COLLEGE SUCCESS MOTIVATOR
#97
Recommend
to others the books which move you. Ask
them to do the same for you.
Appendix E
Books that Motivate Professor Binder
The following books motivate me for
different reasons, whether it’s a book’s message, humor, or carefully crafted
words:
A People’s History of
the United States
by Howard Zinn – A historical perspective written about those who never get to
write the history books.
Biographies:
Ted Williams by Leigh Monteville
& Rod Serling by Joel Engel – I
love reading biographies of people who are no longer alive, so you get a
glimpse of their vibrancy in youth and the fragility of life toward the end.
Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe - The best
written book I’ve ever read.
Bright Lights Big City by Jay McInerney- A
wild and dizzying novel written from the hip.
Fire in the Streets:
America in the 1960’s
by Milton Viorst – This book discusses a lot of the volatile issues facing
America in a turbulent decade.
Essentials of
Screenwriting
by Richard Walter, Four Screenplays
by Syd Field, and How to Write a
Screenplay in 21 Days by Vicky King – Any writer can learn a lot about
structure from these books on the screenwriting process.
Heaven is a Playground by Rick Telander – The
best sports book ever written.
On Writing by Stephen King – The
word master offers a memoir with insights into his writing madness.
The Birthmark by Nathaniel Hawthorne
– A short story which reminds readers to appreciate what they’ve got, and not
obsess over trying to make a good thing perfect.
The Buffalo Creek
Disaster
by Gerald Stern – An excellent book which details a lawyer’s effort to hold a
mining company accountable for the deaths of several miners and family
members. This book does not offer the
fast-paced Hollywood glamorized version of a law case. Instead, the reader learns about how slow the
litigation process can be.
The Fifties by David Halberstam –
This 800-plus page book provides parallels between United States politics in
the 1950’s and politics near the turn of the century.
The Pre-Historic History
of the Far Side
by Gary Larsen – Larsen, a legendary cartoonist, adds commentary about his
cartoons in the funniest book I have ever read.