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Donald Barthelme’s Syllabus Highlights 81 Books Essential for a Literary Education. We’ve had a lot of fun—and some debate—lately with reading lists from people like Carl Sagan, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and even Marilyn Monroe (via her library). And we’ve featured undergraduate syllabi from the teaching days of David Foster Wallace and W.H. Auden. Now for something more-or-less formal than those.

This one comes via a 2003 piece by Kevin Moffett in McSweeney’s spin-off The Believer (10 years old this month—I know, right?). The list (first page above) has a somewhat illustrious heritage. Compiled by postmodernist writer Donald Barthelme for his students at the University of Houston, it then made its way to Barthelme’s student, Southern writer Padgett Powell. Consisting of 81 books, mostly novels and short story collections (and the work of Samuel Beckett—“entire”), and mostly twentieth-century modernist fiction, the list came to Powell with Barthelme’s instruction to attack the books, “in no particular order, just read them.”

Related Content: W.H. David Foster Wallace’s 1994 Syllabus: How to Teach Serious Literature with Lightweight Books. Note: click here to see the full syllabus and other related teaching materials. As anyone who’s ever done it knows, the art of syllabussing is a fine one. (Yes, it’s a word; don't look it up, take my word for it—Syllabussing: creating the perfect syllabus for a college-level course). It requires precision planning, stellar formatting and copy-editing skills, and near-perfect knowledge of the college-student psyche. For one, the syllabus must explain in clear terms what students can expect from the class and what the class expects from them. And it must do this without sounding so dry and pedantic that half the class drops in the first week.

For another, the perfect syllabus (there’s no such thing, but one must strive) should function as both an FAQ and a contract: need to know how to format your papers? See the syllabus. Which brings us to the syllabussing skills of one David Foster Wallace, encyclopedic literary obsessive, modern-day moralist, English professor. Related Content: W.H. What Books Do Writers Teach?: Zadie Smith and Gary Shteyngart’s Syllabi from Columbia University. Many, if not, most writers teach—whether literature, composition, or creative writing—and examining what those writers teach is an especially interesting exercise because it gives us insight not only into what they read, but also what they read closely and carefully, again and again, in order to inform their own work and demonstrate the craft as they know it to students.

Let’s take two case studies: exemplars of contemporary literary fiction, both of whom teach at Columbia University. I’ll leave it to you to draw your own conclusions about what their syllabi show us about their process. First up, we have Zadie Smith, author of White Teeth and, most recently, NW: A Novel. In 2009, Smith lent her literary sensibilities to the teaching of a weekly fiction seminar called “Sense and Sensibility,” for which we have the full booklist of 15 titles she assigned to students. See the list below and make of it what you will: Smith’s list trends somewhat surprisingly white male. Related Content: W.H. Teachers Top 100 Books for Children. The following list was compiled from an online survey in 2007. Parents and teachers will find it useful in selecting quality literature for children.

Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss Good Night Moon by Margaret Wise Brown I Love You Forever by Robert N. Munsch Because of Winn Dixie by Kate DiCamillo Oh! The Places You Will Go by Dr. Which three books should every high school student in America be required to read in order to be able to graduate, and why. What are the worst books that are often required reading for American middle and high school students. UC Berkeley Summer Reading List. Secret self-help - bookforum.com / syllabi. Feb 3 2010 Sheila Heti When we talk about books, we hardly every talk about how they help.

It is unfashionable: Browsing the self-help section of a bookstore seems as shameful as picking up a porn magazine at 7-Eleven. Interviewers seldom ask authors, "How is your book meant to help people? " (Instead, they ask the impossible, "What does it mean? ") The Problem of the Puer Aeternus by Marie-Louise von Franz The title phrase is the Jungian term for a person who can't (or won't) grow up. The Screwtape Letters by C. Lewis's wisest and wittiest book on Christianity, this novel is a collection of letters from a demon named Screwtape to his nephew, Wormwood, both employees of hell. Wabi Sabi by Andrew Juniper It's easy to get carried away with the idea that one has to make a perfect, immortal work.

Audition by Michael Shurtleff Book of Beauty by Diane von Furstenberg How to Become a More Attractive, Confident and Sensual Woman by Diane von Furstenberg and Evelyn Portrait $10.95 List Price. IBO Book List Nov 2012. Summer 2012 Reading List | Washington Week. Looking for some good summer reading? Check out the books Gwen and the Washington Week panelists recommend for the beach, the car, the plane or the pool. From fiction to politics, history to biography, there is something for everybody.

The smartest reporters in Washington, D.C. bring you their suggestions for the summer's best reads. "The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Volume 4" by Robert A. Every political reporter says he or she is reading Robert Caro's "The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power. " - Gwen Ifill, Washington Week Volume four in Caro’s remarkable biography of Lyndon Johnson is another tour de force and a book that seems to be on every political junkie’s summer list.

. - Dan Balz, The Washington Post Having read Caro’s prior works tracing LBJ’s life, how could I skip the one where he languishes in the vice presidency and then ascends to the presidency in the tragedy of John F. This is a complimentary read to Robert Caro's book on LBJ. . - Tom Gjelten, NPR. Allen Ginsberg's "Beat Literary History Course" Wallace Stevens Euro Lit Syllabus.