By Ashley Colpaart, RD, LD
A cool blog called People Reading began as an “exploration of literary San Francisco and daily affirmation that people still read.” The author travels around taking photos of what people are reading. She has discovered that she has “not only been chronicling the popularity of books, but also the diversity of individuals. What goes on inside our minds is evidenced by and influenced by what we are reading, have read, and the inner dialogs we have with authors.”
This got me thinking, what is Friedman reading? What are the books, magazines and blogs that are shaping the ideas in our community? I could use an extended summer reading list.
In early February forty-nine members of the Friedman community (students, faculty and staff) were surveyed through Survey Monkey. Click on the link to see the full list.
What top three books shaped your interest in coming to The Friedman School?
The top 5 where favorite author selections:
1. Michael Pollan- The Omnivore’s Dilemma; In Defense of Food: An Eaters Manifesto; The Botany of Desire
2. Marion Nestle- Food Politics; What To Eat;
3. Barbara Kingsolver- Animal, Vegetable, Miracle; Prodigal Summer
4. Wendell Berry- The Pleasures of Eating; What Are People For?
5. Frances Moore Lappe- World Hunger, 12 Myths; Diet for a Small Planet; Food First: Beyond the Myth of Scarcity
6. Mountains Beyond Mountains- Tracy Kidder
7. Fast Food Nation – Eric Schlosser
8. Stuffed and Starved – Raj Patel
9. The Jungle – Upton Sinclair
10. City Bountiful – Laura Lawson
11. Harvest for Hope – Jane Goodall
12. Mindless Eating – Brian Wansink
13. Hungry Planet – Peter Menzel & Faith D’Alusio
14. The China Study – T. Collin Campbell
15. The Taste of Place – Amy Trubek
16. Food Matters- Mike Bittman
17. The End of Food – Paul Roberts
18. Guns, Germs and Steel – Jared Diamond
19. Fatal Harvest – Andrew Kimbrell
20. White Man’s Burden – William Easterly
21. The Man Who Ate Everything- Jeffrey Steingarten
22. Fatal Harvest – Andrew Kimbrell
23. On Food and Cooking – Harold McGee
24. Pathologies of Power – Paul Farmer
25. The Nutrition Factor – Alan Berg
26. Gaviotas- Alan Weisman
27. The Road to Hell- Michael Maren
28. Good Calories, Bad Calories – Gary Taubes
29. The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
30. Farm-to-Table – Gary Holthaus
What top 3 books have you read since you’ve been at The Friedman School that have had an impact on your study?
1. Raj Patel – The Value of Nothing; Stuffed and Starved
2. Food Policy Analysis – C. Peter Timmer
3. Marion Nestle – Food Politics; Food Safety
4. Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930’s – Donald Worster
5. Hot, Flat And Crowded – Thomas L. Friedman
6. Policy Paradox – Deborah Stone
7. Bound Together – Nayan Chanda
8. Agropolis: The Social, Political and Environmental Dimensions of Urban Agriculture -Edited by Luc J. A. Mougeot
9. Second Nature- Michael Pollan
10. The End of Overeating- David Kessler
11. Waste- Tristan Stewart
12. For the Health of the Land: Previously Unpublished Essays And Other Writings – Aldo Leopold
13. The Power of Positive Deviance: How Unlikely Innovators Solve the World’s Toughest Problems – Richard Pascale, Jerry Sternin, Monique Sternin
14. Chasing the Flame – Samantha Powers
15. The Great Hunger – Cecil Woodham Smith
16. The Blue Death- Robert D. Morris
17. Nudge – Thaler & Sunstein
18. Eating Animals – Jonathan Safran Foer
19. Where Food Comes From- Gary Nebhan
20. Clean – Alejandor Junger
21. Nature’s Metropolis – William Cronon
22. The Unsettling of America – Wendell Berry
23. The Comprehensive Rural Health Project: Jamkhed, India
24. Goat Song – Brad Kessler
25. The Spirit Catches You an You Fall Down – Ann Fadiman
26. Nature’s Metropolis- William Cronon
27. Mendel in the Kitchen – Nina V. Fedoroff
28. East of Eden- John Steinbeck
29. Where Our Food Comes From – Gary Nebhan
30. Molecules of Emotion: Why you feel the way you feel – Candace B. Pert
31. Globalization and Its Discontents- Joseph Stiglitz
32. Oranges – John McPhee
33. The World is Fat – Barry Popkin
34. Denialism – Michael Specter
35. The Ethics of What We Eat –Peter Singer & Jim Mason
36. Localist Movements in a Global Economy – David J. Hess
37. My Life in France- Julia Child & Alex Prud-Homme
38. The Secret History of the War on Cancer – Devra Davis
39. A Bed for the Night -David Rieff
40. The Curious Gardeners Almanac – Niall Edworthy
41. The Whole Earth Discipline – Stewart Brand
42. Slow Food Nation’s Come to the Table: The Slow Food Way of Living- Katrian Heron & Alice Waters
43. Monitoring and Evaluation: A Guidebook for Nutrition Project Managers -Levinson et al
44. Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World – Mark Kurlansky
45. French Beans and Food Scares- Susanne Friedberg
46. WFP Strategic Plan 2008-2010 (not a book, but a great new approach to food aid)
47. Nutritional Epidemiology – Walt Willett
48. The Shock Doctrine- Naomi Klein
49. Fighting Poverty in the US and Europe – Alesina & Glaeser
50. The Fruit Hunters -Adam Gollner
51. The Ethics of What We Eat – Peter Singer & Jim Mason
52. Complex Emergencies – David Keen
53. Mindless eating: why we eat more than we think – Brian Wansink
54. Poverty and famines: an essay on entitlement and deprivation -Amartya Sen
55. Made to stick: why some ideas survive and others die – Chip Heath & Dan Heath
What are you top 3 “outside reading” books?
1. Classics- Les Miserables – Victor Hugo; Brave New World – Aldous Huxley; To Kill a Mockingbird- Harper Lee; Jane Eyre; Great Expectations; War and Peace; The Catcher in the Rye; Jane Austen; Pride and Prejudice
2. Anything by Alexandre Dumas, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Barbara Kingsolver, Jon Krakhauer, Rider Haggard, Kundera, Nabokov, Gore Vidal, or Saul Bellow
3. Three Cups of Tea – Greg Mortenson
4. Eat, Pray, Love – Elizabeth Gilbert
5. The Power of Ideas – Isaiah Berlin & Henry Hardy
6. The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Series – Alexander McCall Smith
7. Surely You’re Kidding Mr. Feynman – Richard Feynman
8. Common Ground – J. Anthony Lucas
9. Downtown Owl- Chuck Klosterman
10. Harry Potter
11. Lord of the Rings- J.R.R. Tolkein
12. Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis de Bernieres
13. Disgrace- J.M. Coetze
14. The Complete Writings of Martin Luther King Jr.
15. Devil in the White City – Eric Larson
16. About Grace- Anthony Doerr
17. “Poli-pop” memoirs, like Going Rouge- Sarah Palin
18. Water for Elephants – Sara Gruen
19. Critical Path- Buckminister Fuller
20. Mysteries
21. Historical Fiction
22. Oryx and Crake – Margaret Atwood
23. Look Homeward Angel – Thomas Wolfe
24. The Mists of Avalon – Marion Zimmer Bradley
25. God is Not Great – Christopher Hitchens
26. Sweet Earth – Joel Sternfeld
27. Biting the Hand that Starves You – David Epston
28. Too Much Happiness -Alice Munro
29. The Three Musketeers
30. Confederacy of Dunces – Kennedy Toole
31. Native Intelligence by Ray Sokolov
32. The Cairo Trilogy/Naguib Mahfouz
33. Cookbooks – all kinds
34. What is the What – Dave Eggers
35. Sookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris (Dead Until Dawn…)
36. Zanzibar Chest, Aidan Hartley
37. Girl with a Pearl Earring
38. Any Maeve Binchy books
39. Ecotopia
40. Anything by
41. The Travel Book -Lonely Planet
42. Nancy Clark’s Sports Nutrition Guidebook – Nancy Clark MS RD
43. Whatever it Takes
44. Tao Te Ching / english version: Mitchell
45. The Phantom Tollbooth
46. Memiors of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
47. Lots of poetry anthologies
What Newspapers do you read?
1. New York Times
2. Washington Post
3. Boston Globe
4. The Wall Street Journal
5. Reuters
6. Metro
7. The Onion
8. BBC World News
9. The Economist
10. Le Monde
11. Syracuse Post
What magazines or ezines do you subscribe to?
1. The Economist
2. Harpers
3. The New Yorker
4. Newsweek; Businessweek; Forbes
5. The Nation
6. The Atlantic
7. National Geographic
8. Mother Jones; Audubon
9. Ode; Good
10. Elle Décor
11. Everyday with Rachel Ray; Women’s Health
12. Saveur; Cooks Illustrated
13. New Scientist
14. The Progressive Farmer
15. Planning
16. New York Review of Books
19. http://www.commondreams.org
20. Natural News online
21. Grist online
22. Consumer Reports
23. Rolling Stone
24. Prevention
25. ATTRA online
What group’s listserv would be most valuable for students to know about?
1. Comfood
2. Ag Clips
3. Slow Food Tufts/Boston/national
4. Global Food for Thought (Chicago Council)
5. Hunger and Environmental Nutrition Dietetic Practice Group- American Dietetic Association
6. Urban Homesteaders League
7. Urbanag
8. Union of Concerned Scientists’ FEED
9. The Food Institute
10. Food Planning (University of Washington)
11. Local Harvest
12. Cool Foods Campaign
13. MIT Food
14. National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition
15. National Resource Defense Committee
The Friedman Sprout 
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