Writers: Zelie Anderson and Madelynne Van Roekel
Dr. Gerard Wegemer, professor of English: “On Duties” by Cicero
Cicero’s “On Duties” is a book so important that it should be in UD’s Core (as it was in most
leading universities in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries). It’s an exhilarating book, the last book Cicero wrote – with all his rhetorical power, wise counsel, and civic concern. At various periods of my life, I’ve read it once a year.
Dr. Susan Hanssen, associate professor of history: “The Man Who Was Thursday” by G.K. Chesterton
I would recommend G.K. Chesterton’s “The Man Who Was Thursday” (1908). It’s about a secret terrorist society that is planning to assassinate a head of state and bring about a world war. All of its members have codenames, named after the days of the week: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday; Sunday is the leader. But the man who was Thursday is actually an undercover police agent.
It’s the only book that I brought with me to college because, although I had enjoyed many murder mysteries by Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie, and many splendid novels by Jane Austen, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, this was actually the book that I first reread not for the plot and the outcome, but for the language itself. It is actually a philosophical thriller, and a wonderful description of the dissolution of the modern mind. I thought it would be a good companion for me as I ventured into academia as a young freshman college student, and still today I think that it is a good guide to the strange, insane world of modern academia.
Dr. John Soriano, assistant professor of economics: “Knowledge and Decisions” by Thomas Sowell
“Knowledge and Decisions” by Thomas Sowell
It starts from two key features of human society: all decisions have trade-offs and the relevant knowledge needed to understand decisions is dispersed throughout society, held by many countless individuals. How to best make decisions thus requires careful thinking about who has what information, how that information is transmitted to the people making decisions, and what incentives the people empowered to make decisions face. Through vivid examples from economics, politics and social issues, he reveals how these dynamics shape everything from our families and communities, to high-stakes business decisions, and to some of the heaviest moral issues we face in public policy. It’s a profound work that I find myself returning to repeatedly, each time discovering new insights about how societies coordinate knowledge to solve complex problems.
Dr. Chad Engelland, professor of philosophy: The Gospel of Mark, St. Mark
The Gospel of Mark, St. Mark
Sooner or later you may find yourself in Venice standing before the glorious high altar of St. Mark’s Cathedral under which are interred the bones of this evangelist. What better way to mark that moment than to recall the shortest and possibly earliest of the Gospels, the one that reads like a lightning bolt crossing the sky?
Fr. Thomas Esposito, associate professor of theology: “The Shattering of Loneliness: On Christian Remembrance” by Bishop Erik Varden and “Septology” by Jon Fosse
“The Shattering of Loneliness: On Christian Remembrance” by Bishop Erik Varden
The author was a Trappist monk before he became bishop of Trondheim, Norway. Anything he writes is worth reading. This book is an essay on the biblical insight that memory is our lifeline to our ancestors in faith and to God. In our current spiritual epidemic of loneliness, I found his insights about communion and memory to be poetic and inspiring.
“Septology” by Jon Fosse
The author, Jon Fosse, won the 2023 Nobel Prize for Literature. He is also a convert to Catholicism! This novel is a stream-of-consciousness musing by a painter on everything: his life, the loss of his great love, the nature of faith, the interwovenness of other lives with our own, alcoholism and death. It has many repetitions of words and phrases, and there is not a single period in the entire book! But it has a mesmerizing quality about it; I found myself thinking of it as spiritual reading because of its strangely calming content and tone.
Dr. Kevin Kambo, assistant professor of philosophy: “Leave It to Psmith” by P.G. Wodehouse
I recommend “Leave It to Psmith” by P.G. Wodehouse. It is a splendidly marvelous novel by one of the–if not THE–20th Century master(s) of comic writing. Without spoiling anything, one might say that the composition, setting, characters, plot and language are akin to putting brilliantly witty music successfully into prose.
Dr. Andrew Moran, associate professor of English: Patrick Leigh Fermor’s “A Time of Gifts,” “Between the Woods and the Water,” “The Broken Road, Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece” and “Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese”
If UD students would like to join a cult to which belongs Dr. Sweet, Dr. Davis, Joe Bartke, myself and numerous others, they should read Patrick Leigh Fermor’s “A Time of Gifts.” They will likely so enjoy this first volume about his walk in 1933-34, beginning when he was eighteen years old, from the Hook of Holland through Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, to Greece and Constantinople, that they will then read the next two, “Between the Woods and the Water” and “The Broken Road.” The legendary Fermor, the hero of one of the greatest exploits of World War II who kept smoking four packs a day until his death at age 96 in 2011 (consumer warning: your lung capacity may vary), the greatest travel writer of the twentieth century, possessed as outrageously and deliciously Baroque a prose style as any English writer. Those nostalgic for the Greece trip should also read his “Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece” and “Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese.”
Dr. Mark Petersen, associate professor of history: “The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914” by David McCullough, “Erased: The Untold Story of the Panama Canal” by Marixa Lasso, and “The Great Divide” by Cristina Henriquez
The Panama Canal has been in the news recently. It’s always good to get a grasp on the historical context of hot button topics. With that in mind, I’d like to recommend three books: two histories and one work of historical fiction. The histories are “The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914” (1977) by David McCullough, a U.S. historian, and “Erased: The Untold Story of the Panama Canal” (2019) by Marixa Lasso, a Panamanian historian. The novel is “The Great Divide” (2024) by Cristina Henriquez, a Panamanian-American author. All do a great job of highlighting individual, human stories in the epic history of this important waterway.
Dr. Robert Hochberg, associate professor of mathematics and computer science: “The Story of the Trapp Family Singers” by Maria Augusta von Trapp
My favorite book is “The Story of the Trapp Family Singers” by Maria Augusta von Trapp. The book tells the story of a young woman discerning a religious vocation in Austria, when the widowed father of some children she was teaching asks her to marry him. Her superior encourages this change of vocation, and despite being mad at God and the world for the change of plans, she grows to love him, and he her, to a degree possible only in the holiest of marriages. If this sounds like the plot of “The Sound of Music,” it’s because the musical is a re-telling of the first 1/3 of this book. The rest tells of the family’s adventures mostly in America, recovering from financial ruin, and trusting God 100% as he leads them to become a wonderfully successful musical family. On any day, I can open the book to any page, and it will make me either laugh or cry at the blessings and joys, or sorrows, of life lived in an authentically Catholic way.
Dr. Matthew Berry, assistant professor of politics: “Piranesi” by Susanna Clarke
“Piranesi” by Susanna Clarke tries to capture a way of relating to nature (or the cosmos) that has been lost with the reorientation advanced by modern political philosophy (especially Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Bacon). Without the book becoming philosophical in any heavy-handed way, the narrator’s basic orientation toward the world is one of gratitude, where man has a place in the natural order that he accepts and even embraces, where man is neither the highest nor the lowest of the beings. There is a natural theology of providence that is implied or indicated or sketched in the book (again, without becoming something other than a very enjoyable novel). That is, the narrator seems to have a robust and nuanced understanding of providence that resists both triumphalism and despair–but it’s always in the background, as part of his basic orientation toward reality. And even if you don’t care about any of that, it’s just a really fun and exciting book to read that manages to do both meditative solitude and thrilling action sequences really well.
Gabi Nagle, senior theology major: “I Believe in Love” by Father Jean C. J. d’Elbée
One of the most formational books I have ever read is “I Believe in Love” by Father
Jean C. J. d’Elbée. It is a retreat based on the writings of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. Love is what we are made for. It is how we are created; we worship Love itself. Often the pains and sufferings of this life make us forget our path and what we should rejoice in. Love is what we ought to believe in and live for. This retreat is perfect for Lent or for anytime we need a little reminder that we are loved. I keep going back to it for this reason.
Maddy Wayman, senior English major: “The Portrait of a Lady” by Henry James and “Democracy in America” by Alexis de Tocqueville
“The Portrait of a Lady” by Henry James feels like the ultimate book for UD students. Isabel , like us, travels to Europe and has to navigate the juxtaposition between the values of the old world and the new. It is a book about self-delusion and idealism and I think it addresses well the hubris that can be a side effect of the rigour of the UD education.
“Democracy in America” by Alexis de Tocqueville also feels particularly appropriate for UD students because of its treatment of how the regime shapes one’s soul and sense of moral virtue. We live in a pragmatic, materialistic world that sometimes conflicts with the virtues and ideals that we cultivate at UD. Tocqueville is a fascinating entry point into the political and ethical ramifications of democracy.
Mary Kate Leonard, senior economics major: John Locke’s “Second Treatise of Civil Government” and Ernest Fortin’s essays “The Regime of Separatism” and “Human Rights and the Common Good” John Locke’s “Second Treatise of Civil Government”: read in high school maybe twice, at UD at least once, and thought to be a cornerstone to our Constitution… alas, the world did not begin at the Enlightenment and Locke’s conception of natural rights and the natural law. As normal as it may seem, it is rather revolutionary to the ancients’ views. Ernest Fortin’s essays “The Regime of Separatism” and “Human Rights and the Common Good” draw out the subtlety of this spin on accepted norms and give a helpful perspective on the gravity of Locke’s ideas.