The NY Times has a special section on Summer Reading
ranging from the serious to fluff; see:
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/books/index.html

Looking over these entries, I thought back to a couple
of books that made an impression on me and that stand 
out in my memory.  They are:

(1) B.F. Skinner's "Beyond Freedom and Dignity"
Back in the summer of 1971, Psychology Today excerpted
this book in, if memory serves, in their July or August issue
(actually, the except was in two parts and presented in two
sequential issues).  This was before the book came out,
but I was fascinated by the article and immediately bought the 
book when it came out.  Reading this made me decide to become
a psychology major in college.

(2) David Morrell's (1971) "First Blood"
I wonder how many people who saw the 1982 movie version
of "First Blood" had read the novel on which it was based.
I was alerted to the novel because of a review in the NY Times 
(for those with Proquest access, the date of the article is Jun 18, 
1972 under the title "Five Novels", page BR6).  When the
movie came out I was disappointed because I didn't think it did
justice to the novel.  It should be noted that "First Blood" was
the first novel by (surprise!) Canadian born David Morrell.
Morrel is an interesting case, an academic who taught English
and then went on to write a series of novels, nonfiction and even
comic books (2007-2008 Captain America: The Chosen).
His Wikipedia (SDA) entry provides more details; see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Morrell
I think it pretty hilarious that a Canadian would write a novel
about two vets from different wars (John Rambo from Vietnam;
Teasle from the Korean) who go to war against each other.
One might have thought that only a U.S. born writer could have
been that jingoistic and vicious. ;-)

-Mike Palij
New York University
[email protected]



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