I’ve often thought that I would like to give away books to BYU students. Kind of like a book of the year. Not the way the Honors Program somewhat did it (by assigning a book for everyone to read) but just by giving every student a book every year — knowing full well that most would end up for sale on Amazon.com as used books.
What books would I give the students (books they might not otherwise read)?
Year One a book by Elgin
- Peacetalk 101 or
- How to Turn the Other Cheek and Still Survive in Today’s World (I’ve got three copies in my den “stack of books to give away”)
Year Two
- The Bottom Line On Integrity (I’ve got two of those left in the “stack of books to give away”)
- Steadfast and Immovable: Striving for Spiritual Maturity (I need to reread this one to make sure I still feel the same now that I’m in my right mind, but when I was in the midst of grief it really spoke to me).
Year Three
- Leadership and Self Deception: Getting Out of the Box (I’ve given away several, though I’m not sure this is the best book from the Arbringer Institute. One of their books goes on the list, I’m just not sure which one).
- A Framework for Understanding Poverty (So very clear, if you want to understand. The book is not going to provide solutions, but it does give you the tools to understand. I keep meaning to blog about things in this book).
Year Four
- Paul the Jewish Theologian: A Pharisee among Christians, Jews, and Gentiles
- A Heritage of Faith: Talks Selected from the BYU Women’s Conferences (I like the series, but this particular volume I really, really liked).
I don’t have the money to give books away like I would want to, but those are books I’ve been thinking of that teach lessons that people are just not going to learn from the usual books, the usual classes, the usual experiences.
What books would you like to have everyone have a chance to read?
Wheat & Tares 
Half to add, that as I read Collapse by Jared Diamond, that really seems like a book worth adding to the mix, if it were only a little shorter. I’ve been really enjoying it and thinking about it.
Basically, he spends until page 419 setting it up so that the reader is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on his thesis. The reason he spends about 400+ pages doing that is that a major work in the area takes as an article of faith that societies don’t collapse because of the reasons that Diamond is suggesting.
But, if you are not a part of that field of study, I don’t think you need the first four hundred or so pages — though they were very interesting.
I’ll have more thoughts, look forward to getting home once I am finished here.
Err, have to add, though I’d add half the book. That was a bad conflation right there.
In a sense you have given these books away. I hadn’t heard of most of them, but now I have a list. I hope it doesn’t take me years to read them all.
One book, off the top of my head that I would add would be Crucial Conversations. I think this is an important book for those of us who live in a Church culture, and often family culture too, where passive-aggressive abounds.
Great post. I don’t have time to do it justice in this comment – more later. And I’ll agree, Collapse is a great book. And his book, Guns, Germs and Steel, is a fascinating exploration of how societies developed the way they did.
Instead of Leadership and Self-Deception why not Bonds that make us free.
Giving books away is a good idea but is there a purpose here. Is it books for general education or is there some sort underlying logic? Are these books BYU Students should read because that would change the selection?
However assuming you mean great books for understanding contemporary society but for the specific BYU audience:
Science: A History, 1543-2001 by John Gribbin
History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell.
These do not seem to be in the vein that you are going in but they are important texts to be able to understand our time.
I would add “Culture Counts: Faith and Feeling in a World Besieged” by Roger Scruton. It is succinct (about 100 pages) but heavey enough that I stopped and thought on every page. For people who are about to enter the academic realm it is a good primer on why studying Western Civilization (all those dead white imperalist males) matters a great deal. He provides a counterpoint to culture repudiation, or those that believe the dead white males are useless. And I wish I had read this book as a freshman. It would have made my Liberal Arts education much more meaningful.
Some books that I think would be valuable expecially for BYU students:
Joseph Campbell: The Power of Myth
Albert Nolan: Jesus Before Christianity
William Goldman: The Princess Bride (just because everyone should have a book that will make them laugh like a maniac when they need that sort of release)
Heber J. Grant was quite fond of giving away multiple copies of books he found inspiring or useful. He did it so often, in fact, that his signature in the front leaf of a book doesn’t really add to the book’s monetary value among LDS book collectors. Personally, it’s the one thing I find admirable about Heber J. Grant.
One book I’ve just recently begun giving away is The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. It’s a wonderful little book about reclaiming our true Self from the dizzying collection of beliefs, opinions, judgements and attitudes we’ve been indoctrinated with from childhood.
I don’t have the money to give books away like I would want to…
Stephen, I hear you on this one! While The Four Agreements only retails for $12.95, giving away multiple copies (even just to those carefully-selected recipients who I feel would be open to it and benefit from it) can pile up quickly. I’ve decided that in order to keep a few on hand for giving away, I’m watching Amazon’s “marketplace” section, eBay, and other online sources for (new, not used) copies that I can pick up at a substantial discount. Just an idea.
The book I think everyone, including BYU students, should read is Paul Woodruff”s Reverence: Renewing aForgotten Virtue.
Expanding the concept of reverence beyond bowing our head and folding our arms for prayer would benefit us all.
Back home. The Arbringer Institute book I picked was the shortest one. Might not be the best choice.
I have both the competing Conversations books, and they are both good.
I’m going to check out The Four Agreements. Culture Counts too.
Thanks all.
The Wise Heart – Jack Kornfield
This is a book that is a great introduction to Buddhism. So, why recommend it to BYU students? Two reasons:
1) It is enlightening to see that there are perfectly valid moral systems that are NOT necessarily based on the LDS Church. I think it is easy to think that we have a “lock” on morality.
2) The LDS Church is good at teaching “what” but not as good at teaching “how”, which is an area where this book has helped me immensely. For example, Christ taught us to “Love our enemies”. It is an absolutely essential principle. But HOW can we work on that?
In this book, specific practices are given at the end of each chapter to work on different things. For “loving your enemy”, there is a “loving-kindness meditation” where you picture and wish good-will towards yourself, towards a respected person like a spiritual teacher, towards a dearly beloved person lie a family member, towards a neutral person like the person you see at the store, and finally towards an enemy. It may take some time, but you can truly get to the point where your bad feelings melt away and where you feel compassion for what they have done to you.
And there are many other examples in the book. It has made a great complement to me to my LDS studies, and I’ve actually read it at least twice now.
Leadership and Self-Deception, but no Bonds That Make Us Free? Oops.
Aaron, If you liked John Gribbon, then you should check out Patricia Fara’s Science: A four thousand year history. I think its a lot better then Gribbon.
I would give out:
Leo Tolstoy – The Kingdom of God is Within you
M. Scott Peck – The road Less travelled
Philip Zimbardo – The Lucifer Effect: Why good people do bad things
Jorge Louis Borges – Labyrinth’s (possibly my all time favourite writer)
I think in order to understand our time and the rise of modernity:
Steven Toulmin’s – Cosmopolis is rather good.
Trev — I’ve given a number of copies of Bonds that make us free away. It is longer, however (I’ve got one I loaned, it is coming up on a year, the guy has almost finished it). Arbringer has several books, which is the best to give away is a real question. Though I realized that I’ve managed to give away allthe “give away” copies in the house. Perhaps Anatomy of Peace would be a better choice?
The same is true of whether you would suggest Difficult Conversations or Crucial Conversations.
Though, now that I think about it, it might work better if such a program had substitutions (so, for example, some people got one Elgin book, some another one, rather than everyone getting the same book).
Imagine if for the New Testament, 30% were assigned to read the King James, 30% the Net Bible, 20% the New Jerusalem Bible, and 20% the Anchor Bible translation.
I might do a post on that.
Mike S — that is a good thought. Applied ethics or applied religion (here is the principle, this week, here is what you practice). That would be a good idea.
Jake — I have my own thoughts on a solid ethics curriculum. Perhaps I should do a series on “Taking a Break from the Standard Four Year Curriculum, Suggested Approaches for a Year of Sunday School”
Something new, followed by a new approach to the Standard Works curriculum.
I also love The Four Agreements, agree with Ray on The Power of Myth, and I like Crucial Conversations, too (but I liked Fierce Conversations even better). I would add Paulo Cohelo’s The Alchemist, Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Schulz, Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth, Nicholas Christakis’ Connected: The Surprising Power of Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives, Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink and Outliers, and Freakonomics (1st one only).
One more book recommendation for anyone entering or in the work force: Ronna Lichtenberg’s Work Would Be Great If It Weren’t for the People. No nonsense advice that is sharp and witty.
Bonds that Make Us Free is one I have read five times (I’m due to go back to it) and have given a number away.
Another give-away book for me: Kitchen Table Wisdom by Rachel Naomi Remen — an excellent book for those who are suffering (such as from grief or long term illness). It was given to me when my mother was dying of cancer.
Agree that Jared Diamond is something else, but his books are a tough slog. We heard him speak at our son’s graduation from Michigan State University a few years ago and he was terrific in that setting. I’ve got to get back to Guns, Germs & Steel.
An interesting anecdote on The Four Agreements: My partner and I enjoy a particular hotel for weekend stays in Portland. Rather than the nearly-ubiquitous Gideon Bible, that hotel keeps copies of The Four Agreements in each room’s bedside drawer.
Actually, I’d be interested in hearing how the custom of providing Gideon Bibles in hotel room nightstands came about. Personally, I find it a bit presumptious, even unwelcoming to those who don’t consider the Bible sacred. Marriott properties, of course, turn this into a proselytizing opportunity by adding a copy of The Book of Mormon (evidently as an alternative to their highly-touted pornographic video offerings?). I haven’t travelled internationally, but I wonder whether hotels in other parts of the world, such as Asia or the Middle East, put copies of their “majority/favored” religion’s sacred books in hotel room nightstands.
The Gideons started giving Bibles away. That is how it started. It got to be an American tradition.
Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning — Hawk, that is like recommending a C. S. Lewis book — most people have already seen and read it (or is that not so any more?).
Nick — what do you have against the used books? Hmm, a paperback, but the deluxe hardcover new is down to nine dollars.
Hawk — Fierce Conversations? Guess I’m off to Amazon again …
Thanks all.
Nothing against used books, Stephen, except that if I’m going to give one to someone as a gift, I’d prefer it not be used/scuffed/damaged/marked/etc.
Shoot me an email on where you found the hardback cheaper!
Nick, it was on Amazon. I bought it last night. More and more you get other vendors selling new books (so that they have a section for “new” and for “used” in the alternatives to the Amazon sale bar).
New books from vendors are often cheaper than used ones, which is strange.
You might be interested to know that for one of my BYU-Idaho classes last semester our first text was Leadership and Self Deception. 🙂
This is a great thread and I wish had been kept alive for two years. It is interesting to fine out what others like to read. If I were a multi-millionaire and could give away books to BYU students three on my list would be:
1. Victor Hugo, Les Miserables. The best book I’ve read outside of the SWs. But I’d probably recommend the abridged version that leaves out the history and just tells the story.
2.Charles Edward Jefferson, The Character of Jesus.
3. Bill Sands, My Shadow Ran Fast.
I have dozens of others, but this is a start.