Lower Biennium Honors Books

1985-86
Semester 1: The Plague by Albert Camus, or Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich (student chooses one)
Semester 2: Ever Since Darwin, Stephen Jay Gould

1986-87
Semester 1: The Ascent of Man, Jacob Bronowski
Semester 2: All The King's Men, Robert Penn Warren

1987-88
Semester 1: The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins
Semester 2: The Periodic Table, Primo Levi

1988-89
Semester 1: Weapons and Hope, Freeman Dyson
Semester 2: The Closing of the American Mind (Part I), Allan Bloom

1989-90
Semester 1: A Canticle For Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller
Semester 2: Oedipus Trilogy, Sophocles

1990-91
Semester 1: The Thanatos Syndrome, Walker Percy
Semester 2: The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco

1991-92
Semester 1: Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Semester 2: The Star Thrower, Loren Eiseley

1992-93
Semester 1: The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell
Semester 2: Beloved, Toni Morrison

1993-94
Semester 1: Lila, An Inquiry Into Morals, Robert M.Pirsig
Semester 2: The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway

1994-95
Semester 1: The Poverty of Affluence, Paul L. Wachtel
Semester 2: Lost In Translation: A Life in a New Language by Eva Hoffman

1995-96
Semester 1: The Good Life by Yi-Fu Tuan
Semester 2: The Odyssey by Homer (tr. Robert Fitzgerald)

1996-97
Semester 1: Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
Semester 2: A Map of the World by Jane Hamilton

1997-98
Semester 1: The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles
Semester 2: Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? by Lorrie Moore

1998-99
Semester 1: A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man by James Joyce
Semester 2: Staggerford by John Hassler

1999-00
Semester 1: The Song of Roland translated by Glyn Burgess
Semester 2: Candide by Voltaire, translated by John Bull

2000-01
Semester 1: Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Semester 2: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

2001-02
Semester 1: The Stranger by Albert Camus
Semester 2: The Trial by Franz Kafka

2002-03
Semester 1: Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Semester 2: Passing Time: Memoir of a Vietnam Veteran Against the War by W. D. Ehrhart

2003-04
Semester 1: Taras Bulba by Nikolai Gogol
Semester 2: A Romantic Education by Patricia Hampl

2004-05
Semester 1: Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse
Semester 2: The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter

2005-06
Semester 1: Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel                                                                                                                                       Semester 2: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

2006-07 

Semester 1: Candide by Voltaire

Semester 2: The Company Car by C. J. Hribal