Extra credit post--One

Honors 102 takes the theme of "Self and Society" and springboards it to the world. As instructors we are cahrged with covering these themes in the eight books. Four books are common texts. I get to choose four others. I am seeking your recommendation. I know you might not be in my section but your input is still important to me. The books I am considering follows in a separate blog. Here is information on the required texts. The second blog has books suggested by a variety of people. You get to vote.

Honors 102: Focus on Science, Nature and Religion
• Self and cosmos
• Self and nature
• Role of religion
• Evolution theory
• Environmental issues
• How do we interact with the natural world

Required Common texts
• Life of Pi by Yann Martel. The Life of Pi follows the strange journey of Pi, a young Indian boy whose zookeeper father decides immigrate to Canada with his family and some of the zoo animals. On the way, their ship sinks and Pi is cast adrift in a lifeboat with a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan, and a huge Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. The animals battle for survival in the cramped boat as Pi tries to avoid being part of the food chain. Eventually, just the tiger and he are left in the life raft. They develop a mutually beneficial relationship and save each other from various disasters. The novel ends with a dramatic twist that raises questions about the true identity of Pi.
• Abel Sanchez and other Stories by Miguel de Unamuno
The stories "Abel Sanzhez", "The Madness of Doctor Montarco", and "Saint Emmanuel the Good Marty" are three of the Spanish philosopher Unamuno's most haunting parables. Quixotic madmen are the protagonists of these imaginative stories, which probe the horror of a nothingness beyond death. The Introduction by Anthony Kerrigan, the translator, traces Unamuno's life.
• Copenhagen by Michael Frayn winner of the 2000 Tony Award for best play, attempts to answer the question that has been on the minds of many quantum physicists and historians from World War II: What actually took place in a secret meeting between Niels Bohr, who is considered the father of quantum physics, and Werner Heisenberg, who was working on, but failed to create, the atomic bomb for Nazi Germany? The meeting took place in 1941. Heisenberg had been a student of Bohr’s. The two scientists had collaborated and brought forth the basic tenets that would become the foundation of quantum physics. The meeting took place while Denmark was occupied by the Nazis. All that was publicly known was that after the meeting, Bohr would have nothing to do with Heisenberg. Bohr would eventually help the U.S. forces and he was instrumental in the creation of the atomic bombs that were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But what happened to Heisenberg? Did he deliberately confound the Nazi efforts to create a similar weapon? Or did he attempt to create it but fail? Frayn leaves these overarching questions for the audience to ponder.
• Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan
what we should have for dinner. To find out, Pollan follows each of the food chains that sustain us—industrial food, organic or alternative food, and food we forage ourselves—from the source to a final meal, and in the process develops a definitive account of the American way of eating. His absorbing narrative takes us from Iowa cornfields to food-science laboratories, from feedlots and fast-food restaurants to organic farms and hunting grounds, always emphasizing our dynamic coevolutionary relationship with the handful of plant and animal species we depend on. Each time Pollan sits down to a meal, he deploys his unique blend of personal and investigative journalism to trace the origins of everything consumed, revealing what we unwittingly ingest and explaining how our taste for particular foods and flavors reflects our evolutionary inheritance.