Parlor Talk: A Few Good Books

We asked Pomona alums what books they read here that have stayed with them over the years. Here are a few good books that made a lasting impression:

David L Elliott ’53
College Park, Maryland
In physics, the book that I read and re-read, through four editions, was The Variational Principles of Mechanics, by Cornelius Lanczos. In mathematics, my major, with many others of my generation I loved Eric Temple Bell’s Men of Mathematics and The Development of Mathematics. In literature, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, well taught by Professor Gretchen Jordan.

Rosemary Choate ’63
Pasadena, California
Favorites of the assigned books: The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann, Crime and Punishment by Feodor Dostoevsky, Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres by Henry Adams and Shakespeare’s Richard II. As for the unassigned, my favorites were: Hawaii by James Michener, The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm, Lady Chatterly’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence and Young Man Luther by Erich Erickson.

Alan Herlands ’70
Annandale, Virginia
Lord of the Rings! We had signs on our doors that said “Say ‘Friend’ and Enter” and “No Admittance Except on Party Business.” Also Journal of Albion Moonlight and Journal of a Shy Pornographer. They helped me fool some Scripsies into believing I was a deep thinker, even an arty type.

Martha Arterberry ’83
Arendtsville, Pennsylvania
The books that have stayed with me over the years are those I read as part of a philosophy course I believe was titled “Contemporary Images of Man,” taught by Stephen Erickson. We read works by Nietzsche, R.D. Lang, Freud and others. I was a psychology major and am now a professor of psychology, and I still remember how this course and these books encouraged me to think about human behavior in different ways. My other favorite from college is Eyewitness Testimony by Roberta Klatsky. I read this book in Debby Burke’s course “Learning and Memory.” Just after the course ended, I had a summer job working as a bank teller, and I got robbed! I was well-prepared for the multiple interviews by police officers, and to this day I have good material for when I teach eyewitness testimony to my students.

LeAndrea Archuleta MacDonald ’93
San Francisco, California
I was at Pomona the first time I read and fell in love with Latin American fiction. I took a Southern and Latin American authors class, in which the professor taught Faulkner and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  At the time I was taking mostly science classes and it was so refreshing to read something besides technical stuff.  Plus, I remember the first time I read One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  I remember being transported to another time and place, a place where I could fantasize about being away from the stress of school and a place where so many senses became alive at once.  It was amazing.  I fell in love with Latin American literature and have devoured many other books since that class.  Even though I have read many other authors by now, my favorites will always be Isabel Allende and Garcia Marquez.  I think I enjoyed the Harry Potter books for the same reasons I love Latin American fiction—it is magical, surreal and full of wonderful possibilities.

Jordan Snedcof ’99
West Hollywood, California
On Revolution by Hannah Arendt. I read this book for my political philosophy class on Arendt that was taught by John Seery. On Revolution is one of those books that you only get about 10 percent of it the first time you read it. The material is so interesting, yet so overwhelming. Politics is filled with so much partisan rhetoric that it is often hard to find both the structural beauty and the gaps in our American system of government. Arendt shows us the importance of American Democracy, why it is unique and where it is flawed.