Guest: Peace Corps Book List

First and foremost, thank you to everyone who participated in our Peace Corps book list on Facebook! Having looked through the list carefully, we have been impressed by both the quantity and quality of responses. We hope that you will take some time to read over others’ recommendations to add to your own summer reading list.

However, before we reveal which books we packed, the following are a list of reasons why we may have or may not have chosen a particular book.

1) Already Read – Many of your recommendations are already some of our favorite books, though you had no way of knowing that! This includes books such as The Kite Runner, The Life of Pi, Three Cups of Tea, Angels & Demons, The Inheritance Cycle, The Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, and Shadow in the Wind. So, of course, we did not bring these.
2) Peace Corps Library – A couple weeks after we started our book list, we found that Peace Corps Mali has a fairly extensive library. From current volunteers’ blogs, we deduced that this collection contains many titles, including Water for Elephants, Poisonwood Bible, The Alchemist, Things Fall Apart, East of Eden, and other books that you have recommended. Thus, we did not bring these books, but we still hope to read them during our service.
3) Packing Space – Originally we intended to bring 15 books each, but weight and size limits forced to cut down. As a result, we are now bringing about 15 books altogether.
4) Availability – Due to above reason, we were also forced to look for light and small paperback books, but sadly, we could not find many recommendations that met these specifications.

Therefore, in addition to our Bibles, the following books will be accompanying us to Mali:

Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
Ella Enchanted (in French) – Gail Carson Levine
Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card
The Good Earth – Pearl Buck
Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus – Orson Scott Card
The Reason for God – Timothy Keller
Redeeming Love – Francine Rivers
Reinventing the Bazaar – John McMillan
The Space Trilogy – C.S. Lewis
The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas

We really tried to strike a balance between classical literature, a little non-fiction, and just plain fun. But again, thank you to all who gave us a suggestion. It was wonderful to research everyone’s favorite books and it truly meant a lot.

Lastly, in order to track our progress on reading these and other books, we also intend to start a sidebar listing the books each of us have completed during training and service. Feel free to comment on the sidebar or on this blog post if you have any further recommendations.