Carolina Alumni Review - July/August 2010

Ali MacGraw Is 72 Now, or, I Need A Reason?
The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall
of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes

by Bryan Burrough

“I think this book is required reading for all
Texans and recovering Texans.”

— James Moeser

Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’ 72 by Hunter S. Thompson

“I regularly teach a course titled ‘Contemporary Literature.’ Occasionally, the students or the readings prompt me to go back in time to consider some forgotten or overlooked aspect of a particular genre. This happened twice during the current semester in a section of the class devoted to creative nonfiction. We were discussing Joan Didion and the New Journalism when a student mentioned Hunter S. Thompson. I had not considered Thompson’s work. I was stunned by the book’s description of a lost world of American journalism and politics. Thompson’s analysis is idiosyncratic, but the substance of his observations was also directly relevant to the 2008 presidential election.”

— Henry Veggian, English

Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth and Love Story by Erich Segal

“Both quick and light romantic reads from my formative years. Both were made into movies with Ali MacGraw,
who is 72 now.”

— C.J. Skender, business

Landmark Experiments in Twentieth Century Physics by George L. Trigg;
The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments by George Johnson; and
Great Experiments in Physics: Firsthand Accounts from Galileo to Einstein

edited by Morris H. Shamos

“I am reading these three paperback popular science books because I am developing a new
general education science course on the theme of ‘how do we know what we know?’ to be
built around important experiments that changed our understanding of the universe and how
it works. Parts of these books may become assigned reading in the course.”

— Laurie McNeil, physics

Samuel Adams: A Life by Ira Stoll

“This author covers two of my favorite topics, the American Revolution and beer. Seems a natural for me.”

— Paul O’Connor, journalism

The Persistence of Memory
Lanterns:
A Memoir
of Mentors

by Marian Wright Edelman

— Queenie Byars, journalism

Resistance: Memoirs of Occupied France by Agnes Humbert — elin o’Hara slavick, art
Little Boy Blues by Malcolm Jones

“A friend from college who is an editor at Newsweek. The New Yorker
called his book an ‘affecting memoir,’ and that’s an apt description. It’s a
story about growing up in Winston-Salem with a fascinating but wildly
overbearing mother.”