It started with Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. In my introductory social psychology course, in an early lecture, I bring up Zen. When I do I give the title and say that it is a book every one should read because the book is both entertaining as a story and as an intellectual adventure. Then I get to the point. In his novel, Pirsig says that there are two fundamental ways of understanding or knowing; romantic understanding and classical understanding. From there, my lecture is about the fact that when it comes to how interpersonal relationships work, too many of us rely on a romantic, surface, understanding and do not seek out a classical, scientific, understanding of what is the real dynamic of relationships.

Year after year, I have had students come up to me during the semester to say, “… I read that book you mentioned; I enjoyed it.” Whether it was Zen or Robert Cormier’s Fade, or Audrey Niffenbacher’s The Time Traveler’s Wife, I have discovered that some students follow up on books that I mention in my classes. In fact, at the end of each semester, one of the questions students ask me nowadays is “…what book do you recommend we read this summer?” Sometimes a student has emailed me to ask not for one recommendation, but for a reading list. Over the years, I have also noticed that some students seemed surprised that I read novels. Those students seemed to assume that we professors only read for work and within our technical disciplines. One student asked me, “…how do you find all these books you talk about?” I told that young man, and the class, the truth. “I read books because I like to read. All of the books I mention, I discovered because I was reading for pleasure. Most times it is only after reading a novel that I think about its connection to some point I have already been making in my lectures.”

Seeing students’ responses to my mild recommendations, and to the fact that I read for fun, I had the idea that it might be useful for me to publish, periodically, book reviews in one of the student newspapers. So I began to do just that. Whether that has any influence on what students are reading, I don’t know, but it is my hope. Likewise, I hope my small efforts give those who visit this web site a few new titles for their reading lists. I shall continue to post my reviews here. What books will I review? Those I find while reading for fun.