The commonwealth college dean is on this trip (i've had chats with her), and I'm really tempted to tell her to quit with these "political" books. I'm sure she thinks its great for debate, but there really is no debate as almost everyone at umass is liberal. Why can't we just have some good old fashioned literature? Or, if they don't want it to seem too much like an English class, something cultural (like that Memoirs of a Geisha which was used another year).

You know I'm pretty liberal, but personally I'm with you. From what I've read about this Kingsolver book, I don't think I'm gonna like it either. When I heard what the book was gonna be I went to amazon and read some reviews. They were mixed. But I heard some negative stuff that (if its true) I agree with: like, how she complains about conserving energy but flies all over the world to her multiple houses. Hipocrasy really pisses me off.