Betsy-Tacy

Maud Hart Lovelace

Selected by Jean Fox O’Barr, University Distinguished Service Professor of the Practice Emeritus of Education

Betsy, Tacy, and Tib. The names roll off my tongue as readily as the names of my sisters and me: Betty, Sally, and Jean. I have no idea how or when I first met Minnesota author Maud Hart Lovelace and her stories of Betsy Ray. The first one recounts the meeting of the two five-year-olds, Betsy and Tacy. It was published in 1940, two years before I was born. And by 1955, the year I was in 8th grade in Indiana, I had read all ten in the series… Read more...

The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics

Stanley Hauerwas

Selected by the Revd Canon Dr. Sam Wells, Dean of the Chapel and Research Professor of Christian Ethics

In 1989 while at seminary I read The Peaceable Kingdom by Duke professor Stanley Hauerwas. It changed my life in three ways…it shaped my faith, my imagination, and my career. Read more...

Cannery Row

John Steinbeck

Selected by Barbara Kingsolver, author

... I read Cannery Row and the scales fell from my eyes. Steinbeck could insert poetry into anybody's world view, even that of a groundhog. Read more...