My story is the same as @FallGirl 's, but with O, William! Now I need to go back and get the other Lucy Barton books!
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Meade at Gettysburg: A Study in Command by Kent Masterson Brown. I did a guided hike this fall at Gettysburg and the leader gushed about this book. He was right about how good it is. It give great insight in the Meadeās actions before/during and after the battle.
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I really enjoyed Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Professor at SUNY Syracuse Environnmenta;)
My neighbor gave me this book (she was listening to audio book and said it reminded her a bit of my interest in gardening). I especially liked the parts where she talked about raising her girls in rural NY where they made maple syrup, learned about the land, befriended elderly neighbor etc. Also really liked the parts where sheād take her students out into nature to learn her blend of science and honoring the earth. Lots of timely earth care themes in the book.
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All Colgate students had to read Braiding Sweetgrass and write an essay prompt about the reading before returning to campus this last fall. I nabbed our Dās copy and read it too. Loved it! Itās really unlike anything Iāve read before.
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Driving out to/from University of Rochester when daughter was there, we would often stop at Onondaga lake park to stretch our legs for a moment, as it was right off the NY Thruway. Very nice lakeshore park. Last year wife read Braiding Sweetgrass and was astonished to learn that we were walking on reclaimed land from one of the most polluted areas in the country!
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Re: āBraiding Sweetgrassā I might have to pick that up, but my good friend who is a hippie, back-to-the-land type person really hated it when she had to read it for a book club. I have avoided it since her dislike of it. Iāll have to ask her more what she didnāt like about it.
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I actually was not liking āBraiding Sweetgrassā in the first pages, so glad I stuck with it. Most of the chapters could stand on their own as essays, so it is an easy book to intermingle with other books if desired.
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@MADad - I love that trend for colleges to have freshman all read the same book. Thatās how I got a hand-me-down copy of Zeitoun, an excellent book about post-Katrina day (with some good social commentary too). Then author Dave Eggers was a guest professor that fall on campus.
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Twas not my comment, but was @homerdog, I believe. All good.
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My book club selected The LIght in Hidden Places for next month. Itās YA, but unlike others Iāve readā¦truly outstanding.
@Colorado_mom - When my daughter was at Knox College, the freshmen class all read The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. I think itās a great way to connect all of the freshmen together.
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Our sonās high school had a required summer reading list and, in addition, chose a book for each grade to read before opening days every September. I miss that list; it was my private book club during those years.
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The summer before I started at Haverford, I received a large Jiffy envelope from the college. I was hoping it was swag, but it was a copy of the Norton Critical Edition of Moby Dick accompanied by a letter saying that we were expected to read it in preparation for a lecture by an esteemed professor in the English department. I was always a reader, but I still hadnāt finished when I arrived on campus. I remember my mother saying that I would be the only one who hadnāt. Needless to say, my mother was wrong. While most of us didnāt appreciate the assignment, we realized that asking āDid you finish Moby Dick?ā was a great icebreaker during orientation.
P.S. Finishing Moby Dick remains my white whale 
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A related question is what āclassicā could you only finish because it was required reading. For me it would be Joyceās āUlyssesā. Thank goodness the Bloomsday Book was part of our official reading list.
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I think I might have finished Ulysses anyway. Have read MD several timesāone of my absolute favorite books. Been a long time since I had required reading, but off the top of my mind, I am sure I wouldnāt have finished Pamela or Vanity Fair.
Donāt think this book falls in the category of a classic, but I struggled to read, but couldnāt finish, Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.
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Iām pretty sure I could never make it through Ulysses. I hated almost every second of Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man. OTOH I really liked Moby Dick, it helped that I loved the teacher. Iād just done a semester of poetry with her and Moby Dick in many ways just seemed like an extension of that class.
I actually did finish Infinite Jest, liked it but took me a month. I used to be able to read Pynchon, but have not been able to get through the last few.
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One of my daughters hates to read! Sheās doing great in her engineering program though! Anyway, when she was in high school, English was torture for her. To help her get through a couple of years, I actually read her books aloud to her as we snuggled in bed together. Weād discuss difficult or interesting passages and look up definitions of unfamiliar words or idioms. I really enjoyed those times as I had an opportunity to bond with my daughter while reading several classics for the first time.
My other daughter, on the other hand, majored in English Lit and works as an assistant to a literary agent!
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A few years ago, I went to a theater performance of Moby-Dick Rehearsed (written by Orson Wells). I really enjoyed the show. Around the same time, Nathaniel Philbrick (a historian) wrote Why Read Moby-Dick? I read Philbrickās book, and then re-read Moby-Dick and came away with a greater appreciation for Moby-Dick.
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