Communication Professor's Favorite Reads
Robert Westerfelhaus reads upwards of 100 books a year. Here are the ones he frequently recommends.
With a focus on applying critical, rhetorical and semiotic theories to communication issues in ethics, religion and American pop culture, communication professor Robert Westerfelhaus is passionate about his teaching, his research, his community service and his dachshunds. A self-described bookworm, he is also passionate about reading.
“I read between 80 to 100 books per year, and my selections are eclectic and represent a wide range of countries, cultures, languages and time periods,” he says, explaining that he reads everything from ancient texts to graphic novels to sacred scriptures to children’s literature. “To make it possible for me to narrow my list of favorites to just 10 books, I am focusing on accessible narratives I personally love and frequently recommend to others.”
For the time being, here is his top 10 list of recommended books, in no particular order.
1. A Burnt-Out Case, Graham Greene
2. The Brothers Karamazov,Fyodor Dostoevsky
3. Cold Skin,Albert Sánchez Piñol
4. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
5. Death Comes for the Archbishop,Willa Cather
6. House of the Sleeping Beauties,Yasunari Kawabata
7. Primeval and Other Times, Olga Tokarczuk
8. Stories of Your Life and Others,
Ted Chiang
9. The Twelve Caesars, Suetonius
10. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Raymond Carver
