My reading list - those books that have made a major impact on my way of thinking.

John Janovy, Jr.’s suggested reading list:
Periodically various people, especially students, ask me about my reading list. I'm sure that every faculty member has such a list, but here's mine. The books on this list are ones that have made a major difference in the way I personally view the world. You'll notice that there's not a whole lot of biology in these works, and what biology exists usually is wrapped up in some kind of social significance. Virtually all of these titles were ones I checked out of the Lincoln city library, but many of them I later bought for my personal collection. Enjoy. - JJ

Adler, M. 1982. The paideia proposal. Macmillan, New York.

Armstrong, K. 2000. The battle for God. Alfred A. Knopf, New York.

Bedau, H. A. 1987. Death is different. Northeastern University Press, Boston

Campbell, D. G. 1992. The crystal desert: summers in Antarctica. Houghton Mifflin, Boston.

Chidester, D. 2000. Christianity: a global history. Harper Collins, New York.

Currie, E. 1985. Confronting crime: an American challenge. Pantheon, New York.

Desmond, A., and J. Moore. 1991. Darwin. Warner, New York.

Diaz, T. 1999. Making a killing: The business of guns in America. The New Press, New York.

Dorner, D. 1996. The logic of failure: why things go wrong and what we can do to make them right. Henry Holt and Company, New York.

Dyson, F. 1979. Disturbing the universe. Harper and Row, New York.

Dyson, F. 1984. Weapons and hope. Harper and Row, New York.

Farb, P. 1968. Man’s rise to civilization as shown by the Indians of North America from primeval times to the coming of the industrial state. Dutton, New York.

Farb, P. 1974. Word play: what happens when people talk. Alfred A. Knopf, New York.

Fussell, P. 1989. Wartime: understanding and behavior in the Second World War. Oxford University Press, New York.

Gould, S. J. 1989. Wonderful life: the Burgess Shale and the nature of history. W. W. Norton, New York.

Halberstam, D. 1986. The reckoning. Morrow, New York.

Hertsgaard, M. 1998. Earth odyssey: around the world in search of our environmental future. Broadway Books, New York.

Hofstadter, D. 1985. Metamagical themas: questing for the essence of mind and pattern. Basic Books, Inc., New York.

Honigsbaum, Mark. 2001. The fever trail: in search of the cure for malaria. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York.

Hughes, R. 1987. The fatal shore: a history of the transportation of convicts to Australia. Collins Harvill, London.

Janovy, J. 1994. Dunwoody Pond: reflections on the high plains wetlands and the cultivation of naturalists. St. Martin’s Press, New York.

Koestler, A. 1971. The case of the midwife toad. Random House, New York.

Kuhn, T. 1970. The structure of scientific revolutions. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois.

Kurtz, P. 1983. In defense of secular humanism. Prometheus, New York.

LeShan, L. 1992. The psychology of war: comprehending its mystique and its madness. Nobel Press, Chicago, Illinois.

Lopez, B. 1986. Arctic dreams: imagination and desire in a northern landscape. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York.

Mailer, N. 1969. Of a fire on the moon. Little, Brown and Company, New York.

Mayr, E. 1982. The growth of biological thought. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

McNeill, W. H. 1977. Plagues and Peoples. Doubleday, New York.

McPhee, J. 1980. Basin and range. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York.

McPhee, J. 1982. In suspect terrain. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York.

McPhee, J. 1986. Rising from the plains. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York.

McPhee, J. 1989. The control of nature. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York.

Montagu, A., and F. Matson. 1983. The dehumanization of man. McGraw-Hill, New York.

Mostert, N. 1976. Supership. Warner, New York.

Pirsig, R. M. 1974. Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance. Morrow, New York.

Power, S. 2002. A problem from Hell: America and the age of genocide. Basic Books, New York.

Reisner, M. 1986. Cadillac desert: the American west and its disappearing water. Viking Press, New York.

Rothschild, M. 1983. Dear Lord Rothschild: birds, butterflies and history. Hutchinson, London.

Sheehan, N. 1988. A bright shining lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. Random House, New York.

Shilts, R. 1987. And the band played on. St. Martin’s Press, New York.

Sobel, D. 1999. Galileo’s daughter: a historical memoir of science, faith, and love. Walker and Co., New York.

Steinbeck, J. 1941. The log of the Sea of Cortez. Viking Press, New York.

Sutton, G. M. 1979. To a young bird artist: letters from Louis Agassiz Fuertes to George Miksch Sutton. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma.

Thomas, L. 1974. Lives of a cell: notes of a biology watcher. Viking Press, New York.

Tuchman, B. 1970. Stillwell and the American experience in China. Macmilllan, New York.

Wilson, E. O. 1978. On human nature. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Zinsser, H. 1934. Rats, lice and history. Morrow, New York.