For the 15th consecutive year, first-year students enrolled in the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service’s Master of Public Service degree program have compiled a list of books they recommend others to read. The list is created in partnership with WordsWorth Books, an independent bookstore in Little Rock and a long-time Clinton School community partner.
“This always interesting and diverse book list has become a much-anticipated tradition here at the Clinton School,” said Dean James L. “Skip” Rutherford III. “We have requests for it from individuals, teachers, book clubs, libraries, and bookstores from all over the country.”
“This year’s Recommended Reading List from the incoming class of the Clinton School of Public Service displays interest in a range of global insights from a wide selection of genres,” said Fred McKindra of WordsWorth Books. “From fiction, to plays, to a roleplaying game handbook, the books recommended by this class reflect a diversity of perspectives, written with a vast array of storytelling methods. Predominating the list are titles reflecting political allegory, Christian ethics, the lives of women of color, and cultural criticism.”
The list of books includes a number of titles on topics such as health, economics, politics, and race.
“The list invites readers to empathize with women of color through fiction like Janet Campbell Hale’s ‘Jailing of Cecilia Capture,’ along with more august selections like Alice Walker’s ‘The Color Purple’ and Toni Morrison’s ‘Beloved,’” McKindra said. “Also, Sister Souljah’s seminal 90s memoir ‘No Disrespect’ delivers a harder truth about the lives of black women in America.”
The list features well-known and influential novels like George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” Octavia Butler’s “Parable of the Sower,” Douglas Adam’s “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” and Paulo Coelho’s “The Alchemist.”
This year’s list also offers graphic selections that span across multiple genres: “The Smallest Girl in the Smallest Grade,” a picture book by Justin Roberts, and the autobiographical graphic novels “The Best We Could Do” by Thi Bui and “March” by the late U.S. Representative and civil rights icon John Lewis and Andrew Aydin.
Several of the books hold religious influences.
“The Christian ethics found in contemporary life guides like Jennie Allen’s ‘Get Out of Your Head,’ ‘When You Find Yourself in the Belly of a Whale,’ by Beth Whittington, ‘You Have to Face it to Fix it,’ by William Watley, and ‘Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God,’ by Henry and Richard Blackaby share space with Devdutt Pattanaik’s ‘My Gita,’ which parses the themes of the Hindu scripture, ‘Bhagavad Gita,’” McKindra explained.
Two collections of poetry – Amanda Lovelace’s “The Witch Doesn’t Burn in This One” and Mary Oliver’s “A Thousand Mornings” – sit alongside “The Laramie Project,” a play by Moisés Kaufman.
“The list even includes an invocation to take up the ‘Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Player’s Handbook,’” McKindra said, “inciting readers to engage in some fantastic storytelling of their own.”
The books will be on display at Sturgis Hall throughout the 2020-21 school year and will be added to the school’s permanent collection. Printed lists will be available at WordsWorth Books.
Below is the complete list:
Get Out of Your Head: Stopping the Spiral of Toxic Thoughts
By Jennie Allen
Ophelia Akoto
Wizards of the Coast: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Player’s Handbook
By Wizards RPG Team
Jackson Bittner
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
By Mary Roach
Elizabeth Bloom
How to Win Friends and Influence People
By Dale Carnegie
Ralph Bray
My Gita
By Devdutt Pattanaik
Michael Brown
Parable of the Sower
By Octavia E. Butler
Madeline Burke
The Smallest Girl in the Smallest Grade
By Justin Roberts
Amanda Cady
The House on Mango Street
By Sandra Cisneros
Maria Calderon
March: Book One
by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell
Katelynn Caple
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
By Alex Haley and Malcolm X
Brenttia Clayton
The Jailing of Cecelia Capture
by Janet Campbell Hale
Claire Cockrell
A Thousand Splendid Suns
By Khaled Hosseini
Layne Coleman
When You Find Yourself in the Belly of a Whale
By Beth C. Whittington
Amanda Cruce
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
By Douglas Adams
Colton Denton
The Awakening
By Kate Chopin
Beth Downs
The Color Purple
By Alice Walker
Emily Fendley
The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir
By Thi Bui
Jeff Fetters
The Alchemist
By Paulo Coelho
Ashley Figueroa
Don’t Stop the Carnival
By Herman Wouk
Steve Foster
The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil
By Philip Zimbardo
Haley Gilliam
Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World
By David T. Courtwright
Camille Gilmore
No Disrespect
By Sister Souljah
Demetrious Jordan
The Laramie Project
Moisés Kaufman and Members of the Tectonic Theater Project
Aaron Kennard
You Have to Face it to Fix it: Sermons on the Challenges of Life
By William D Watley
Felicia Kennedy
Talking to Strangers
By Malcolm Gladwell
Arianna Kiaei
Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself
By Alan Alda
Michael King
Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal
By Eric Schlosser
Randall King
The Handmaid’s Tale
By Margaret Atwood
Katie Knutter
Democracy in America
Book by Alexis de Tocqueville
David Lewis
Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked
By Chris Matthews
Dylan Lofton
On the Road
By Jack Kerouac
Stevie Massey
So You Want to Talk About Race
By Ijeoma Oluo
ReAsia McKissick
Beloved
By Toni Morrison
Eleanor Miller
Animal Farm
By George Orwell
Oluwaseun Olaniyi
Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God
By Blackaby Henry, Claude V. King, and Richard Blackaby
Jasmine Reaves
Leadership: In Turbulent Times
By Doris Kearns Goodwin
Rodrigo Santos Legaspi
To Kill a Mockingbird
By Harper Lee
Khloe Shuffield
No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama bin Laden
By Matt Bissonnette and Kevin Maurer
Austin Slater
The Witch Doesn’t Burn in this One
By Amanda Lovelace
Dorothy Spector
The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom
By Don Miguel Ruiz
Bonnie Stribling
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
By Richard Rothstein
Essence Thomas
A Thousand Mornings
By Mary Oliver
Cecilia Trotter
The Struggles of Identity, Education, and Agency in the Lives of Undocumented Students: The Burden of Hyperdocumentation
By Aurora Chang
Nancy Velazquez
When Breath Becomes Air
By Paul Kalanithi
Delaney Vogt
One Hundred Years of Solitude
By Gabriel García Márquez
Maya Williams
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