Ladies and Gentlemen, the end of summer is nearly upon us. As the school year draws near, I want to recommend some light (and perhaps some not so light) reading in preperation. Just because there is a preponderance of liberals on campus doesn't mean that those of us on the other end of the spectrum or in the middle need to concede the battle of intellectualism. In fact, there's plenty of great conservative literature out there to feast your eyes upon.

Now I'm not talking about Ann Coulter's latest written diatribe or the newest screed put to paper by some other talking head. Please don't take offense if all you watch is Fox News. No, I'm talking about literature and nonfiction that even your professors can't pooh-pooh. If you want to not only hold your ground on campus but also to be taken seriously, here's a few suggestions.

-For a relatively quick read, I recommend an excellent essay by Tom Wolfe called "In the Land of the Rococo Marxists." You can find it in Mr. Wolfe's collection "Hooking Up" or click here to read it online. If you are unfamiliar with Tom Wolfe, he is a well renowned author of both fiction and nonfiction, having written bestselling novels and publishing his work in the New Yorker and Rolling Stone, among others. Wolfe is also considered one of the leading voices of the New Journalism movement that spawned out of the sixties.

-A bit longer, yet even more culturally important, is George Orwell's "1984." In some ways, Orwell has proven to be a prophet in his time of the tendency toward oppressive, nanny state government. Big Brother is watching, indeed.

-If you've got some serious time on your hands, I recommend starting Solzhenitsyn's "The Gulag Archipelago." This work opened the world's eyes to Stalin's brutality against the Russian people and helped garner him the Nobel Prize in Literature.

-Finally, for all those eggheads out there, I recommend some economics. A good place to start is Milton Friedman's "Capitalism and Freedom." This is the book that played a large role in convincing Arnold Schwarzenegger to be a Republican. If only our Democrat friends would read this book and/or take a class in microeconomics, the country would be in much better shape!

Feel free to post any more suggestions in the comment section. For more ideas, check out National Review's list of the 100 best nonfiction works of the 20th Century.