Author: Heather Braum

Now that the fall semester is over, I have about five weeks before the Spring Semester begins in my current grad program. After a rough fall, I’m glad to see this semester end and look forward to a new one and a new calendar year. Meanwhile, I’ve had quite the reading stack pile up physically and virtually, especially virtually, thanks to Amazon Kindle’s One-Click button that’s far too easy to click when I see a good book someone recs. So in the spirit of public accountability, here’s the reading list I hope to reduce significantly over the next few weeks. If you have any other recs, please leave them in the comments 🙂

A few notes about the list:

• I’ll break the list into four groups.
• Books are linked to either the record in the NExpress Shared Catalog (the Koha regional catalog I help manage at work) or the Amazon.com record, unless otherwise noted.
• After the Title and Author, P=Physical book copy and K=Kindle electronic version. [I discovered through developing this list that I need to stop buying Kindle books, till I’ve read what I have!]

Librarianship, Technology, Training, Education, and Learning

• Academically Adrift (Arum) K
• Atlas of New Librarianship (Lankes) P, In progress
• Civic Life Online: Learning How Digital Media Can Engage Youth (multiple) — links to the chapters in PDF form
• The Civic Potential of Video Games (Kahne) K — linked to the PDF version
• College Libraries and Student Culture (Duke & Asher) P, in progress
• Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education in the 21st Century (Jenkins) K — linked to PDF version, In progress
• The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education, 2011 Kindle Edition (Ravitch) K, In progress
• Education Nation (Chen), P, In progress
• Embedded Librarians: Moving beyond one-shot instruction (Kvenild & Calkins) P
• The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age (Davidson) K — linked to PDF version
• Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media (multiple) PDF
• Learning in Adulthood: A Comprehensive Guide (Merriam, et. al.) P
• Living and Learning  with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project (Ito, et. al.) K — linked to PDF version
• New Digital Media and Learning as an Emerging Area and “Worked Examples” as One Way Forward (Gee) K — linked to PDF version
• Reflective Teaching, Effective Learning (Booth) K, In progress
• Teaching America: The Case for Civic Education (Feith) P
• The World Is Open (Bonk) K, In progress
• Zotero: A Guide for Librarians, Researchers and Educators (Puckett) K

General Nonfiction

• Bit Literacy: Productivity in the Age of Information and E-mail Overload (Hurst) K
• Bowling Alone: The collapse and revival of American community (Putnam) P
• Enchantment (Kawasaki) K, In Progress
• Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations (Shirky) K
• How to Fix Copyright (Patry) K
• [Boing, Boing Review]
• In Pursuit of Elegance (May) K, In Progress
• Leading quietly: an unorthodox guide to doing the right thing (Badaracco) P
• Living Organized (Felton) K
• Our Boys: a perfect season on the plains with the Smith Center Redmen (Draper) K, Re-read
• Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative (Robinson) P, In progress
• Tales of the Revolution: True Stories of People who are Poking the Box and Making a Difference (Godin) K

Lawrence Lessig

(He gets his own category; I’m determined to get through a couple of his books, for once!)

• Code v2.0 PDF
• Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity P
• The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World PDF
• Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy P
• Republic, Lost K

Christianity

• Abide in Christ (Murray) K
• Breaking Free: discovery the victory of total surrender (Moore) K
• Choosing to See (Chapman) K, Re-Read
• Covenant and Kingdom: The DNA of the Bible (Breen) K
• Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe (Driscoll) Kindle
• A Glimpse of Jesus: A Stranger to Self-Hatred (Manning) P
• The Idea of a Christian College (Holmes) K
• Mere Christinaity (Lewis) P
• Radical: taking back your faith from the American Dream (Platt) K, In Progress
• The Ragamuffin Gospel (Manning) P
• The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (Keller) P
• The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Noll) K, In Progress
• Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grudem) Kindle
• Total Truth: liberating Christianity from its cultural captivity (Pearcey) K
• My college advisor rec’d this six years ago, I’m determined to get this read, still.
• Young, Restless, Reformed (Harsen) K, Re-Read

Fiction

• Reread Chronicles of Narnia for the nth time (CS Lewis) P
• The Hobbit (Tolkien) P
• Hunger Games trilogy (Collins) 1st book on Kindle; borrow others
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Skloot) P
• North and South (Gaskell) K

Photo Credit: “This Paper Trail Leads Right Back To You ~ Explored” by Flickr user Bethan under a Creative Commons license.