Recomended Reading

An interesting and unusual list. 

Craig's Recommended Reading List 
for the Body, Mind, and Soul

I feel the best education is self education.  Because a book isn't assigned does not mean it is not valuable.  If you are motivated about a subject, dive in and learn.  School should just be an introduction to the many subjects that appear in your life.  I hear many of my peers complain that they have know idea what they want to do with their lives.  This is because the only thing they read or seek to learn is what is on their syllabus.  Break out, find what is interesting to you and go with it.  You should always have a book that you are reading, fiction or fact.   Feed your brain with the things you are motivated to learn about and retention will be unlike you have ever known it.

As for books that have changed me, I would say when I read Slaughterhouse 5, I realized that  respected writers may actually write what is on their minds.  It seems that everything that had been presented by the school was based on the writing ability or complexity.  Vonnegut showed me I could write because I see things differently, everyone does.  And that fact alone makes your opinion valuable to the world.  Of course, Charles Bukowski said something to the effect of if you don't enjoy your work, no one else will either.  Yes, we should all be privy to Twain, Shakespeare, Moby-Dick, or whatever the "right" suggest in order to be "educated", but I have never connected to these works because I didn't feel they were talking to me.  The Cider House Rules, A Prayer fro Owen Meany, Cat's Cradle, Breakfast of Champions,  Tales of Ordinary Madness, My Utmost For his Highest, Elmer Gantry, Screwtape Letters, Demian, and a host of non-fiction has talked to me.  All books I've discovered and enjoyed on my own time away from classroom interpretation.

Craig Sowder
Sophomore Indiana University

Reprinted from:      Reading Lists for College - Bound Students
                          Doug Estell, Michele L. Satchwell, Patricia S. Wright
                                    ARCO Thomson Learning

An interesting and unusual list:

Conversations with God I & II                                   Neale Donald Walsch

My Utmost for His Highest                                        Oswald Chambers

The Gospel According to Jesus                             Stephen Mitchell

When Heaven and Earth Changed Places           Le Ly Hayslip

The Lost Teachings of Jesus I                                 Elizabeth Clare Prophet

A Prayer for Owen Meany                                         John Irving  

Cider House Rules                                                     John Irving

St Francis of Assisi                                                    Homer Englebert