A film professor's daughter narrates her senior year — and a suspicious death — through a syllabus of the Great Books.
Books mentioned in Special Topics in Calamity Physics (6)
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: “I’d snuck into the murky stacks of the library to eat my lunch and read War and Peace (Tolstoy, 1865–69)”
The Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto Che Guevara: ““There’s no education superior to travel. Think of The Motorcycle Diaries, or what Montrose St. Millet wrote in Ages of Exploration:”
On the Road by Jack Kerouac: “Driving with Dad wasn’t cathartic, mind-freeing driving (see On the Road, Kerouac, 1957).”
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: “Sixty Minutes of an Impressive Novel (selections included The Great Gatsby [Fitzgerald, 1925] and The Sound and the Fury [Faulkner, 1929])”
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde: “featuring such plays as Mrs. Warren’s Profession (Shaw, 1894), The Importance of Being Earnest (Wilde, 1895)”
The Sound and Fury by William Faulkner: “Sixty Minutes of an Impressive Novel (selections included The Great Gatsby [Fitzgerald, 1925] and The Sound and the Fury [Faulkner, 1929])”