Faculty Reading Lists: Amy Brugge

Epic – perhaps one of the greatest novels ever written?




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An essential read for anyone in a caring/helping/service profession (many of us!) and the source of one of my favorite quotes.

“We’re fascinated by the words – but where we meet is in the silence behind them.”

Heartfelt and worth reading again and again.

Is it becoming obvious that I enjoy Russian literature? I wavered for a while on whether this or Anna Karenina should be first on this list. This book has it all, star-crossed lovers, political turmoil, and profound insight on the human condition. Don’t settle for the 1960’s movie (although it also is a classic) when you could instead have Pasternak’s poetic prose.

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My nonfiction preference often leans towards the biological sciences. In this book, the authors explore and challenge traditional narratives in evolutionary biology as they relate to human mating relationships, including monogamy, sexual orientation, and “traditional” family structures. It’s an intriguing exploration of the assumptions we have about sexual relationships, how we came to infer these understandings from other species, and how cooperative and egalitarian our species’ approach may have been in ancient societies (as opposed to a competition-based approach to mating). It will leave you questioning much of what you think you know about evolutionary biology’s role in your own relationship(s).
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Guy Deutscher revisits the linguistic debate about what role our first language plays in shaping one’s perspective. Does one see, perceive, or even experience the world differently according to the language she initially learned to describe her life with in childhood? The author formulates a persuasive argument that one’s native tongue does influence perspective and left me wanting to further explore linguistics.

I recently finished two novels by Ken Follett, Fall of Giants and The Winter of the World. They are the first two books in a trilogy that tells the stories of interconnected fictional families across generations and world geography during major historical events in the 1900s. Unfortunately, I’m now stuck waiting for the third book in the trilogy to be released in 2014.

The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje

Over the years I’ve found that people feel strongly, one way or another, about this novel. Is it destined to be a classic or is it pretentious and ephemeral? I find it to be a melancholy, spellbinding story that I can’t put down each time I read it. My favorite part – one character’s quest to find the correct anatomical term for what those of us in anatomy-based disciplines refer to as the suprasternal notch.