The Great Books Project

Great Books... Recommended by Faculty

17 Aug 2015

The Great Books Project is a selection of books recommended by faculty of Singapore Management University (SMU). These titles inspired our faculty and about 45 new books have been specially purchased to be made available for loan. This exhibition is held in conjunction with SMU's 15th anniversary.

The following are the featured publications. Click on the book title to check if the title is available for borrowing:

Recommender	School	Book Title	Author	Reason for Recommendation
Norman Li	SOSS	The Moral Animal	Robert Wright
Norman Li	SOSS	The Fountainhead	Ayn Rand
Steven Miller	SIS	The Innovators	Walter Isaacson
Gerard Tong	SIS	The Old Man and the Sea	Ernest Hemingway	It incites the reader to think, "When does the cost outweigh the reward?"
Gerard Tong	SIS	The Black Swan	Nassim Taleb	It provides a perspective on the impact of the randomness of life.
Ong Ee Ing	SOL	Small Gods	Terry Pratchett
		Nation	Terry Pratchett
		Wolf Hall	Hilary Mantel
Kee Koon Boon	SOA	How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big : Kind of the Story of My Life	Scott Adams
		Worthless, impossible, and stupid : how contrarian entrepreneurs create and capture extraordinary value	Daniel Isenberg
		The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph	Ryan Holiday
		So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You	Cal Newport
Sunita Anne Abraham	Centre for English Communication	Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us	Daniel Pink
Sunita Anne Abraham	Centre for English Communication	The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything	Ken Robinson
Mei Lin	SIS	The Tipping Point	Malcolm Gladwell
Mei Lin	SIS	Confessions of a Public Speaker	Scott Berkun
Elizabeth Su	LKCSB	The Brothers Karamazov	Fyodor Dostoevsky
Elizabeth Su	LKCSB	Poems	Dylan Thomas
Tharindra Ranasinghe	SOA	Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets	Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Tharindra Ranasinghe	SOA	How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking	Jordan Ellenberg
Seshan Ramaswami	LKCSB	Stumbling on Happiness	Daniel Gilbert
Seshan Ramaswami	LKCSB	Confessions of a Wall Street Analyst	Dan Reingold
Nicholas Harrigan	SOSS	Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media	Mark Achbar
Nicholas Harrigan	SOSS	Understanding Power: The Indispensible Chomsky	Noam Chomsky
Geng Xuesong	LKCSB	How to read a book - the classic guide to intelligent reading	Mortimer Adler and Chares Van Doren
Tan Seow Hon	SOL	The Abolition of Man	C.S. Lewis
Lim Boon Chye, Susheela Varghesse	LKCSB	Mindset	Carol Dweck
Pang Eng Fong	LKCSB	Ideas : a history from fire to freud	Peter Watson
Fermin Diez, Ted Feichin Tschang	LKCSB	Don Quixote	Miguel Cervantes	It contains many life lessons.
Fermin Diez	LKCSB	The Elements of Style	William Strunk
Yasemin Tecmen Stubbe	LKCSB	Hamlet	Shakespeare
		The Kite Runner	Khaled Hosseini
		Screw Business as Usual	Richard Branson
Chung Wai Keung	SOSS	Poverty of Historicism	Karl Popper
Chung Wai Keung	SOSS	Structure of Scientific Revolutions	Thomas Kuhn
Loo Khee Sheng, Tan Seow Hon, Lee Pey Woan	LKCSB SOL SOL	The Bible	Several	(Lee Pey Woan) My reasons for recommending the Bible is that it has the endured through thousands of years and is still as powerful as ever in transforming lives.
Loo Khee Sheng	LKCSB	Gone with the Wind	Margaret Mitchell
Ted Feichin Tschang	LKCSB	The Jungle	Upton Sinclair
Ted Feichin Tschang	LKCSB	One Hundred Years of Solitude	Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Ted Feichin Tschang, Arnoud De Meyer	LKCSB, President	Animal Farm	George Orwell
Richard R. Smith	LKCSB	How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age	Dale Carnegie
		War and Peace	Leo Tolstoy
		Human Capital and Global Business Strategy	Thomas Howard, Rick Smith and Diez Fermin
Leesa Soulodre	LKCSB	Career Detection - Finding and Managing Your Career	Brian McIvor
Leesa Soulodre	LKCSB	First, break all the rules- What the World's greatest managers do differently	Marcus Buckingham
Pang Eng Fong	LKCSB	History of Western Philosophy	Bertrand Russell
Sebastian Tan	LKCSB	Wolf Totem	Jiang Rong
Sebastian Tan	LKCSB	Jacob the Baker	Noah Ben Shea
Koh Niak Wu	LKCSB	The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power	Daniel Yergin	Changed the way I viewed things
Koh Niak Wu	LKCSB	The Magician	Raymond E. Feist	A good introduction to fiction.
Arnoud De Meyer	President	The Prince	Niccolo Macchiavelli
Michael Benoliel	LKCSB	Sapiens: A Brief History of Human Kind	Yuval Noah Harari	Numerous insights and connections to negotiation. The historical journey of our evolution and revolutions – the language revolution 70,000 years ago; agricultural revolution 12,000 years ago; scientific revolution 500 years ago; and industrial revolution 250 years ago - as described and explained by Harari is fascinating. Similar to other human species that disappeared (the last one 30,000 years ago – we killed them?), Harari predicts that we – homo sapiens – will be replaced by a new species in a few generations!!
Austin I Pulle	SOL	The Diary of Soren Kierkegaard	Soren Kierkegaard
		The History Manifesto	Jo Guldi and David Armitage
		The Best American Infographics 2014	Gareth Cook (Editor) Nate Silver (Introduction)
Massimiliano Landi, Francesca Benvenuti	SOE SOSS	The Name of the Rose	Umberto Eco
Massimiliano Landi	SOE	The Late Mattia Pascal	Luigi Pirandello
Marijo Romero, Lee Pey Woan	SOSS SOL	Man's Search for Meaning	Viktor E. Frankl	(Marijo): Contains tips to tackle difficulty in life; (Lee): a short yet profound look at how man best responds in the face of unspeakable suffering.
Marijo Romero	SOSS	Long Walk to Freedom	Nelson Mandela
Daniel Zheng Zhichao	LKCSB	The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement	Eliyahu M. Golderatt, Jeff Cox
		Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions	Dan Ariely
		Fortune's Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street	William Poundstone
Jacob I. Ricks	SOSS	Les Miserables	Victor Hugo
Jacob I. Ricks	SOSS	A Christmas Carol	Charles Dickens
Giovanni Lunghi	LKCSB	Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep	Phillip K. Dick	Useful sociological ideas for dealing with futuristic, digital age technology
Giovanni Lunghi	LKCSB	Johnny Mnemonic, from "Burning Chrome"	William Gibson	Same as above
John Williams	SOSS	Heart of Darkness	Joseph Conrad
John Williams	SOSS	Perfume	Patrick Suskind
Francis Pavri	LKCSB	Sophie's World	Jostein Gaarder	Philosophy from Aristotle to Marx, but told in a non-boring and thought-provoking way
Amy Wong	LKCSB	Books by Lee Kuan Yew	-	Because of connection to SG50
Marianne Teo Moey	Centre for English Communication	Krakatoa	Simon Winchester	Highly readable style and insights on the human condition
Marianne Teo Moey	Centre for English Communication	The Ascent of Man	Jacob Bronowski	Same as above
Richard C. Davis	SIS	The Design of Everyday Things	Don Norman
Richard C. Davis	SIS	The Best Things in Life	Peter Kreeft
Toh Weng Choy	Centre for English Communication	Kaleidoscope - the Memoirs of PG Lim	Strategic Information and Research Development Centre, Kuala Lumpur
Howard Hunter	SOL	The Education of Henry Adams	Henry Adams
		Absalom, Absalom	William Faulkner
		Bleak House	Charles Dickens	For Law students
Tom Estad	LKCSB	Silent Spring	Rachel Carson
		The Ecology of Commerce	Paul Hawken
		Cradle to Cradle	William McDonough and Michael Braungart
Francesca Benvenuti	SOSS	The Master and Margarita	Mikhail Bulgakov
Ijlal Naqvi	SOSS	The Mantle of the Prophet	Roy Mottahedeh	Critical perspective on Islam, religion and Iran.
		The Unthought in Contemporary Islamic Thought	Mohammed Arkoun	Same as above
		The Anti-Politics Machine	James Fergusson	Examines the Role of the State in producing developmental outcomes; Students interested in development should, must, read these.
		Seeing Like a State	James Scott	Same as above
		Capitalist Development and Democracy	Rueschmeyer et al.	Same as above
John Donaldson	SOSS	Breakfast of Champions	Kurt Vonnegut	The series of short science fiction stories written within a longer story – the one about the helium balloons blows my mind. It is amazing how much science fiction can teach about our own past – and our present. And Kurt was the best at it, because he wasn’t writing science fiction, but rather he was writing literature that somehow and somewhat looked like science fiction. I loved his exploration of the nature of free will. But the most amazing part of the book is the explanation Vonnegut has an artist give – under duress and in the face of great skepticism – of an abstract piece of art he has produced. Through this artist, Vonnegut taught me that, despite the great struggles we all face, that God understands and loves us anyway. Kurt didn’t really say the God part, but that’s the message I got. Pretty cool message for a teenager struggling with nearly everything.
		Grapes of Wrath	John Steinback	Taught me that poor people on the surface look like our stereotypes – except that they are everything but. They are often bewildered, and always totally screwed. And Chapter 5 contains the best example of a social structure I’ve ever seen, and explains it better than any sociology textbook I could find. I assign that chapter to my students every time I teach about poverty. I still struggle to find the perfect academic reading that explains it better. My students ‘get it’ instantly, thanks to Steinbeck. And they always remember something that I learned first through Steinbeck: that poverty is not economic any more than a fever is about the thermometer (and economics is about as helpful – or maybe almost-but-not-quite-as-helpful – as a thermometer if you’re feeling sick). Rather, poverty is instead political.
		No Exit	Jean-Paul Sartre	I disagree with the author’s own interpretation of his work, that “Hell is other people.” I think the fact that any of the three characters could change the nature of hell if they could change their own nature or their own personality – but that they are able to. Then each has a chance to escape but doesn’t. To me, this shows that hell is not other people. It is ourselves – and our fear of vague fears and our unwillingness to embrace the unknown – that often puts us through hell. Hell is (at least sometimes, and certainly in this case) not other people, but ourselves.
Tan Wee Liang	LKCSB	Great Books of the Western World	Encyclopedia Britannica
Susheela Varghese	LKCSB	Born to Rebel	Frank Sulloway
Susheela Varghese	LKCSB	A Fine Balance	Rohinton Mistry

Got a Great Book you think should be part of this list? Let us know at library [at] smu.edu.sg (subject: Great%20Books) . Please give us your feedback on the exhibition, here.