A back-to-school conversation about books from college or high school that should be read not out of obligation, but rather because they're great. By The Walt Bodine Show
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Left to our own preferences, our younger selves might well have expanded our literary horizons no further than comic books and Nancy Drew mysteries. But thankfully, our teachers and professors asked a little more of us -- sometimes, a lot more of us. As it turns out, some of those books were on the required reading list for good reason: They had an impact on us, taught us something, stuck in our memories, even changed our lives.
Plus, a round up of the latest and greatest books on their own personal reading lists.
The Book Doctors are:
Jeffrey Ann Goudie, freelance writer and reviewer
Gina Kaufmann, freelance writer and performer
Mark Luce, Barstow School
Kaite Stover, Kansas City Public Library
Books Mentioned on the Program:
Mark Luce:
Return of the Solider by Rebecca West
Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures by Robert K. Wittman
Jeffrey Ann Goudie:
My Hollywood by Mona Simpson
Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace by Ayelet Waldman
Gina Kauffman:
The Lobster Chronicles: Life on a Very Small Island by Linda Greenlaw
A Place of My Own: The Architecture of Daydreams by Michael Pollan
A Mighty Long Way: My Journey to Justice at Little Rock Central High School by Carlotta Walls Lanier
Kaite Mediatore Stover:
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Required Reading:
Gilgamesh
Candide by Francois Voltaire
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
A Separate Peace John Knowles
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess