The Core Knowledge Staff Reading List

Everyone on the Core Knowledge Foundation staff spends half their time reading or writing. But when we’re not flipping or scrolling through the pages of our professional lives, or keeping up with family and personal lives, we all believe in setting aside some time, whenever possible, to pick up those books that have accumulated in our home libraries, at our bedsides, or wherever the “Books I’ll Read Someday” pile ends up.

To encourage all our friends to read a little more often, we thought we’d share some of the staff’s current reading picks. We’ll start with a recent book review by our founder. So, just in case you’ve misplaced your reading list, start a new one with these:

E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Chairman of the Board and Founder of the Core Knowledge Foundation

• The Tough Liberal: Al Shanker and the Battles Over Schools, Unions, Race and Democracy by  Richard Kahlemberg

Below are some of Professor Hirsch’s comments about the book. Read the rest of his review at http://www.educationsector.org/usr_doc/Hirsch_Comments.pdf.

“Rick Kahlenberg has written a masterful biography of Al Shanker — deeply researched, thoughtful, eloquent — and crystal clear without in any way oversimplifying the complex period that Al and the rest of us have lived through. After reading Rick’s book, I understand better many aspects of the things that I’ve witnessed in education reform.

“For me it’s an inspiring book. The central figure was so courageous and smart. As I was reading, I was reliving my feelings of awe at Al’s bravery, and his ability to combine moral strength with intellectual insight and political shrewdness…”

What are other CK staffers reading? Here are a few:

Mick Anderson

• Barrel Fever, by David Sedaris
• The Supernatural Occurrences of John Wesley, by Daniel R. Jennings
• Little Children, by Tom Perrotta

Linda Bevilacqua

• Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
• A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini

Diana Brewster

Recently Read

• Phineas Finn, by Anthony Trollope

Currently Reading

• The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
• Cesar's Way: The Natural, Everyday Guide to Understanding and Correcting Common Dog Problems, by Cesar Milan (though Diana admits that she is not a dog owner…)

Katy Cummings

• Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy
• My Antonia, by Willa Cather
• Confederates in the Attic, by Tony Horwitz
• Lysistrata and Other Plays, by Aristophanes and Alan H. Sommerstein
• Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, by William McDonough

Matthew Davis

• The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature, by Steven Pinker
• The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell

Michael Ford

• The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
• Mythologies, by William Butler Yeats

Erin Kist

• The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language, by Stephen Pinker
• Words in the Mind: An Introduction to the Mental Lexicon, by Jean Aitchison

Danielle Knecht, Intern from University of Virginia

• King Leopold’s Ghost, by Adam Hoshschild
• Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America: A Memoir, by Elizabeth Wurtzel

Martha Mack

• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Julian Molitz

• Determined to read all nonfiction selections in his pile of New Yorker Magazine back issues for all of 2006–07.

Steve Morrison

• The Decameron by Boccaccio, translated by Mark Musa
• The Complete Poetry & Prose of William Blake
• The Noh Plays of Japan: An Anthology, by Arthur Waley
• Moominvalley in November, by Tove Jansson
• History of the Thirteen, by Honore de Balzac

Juliane Munson

• O Pioneers, by Willa Cather (published in 1913, a novel about Swedish pioneers in Nebraska)

Rachael Shaw

• Lost in Space: Probing Feminist Science Fiction and Beyond, by Marleen S. Barr
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
• Self-Made Man: One Woman’s Journey into Manhood and Back, by Norah Vincent

Gerald Terrell

• The Education and Killing of  Edmund T. Perry, by Robert Sam Anson

Alice K. Wiggins

Recently Read

• The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan
• A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini

Currently Reading

• The World is Flat, by Thomas L. Friedman
• Educating Latino Preschool Children, by Hortencia Kayser