I recommend: The Naked Roommate. Its more of a freshmen intro into college life, but it has a good section on Greek life. It talks about the good and the bad, but is pro Greek all the way through. The guy who wrote it was in a fraternity as well.

I actually had that. I thought it was a preety handy book, though of course YMMV. Oh and FYP.

This is slightly off topic, but I have to share, and this seemed a reasonable place.

Along with keeping an eye open for fraternity/sorority histories, I also keep an eye open for pledge manuals. I've found two in the last few weeks. Yesterday, I was reading through one I bought this weekend (I'll leave the GLO unidentified, but it's the 2006 edition of their manual) and found this in the section on the Greek alphabet:

Adding to the peculiarity of the fraternity language is the fact that a few Greek letters, particularly Xi and Phi, have several pronunciations. After a consonent, they are pronounced "z-eye" and "f-eye." After a vowel the pronuncation changes to "z-ee" ad "f-ee." For example, Alpha Xi Delta is pronounced "Alpha Z-ee Delta," and Theta Xi is pronounced "Theta Z-eye."

I laughed hard at this Greek urban legend being perpetuated in print in a pledge manual -- especially when a page or two later they refer to other orgs, including Alpha Phi Alpha and Alpha Phi Omega. I'm pretty willing to bet that the writer doesn't follow the rule he just recited and call them "Alpha F-ee Alpha" and "Alpha F-ee Omega."

Whichever this GLO is, they aren't alone. When I googled for the quoted text, two *different* Social Fraternities came up as hits (or close hits) for it. These were in copies of their pledge manuals that are in public sections of their National website.

Oh, they may be alone. I googled too, and while one of the two fraternities I assume you came across had the same first sentence, the full paragraph read this way:

Adding to the peculiarity of the fraternity language is the fact that a few Greek letters (particularly Xi and Phi) have several pronunciations. Sometimes both a Greek and an English form are used in the same name because the particular group prefers it that way — “Alpha Phee” for Alpha Phi. Therefore, be alert to the exceptions to the rules.

Interesting because that section of the pledge manual is very similar to the one I was looking at. But Kappa Sigma edited and got it right. ;)

Yeah, but I couldn't go into greater depth without identifying the fraternities. Was the other one that Google brought up the one that you found?

Yep.

Yeah, I don't see a thread of pointing out things that are wrong in other GLOs pledge manuals and identifying the GLO as being healthy for greekchat.

So getting back to books, if someone is interested in joining a particular GLO and that GLO has their pledge manual online, would you recommend they read it?

(The general silliness of reading another org's pledge manual aside) How on Earth can an outsider point out what's wrong with other GLOs' pledge manuals? Aside from historical inconsistencies.

Thank you for posting that. I have seen that book and wondered about it. My oldest step son graduates high school tomorrow and will be attending college in the fall.

I read it and also like it.

Why is it silly? I find it really informative and interesting. There's nothing in it that outsiders shouldn't read.

And what I pointed out is right in line with an historical inaccuracy. No special fraternity knowledge required.

I'm not talking about you. Other than historical inaccuracies, how could an outsider correct a pledge manual?

I Heart Recruitment
 

Because I'm a nerd for all things Greek, I ordered "I Heart Recruitment" and it came yesterday. I read it from cover-to-cover in a about an hour. I loved the book and it was pretty uplifting. It is true, EVERY GLO has something to offer. I appreciated the message! Thanks for the advice about getting this book!

Kappa Alpha Theta has a few hsitory books. I too must agree that the history is fascinating and there is no way everything could possibly be touched on in member education.

I have and own all of Theta's history books except for one, Kite Flight. I'm always on the look out for it.