Over the summer, each First-Year Seminar student is asked to read a text chosen by the FYS faculty the previous spring. While the books vary greatly in theme, genre, and style from year to year, they all aim to engage students with literature that challenges their worldviews and introduces them to college level reading and ideas.
The summer reading for 2009 is Jane Goodall's novel Reason for Hope.
You may learn more about Goodall's book by visiting a Summer Text Reference page created by Pacific's library staff.
Review:
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As a young woman, Jane Goodall was best known for her groundbreaking fieldwork with the chimpanzees of Gombe, Africa. Goodall's work has always been controversial, mostly because she broke the mold of research scientist by developing meaningful relationships with her "specimens" and honoring their lives as she would other humans. Now at the age of 60, she continues to break the mold of scientist by revealing how her research and worldwide conservation institutes spring from her childhood callings and adult spiritual convictions. Reason for Hope is a smoothly written memoir that does not shy away from facing the realities of environmental destruction, animal abuse, and genocide. But Goodall shares her antidote to the poison of despair with specific examples of why she has not lost faith. |
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| For instance, she shares her spiritual epiphany during a visit to Auschwitz; her bravery in the face of chimpanzee imprisonment in medical laboratories; and devotes a whole chapter to individuals, corporations, and countries that are doing the right thing. But most of all Goodall provides a beautifully written plea for why everyone can and must find a reason for hope. --Gail Hudson, Amazon.com | |