What’s On Your Bookshelf

FOR MANY ISSUES OF Inspire, we ask faculty members to recommend books that they are currently reading or have enjoyed recently. For this issue, we asked faculty in our Fine and Performing Arts discipline to share the contents of their bookshelf.

Rick MacKenzie is currently reading the bestselling collection of essays Upstream: Selected Essays by poet Mary Oliver.

MacKenzie also suggests East of Eden by John Steinbeck, which follows the intertwined destinies of two families and explores themes of identity and love.

Ginger Ellingson is currently reading Becoming by Michelle Obama, a “intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by the former First Lady.”

Ellingson also recommends How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why you Should Care), by Ross Duffin, a “comprehensive plea for more variety in tuning methods.”

Zen and the Art of Mixing by Mixerman (aka Eric Sarafin) is recommended by Alek Edmonds. With a firm commitment to art over technology and to maintaining a grasp of each, Mixerman outlines his own approach to recording success.

Edmonds also suggests Transcendence: Healing and Transformation Through Transcendental Medication by Dr. Norman Rosenthall. This book is “the definitive book on the scientifically proven health and stress-relieving benefits of Transcendental Meditation.”

Amis Balcomb is currently reading Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas. The book is an insider’s groundbreaking investigation of how the global elite’s efforts to “change the world” preserve the status quo and obscure their role in causing the problems they later seek to solve.

Ed Castro recommends Why the Cocks Fight: Dominicans, Haitians, and the Struggle for Hispaniola by Michele Wucker. The author studies the cockfight ritual in detail, focusing as much on the customs and histories of Haiti and the Dominican Republic as on their contemporary lifestyles and politics.

Perhaps the most popular of Shakespeare’s comedies, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is recommended by Whitney Stange. This chaotic love story follows a group of Athenians who mix with fairies in the forest with comedic results.

Stange also suggests Games for Actors and Non-Actors by Augusto Boal, a classic book by the founder of Theatre of the Oppressed.

Brian Hutcheson recommends Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull. This insightful book about creativity in business and leadership is from a co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios.

Hutcheson also suggests Art Chantry Speaks: A Heretic’s History of 20th Century Graphic Design. This book of essays by Tacoma-native (and “rock star of the graphic design world”) is homage to low-tech design.

Some book descriptions found on Amazon.com.