions
by Kurt Vonnegut

If you are easily offended, do not read this book. Kurt Vonnegut dedicates Breakfast of Champions to a woman who taught him "to be impolite [. . .] not only about sexual matters, but about American history and famous heroes, about the distribution of wealth, about school, about everything." The author succeeds in doing all that in a humorous and easy-to-read way, for the higher purpose of making us think about how we treat each other on this planet. Vonnegut is a war veteran and thus a peace lover, and his books are like nothing else you're likely to encounter.
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Nancy Cook - Professor of Nursing

The Cherokee Strip: A Tale of Oklahoma Boyhood
by Marquis James

Fire in Beulah
by Rilla Askew
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Mindie Dieu - Communications Lab Supervisor

Disgrace
by J.M. Coetzee

Nobel prize winner J.M. Coetzee (Waiting for the Barbarians, Foe) writes from his native South Africa in this philosophical pondering of the fine line between good and evil in college professor David Lurie. Lurie is fired from his post after an ambiguous relationship with a pretty young co-ed. Was it consensual sex or coercion? In disgrace, Lurie goes to live with his daughter, reducing his lot in life and discovering his changed role as a father and as a man. When racial hatred takes its toll, the reader must decide for themselves whether or not there is hope for salvation in David Lurie.

The Woman Who Walked into Doors
by Roddy Doyle

Irish author Roddy Doyle (Paddy Clarke Ha-Ha, The Van) tells a riveting story through the eyes of a once hopeful, once battered, now recovering housewife in contemporary Ireland. Highlighting social ills and bringing to light the often closed, dark doors of generational abuse patterns, Doyle's brilliant use of limited omniscience and a flawed main character keeps the reader emotionally engaged and comes to a shocking and cathartic conclusion.

Ashes of the Southwest
by Nathan Brown
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Sue Hinton - Professor of Journalism/English

1776
by David McCullough

You'd think there wouldn't be much suspense in David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize winning history of the critical first year in the American Revolutionary War. After all, we know how the story ends. Yet reading 1776, one is filled with anxiety about the prospects for the new nation, and with amazement when critical victories are won in the darkest hours.

McCullough's compelling narrative recounts how a ragtag army of amateur soldiers just barely prevails over the most powerful military machine in the world - the British regulars and their feared Hessian hirelings. "Prevails" may be too strong a word, but they survive to fight again, ultimately winning a war of attrition rather than grand battles. But that's far into the misty future after 1776 ends.

Supplemented by letters, diary entries and news accounts from the time, many written by ordinary soldiers and citizens on both sides of the war, the book serves as a reminder that history could have turned out so very differently.
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Dr. John Hughes - Professor of Political Science

The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century
by Thomas L. Friedman

Friedman’s newest work follows in his established tradition of translating the complex realities of the “often bewildering global scene.” A foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times, Friedman brings a unique perspective to his task. Crisscrossing his “beat,” Friedman discovers a world increasingly shrunken by technology. In classic Marxian terminology, the “workers of the world” may at last “unite” via technology. Multinational corporations are “flattening” the Earth by allowing workers access to the marketplace through the fiber optic world of international commerce. Increasingly, workers in the “Third World” perform complex and diverse functions for American businesses seeking to remain competitive.
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Jon Inglett - Professor of English

Invisible Man
by Ralph Ellison

Can you accomplish anything in this world if you are a poor black man from the South before the Civil Rights Movement, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr.? If you are intelligent and witty, can you rise up in an educational system without the derogatory perceptions of the black poster boy to be glamorized by white society? Can you continue your idealism and optimistic future when racial identity, segregation, and black nationalism are overstepped and abused by political domination?

"The Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison examines these questions and the historical progression of the narrator's odyssey into the soul and core of the African-American identity. You can read all the American history books in the world, but without Ralph Ellison's interpretation of these positive and negative events, you will never fathom the African-American phrase: "It's a Black Thing. You wouldn't understand."

Ellison makes you understand. He takes you, the reader, on the journey to the core darkness of your human soul. He questions your existence, disrupts your paradox of freedom, and, ultimately, molds you, the reader, into an illusion and an invisible man or woman desperately trying to fathom and desperately failing at that fathoming.

He writes in the epilogue: "I lived a public life and attempted to function under the assumption that the world was solid and all the relationships therein. Now I know men are different and that all life is divided and that only in division is their true health. Hence again I have stayed in my hole, because up above there's an increasing passion to make men conform to a pattern."

The question the book never answers, however, is this one: if comformity and patterns exist, what system remains for human beings to thrive socially, culturally, and economically? Years later, it would take leaders-Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcom X, Louis Farrakhan, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Spike Lee-to continue asking these difficult questions before arriving at a complex solution to problems we still attempt to answer.

All this from an Okie! What a great American novel! Author Ralph Ellison (1913-1994) was born in Oklahoma City.
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Dr. Thomas Jones - Professor of Psychology

The Hot Zone and The Demon in the Freezer
by Richard Preston

If you like science and technology in your fiction, i.e., Michael Crichton, Tom Clancy, Dean Koontz, etc., you'll likely love these non-fiction works. Preston chronicles the investigative work in the little-known fraternity of virus-hunters on the trail of ebola virus strains in The Hot Zone. The Demon in the Freezer exposes the very real global threat posed by the smallpox virus and the potential for the delivery of a "weapons-grade" pox virus. Preston's graphic description of the destructive nature of these viruses made me flinch. Both of these books were "page burners", frightening and very real.
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Barbara King - Directory of Library Services

The Shining
by Stephen King

The Shining is one of the best ghost stories I’ve ever read. Stephen King’s use of words and how he can describe people’s inner thoughts is unmatched in my opinion. So many said how great the movie was but it didn’t hold a candle to the book. If you want to get really creeped out and have to turn all the lights on before you can go to sleep…..this is the book to read.
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Catherine Kinyon - Director of Curriculum and Assessment

Mankiller: A Chief and Her People
by Wilma Mankiller and Michael Wallis

Spirit Caller and Death on the Drunkard's Path
by Jean Hager

Art of Cars
by Michael Wallis
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Bonnie Lynn - Library Technical Services Assistant

Route 66: The Mother Road
by Michael Wallis
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Yaisa Mann - Adjunct Professor of English

Waiting to Exhale
by Terry McMillan

It was during the summer of 1994. On my way back home from taking college placement tests, while sitting in the front seat of the car, I glanced back at my friends to start up a conversation about my impression of Fresno State College. I was sidetracked when the paperback edition of Terry McMillan's Waiting to Exhale caught my attention. My friend didn't bother to say anything and I grew annoyed. So, I pretended like I was clearing my throat and directed the noise in my friend LaShawna's direction. In an annoyed gesture, she told me to shhh… while placing her index finger firmly in the center of her lips. I sideways glanced at the spine of the book to see what she was reading. That evening when I returned home, I took a trip to the bookstore. I was determined to purchase the same book that held my friend back from joining in on the conversation about all of the cute boys that we had seen and out soon-to-be college. I wasn't sure of Terry McMillan's gender or race, but it didn't bother me. I weaved in and out of the book shelf aisles until I found the African American section. I had never read black fiction, so I was amazed to see so many beautiful illustrations of brothers and sisters on the covers. I did most of my growing up in a rural town called Armona. The only books that I came across were required school texts books, the dictionary, Sweet Valley High books and the Bible. But as soon as I spotted Waiting to Exhale with the black, purple, fuchsia and turquoise cover, I was ready to begin my journey.
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Dr. James McKenna - Professor of Chemistry

Things Fall Apart
by Chinua Achebe

Things Fall Apart might be an interesting read for people unfamiliar with the various ways the political domination of Europeans and the introduction of Christianity impacted the lives of Africans. The story follows the life of Okonkwo at the time of early contact between rural Africans and Europeans. I found it both an enthralling and enlightening novel.
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Ray McCullar - Professor of History

Assassination Vacation
by Sarah Vowell

I recommend Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation because it is readable, informative, without being stuffy or snooty, funny, and unusual. It is unusual in that she mixes the past and present in a very agreeable way, brings up issues about the assassinations of Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley that are not tired and looks at the connections, both psychological and physical, of the assassins to their victims. This book is a must for young and old who think they do not enjoy reading history.

The Moon Is Down
by John Steinbeck

This excellent short novel written at the height of Nazi power in World War II is a book I did not know.

"You are not a man any more. You are a soldier. Your comfort is of no importance and, Lieutenant, your life isn't of much importance. If you live, you will have memories. That's about all you will have. Meanwhile you must take orders and carry them out."

These words of Colonel Lanser to Lieutenant Pracle were a summation of the Nazi occupation mentality. Yet the citizens of the occupied town were coldly and silently defiant. The more efficient and brutal the occupying force became the more stubborn the will of the people to resist because "a man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chances of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether is doing right or wrong." It was this that explained why "it is always the herd men who win battles and the free men who win wars."
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Jason Kimball - Lead Library Circulation Assistant

Next of Kin
by Roger Fouts

Next of Kin follows the research and study of Dr. Fouts and his team(s) in their successful attempt at interspecies communication. Dr. Fouts was part of "Project Washoe" that started with Dr. Gardner teaching Washoe, a chimpanzee, American Sign Language. At the time of her death in October of 2007, Washoe had a vocabulary of over 250 words and had taught her adoptive son, Loulis (another chimpanzee), sign language also. The book follows the journey of Dr. Fouts with Washoe from 1967 through 1997. The stories of the trials and tribulations of the chimps experiencing life will make you laugh and cry. Humans will learn a lot about themselves as Dr. Fouts did.

The Oklahoma connection: A third of the book is about the journey to Oklahoma, where the study moved in 1970. It follows the next decade of study that occurred at "Monkey Island" in Norman at the University of Oklahoma.
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Steve Morrow - Professor of Learning Skills

Life of Pi
by Yann Martel

If you watch the T.V. show Survivor, or if you admire those who survive difficult circumstances with grace and wisdom, you must read Life of Pi by Yann Martel. Winner of the Man Booker Award, this 2001 novel has given lots and lots of readers a story to remember! You will read about a boy, a tiger, an ocean, and all that is best (and sometimes not) in human nature. Pi, here, is not that wonderful, mysterious number in math but a wondrous, mysterious story about what life can hold, even on a tiny lifeboat.
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Nancy Pietroforte - Professor of Sociology

Death and Justice: An Exposé of Oklahoma’s Death Row Machine
by Mark Fuhrman

In Death and Justice: An Exposé of Oklahoma’s Death Row Machine, Mark Fuhrman (the former detective who gained notoriety during the OJ Simpson debacle) examines several death penalty cases in Oklahoma. Fuhrman focuses on the unscrupulous methods employed by Oklahoma County to procure and analyze evidence in criminal cases in order to obtain convictions. After closely examining Oklahoma’s system, Fuhrman ultimately concludes that the death penalty can never be administered fairly. Fuhrman closes his book by asking the reader “(t)o choose justice over revenge” and abolish the death penalty. Fuhrman’s transition from ardent supporter of capital punishment to abolitionist makes his well-researched book a compelling and, at times, infuriating read.
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Cecilia Pittman - Professor of Child Development

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter
by Kim Edwards

David Henry's life was turning out as he hoped. He was a doctor, married to a beautiful woman, Nora, with a baby on the way. But everything changed overnight because of one fateful decision. On a winter evening in 1961, a blizzard brewing, Nora goes into labor. Due to the weather, they could only make it to the clinic, not the hospital, and only Caroline, the nurse, arrived to help deliver the baby. David delivers his own child, a perfectly healthy son. But when Nora continues her labor, David realizes she is carrying twins; and the second child, a girl, is born with Down syndrome. Wanting to protect his wife from the devastating news, David gives the child to Caroline to take to an institution, asking her never to reveal the secret. Caroline takes the baby and disappears. Unfolding the plot over the course of 25 years, Edwards tells a moving story of two families bound by a secret that both eats away at relationships and eventually helps to create new ones.

Assassin
by Anna Myers

In alternating chapters of first-person narrative, Myers' novel tells of Bella and an actor she idolizes, John Wilkes Booth. After her mother's death, eight-year-old Bella goes to live in Washington D.C. with her grandmother, a seamstress at the White House. Over the next six years, Bella attends school, develops one close friendship, learns to sew, takes her grandmother's position at the White House, moonlights in the costume shop at Ford's Theatre, and is befriended by Booth, eight years her senior. Meanwhile, Booth travels to Charleston for the hanging of John Brown, finds success on the stage, suffers through the election and later the re-election of Lincoln, and develops alliances that he hopes will be useful as he plots against the president he despises. Myers does a credible job of writing convincingly from both an adult's and child's point of view. Author Anna Myers lives in Chandler, Oklahoma.
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Clay Randolph - Professor of English

Soldier of Orange
by Erik Hazelhoff

If rain ever comes to Oklahoma again, think about spending a rainy afternoon watching a long, involved movie that takes up some time and tells a good story, mostly true.

In 1977, the famous and infamous Dutch movie director Paul Verhoeven ("Basic Instinct") made a classic "Soldier of Orange" based on the memoirs of a Dutch war hero, Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema. Despite being in Dutch, the film (DVD) is quite accessible with clear subtitles; there is a smattering of English dialogue. The film won the Los Angeles Film Critics award for best foreign film and was nominated for an Oscar.

The movie begins with a glimpse into the world of privilege in pre-WWII Holland, a country long known for its cultural urbanity and general tolerance. Five friends, students at the university, are introduced at the film's beginning just prior to the Nazi's invasion of their homeland. The picture of Dutch life prior to the war is one of order, sensibility, and civility.

Following a brief period of open resistance to the Nazis, the Dutch capitulate and the five friends find themselves thrown to the winds of war and German occupation. They are not all of one mind-Erik, the character based on the real Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema, is the protagonist who works sporadically in the underground resistance and eventually enlists as a pilot for the British. One friend, a Jew, is eventually executed by the Nazis, while another helps the Nazis after being blackmailed to protect his Jewish girl friend. Still another is the son of a German mother and ends up dying in the German army. Gus, Erik's best friend, is guillotined by the Germans.

The calm, orderly world of Holland gives way to bombing raids, persecution of the Jews, and the executions of Dutch civilians.

Despite the excruciating losses depicted in his book and the film, author Roelfzema says that an important lesson is that friends remain friends despite their political differences. The film affirms this idea. The sad part is that most of Erik's friends die. Yet, the overwhelming message of the film is this: the resistance of good people to overwhelming life-crushing forces can be noble and ultimately successful.
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Claudette Robertson - Adjunct Professor of History

On the Drafting of Tribal Constitutions
by Felix S. Cohen

Felix Cohen came to the United States Department of Interior as an assistant solicitor in 1933 to serve for one year and stayed for fifteen. During that time Cohen became associated with Indian jurisprudence and prepared his somewhat controversial "Basic Memorandum" during the reorganization plan for previously terminated tribal governments. Today his Handbook on Federal Indian Law is still considered one of the most important handbooks consulted by attorneys of Indian Law.

During his service as Solicitor General, Felix Cohen set forth a boiler plate document that would expedite the determination of Tribal self-government. The document, a basic memorandum outlining the process for Indian tribes to become self-governing under the Wheeler-Howard Act, is not exclusively Cohen's work, but includes many of the original ideas that Tribal governments espoused before they were terminated in the nineteenth century.

Section 25 of Cohen's Basic Memorandum concluded with an outline on the Bylaws and the Public Welfare as a summary of the purpose of government. "The chief business of government is to make people happy and to eliminate suffering." Cohen wrote that some activities would require government intervention simply because certain human behaviors would need to be repressed. However, many governmental activities should provide guidance to economic enterprises, education, charity, and legal counsel, thereby, a government is fulfilling its duties to make people happy and eliminate suffering. Cohen offered several examples of historic tribal constitutions that addressed this concept.

Felix Cohen was born in 1907 the son of Jewish educators. At age twenty he graduated with a Master of Arts from Harvard College and by the time he was twenty-five, he had completed his doctorate in philosophy at Harvard, his law degree from Columbia, and was recruited by the Department of Interior to help draft the Wheeler-Howard Act. While other legal minds saw Indian Law in its political sense, Cohen viewed Indian Law in the context of minority work.

It is appropriate that On the Drafting of Tribal Constitutions be published by the University of Oklahoma Press in this centennial year of Cohen's birth. Significant also, is the fact that while Oklahoma is celebrating its statehood centennial, many of the Oklahoma Tribes which faced termination under the Treaty of 1866, the 1887 Dawes Act and the 1898 Curtis Act, and who by 1907 had lost all of their rights to self-govern, have since re-established their tribal governments under the Wheeler-Howard Act of 1934 and later Public Law 93-638 and are successfully self-governing.

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Michael Reeves - Information Technology Computer Lab Assistant

The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin
by Gordon S. Wood

The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin, a very informative work by Pulitzer Prize winning author Gordon S. Wood, is a must read for those who might be interested in a look behind the legend of Franklin and actually see what made him tick. The book tells of Franklin's humble beginnings in Philadelphia, Pa. when he definitely viewed himself as an English citizen all the way through his transformation into seeing himself as an American. Wood gives detailed accounts of Benjamin Franklin's many trips back and forth from the colonies and London. He also explains of how Franklin labored very hard in his early years to build his fortune. Woods also details Franklin's beliefs all the way through the book, many of which would be good rule-of-thumb to live by even today.

An Innocent Man
by John Grisham

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Richard Rouillard - Professor of English

The Dante Club
by Matthew Pearl

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow has been a hero of mine for a long time. Ever since I found out he was a major influence in the establishment of modern language education in the United States, I have admired his craft and I have been envious of his passion for words in many languages. Imagine then my curiosity when I read about and browsed though The Dante Club. Fortunately I read it over the Christmas/New Year holidays; when everyone else was asleep I was reading Matthew Pearl's well researched, well developed story. The Civil War has just ended and Longfellow, James Russell Lowell and Oliver Wendell Holmes and publisher J.T Fields are called upon to solve murders patterned after punishments Dante describes in Il Inferno.

Dreams to Dust:A Tale of the Oklahoma Land Rush
by Sheldon Russell

One hundred years of Oklahoma Statehood have been an invigorating cause for celebrations of all kinds. Parades, regattas, festivals and activities have focused on the notion that diverse peoples have built a state from the territories on up. Many of the activities have centered around and called attention to the people who have contributed to this development. Dreams to Dust by Sheldon Russell is an engaging story of a few characters who find themselves inextricably woven into the fabric of the latter territory days and early statehood days in Guthrie, the Oklahoma Territory capital and for a short time the capital of Oklahoma, the 46th Star. Winner of the 2007 Oklahoma Center for the Book Fiction Award, Russell tells us a story about characters we can easily envision as we share their joys and sorrows, their passions and their pitfalls. It is a fitting choice for a Centennial reading celebration.

Whose Names Are Unknown
by Sanora Babb

Whose Names are Unknown 's force surpasses that of The Grapes of Wrath. Because Ms. Babb actually lived during the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression in the Oklahoma Panhandle as well as in Southeastern Colorado, she had an advantage over Steinbeck when writing about the people. There is something intensely passionate about her story and essentially real about the characters she has developed, most likely people she knew when she lived in Forgan, OK, and other places in No Man's Land. Both novels are written about people who are down on their luck; both take place in Oklahoma and on the road to and in the "California paradise." Maybe I prefer Whose Names are Unknown because I have lived in the Oklahoma Panhandle; maybe it is because I experienced some dramatic dust storms when I first moved to this part of the world. I will most likely read both novels again, but I will definitely read Sanora Babb's first.
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Dr. Paul Sechrist - President

The World is Flat
by Thomas L. Friedman

If we need reason to support the College's mission to prepare our community for life in this global society and economy, Thomas L. Friedman's, The World is Flat, provides that and more.

In fact, what Friedman does is provide a wake-up call to America that claims the forces that have been pushing the world closer together, flattening the world so to speak, have now converged and we must adapt if we are to survive as the world's economic and social leader. He does so in a manner that is understandable, logical, and with plenty of interesting personal stories that will keep your interest throughout the entire book.

The implications for education in America are compelling. The book is a "must read" for those charged with preparing the next generation to not only be marginally successful in the world of the future, but to thrive in the decades that lie ahead.
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Dr. Jessica Sheetz-Nguyen
Adjunct Professor of History

Religion and the Decline of Magic
by Keith Thomas

Man's search for understanding of the human condition proves to be something that links humanity together over time. One of the most stimulating books I have ever read is Religion and the Decline of Magic by Keith Thomas. Although this book dates from the late sixties it retains its scholarly value. Thomas' narrative is carried on through thick description of the mentalities of unlettered people from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries who believed in magic rocks and spirited trees. Since I have always been interested in religion and spirituality, I enjoyed delving into worlds of astrology, divination, witchcraft, ghosts, fairies, and magical healing. I strongly recommend this study, one that is difficult to put aside once you start reading, if you wish to learn more about the mentalities of the past.
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Kyron Smoot
Library Circulation Assistant

The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World
by A.J. Jacobs

The Know-It-All is the story of the author's experiences while reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. Not only are you exposed to all types of interesting and obscure facts {neat's-foot oil, head flattening} but we get to see how the author continuously tries to use his newfound knowledge in everyday situations with his friends and family as well as at crossword puzzle tournaments, Mensa meetings and even a spot on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" This is the kind of book that can make learning fun! While absorbing some of the most important and unusual information throughout history, you also get a glimpse into what it took to read all 32 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica. A.J. Jacobs has written what many consider to be one of the most fascinating as well as entertaining books on intellectualism ever published.
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Sally Strebig
Secretary to the Director of Library Services

Song of the Bones
by M.K. Preston

Song of the Bones is a light reading mystery for those who enjoy that genre. This book exudes Oklahoma: location Tetumka, OK, yes Tetumka, not Wetumka, oil and land rights, and Songdog Jones, a Native American character. The heroine and lead investigator is Chantalene who pairs up with Drew to search for the unknown missing person. You will enjoy this page turner as you try to decipher who is this missing person and what this person is trying to accomplish.
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Dr. Steve Shore
Professor of Chemistry

Fifty Common Birds of Oklahoma and the Southern Great Plains
by George Miksch Sutton

In addition to having the best state song in the country, Oklahoma has the coolest state bird. Fifty Common Birds of Oklahoma and the Southern Great Plains by George Miksch Sutton features an essay about the scissor-tailed flycatcher and forty-nine other interesting Oklahoma birds. Each wonderfully written and informative essay in the book is accompanied by one of Dr. Sutton's beautiful paintings.

When I first saw a copy of Fifty Common Birds of Oklahoma I was stunned to realize I had seen the paintings before. Many of the paintings in the book had been featured in the article about birds in an old set of World Book encyclopedias that my grandparents had at their home when I was growing up. As a kid, I had never bothered to pay attention to the signature on the paintings. Even if I had noted the name of artist at the time, in those pre-Google days I probably would not have learned that Dr. Sutton was teaching at the University of Oklahoma and was a world-renowned ornithologist and bird artist.

When I took ornithology at OU, I did get the privilege of seeing Dr. Sutton in the bird range at the then Stovall Museum at OU (now the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History). I wish I had had my copy of Fifty Common Birds of Oklahoma with me at the time, because I certainly would have asked for an autograph.
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Dr. Susan Tabor
Professor of Child Development

Divorced, Beheaded, Survived: A Feminist Reinterpretation of the Wives of Henry VIII
by Karen Lindsey

Karen Lindsey examines Henry VIII, his mother, his wives and their lives in this intriguing book. In the process, she reveals to those of us living 500 years later much about the culture, the beliefs and the pattern of the lives of upper-social class women and children living in Tudor England. Lindsey may shatter some long-held beliefs (held rightly or wrongly) about some of these women through her analysis, while she makes the reader painfully aware of how much the decisions they made reflected the powerlessness of their lives. I think this is a fascinating account of the women surrounding Henry VIII, and a telling story regarding the man himself.
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Dana Tuley-Williams
Systems Librarian

An Oklahoma I Had Never Seen Before
by Davis D. Joyce

While the phrase "Red State" only entered the vernacular in the 21st Century, the term could have been used to describe Oklahoma in the early 1900s. That's right, Young Republicans, if your Oklahoma roots go back a few generations, Grandma might have been a Communist or a Socialist!

"An Oklahoma I Had Never Seen Before" details Oklahoma's progressive history, including Socialism; the topics include feminism, unionization, pacifist communities, religious persecution and gay rights. So, if you feel "blue" in a sea of "red," reading this book might give you a new perspective on your home state!
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Mary Turner - Learning Support Specialist

The Heart of a Woman
by Maya Angelou

A warm fire and a good book can make life feel happy and comfortable. If that book happens to be The Heart of a Woman by Maya Angelou, then life feels even more happy and optimistic. This book chronicles her life as a single mom and her special relationship with her son; it also takes us on a journey from west coast to east and from struggling singer to writer. As always, she is unapologetically honest about herself and the people she meets along the way. Her work gives us the courage to be comfortable in our own skin.

Awakening to Equality: A Young White Pastor at the Dawn of Civil Rights
by Karl E. Lutze

Karl Lutze presents a warm and conversational autobiographical/historical account of his coming to Muskogee, Oklahoma as a young Lutheran pastor. Assigned to a small church "on the other side of the tracks," Pastor Lutze innocently and accidentally became a positive force in paving the way for people of color to be equal under the law. During the fifteen years he served as a pastor in Muskogee, Lutze became very deliberately politically active, both in advancing human rights and in moving the Lutheran church into more active involvement in humanitarian issues. This book would be a great companion to a sunny window seat and a cup of hot chocolate.
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Susan Vanschuyver - Dean of Arts & Humanities

The Time Traveler's Wife
by Audrey Niffenegger

The Time Traveler's Wife-is it science fiction? It was a national bestseller, one of People's top ten books of the year, and a Today Show book club selection. So-is it mainstream fiction? The blurb on the back of the paperback makes it sound like a romance novel. Yes, it is all three. The Time Traveler's Wife is the story of Henry, a man who travels through time, and his love Clare. For science fiction readers, the time travel aspect has an unusual twist. For the romance reader, the love story has a tragic element. For the mainstream fiction reader, the novel is full of thoughtful themes woven into this SF love story. It is a beautifully written first novel; I recommend it.
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Rebecca Weber - Communications Lab Assistant

I Capture the Castle
by Dodie Smith

If you want a pleasurable read, try I Capture the Castle. It is a good book to curl up with on a rainy day. I like this book because it simply and beautifully portrays everyday life. Smith writes a heart-warming and, at times, heart-wrenching story that reaches beyond the typical coming-of-age novel. Through her journal entries, seventeen-year-old Cassandra reveals the inner workings of her eccentric family, the decrepit English castle they live in, and her own aspirations and desires as she journeys toward womanhood. I found myself identifying with Cassandra's struggle to discover her true self. Maybe you will too.

Shoot the Moon
by Billie Letts
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Bertha Wise - Professor of English

Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
by Lynne Truss

Truss states that "it's tough being a stickler for punctuation these days. One almost dare not get up in the mornings." English teachers (and a few other "sticklers") probably notice some of the atrocities committed either from what Truss refers to as "ignorance and indifference." Why should anyone pay attention to those commas, semicolons, colons, etc.? In her little book, reminiscent of Elements of Style by Strunk and White because of its brevity, Truss provides a witty way of approaching those little squiggly symbols that seem to confound so many of us-even English teachers sometimes. She defines and explains with colorful examples. Even if you're not "into" punctuation, Truss's book will entertain and remind you of its usefulness.

House Made of Dawn, The Way to Rainy Mountain and In the Presence of the Sun
by N. Scott Momaday
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Jennifer Wood
Library Technical Services Assistant

Heritage Hills: Preservation of a Historic Neighborhood
by Bob Blackburn
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Cecelia Yoder
Acting Dean of Social Sciences

A Whale Hunt
Cecila Yoder by Robert Sullivan

On May 17, 1999, after a lapse of 7 decades, a crew of Macah Indians, living on Neah Bay in Washington State, harpooned and killed a gray whale. In his book, A Whale Hunt, writer Robert Sullivan provides a fascinating, up-close and very personal account of the two-year preparations preceding this event. You will meet the participants and the protestors with sufficient detail to allow you to make up your mind as to where you stand on the many issues that surrounded this historical and controversial occurrence. Sullivan weaves in a complex substratum of interesting material on whales and whaling including rich Melvillesque footnotes suggesting curious and sometimes humorous parallels to Moby Dick.

Hillback to Boggy
by Bonnie Speers
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