Get Your Read On

Being a student you spend a lot of your time reading. Text books, researching, your own work over and over... and over, but every college student should also have a library worth of books that they have read for their own pleasure as well. As with anything else there are always a few stand outs; here is my list of a few books that every college student should read.

• The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - A pilot who has crashed his plane in the Sahara Desert meets the little prince, a little blond boy from Asteroid 325 who has left his planet due to his loneliness and search for deeper meaning. A children’s classic that, again, regardless of age has depth and value.

• The Crucible by Arthur Miller - In a representation of the Salem Witchcraft Trials is a play that challenges the morals and ethics of a society based on moral goodness and Puritanism when rumors and accusations spread like wildfire. The paranoia of witchcraft is another added layer to this novel which is essentially the core of controversy, which parallels the communist paranoia that permeated America in the 1950s.

  
  

• The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath - Esther Greenwood, a woman just finishing up college and an internship in New York City, struggles with all of the decisions that life brings while being pulled down by a descent into madness in this dark semi autobiography of Sylvia Plath’s own life.

• Beloved by Toni Morrison - A novel that allows readers to see into the pain and suffering of slaves through Sethe and her daughter Denver, as they work to rebuild their lives after escaping the torment of slavery. The novel examines many themes, along with the relationship between individuals and their community.

• Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom - Morrie Schwartz is not the ordinary college professor. He is engaged within his students’ lives, and gets to know them on a personal level. Sixteen years after Mitch has had him as a professor, he sees Morrie on Nightline and pays him a visit, discovering that he has Lou Gehrig’s disease. After the visit, Mitch continues to visit Morrie every Tuesday where a different kind of lesson is given. Lessons on love, values, acceptance and happiness. Each chapter encompasses a new Tuesday spent with Morrie, as his disease slowly takes away his ability to function his body.

• The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway - With Hemingway’s timeless language of imagery and simplicity, is his first novel that is generally known to be his best work. The novel follows a group of war veterans and their new lives in Europe, facing post-war battle scars and realities.