"There are three reasons to read a book-for pleasure, for self improvement, or because you are assigned it" says Emily D. Vermeule, Zemurray Stone Radcliffe Professor. Vermeule believes that reading the history of countries concurrently with travel falls into the first category. Several summers ago she took along a copy of Gibbon's stately tome. "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" on a cruise through the Bosphorous
* For those planning a visit to the Soviet Union, she recommends Nicholas and Alexandra, by Robert K. Massey;
* For those travelling to South America. The History of Corte, by William Prescott;
* Or, for a beach just about anywhere. Vermeule suggests Collected Stories, by Eric Ambler, or Late Innings, by Roger Angell.
But it you're having trouble squeezing in the extra t-shirt and can't find room for Prescott or Massey, travel guides are available at the local AAA.
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Caroll M. Williams is Bussey Professor of Biology. And if you didn't know that, you might be able to guess from the books he suggests:
* Cancer, Science, and Society, by John Cairns;
* The Eight Days of Creation, by H.F. Judson;
* The Growth of Biological Thought, by Ernst Mayr, professor of Zoology Emeritus;
* Advice to a Young Scientist, by Peter Medawer (if that book's been grabbed at the local library. Williams recommends The Uniqueness of the Individual by the same author):
* On Human Nature, by E.O. Wilson.
Williams has read those books. So he plans to tackle A Collection of Nobel Lectures in Molecular Biology from 1933-1975, edited by his friend David Baltimore. In addition to reading numerous journals including Science, Nature. The New Scientist, Scientific American, and Natural History, he plans to peruse G. Ledyard Stebbin's Darwin to DNA: Molecule to Humanity.
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Another source for summer reading suggestions sits untapped by the reference desk at Lamont Library, with the names of 35 books recommended by students. Authors range from Nathaniel Hawthorne to Garry Trudeau, but not Medawer or Homer.
The most official Harvard reading list will emanate out of the Freshmen Dean's Office and go to members of the class of '86 as recommended reading Dean's Office occupants explain the list is not firm because the roster of Freshmen Week speakers has not yet been finalized. So there seems to be a correlation between those two vestiges of Harvard absentia.
And then there's the non-reading list courtesy of William H. Bossert '59, McKay Professor of Applied Mathematics. "I don't want to presume on their summer," he said. "I'm happy enough if they read my required books during the term."