Course reading list (One page, printable)
James Agee, prologue to ‘A Death in the Family’
Dan Barry, Fire (About Alberto Wickehem)
Dan Barry, ‘From New Deal to New Hard Times, Eleanor Endures’
Katherine Boo, ‘Opening Night’
Jimmy Breslin, ‘It’s an Honour’
Bill Buford, from ‘Among the Thugs’
Truman Capote, from ‘In Cold Blood’
Leslie T. Chang, from ‘Factory Girls’
Bruce Chatwin, from ‘In Patagonia’
Harry Crews, ‘A Day at the Dogfights’
Charles Dickens, ‘The Great Tasmania’s Cargo’
Joan Didion, ‘Girl of the Golden West’
Duc de Saint-Simon, ‘The King’s Day’
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., ‘White Like Me’
Ben Hecht, ‘The Death of Henry Spencer’
Michael Herr, from ‘Dispatches’
Peter Hessler, ‘Boomtown Girl’
Adam Hochschild, from ‘To End All Wars’
Adam Hochschild, ‘Adventures in Public History’
Jake Hooker, ‘Before Guests Arrive, Beijing Hides Some Messes’
Ian Johnson, from ‘Wild Grass’
Ryszard Kapuscinski, ‘The Soccer War’
Norman Mailer, from ‘Armies of the Night’
Richard McCann, from ‘Mother of Sorrows’
John McPhee, ‘North of the C.P. Line’
Suketu Mehta, from ‘Maximum City’
Michael Meyer, from ‘The Last Days of Old Beijing’
Joseph Mitchell, ‘Mr. Hunter’s Grave’
Vladimir Nabokov, from ‘Speak, Memory’
V.S. Naipaul, from ‘Finding the Centre’
Tim O’Brien, ‘The Things They Carried’
Susan Orlean, from ‘The Orchid Thief’
George Orwell, ‘Down and Out in Paris and London’
George Orwell, ‘Shooting an Elephant’
George Plimpton plays with the NY Philharmonic
Katha Pollitt, ‘Learning to Drive’
Rex Reed, from ‘Do You Sleep in the Nude?’
Scott Sanders, ‘Under the Influence’
John Simpson, ‘Tiananmen Square’
John Steinbeck, ‘The Harvest Gypsies’
John Steinbeck, from ‘The Grapes of Wrath’
John Steinbeck, from ‘East of Eden’
Gay Talese, ‘Frank Sinatra Has a Cold’
Paul Theroux, from ‘The Great Railway Bazaar’
Hunter S. Thompson, ‘The Kentucky Derby is decadent and depraved’
James Thurber, ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’
Nicholas Tomalin, ‘The General Goes Zapping Charlie Cong’
Anne Tyler, ‘Trouble in the Boys’ Club’
David Foster Wallace on 2000 McCain campaign
Eric Wee, ‘Professor of Desperation’
Tom Wolfe, from ‘The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby’
Jim Yardley, from ‘Brave Dragons’