Hilda C. Landers Library & Archives

Already halfway through June, it’s summer break for many. Students and faculty are settling into summer routines. New graduates still have that glow of accomplishment and that “can-do” attitude of taking on the world. The last thing on many minds is school – in fact, our summer vacations are an escape from it! But against this instinct of escape, I invite the summer reader to bring a copy of Hunt Janin’s The University in Medieval Life to his or her next trip to the beach. In this readable work of scholarship, Janin blows the dust off of the seemingly dry history of universities. Beginning with the rise of universities in the early high Middle Ages and finishing with their educational changes during the Italian Renaissance, Janin pays special attention to the people who made the university, not to the university as an institution. The result is a book filled with the colorful cast of nobles, clerics and scholars who laid the foundations of our modern colleges and universities. In becoming acquainted with the shocking people and interesting events that shaped the medieval university, the summer reader will find Janin’s work more fulfilling than the latest gossip in People magazine and, surprisingly, more worthwhile than people-watching at the beach.

Janin’s work, however, does share something in common with most popular magazines: it is a collection of snapshots as opposed to a work that supports a major thesis. In a given edition of People magazine one may find a few articles on the latest pop sensations; Time magazine will have essays on various contemporary issues. The University in Medieval Life has a similar format: sections on various medieval universities and the people who made them. At the core of the book is discussion on the three major medieval universities, Bologna, Paris and Oxford. Janin also gives a brief summary of ten other notable universities. This includes the institutions at Cambridge, Padua, and Prague. This main body of the work is set between an introduction to life in the Middle Ages, particularly in the universities, and a conclusion which discusses both the introduction of humanism into the medieval curricula and the overall impact that universities had, and continue to have, in Western civilization.

Included in Janin’s treatment of the medieval university are many historical gems that, despite their ambition and beauty, make one grateful for the modern changes and developments in university life. Take for example the typical daily schedule of a university student (p. 49):

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Beauty, wealth, sex and God – all the makings of a Catholic novel.

Evelyn Waugh’s modern classic, Brideshead Revisited, is replete with all the ingredients of a Hollywood drama: handsome palaces filled with beautiful people adorned with the richest fabrics and idiosyncrasies of character; forbidden loves and casual encounters; carefree summers of youthful friendship and the isolation of war. However, Waugh’s novel takes us deeper into the heart of humankind, addressing what is merely of this earth while pointing to what transcends us.

Despite its 2008 adaptation to the silver screen, Brideshead Revisited is far from a mere drama of star-crossed lovers. Rather it is a novel concerning the human condition, of man’s alienation from God and others, and the relentless actions of divine grace which work to rescue man from himself. Rich in spirituality, vivid in its characters, and smart in its humor, Brideshead is no novel with little attention from generations of readers. Because of this, I will pass over a general synopsis (which can be easily found online) and turn our attention to the profound Catholicity of Waugh’s classic.

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Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris can best be described as a book of modern Aesop fables. It features all of the requisite talking animals-dogs, mice, bears, sheep, and yes squirrels and chipmunks-learning valuable life lessons a little too late. Very, very funny and thought provoking too, though not for the weak of heart. There are some gruesome scenes.

Availability: SMCM Library
Submitted by: Kevin Koeser
Rating: Highly Recommended

In 2031, five people are brought together when Earth receives signals with extraterrestrial origins. Dan Dannerman is an operative with the National Bureau of Investigation, and he is sent to discover what his cousin, Dr. Patrice Addock, has been doing with the astrophysical observatory she runs. Three more scientists join this pair as they try to discover the causes of strange data received by the observatory’s Starlab. Looking for alien artifacts with which to get rich, these five instead become prisoners of an alien race. The aliens resemble those in a signal broadcast to Earth, but was the signal a warning, or a trick sent by enemies?

Availability: USMAI
Review Submitted by: Taren Parsons
Rating: Recommended (3.5)

What if you had the opportunity to explore the universe and see the before and after results of evolution? In A World out of Time, by Larry Niven, Jerome Corbell is revived after over 100 years of waiting for a cure to the cancer that riddled his body. Corbell (mock II) must take a new occupation, the one predetermined for his personality, or he will be wiped and a new one will be placed in the body he now uses. As a former architect, now starship pilot, Corbell decides to use this ship to explore, but eventually, he returns to find Ganymede is missing, and Earth seems to have become a moon of Jupiter. Aged from his travels, Corbell goes to Earth in hopes of understanding the changes to the planet in the 3 million years he was gone, and discovers immortal children, animals like cat-snakes, teleportation systems, and a civilization in ruins which just might hold the key to returning his own youth.

Availability: USMAI
Review Submitted by: Taren Parsons
Rating: Recommended (3)

Having a close family member battle the fight against addiction, the title of this book jumped out at me as I walked through the campus library. After reading the first few pages I knew I had to continue. The book is a tale of one man’s journey through drug addiction and the effect it has on his life, and the people in it. It’s not a page turner in the sense of let’s say, a murder mystery. Where you just want to keep going to see what happens next. Yet you still are drawn into the story of this man’s life and how it deteriorates around him as he struggles with the ebb and flow of his continuous drug use. You feel yourself rooting for him, hoping for the best possible outcome.

And before you write this off as the story of some ghetto trawling crackhead, be assured it’s not. From dinner parties and luncheons at affluent New York establishments. To trips to London and Paris, the author falls far from the stereotypes. Around halfway through the book it gets a bit long-winded with numerous drug induced moments of paranoia. But stick with it as it’s just another step you take with Mr. Clegg as he gives you insight to what life truly is for an addict.

Availability: SMCM
Review Submitted by: Wendell Wade
Rating: Highly Recommended (Must Read if the title hits close to home.)

Constantine’s presence at the Council of Nicaea, the causes of the Hundred Years’ War, the controversial writings of William of Ockham: if these historical gems of Western civilization have lost their luster (and relevance) to ourselves and our contemporaries, perhaps it is time that we all slow down to remember our shared history.

The beauty of medieval history recently caught my attention, slowing me down, through a recent job offer. Having recently earned a graduate degree in philosophy, I decided to pursue a vocation in teaching (typical story for a humanities graduate!). While I intended to teach music (my undergraduate degree was in piano performance), religion (I went to a Catholic seminary) and philosophy (I compromised my eyesight while reading Kant’s massive Critiques), the headmaster at my new job asked me to teach medieval history. “Medieval history?!” I said in surprise. I haven’t touched the topic since my high school AP history exam. Six years out of high school, I now found myself in desperate need of a crash course in medieval history. Hollister’s A Short History (8th ed.) was a God-send.

A textbook, disguised as a thin paperback, A Short History covers the history of Europe from the Roman Empire in AD 200 to the late medieval period of AD 1500 – all within 375 pages, peppered with useful maps, timelines and photographs. It is organized into three parts: part one is a chronological narration of the early medieval period; part two describes the high middle ages through topical sections; part three briefly describes the transition of Europe into the early modern or Renaissance period.

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Stitches is a quick read. A graphic novel that came out in 2009, Stitches left me speechless—much like the character, David Small himself, becomes. Six year-old David is subjected to radiation therapy by his father, a doctor, in the early ’50s, the norm for sickly children to treat asthma and other breathing problems. When David is 11, a lump is discovered on his neck. Treatment is pushed back, and it is hidden from David that the lump is actually cancer—a product of years of radiation by his father. This discovery changes his life and puts a further strain on his already horrible relationship with his parents. This story and the side stories illustrated in the book are fantastically executed and reminiscent of other great coming-of-age graphic novels I’ve read.

Availability: SMCM
Review Submitted by: Jordan Gaines
Rating: Highly Recommended

After hearing lots of hype for the book several summers ago and the recent film that hit theaters, I finally decided to read Water for Elephants. It was a great story—obviously well-researched, interesting, and well-written. The novel is about Jacob Jankowski, a Cornell veterinary student who joins the circus after tragedy strikes his parents and turns his world upside-down. The book is riddled with violence, love, and—my favorite part—the commentary of 93-year-old Jacob recalling his past.

One thing that bothered me about the novel was the constant anthropomorphism of the animals, and the repetitiveness of their descriptions. Nearly every time the elephant, Rosie, made an appearance in the book, she was described as having “her mouth open in a smile.” It got a bit old after awhile. The historical aspects of the book, however, were very interesting. Overall, it was a great read (and a great summer book for the beach).

Availability: USMAI
Review Submitted by: Jordan Gaines
Rating: Highly Recommended

William Least Heat-Moon’s Blue Highways: A Journey Into America belongs on any list of classic road trip novels. A Google search on road trip novels brings up several lists of great American road trip novels. Many of the titles are ones that everyone has heard of, if not read: On the Road by Jack Kerouac, Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck, even Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter Thompson. Blue Highways holds its own with any of those books, and you’ll find it on many of those lists.

The background of the book is something all of us can understand—life kind of falls apart, so you hit the open road to think about things. Least Heat Moon lost his job, his marriage falls apart, so he sets off to find America, driving and living in his van. The United States is not the only country with open spaces, but we are lucky in that the trails through our open spaces have in many cases become paved roads. We are doubly blessed in being such a diverse country. One thing you notice from Blue Highways is how different people are across America, and how similar. The book is one of the best observations of the little things in America that I’ve ever read.

Blue Highways is not without its faults. The author takes the caricature of the arrogant, more-cultured-than-thou, nouveau blasé academic to a whole new level. It doesn’t take long for his arrogance to rub you the wrong way, and you get the impression that if you met the author, you wouldn’t like him. However, by the end of the book I realized that the author comes off this way because his pretense of culture is really all he had, at least at that point in his life. He had his doctorate, but he had no job and his marriage had fallen apart. He was a failure at everything but his education, so that is what he clung to and brandished, because his failures were too hard to face, though I think by the end of the book he realized he couldn’t run from them and he does finally face them.

In addition to Least Heat Moon’s arrogance, the book is a slow read. Very slow. Parts of the book are like watching grass grow, only a lot less exciting. After a while, finishing it becomes a quest. Somehow, the author managed to catch some of the monotony that is part of every road trip. There were many times I put the book down because it was just too slow, but I always picked it back up again.

Despite the painfully slow pace and the author’s snotty attitude, the book is worth finishing. Looking past the author’s “I’m so cultured” commentary, there are some truly poignant observations on America. After finishing the book you want to hit the road yourself. That, I think, is what makes a road trip novel great.

Availability: USMAI
Review Submitted by: Christopher Mehl, Ph.D.
Rating: Highly Recommended