HAGEN: BU book club

When was the last time you read a good book? Not required reading for class, but something you picked out to read for pleasure? I love reading, but it is difficult to fit it in my schedule when I already have hundreds of assigned pages to slog through each week. This is why I am proposing a BU book club in order to help fellow students find the time for some fun light reading. The club itself will be split off into different branches which are based on a few of the colleges here at BU. Fortunately, coinciding with this plan is the recent release of the list of candidates for the Bookseller Magazine’s annual Diagram Prize for oddest book titles, and so I will base all my book selections on this year’s collection of strange names.

First off, for all of you School of Management kids, I am recommending “How YOU Are Like Shampoo for Job Seekers.” Given the current economic situation, you should probably take whatever advice you can get. This will be an insightful read given how similar your future job search will mirror the directions on a shampoo bottle. “Lather, rinse and repeat” can easily be translated to “Send out resume, get rejected and repeat.” The constant rejection, like a hearty dose of shampoo in the eyes, will sting and probably bring many tears.

As a student in a school which encompasses areas of study such as ancient Greek, sociology, philosophy and every liberal arts major you can think of that has a 100 percent success rate in allowing recent grads to live in their parents’ basement, I feel the job market pain too. Therefore I recommend College of Arts and Sciences students the book “The Changing World of Inflammatory Bowel Disease.” I am suggesting it not because it will be useful to you, but because clocking in at 288 pages, it is one of the longest books on the list. You will have a lot of time on your hands post-graduation and are going to have to find something to do. A note to all the biology majors: you are exempt from the book club because unlike the rest of us, after your million years of schooling are up, you will actually find a job. Also you are simply too busy to participate. Now stop complaining about how hard organic chemistry is and get back to work.

What is more fun that suffering from the compression of your lungs and the panic which ensues as you desperately try and intake oxygen? A coloring book about it, of course! That’s why “Planet Asthma: Art and Activity Book” is perfect for Sargent students. Oh no! Billy forgot his inhaler and now his airways are intensely swollen! Color his face a rich cerulean blue. For all the engineering nerds I am recommending “Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots.” This sounds important for the future if we don’t want our kitchen appliances to one day kill us. Read it closely.

For our chain-smoking friends in the College of Fine Arts, “Venus Does Adonis While Apollo Shags a Tree” is a fitting choice. I do not have the slightest idea what this title could possibly mean, but I have a feeling CFA kids will. Or at least they will pretend to know and thus reassure themselves of their obvious superiority. I wasn’t sure if College of General Studies students should take part in this book club, but I have decided we should stop patronizing them for once and give them a seat at the big kid’s table. I hope they enjoy “Peek-A-Poo: What’s In Your Diaper?” My two-year-old cousin babbled to me that it was truly enlightening. Some things just write themselves.

There is one book on the list which I truly believe should be read by not only the majority of the BU population but also by university students nationwide. Binge drinking on college campuses has become an increasing problem and so I believe the book “I Stopped Sucking my Thumb . . . Why Can’t You Stop Drinking?” should be required reading. Nothing goes down smoother than a shot of shame poured out by three and four year olds. Finally, a piece of delicious reading almost everyone can relate to is “Bacon: A Love Story.” I can think of no other love that is so salty yet so pure. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go start a book that probably either takes place on Ashford Street or was personally written for me: “The Quotable Douchebag.” Happy reading everyone!