Monday, December 22, 2003

What 5 Books Should Every Undergraduate Read?

The five most important books? How many people in Amarillo have read all of the works on this list? How many people in Amarillo have heard of the works on the list? What Color Is Your Parachute? What is that about? Of course, the list of the 5 must-read books was compiled from choices by university presidents. It has been years since a president of Amarillo College even darkened the door of the Lynn Library. Perhaps the Coen brothers could do for the other 4 books what they did for The Odyssey ("O Brother, Where Art Thou?"). If this be (fair & balanced) despair, so be it.

[x Chronicle of Higher Education]
The 5 Books Every Undergraduate Should Read
By SARAH H. HENDERSON

Many a prospective college student, overwhelmed by the choices, has wondered: Do there really need to be so many universities? Can philosophies of education really vary so much?

Yes and yes, according to a recent informal survey conducted among members of the International Association of University Presidents. The survey's single question, posed by J. Michael Adams of Fairleigh Dickinson University, was this: What five books should every undergraduate read and study in order to engage in the commerce, intellectual discourse, and public duties of the 21st century?

More than one-fifth of the association's 500 members responded. Of the five books most frequently mentioned, none received anywhere near a majority of the vote. The Bible, cited most often, appeared on only a fifth of the respondents' lists. Other suggestions included works by Dickens and Machiavelli, and What Color Is Your Parachute?

Here are the five most-mentioned works:


  1. The Bible

  2. The Odyssey

  3. The Republic

  4. Democracy in America

  5. The Iliad



Copyright © 2003 by The Chronicle of Higher Education


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