75 Readings [Paperback]

Santi Buscemi (Author), Charlotte Smith (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 007312513X | ISBN-13: 978-0073125138 | Publication Date: July 7, 2006 | Edition: 10

75 Readings offers an outstanding collection of the most popular essays for first-year writing, at an affordable price. The readings represent a wide variety of authors, disciplines, issues, and interests, and at less than $20 net (half the price of most readers), 75 Readings offers an excellent value for students..

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Santi V. Buscemi is professor of English and chair of the Department of English at Middlesex County College in Edison, New Jersey, where he teaches reading and writing. He received his B.A. from St. Bonaventure University, and completed studies for the doctorate at the University of Tennessee. He is the author of A READER FOR DEVELOPING WRITERS (McGraw-Hill), now in its third edition; AN ESL WORKBOOK (McGraw-Hill); and coauthor with Charlotte Smith of 75 READINGS PLUS (McGraw-Hill). He is also chief author of McGraw-Hill's ALLWRITE!, an interactive computer software program in rhetoric, grammar, and research.

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages; 10 edition (July 7, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 007312513X
• ISBN-13: 978-0073125138
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #160,704 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #85 in Books > Education & Reference > Encyclopedias > Art

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dealing with a certain style, February 6, 2011

By 

S. Wozniak "scribbler" (MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 75 Readings: An Anthology (Paperback)

I adopted this book for two sections of ENG 101 at a community college. I know there is a controversy over teaching literature in ENG 101 and this is not a literary collection. Indeed, the selections are well rounded.

I approach teaching this class with several concerns foremost in my mind:
The poor vocabularies of today's young people.
The inadequate knowledge of science among the same group.
The manner in which discussions of history are conducted in this country.
The fact that so little literature is read by far too many of today's students.
The death of the sophomore literature survey course (Romantic Poets, Elizabethan Drama, Contemporary Drama, 19th C. American Literature, etc.)

I selected this book because it has selections on science, history and politics as well as memoirs and classics (Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal).

101 is the introduction to college writing and the course that teaches students how to research. I offer the students 8 choices of what I call projects, books which should serve as the basis for their research paper as well as for a compare and contrast paper (one of three essays). This semester, I offered them Shakespeare's 12th Night; The Short Stories of Eudora Welty; The Narrative of Frederick Douglass; Brave New World; Nineteen Eighty-Four; Poems of Love; the Ramona Quimby novels of Beverly Cleary, and Ever Since Darwin by Stephen Jay Gould. The idea is to offer substance and choice; stimulate thought and dialog; familiarize them with history and science; look ahead to potential teaching careers and more.

I do not teach a political point of view. No responsible teacher should. That Buscemi and Smith included opposing views on global warming and social responsibility is wonderful. But, I do have problems with two of the essays, both in the cause and effect section. One is by Shelby Steele and the other by Barbara Dafoe Whitehead. As both authors represent a conservative point of view, I would love to have the students read these essays. Steele's old essay, written in 1990, displays his anger and his conservative politics. Are these teenaged students sophisticated enough to tease out that his stance stems from both? Whitehead's piece earned from me the same criticism that others have leveled at the organization she co-directs, the National Marriage Project: that some of her (its) claims are not substantiated. Recognizing her tendency toward strawman arguments, I can choose to ignore her work, and, I probably will. However, I could pair it the Jonathan Kozal essay offered in the argument section of the book (and with a couple of selected installments of Mad Men, if I had the time), but. . . is there a value in offering an example of bad writing? That is the crux of the matter, isn't it?

So, why did Buscemi and Smith offer a flawed, incendiary piece (Steele's) and a sloppily written piece in an otherwise excellent anthology?

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lots of content and two tables of contents, June 28, 2000

By 

Horvath Jozsef (Pecs, Hungary) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 75 Readings: An Anthology (Paperback)

This collections of essays pack loads of different styles and ideas. Diverse and rich, 75 Readings lets me find texts by following either a thematic or a structural path: The two tables of contents are a smart idea.

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome Book Review, November 29, 2011

By 

Alex M. Chettiath "The Cheetah" (Redlands, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: 75 Readings: An Anthology (Paperback)

Well it is a book full of essay or short stories. This is meant for education and this is not really a book just for enjoyment. It is a good book for education purposes.