Libraries
Reading List 
Where Does the Money Go?. by Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson.
A beginner’s practical guide to the federal budget. Although it’s jokey early on, the book soon gets down to business: breaking down U.S. spending and the national debt, and demonstrating how it went so far into the red. The authors are even-handed, critiquing the easy promises of both parties, but they are worried – especially over the looming shortfall in Medicare. A fine reality check for voters!
Call number HJ2052 .B58. Dobbs Ferry campus.
The Ancestor''s Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution by Richard Dawkins.
One of Dawkins’ fullest and most delightful books. Instead of the usual comprehensive re-run of evolution as it branched out, he starts with humans and backs his way through each near ancestor – from the apes all the way down to worms, archaea and (my favorite) the “DRIPs.” The approach is encyclopedic but engaging, allowing one to skim over the taxonomic details and enjoy the intriguing “story” of each kind of organism.
Call number QH361 .D39. Dobbs Ferry campus.
What is Intelligence? by James Flynn.
In the 1980’s Flynn made the discovery, debated ever since, that IQ scores had increased substantially, in many countries, over the past few generations. How is this possible?? Here he proposes an explanation, while reviewing the ins and outs of testing and defining “intelligence.” He’s a brisk but personable writer. Though a few pieces of the argument require some familiarity with statistical correlations, most is quite accessible and has implications for education and social progress generally.
Call number BF421 .F57. Dobbs Ferry campus.
Lush Life by Richard Price.
A police procedural that begins with a murder in lower Manhattan, but has more to say about the small daily murders of shame, putdowns and prejudice. Price flushes out a whole crew of cops and thwarted urbanites; his observation of them is melancholy and also very funny – laying on pungent descriptions and wonderfully natural dialogue.
Call number
PS3566 .R544 .L88. Dobbs Ferry campus.
American Pastoral by Philip Roth.
We have almost all of Roth’s novels (and he’s still at it!). This remains one of the most renowned. Displaying all his energy and anger and compassion too, it rises to the level of tragedy – really two tragedies: the fall of America’s industrial cities, and the explosion of a family that once prospered by them.
Call number PS3568 .O855 .A77. Dobbs Ferry campus.
The Craftsman by Richard Sennett.
Sennett aims to recapture the dignity of the crafts in a graceful weave of myth, history, sociology and personal observation. Some of the most appealing chapters describe the thinking/experiencing of the glassblower, potter, builder, cook, violin maker, even the writer. And he briefly reviews the modern-day threat to craft, whether from machinery or the organization of labor and markets.
Call number BJ1498 .S46. Dobbs Ferry campus.
Sixty Poems by Charles Simic.
The author is our poet laureate but there’s nothing official about these poems, which he has selected from 20 years of work. Without losing the dark memory of his Yugoslav childhood, he sifts America’s mysteries in its kitchens and carnivals and crummy hotels. They’re brief poems, touched with surrealism and full of rough humor.
Call number PS3569 .I4725 .A6. Dobbs Ferry campus.
A Secular Age by Charles Taylor.
A history of ideas – and religious feeling – from the Middle Ages until today, detailing how Christianity in the West went from universality to one choice among others. As a Catholic, Taylor is certainly not extrapolating to its disappearance. Not a forceful writer, he is almost too fair-minded toward all points of view. But the result, drawing on sociology, philosophy and literature, is a monumental retracing of the many shades of belief and unbelief over time.
Call number BL2747.8 .T39 Dobbs Ferry campus.