Torchlight List : Around the World in 200 Books

This witty, clever, mind-expanding and original book is destined to become a classic. A professor for over 40 years, Jim Flynn found fewer and fewer of his students were in love with reading. However, they were willing to try if he gave them lists. This inspired him to create the definitive list: books so wonderful to read, and so revealing about times and places, that they make learning enjoyable and effortless. The title is in honour of the author's 'uneducated' Irish-American family, who made him love reading - including an uncle who, while an able seaman in World War I, read by torchlight on board ship. Flynn begins by offering five novels he believes will convince anyone to make reading a habit, including one that will change your life. Author Biography: Jim Flynn is Emeritus Professor of Politics at the University of Otago, an Honorary Doctor of Science, recipient of a Gold Medal for Distinguished Career Research, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. He has been profiled in Scientific American for his research on human intelligence, and is the author of How to Defend Humane Ideals (2000), What is Intelligence? (2007), and Where Have All the Liberals Gone? (2008).

Featured in the 6 December 2010 New Zealand newsletter.
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