Jeremy Begins the Challenge

All right, I'll bite. Here's my reading so far for 2008, separated into Fun Reading and Required Reading (often fun but not strictly optional). Don't have time for reviews at the moment but I'll do short comments.

Fun Reading

Over Christmas I started re-reading through some of my favorite sprawling geek epics.

• Stephen King, Song of Susannah (Dark Tower Series Vol. 6) - Rightfully called King's magnum opus. How come this guy doesn't get more respect? 560 pgs.
• Likewise, The Dark Tower, 864 pgs.
• Tad Williams' fantasy epic Memory, Sorrow, Thorn, with an intriguing alternate Christianity. The Dragonbone Chair, 672 pgs.
• The Stone of Farewell, 576 pgs.
• And finally, a wonderful light-hearted romp through a year of taking the Bible as absolutely literally as possible, with some implications for actual spiritual hermeneutics. A. J. Jacobs, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible. 200 pgs.

Required Reading

First for my philosophy colloquium. It's probably good for me to feel dumb once in a while to sympathize with undergraduates. And boy, do I.

• Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy and the Genealogy of Morals. 320 pgs.
• Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations. 250 pgs. This should count at least triple.

Next my pedagogy course - how to encourage undergraduates to learn without falling asleep, and also hopefully how to get a job.

• Eric Gould, The University in a Corporate Culture. Gould argues that the modern university is caught between giving diplomas and encouraging learning in the same tension between capitalism and democracy. Thought-provoking, especially for academics. 272 pgs.
• David Kelsey, To Understand God Truly: What's Theological About a Theological School. Somewhat dated in the contemporary post-Christendom context; Kelsey calls for re-aligning theological schools in a quest to understand God through studying congregations. Meh. 272 pgs.
• Parker Palmer, The Courage to Teach. Palmer advocates teaching from one's personal sense of identity, placing the subject at the heart of the pedagogical process rather than the teacher or the students. Simultaneously uplifting and uneasily vague. 272 pgs. (Is this really right or is Amazon malfunctioning right now?)
• bell hooks, Teaching To Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. Best one so far. Teaching people to think critically is in itself a revolutionary enterprise, especially when it involves personal narrative, emotion, and passion. 224 pgs.

Total so far: 4482 pages. Just wait until Buffy posts.