<p>My daughter's college have the incoming freshman reading "Middlesex". I'm reading it myself. It is a page turner.</p>
<p>A sampling of excellent, untaxing college novels from a variety of places and eras:</p>
<p>Owen Johnston, Stover At Yale</p>
<p>Philip Roth, The Ghost Writer (and The Human Stain, and of course Goodbye Columbus)</p>
<p>Mario Vargas Llosa, Aunt Julia And The Scriptwriter (also The Storyteller and Conversation In "The Cathedral", but the last IS taxing)</p>
<p>Alfredo Bryce Echenique, La Vida Exagerada De Martin Romana (unfortunately, not available in English, but it should be)</p>
<p>Yukio Mishima, Spring Snow</p>
<p>Roberto Bolano, The Savage Detectives (also a little taxing, but rewarding)</p>
<p>Gustave Flaubert, A Sentimental Education</p>
<p>Donna Tartt, The Secret History</p>
<p>David Lodge, Trading Places</p>
<p>Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night</p>
<p>Erich Segal, Love Story</p>
<p>Also some movies to watch:</p>
<p>Noah Baumbach, Kicking And Screaming (my kid's favorite college movie)</p>
<p>Richard Linklater, Before Sunrise</p>
<p>?, L'auberge Espagnole</p>
<p>and as many episodes as you can find of Judd Apatow's Undeclared</p>
<p>Summer reading for freshmen at my son's school is Three Cups of Tea.</p>
<p>My personal favorite of the Shakespeare histories is Henry IV Part 1.</p>
<p>I second "I am Charlotte Simmons". I read it, and my (somewhat sheltered) son did as well. He said that even though he knew it was exaggerated, it prepared him for some of what he might see among his classmates.</p>
<p>Another Charlotte Simmoms fan chimes in.</p>
<p>Ugh. I don't get the love for Charlotte Simmons. There are some good passages in it, but on the whole it's poorly written, poorly plotted and developed, and so full of crap there has to be an EPA violation in there somewhere. Unless you were homeschooled on Mars, I can't believe it meaningfully advances your preparation for actual college life.</p>
<p>JHS, as I've said before, your summation matches my reaction to that book perfectly!</p>
<p>JHS, lol. "Full of crap" is about as good a review of Charlotte Simmons as I've read!</p>
<p>Haven't read all the responses, but I'm going to chime in with some favorites:</p>
<p>Recent fiction:</p>
<p>Life of Pi (Yan Martel)
Special Topics in Calamity Physics (Marisha Pessl)
The Road (Cormac McCarthy)</p>
<p>Poetry:</p>
<p>T.S. Eliot </p>
<p>Also: </p>
<p>100 years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
At least one book by Toni Morrison (Song of Solomon, for example)
Salinger (not Catcher, which I assume most high school students have read, but his Glass family books)</p>
<p>These are just a few, and excuse any misspelled authors' names!</p>
<p>The Lives of a Cell by Lewis Thomas, if you are planning to be a Biology major...</p>
<p>Also, be conversant with an atlas. When I first started studying a world atlas, I was SHOCKED at how poor my grasp of geography was. SHOCKED. (And I am in my mid-fifties!) Take a look around the world, and see where things actually ARE. I can't recommend this strongly enough! In my mind so many countries were just sort of vaguely "out there" somewhere. When I actually saw where they were, I gained a deeper understanding of politics, weather, environment, geology, ethnicity, culture etc. What an education I got from an atlas of the world. </p>
<p>Also, I read somewhere that two courses everyone should take in college are art history and astronomy. I thought that was very interesting. Get an art history book, one with tons of plates, and get a feel for art. Astronomy has gotten pretty esoteric and hard to follow; is there an Idiot's Guide???</p>
<p>Yes, there is. Also a "...for Dummies" book.</p>
<p>On the subject of college-related fiction, I checked out Acceptance from the library yesterday and I've gotten through about a 1/3 of it already. I'm actually really enjoying it, perhaps on some self-satisfied level since I only firmly ended that chapter of my life about a month ago. Has anyone else read it?</p>
<p>I wiki-ed Three Cups of Tea (yes, this is what I've been doing with everyone's recommendations) and I will definitely try to read it. My best friend has Middlesex on her list of summer books- we'll probably end up reading it together!</p>
<p>I enjoyed Acceptance, but thought the author thought it was funnier than it was. Good point about geography. I'm regularly surprised by where all those former SSRs are. I'm terrible at South America, but pretty good at Africa (not suprisingly since I spent a good part of my childhood there.) Books set non-Western countries with or without non-Western authors is another way to broaden your geographical horizons.</p>
<p>Books I've enjoyed:
West with the Night - Beryl Markham (flying and colonial East Africa)
Don't let's go to the Dogs tonight: An African Childhood by Alexandra Fuller (set in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe interesting in light of the recent events)
Out of Africa - Isak Dinesen (more colonial Africa and a pretty movie to boot)
Cry the Beloved Country - Alan Paton (South Africa during apartheid)
Isabel Allende - House of the Spirits (magical realism - Chile)
The Tale of Genji -Murasaki Shikibu Japan</p>
<p>My son's incoming class is reading "The Places In Between" by Rory Stewart. Thirty-five years ago my incoming class had to read "Magister Ludi or the Glass Bead Game" by Herman Hesse, so he will (hopefully) also be reading that. Most anything by Herman Hesse, actually.</p>
<p>I heartily second "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder (about Dr. Paul Farmer, Partners in Health, poverty and health care) and also recommend "What is the What" by Dave Eggars (about the Lost Boys of Sudan -- so follow it up with the PBS Point of View show called "The Lost Boys of Sudan").</p>
<p>I absolutely nix the Wally Lamb suggestion. Phenomenal and amazing premise; horrible and sloppy execution.</p>
<p>Bill Bryson's recent book on Shakespeare seems right up your alley, given the Shakespeare on your list. Listening to Bryson ("A Walk in the Woods", "I'm a Stranger Here Myself", "A Sunburned Country") is a lot of fun, too. A real summertime treat!</p>
<p>If you have any interest in politics and government, my son would recommend "The Nine," about the Supreme Court and the 2000 presidential election.</p>
<p>I should have also included Richard Light's "Making the Most of College: Students Speak Their Minds," which my professor-husband read in a teaching-focused faculty book group and which we gave to all of our son's friends for graduation.</p>
<p>A few I haven't seen mentioned:
The Parable of the Sower- Octavia Butler (environment)
The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Moth Smoke - Mohsin Hamid (Pakistan)
Ghostwritten - David Mitchell (Also Black Swan Green) Japan & beyond
Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver (Congo)
A Very Long Engagement - Sebastian Japrisot (WWI France)
Snow Falling on Cedars - David Guterson (Japanese Americans WWII)
Blindness - Jose Saramago
Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card (scifi)
Bel Canto - Ann Patchett (South America)
Affluenza - John De Graaf (non fiction)
The Samurai's Garden - Gail Tsukiyama (China Japan)
The Devil's Highway - Luis Urrea (Crossing into the US from Mexico - non fiction)</p>
<p>I also second The Places In Between followed by The Prince of the Marshes (both by Stewart)</p>
<p>Into Thin Air, the Fountainhead, Interpreter of Maladies..........</p>
<p>Oh, I have to second some of Katliamom's picks:</p>
<p>The Making of the Atomic Bomb
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (if you like that, try Oryx and Crake)
Catch-22</p>
<p>I would add: Brave New World
The Education of Little Tree
Godel, Escher, Bach
The Mind's I
War and Peace
The Vampire Lestat
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Slouching Towards Kalamazoo
The Chronicles of Doodah
Fahrenheit 451
The Brothers Karamazov
The Giver
Animal Farm</p>