This website is designed to help my math students at Los Medanos College find books to read. You might wonder why a math teacher wants people to read more books that aren’t about math. We’ll get to that. First, I need to get a few things out of the way.

First, this is not an official LMC website. Any opinions expressed here are those of individual contributors to the site, not those of Los Medanos College.

Second, you might not like all the books on this site. In fact, some of them might really upset you. There are several that I’m not sure I would want to read. That’s fine. This site isn’t a list of good books that I think everybody should read. It’s a list of books that somebody out there might find interesting. The books cover a wide range of topics. Some of these books involve child abuse. If you don’t want to read about child abuse, don’t read those books. Some of these books involve swearing, or drug dealers, or other things like that. If you don’t want to read about that sort of thing, don’t read those books. I’ve even included Harry Potter. If Harry Potter bothers you, don’t read it. You probably want to read the description on the back of a book before you read it, just in case I’ve missed something that might bother you.

Third, I haven’t read everything on here. Sometimes I’ve read part of a book. Sometimes I’ve read a bunch of reviews and critiques of the book. I’m making my way through the list, but if you notice a review that isn’t very long or detailed, you know why. I’m not just picking these books at random, though. Many of them are recommended by the American Library Association or by people I know and trust. Some of them, I hope, will be recommended by students (hint, hint).

Okay, now that I’ve got that taken care of, why should I, as a math teacher, want my students to read more books? The answer is really simple. I’m amazed more teachers haven’t figured it out. If you want to do any sort of useful math, either in class or in the real world, you will have to read. In school, we have word problems, where you might have to read five or ten sentences to find all the information you need. Do you hate world problems? Do they confuse you? Part of that is because a lot of them are badly written. Part of that is because mathematicians write in what is called the math register, which is kind of like slang for math people. How do you deal with this? You need better reading skills.

Math problems in the real world make word problems look easy. If you think reading five sentences is hard, try reading a hundred pages of corporate documents or financial reports to find all the facts you need. Again, you need good reading skills.

In my class, I’m going to ask you to write things, too. Usually I’ll have you write a few sentences, but sometimes I’ll ask for more. In the real world, if you want a good job, you’ll have to write pages. Maybe ten pages. Maybe fifty pages. Maybe five hundred. Even if it’s just a paragraph, people will judge you by your writing. No matter how smart or skilled you are, if your writing skills aren’t good, people will think you are stupid. I know that’s not fair, but that’s life. How do you become a better writer? Well, there are a lot of ways, but one of them is to read more.

How do you get better reading skills? You read. You read a lot. Make a habit of it. The more you read, the easier it gets. You’ll get faster. You’ll be able to read and understand more complicated stuff. You’ll get better at grammar and spelling, and you’ll become a better writer.

This won’t happen after one book, so you can’t just read something and then quit. You’ve got to read a lot of books. The easiest way to do that is to find books that you are willing and able to read. Pick books that sound fun or interesting. You might have to look around for these, but you’ll eventually be able to find something. I hope this website will help you with that part.

Don’t pick books that are too hard for you. Don’t worry if you come across words you don’t know. Look them up if you have to, but try to keep reading. You’ll either figure out what they mean or you’ll figure out that they don’t matter too much. Of course, if you have to read every sentence three times to understand what’s going on, or if you run into so many strange words that you can’t understand anything at all, try a different book.

If you find a few books you like while you are in my class, and if you keep reading all through college, you should be a strong reader and a better writer by the time you graduate. Most of you will never have to use logarithms or complex numbers once you’ve graduated from college, but you’ll all have to read and write.