Reading
Lists
Grades
11 - 12 Many of the books are in our
Library. Non-Fiction Included.
A - B
Achebe, Chinua.
PURPLE HIBISCUS. This debut novel is both a superb portrait of an
unfamiliar culture
and an unflinching depiction of the universal turmoil of adolescence.
(F)
Aldersey-Williams, Hugh. THE MOST BEAUTIFUL MOLECULE.
Two chemists discover a previously
unknown form of carbon. (NF)
Allende, Isabel. HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS. This
family saga spanning four generations, is set against
the back drop of a country which is slowly growing and changing as
old ideals conflict with new. (F)
Alvarez, Julia. HOW THE GARCIA GIRLS LOST THEIR ACCENTS.
The Garcia family becomes
Americanized after fleeing the Dominican Republic in the 1960's.
(F)
Ambrose, Stephen E. UNDAUNTED COURAGE: MERIWETHER LEWIS,
THOMAS JEFFERSON,
AND THE OPENING OF THE AMERICAN WEST. This book examines the
people, events, and
significance of one of history’s greatest expeditions—the Lewis and
Clark Expedition, 1803-1806.(NF)
Anderson, M. T. FEED. A vision of the future in which
technology and advertising have not only
infiltrated every private corner of existence, but worse, have programmed
humanity to accept and even
like the situation. This is a smart savage satire about the nature of
consumerism and what it means to
teens in America. LA Times Book Festival Winner for teens.
Angelou, Maya. I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS.
Angelou recalls her life growing up in
segregated Stamps, Arkansas. (NF)
Atwood, Margaret. THE HANDMAID'S TALE. In Gilead in
the near future, fertile lower class women
serve as birth mothers for the upper class. The tale is an allegory
of what results from a politics based
on misogyny, racism and anti-Semitism.
Austen, Jane. EMMA. Young, rich Emma Woodhouse plays
matchmaker with unexpected results. (F)
Austen, Jane. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. In early 19th century
England, an empty-headed mother
schemes to find husbands for her five daughters. (F)
Baker, Russell. GROWING UP. Baker’s story tells of growing
up in America between the world wars.
(NF)
Baldwin, James. GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN.
Baldwin's autobiographical story of a Black child's
relationship with his father and
his life in Harlem. (F)
Bauer, Joan. RULES OF THE ROAD. 17 year old Jenna
gets a job driving the elderly owner of a chain of
successful shoe stores form
Chicago to Texas to prevent a company takeover. She hones her talents
as a saleswoman and finds the strength to face her alcoholic father. (F)
Beckett, Samuel. WAITING FOR GODOT: A TRAGICOMEDY IN TWO ACTS.
Written originally in
French by an Irish writer, this
powerful and symbolic portrayal of the human condition as one of
ignorance, delusion, paralysis, and intermittent flashes of human
sympathy, hope and wit, have been
subject to different interpretations. (Drama)
Bellow, Saul. SEIZE THE DAY. Recognized as one of
Bellow's most important works, this is the story
of the life of Tommy Wilhelm, a
loser with a soul. Tommy's engages the reader's sympathy in spite of
his failures. (F)
Bishop, Jim. THE DAY LINCOLN WAS SHOT. Bishop gives a
play-by-play account of the people and
events surrounding Lincoln’s assassination and death. (F)
Boorstin, Daniel. THE DISCOVERERS. Perhaps the greatest book
by one of our greatest historians,
Boorstin recounts the
history of scientific discovery. This is the story of how humankind has come
to
know the world, however incompletely. The first book of the
trilogy that includes The Creators and
The Seekers. (NF)
Bronte, Emily. WUTHERING HEIGHTS. In this intriguing tale of
revenge, the main characters are
controlled by their consuming passions. (F)
Brown, Dee Alexander. BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE. This
chronicle focuses on the 30-year
period, 1860-1890, in the history of the American West during which
the last resisting tribes were
defeated in Indian wars fought for possession of land. (NF)
Top
C - E
Camus, Albert. THE STRANGER. The antihero Meursault sees
his life driven by forces beyond his
control. (F)
Caputo, Philip. A RUMOR OF WAR. This first person account
describes a year that the author spent
fighting in Vietnam. (NF)
Carson, Rachel. SILENT SPRING. This landmark book spurred
revolutionary changes in U. S.
government policies toward the environment. (NF)
Chandler, Raymond. BIG SLEEP. This tale finds Philip
Marlowe, a hard-boiled detective in Hollywood in
the corrupt 1930's solving the mystery of the disappearance of his
client's son-in-law. This is
considered Chandler's best work.
Christie, Agatha. MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS. A man
is murdered on a train going from
Istanbul to Calais. Famous detective Hercule Poirot happens to be
on board to solve the mystery. A
mystery tour de force. (F)
Cisneros, Sandra. HOUSE ON MANGO STREET.
This is the story of Esperanza Cordero, a young girl
growing up in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago. (F)
Clancy, Tom. THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER. Based on a
true incident, the attempted defection of a
Soviet destroyer in 1975, the plot concerns the defection of the
submarine Red October carrying 26
Seahawk missiles able to destroy 200 cities and the 18 day, 4000
mile hunt across the Atlantic. (F)
Conroy, Pat. THE WATER IS WIDE. The author recounts his joys
and struggles in his tenure as a
schoolteacher and inspiration to children on a rural South Carolina island.
(F)
Cooper, James Fenimore. THE DEERSLAYER. Early American
confrontations between the Indians and
the woodsman Natty Bumppo are recounted. (F)
de Tocqueville, Alexis. DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. A French
political scientist comes to American in
the 1890's to rate American democracy. Some of his comments
are s (NF)
Dickens, Charles. PERSONAL HISTORY OF DAVID COPPERFIELD.
This fiction is partially based on the
autobiography Dickens had begun but soon abandoned. Many of
Dickens own experiences became
part of the story... work in a factory, his schooling, his
passion for Maria Beadnell and his emergence
from reporting into successful novel writing. (F)
Dickinson, Emily. COMPLETE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON.
A chronological arrangement of all known
Dickenson poems. (NF)
Dillard, Annie. AN AMERICAN CHILDHOOD. Poetry abounds
in this contemporary American author's
account of growing up in Pittsburgh. (NF)
Doctorow, E. L. RAGTIME. This novel, set in New York
City in the early 20th century, features three
stories and many historical characters. (F)
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT. The
novel is a psychological analysis of the poor
student Raskolnikov, who murders a St. Petersburg pawnbroker.
This sensitive individual is driven by
poverty to believe himself exempt from moral law. (F)
Dumas, Alexander. THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO.
Edmond Dantes, a young sailor is falsely accused
of reason by a jealous rival and thrown into a dark prison
cell for fourteen years. (F)
Edelman, Bernard. DEAR AMERICA. LETTERS HOME FROM VIETNAM.
Vietnam was a war that
embodied the turbulence and ferment of the
60's. For the soldiers, letters from home and contact with
the World, was a ray of sunshine. (NF)
Eliot, George. MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL. King Henry's
friendship with Thomas ŕ Becket turns into
a
battle between church and state in 12th century England. ((F)
Ellison, Ralph. INVISIBLE MAN. This novel depicts the terrifying
experiences of a young Black man
seeking his identity during the Depression. (F)
Emecheta, Buchi. BRIDE PRICE. Aku-nna, a very
young Ibo girl, and Chike, her teacher, fall in love
despite tribal custom forbidding their romance. (F)
Top
F - K
Faulkner, William.
AS I LAY DYING. This
is a Gothic account of a death in the family as told by each
character. (F)
Fielding, Henry. TOM JONES. This novel recounts the
life of Tom Jones, a wild and foolish, though
good-hearted, young man whose virtue eventually overcomes
adversity. (F)
Flatow, Ira. RAINBOWS, CURVE BALLS,
AND OTHER WONDERS. This reporter gives scientific
explanations for everyday mysteries. (NF)
Frazier, Charles. COLD MOUNTAIN. InMan, a wounded
Civil War soldier, endures the elements, The
Guard, and his own weakness and infirmity to return to his
sweetheart, Ada, who is fighting her own
battle to survive. (F)
Gaines, Ernest J.
A LESSON BEFORE DYING. A mentally slow, barely literate young
man, an innocent
bystander, is convicted of murder. His godmother turns to teacher Grant
Wiggins to help the boy face
his death with dignity. (F)
Garcia Marquez, Gabriel.
LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA. Florentino Ariza spots
Fermina Daza and
immediately falls in love. Although Fermina marries another, Florentino
remains faithful in his fashion. (F)
Gardner, John. GRENDEL. In
a unique interpretation of the Beowulf legend, the monster GRENDEL
relates his struggle to understand the ugliness in himself and
mankind in the brutal world of 14 century
Denmark. (F)
Goodwin,
Doris Kearns. WAIT TILL NEXT YEAR: A MEMOIR. Set on Long Island in
the 1950s, this
memoir mixes biography with baseball. (NF)
Green, Graham. THE POWER AND THE
GLORY. Set in Mexico, the story describes the desperate last
wanderings of a priest who is an outlaw in his own state. (F)
Guest, Judith. ORDINARY PEOPLE. When his brother
drowns in a boating accident, 17 year old Conrad
Jarrett feels responsible and makes an unsuccessful attempt at
suicide. After moths in an institution,
Conrad returns home to his parents crumbling marriage, friends who
are wary of him, and a psychiatrist
who works with him. (F)
Guterson, David. SNOW
FALLING ON CEDARS. In the 1950s, a Japanese American fisherman
is
accused of murder on a small island in the Puget Sound. (F)
Hawking, Stephen. A BRIEF
HISTORY OF TIME. One of the great minds of the 20th century presents
his ideas on the nature of time and the universe. (NF)
Heinlein, Robert.
STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND. An heroic stranger, a human born of
space travelers from earth, creates a a Utopian society in which people preserve
their individuality, but share a
brotherhood of community. (F)
Heller, Joseph. CATCH 22. In this satirical novel
Captain Yossarian confronts the hypocrisy of war and
bureaucracy as he frantically attempts to survive. (F)
Hemingway, Ernest.
A FAREWELL TO ARMS. An American lieutenant falls in love and runs
away with the woman who
nurses him to health. (F)
Hesse, Hermann. SIDDHARTHA. The young Indian
Siddhartha endures many experiences in his search
for the ultimate answer to the question, what is humankind's role
on earth? (F)
Homer. THE ILIAD and THE ODYSSEY. The Iliad details the
events of the few days near the end of the Trojan War, focusing on the
withdrawal of Achilles from the war. The Odyssey is the sequel to the
The Iliad and narrates the ten year's journey of Ulysses during his
return journey from Troy to his own Kingdom.
Hugo, Victor. LES
MISERABLES. A hardened criminal reforms becoming a successful
businessman and
mayor of his town. Despite this he is haunted by his impulsive,
regretted former crime and is pursued
by the police. (F)
Huxley, Aldous. BRAVE NEW
WORLD. This tale describes a world in which science has taken
control
over morality and humaneness. (F)
Joyce, James. PORTRAIT OF THE
ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN. This autobiographical novel "portrays the
childhood, school days, adolescence, and early manhood of Stephen Dedalus,
later one of the leading
characters in Ulysses. (F)
Kafka, Franz. The TRIAL. Joseph K., a respected back
assessor, is arrested and spends his remaining
years fighting charges about which he
has no knowledge. (F)
Kennedy, John F. PROFILES IN COURAGE. Award winning book of
biographies written by John Kennedy
during a long period of hospitalization and convalescence in 1954. The
biographies were chosen to
represent "problems of political courage in the face of constituent pressures, and the light shed on those
problems by the lives of past statesmen.
(NF)
Keneally, Thomas. SCHINDLER'S LIST. Oskar Schindler, a rich
factory owner, risks his life and spends
his personal fortune to save Jews listed
as his workers during World War II. Based on a true story. (F)
Kosinski, Jerzy. THE PAINTED BIRD. An abandoned dark-haired
child wanders alone through isolated
villages of Eastern Europe in World War
II. (F) (Not for the faint hearted)
Top
L - M
Lederer, William. THE UGLY AMERICAN. A runaway best seller
which was a slashing expose of Americans in Southeast Asia. American
corruption, arrogance, and incompetence are portrayed vividly and it is said
that the book caused President Eisenhower to launch a study of the military
aid program.
Lewis, Sinclair. MAIN STREET.
Carol Milford marries Will Kennicott after college and moves
to Gopher Prairie, Minnesota. She finds the village to be a smug,
intolerant, unimaginatively standardized place, where the people will not
accept her efforts to create a more improved village life.
Lord, Bette B. SPRING MOON. Her pampered home life destroyed, Spring Moon's
determination
dominates five generations in a heart-wrenching cultural and personal
history of a China in transition.
MacLean, Alistair. GUNS OF NAVARONE. A special group
of Allied Forces try to destroy two powerful guns off of Greece.
Maugham, W. Somerset. OF HUMAN BONDAGE. This is the story of
Philip Carey who lives with his religious aunt and uncle, who is eager for
life, love and adventure. After some adventures in Germany and France, he
settles in London to train as a doctor where he meets Mildred. This is the
first and most autobiographical of Maugham's masterpieces.
Melville, Herman. MOBY DICK. The whale is pursued in a fury of revenge by Captain Ahab, whose leg he has bitten off. Moby Dick becomes a symbol of the terrific forces of the natural universe. An epic tragedy of tremendous dramatic power.
Malamud, Bernard. THE FIXER. Yakov Bok fights for his life when he becomes the victim of a vicious anti-Semitic conspiracy and is unjustly sent to a Russian prison.
Markandaya, Kamala. NECTAR IN A SIEVE. Natural diseases, an arranged marriage, and industrialization of her village are the challenges Rukmani faces as the bride of a peasant farmer in southern India.
Mishima, Yukio. THE SOUND OF WAVES. The lives of two young lovers are followed on a small Japanese island untouched by modern civilization.
Morrison, Toni. BELOVED. The novel, set
in the last part of the 19th century, focuses on the life of a runaway slave
woman and her struggle with the unspeakable pain of her past.
Top
O - S
O'Brien, Tim. THE THINGS THEY CARRIED: A WORK OF FICTION.
These stories follow Tim O'Brien's
platoon of American soldiers through a variety of personal and military
encounters during the Vietnam
War.
Pasternak, Boris. DOCTOR ZHIVAGO.
The life of a Russian intellectual, doctor and poet
before and during the Russian revolution.
Payton, Alan. CRY, THE BELOVED COUNTRY. A Zulu country parson searches for his son who is accused of the murder of a young white attorney whose interests had been with the natives.
Plath, Sylvia. THE BELL JAR. Plath tells the story of her nervous breakdown and her therapy through her character Esther Greenwood.
Poe, Edgar. TALES OF TERROR: TEN SHORT STORIES. Ten of Poe's
terrifying tales are told in this
collection.
Rand, Ayn. ATLAS SHRUGGED and
THE FOUNTAINHEAD. The books reflect Rand's philosophy of
individualism and rational self-interest, the author's concept of
Objectivism. In the first book, the characters look for protection from the
government and their creativity and independence is lost. In the second
book, the hero fiercely pursues his own ideas in his field of architecture.
Rostand, Edmond.
CYRANO DE BERGERAC. A drama performed in 1897, it is set in 17th
century Paris. The story revolves around the problems of the noble,
swashbuckling Cyrano, who feels that no woman can ever love him because of
his enormous nose.
Shaw, George Bernard. PYGMALION.
Henry Higgins successfully teaches Eliza Doolittle to speak and act like a
duchess, but she adamantly refuses to be his creation.
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft.
FRANKENSTEIN. Read of the exploits of Frankenstein, a student of
natural
philosophy who discovers the secret of imparting life to inanimate matter.
Singer, Isaac. B. THE COLLECTED STORIES OF ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER. Short stories of irony, humor, mysticism, and strength from the renowned Yiddish writer.
Spiegelman, Art. MAUS: A SURVIVOR'S TALE AND MAUS II: A SURVIVOR'S TALE: AND HERE MY TROUBLES BEGAN. Using comic book format, the author chronicles his father's experience of the Holocaust and the impact on his family. (NF)
Singh, Simon. FERMAT'S ENIGMA: THE EPIC QUEST TO SOLVE THE WORLD'S GREATEST MATHEMATICAL PROBLEM. A Princeton professor pursues a lifelong dream of solving a 350 year old mathematical problem.
Steinbeck, John. CANNERY ROW. An account of the adventures
and misadventures of workers in a
California cannery and their friends.
Styron, William. THE CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER. A
fictionalized account of events based on a brief
contemporary pamphlet presented to a trial court after the revolt of
slaves led by Nat Turner in 1831.
Styron, William. SOPHIE'S CHOICE. A young Southerner wants
to become a writer, a turbulent love-
hate affair between a brilliant Jew and a beautiful Polish woman and of an
awful wound in the woman's
past come together in this story of destruction.
Swift, Jonathan. GULLIVER'S TRAVELS.
Swift satirizes the entire spectrum of social values from four different
points of view. The huge Bobdingnagians reduce man to his natural
insignificance, the Lilliputians parody Europe, philosophers are ridiculed
in Laputa, and lastly all of Swift's hatred and contempt lead to his
degrading humanity to a bestial condition.
Top
T - W
Tolstoy, Leo. ANNA KARENINA. The story of a tragic love as
Anna abandons her child and husband and
in the end commits suicide. The subplot is the love of Konstantin and his
wife Kitty who lead the life that
mirrors Tolstoy's desire for a natural simple existence.
Tolstoy, Leo. WAR AND PEACE. The story covers the years
1805-1820, centering on the invasion of
Russia by Napoleon's army focusing on the lives of several main characters
as they progress from their
youth to a greater understanding of life.
Twain, Mark. THE
ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN. The story of the journey of Huck and the
runaway
slave, Jim, that captures the smells, rhythms, sounds, variety of dialects and the
human
activity of life on the great river.
Vonnegut, Kurt. SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE; OR THE
CHILDREN'S CRUSADE. This novel mixes a fictionalized account of
the author's experience of the fire bombing of Dresden with a fantasy of the
planet Tralfamadore. The science fiction element is dominated by satire,
black humor, and absurdism.
Wilde, Oscar. THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST. Can a baby,
abandoned at Victoria Station, grow up to find love, romance, identity, and
the importance of being earnest.
Williams, Tennessee. THE GLASS MENAGERIE. A brother is haunted
by the memory of his teenage sister who takes refuge from the world in her
collection of glass animal figurines.
Wouk, Herman. THE CAINE MUTINY. The old American mine sweeper
'Caine" patrols the Pacific during World War II. The action shifts from the
bridge of the ship to the wardroom and from scenes of petty tyranny on the
part of the skipper to incidents of fierce action and heroism on the part of
the men. Eisign Willie Keith is assigned to the ship and leads a mutiny
against the paranoid Captain Queeg.
Wright, Richard. NATIVE SON. Bigger Thomas is driven by anger, hate, and frustration. When he gets a job with a white family, he is confused by their behavior and misinterprets their patronizing friendships.
Last
updated: 10.20.2006
Woodbridge High
Library | Irvine, California 92614