Fun books for undergraduate students
When I advise students, I ask if they read books for fun, because active reading is a key part of intellectual development. It almost doesn't matter what kind of books you read—mysteries, science fiction, romance, thrillers—as long as you have enough fun to get you to read additional books. Eventually students may turn to more challenging fare.
I sometimes lend my own books—typically books about the history of technology—to students to get them started. This Web page, then, lists some initial recommendations for books, non-fiction and fiction, that are relatively easy reads for undergraduates, engrossing, and fun. If you'd like to suggest additional books to list here, please e-mail me.
Fiction
- All our Wrong Todays, Elan Mastai, 2017: Mind-warping, time-warping journey. Highly engrossing.
- The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon, 1966: A pair of San Franciscans may or may not be on the trail of an ancient conspiracy; Pynchon's first novel, rather short, full of pop culture, funny and gripping.
- Inherent Vice, Thomas Pynchon, 2009: Exceptionally well written cross between "The Crying of Lot 49" and "The Big Lebowski." Very funny.
- Travels with my Aunt, Graham Greene, 1969: The even life of a retired bank employee turns into a roller-coaster when he meets the sister of his late mother; one of Greene's funniest works, revelatory.
- Catch 22, Joseph Heller, 1961: Savage, funny and unforgettable novel about of the absurdity of war, in this case in Italy in World War II; I used to read this book every three years.
- Side Effects, Woody Allen, 1975: A collection of very funny short pieces that, amazing enough, can be tied to ideas in computer science, such as the class-instance distinction.
Non-fiction: Technology
- Skunk Works, Ben R. Rich, 1996: The story of Lockheed's famous bleeding-edge aerospace unit, as told by its second director; I would have loved to have worked for the author.
- Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream, Joshua Davis, 2014. Mexican-American high-schoolers beat MIT!
- The Victorian Internet, Tom Standage, 1999: How the telegraph developed; a remarkable precursor to the Internet.
- The Subterranean Railway, Christian Wolmar, 2005: The history of the London Underground.
- The Map that Changed the World, Simon Winchester, 2002: The story of a canal digger whose 22-year effort to create a map of the structures under the surface of the earth founded modern geology.
Non-fiction: Relevant to Computer Science
- How to Solve It, G. Polya, 1954 (2nd edition): Heuristic methods for solving mathematical and other technical problems. A classic.
Non-fiction: Other
- The Last Fine Time, Verlyn Klinkenborg, 1990: The chronicle of the life of a family-owned restaurant in Buffalo, New York; brings the post-war era to life.
- The Common Stream, Rowland Parker, 1976: The story of the development of a village near Cambridge, England, from prehistory to the present.
- K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain, Ed Viesturs, 2009: A gripping history of attempts—successful and unsuccessful—to climb K2; after reading this book I wanted to fly directly to the Himalayas to see where this all happened.
- Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain, 2000: A savagely funny backstage tour of the restaurant world. (If you'd like to read a literary precursor, try "Down and Out in Paris and London," by George Orwell.)
Further reading for the more adventurous
Here are a few additional books for whom greater challenge would bring greater rewards
- The Revisionaries, A.R. Moxon, 2019; a riotous, mind-bending, gothic, and hilarious epic story that defies description.
- Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh, 1946; a sweeping novel of Great Britain from 1923 to 1943, with its characters divided by class, faith, and loss of faith.
- Goedel, Escher, Bach, Douglas Hofstadter, 1979; an idiosyncratic classic of genius, tying together mathematics, the visual arts, and music.
- Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome, Anthony Everitt, 2010; a biography of the Spaniard who ruled the Roman Empire at its Zenith.
- The Day of the Locust, Nathanael West, 1939. A darkly funny satire of Hollywood in the 1930s. If you like this, then follow up with The Loved One, Evelyn Waugh, 1948.