Read, Investigate, Prepare
Annotated College Bound Reading List
Life’s Great Questions
Scott, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer yet her cells, taken without her knowledge, became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions. Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.
Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring.
This landmark book about pesticides and other chemicals gave birth to the environmental movement and is still chillingly relevant today.
Picoult, Jodi. My Sister’s Keeper.
My Sister's Keeper examines what it means to be a good parent, a good sister, a good person. Is it morally correct to do whatever it takes to save a child's life, even if that means infringing upon the rights of another? Is it worth trying to discover who you really are, if that quest makes you like yourself less? Should you follow your own heart, or let others lead you?
Albom, Mitch. Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man and Life’s Greatest Lesson.
Albom’s Tuesday night visits with his dying sociology professor, Morrie, offers valuable lessons about the art of living and dying with dignity.
Wiesel, Elie. Night.
Through his reflections of the time leading up to and including his experiences in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps, Wiesel explores belief in God in the face of tragedy and the inhumanity of man toward his fellow humans.
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden and Other Essays
For two years and two months, Thoreau decided to live in the Concord Wilderness near Walden Pond, as an experiment in self-reliance. One of the best known American texts, it is no surprise that Walden has rarely been out of print since its publication in 1854.
Allison, Gediman, Gregory, Merrick, editors. This I Believe
Based on the National Public Radio series of the same name, This I Believe features eighty essayists--from the famous to the unknown--completing the thought that begins the book's title. Each piece compels readers to rethink not only how they have arrived at their own personal beliefs but also the extent to which they share them with others.
Shelly, Mary. Frankenstein.
1818 story of a brilliant scientist who is obsessed with creating a living human being.
Our Artistic Side
McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art.
McCloud tells the history of using pictures to tell stories and explains how comics are created and how they should be read.
Livingstone, Lili Cockerville. American Indian Ballerinas.
Four Native American Women from Oklahoma share the struggles and triumphs of their dance careers and personal lives in stories that inspire with courage and beauty.
Friedlander, Paul. Rock and Roll: A Social History
This book chronicles the first forty years of rock/pop music history. Picture the various musical styles as locations on a giant unfolding road map. As you open the map, you travel from place to place, stopping at each chapter to sample the artistry.
Corio, David, and Vivian Goldman. The Black Chord.
The often painful evolution of African American music is explored with a funky text by Vivian Goldman and lively, original photographs by David Corio.
Goldbert, Vicki. The Power of Photographs: How Photography Changed Our Lives.
The history of the photograph is traced from the daguerreotype to the present. Famous photographs are reproduced and studied for their influence on larger events such as the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement.
Strickland, Carol. The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modern.
Featuring succinct page-length essays, instructive sidebars, and more than 300 photographs, The Annotated Mona Lisa takes art history out of the realm of dreary textbooks, demystifies jargon and theory, and makes art accessible.
The Play’s The Thing
Shakespeare, William. Midsummer Night’s Dream.
A forest, four young lovers, a group of actors, some fairies and the imaginative power of love.
Miller, Arthur. Death of A Salesman.
Pulitzer Prize winning play in which a traveling salesman “riding on a smile and a shoeshine” realizes that his dreams will never be real.
Shakespeare, William. King Lear
King Lear decides to divide his kingdom among his daughters, according to how well they express their love for him. Political deception and romantic jealousy cause tragic ends for all.
Shaw, George Bernard. Pygmalion.
Professor Higgins bets a friend he can turn common Eliza Doolittle into a duchess.
Wilder, Thornton Our Town
First produced in 1938, the Pulitzer-Prize winning Our Town has become an American stage treasure and is Wilder's most renowned and frequently performed play. Set at the turn of the 20th century, the play reveals the ordinary lives of the people in the small town of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, U.S.A.
Bryson, Bill. Shakespeare: The World as Stage.
Witty exploration of the world of Shakespeare and the mystery surrounding the man and his plays.
Graphic Novels
Satrapi, Marjane. The Complete Persepolis.
Satrapi’s graphic memoir beginning with her childhood in Iran during the Islamic Revolution.
Spiegelman, Art. Maus, A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History. Maus II, A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began
The author portrays his parents’ experiences during the Holocaust and their time at Auschwitz, survival and years in the United States, along with his own struggle to come to terms with the past.
Gaiman, Neil & P. Craig Russell Sandman: The Dream Hunters.
Prose folktale of a Buddhist monk and the fox who loves him in an exquisitely beautiful graphic novel inspired by traditional Asian art.
Sciences
Hawking, Stephen. A Brief History of Time.
One of the great minds of our time, Stephen Hawking’s book explores such profound questions as: How did the universe begin—and what made its start possible? Does time always flow forward? Is the universe unending—or are there boundaries? Are there other dimensions in space? What will happen when it all ends? The best part? Only one equation in the entire book!
Ayres, Ian. Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart.
With real life examples from sports, medicine, online dating and airline pricing Ayres describes how data about all of us are collected and ‘crunched” to profile consumers and make predictions.
Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies.
The rise of human civilizations is explained in terms of geography, ecology and the development of agriculture by this professor of physiology and geography.
Pollan, Michael. The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World.
Traces the evolution of apples, tulip, cannabis and potatoes in four chapters titled sweetness, beauty, intoxication and control – to demonstrate the complex, reciprocal relationships between humans and the natural world.
Brown, David. Inventing Modern America: From the Microwave to the Mouse.
Brown reveals the human stories and faces behind American scientific and technological innovations and achievements from the computer mouse to the pacemaker.
Horvitz, Leslie A. Eureka! Scientific Breakthroughs That Changed The World.
Explores the dramatic events and thought processes of 12 great minds that led to profound scientific discoveries, including television and double helix.
War, Conflict and the human spirit
Keneally, Thomas. Schindler’s List
Oskar Schindler, a rich German factory owner, risks his life and spends his personal fortune to save Jews listed as his workers during WWII.
Shapiro, Harvey, editor. Poets of World War II.
They have been called the Greatest Generation, and in their own voices they reveal the true price of their call to arms.
Galloway, Steven. The Cellist of Sarajevo.
This brilliant novel tells the story of three people trying to survive in a city rife with fear, and of the sorrowing cellist who plays undaunted in their midst. One day a shell lands in a bread line and kills twenty-two people as the cellist watches from a window in his flat. He vows to sit in the hollow where the mortar fell and play Albinoni’s Adagio once a day for each of the twenty-two victims.
Hemingway, Ernest. A Farewell to Arms.
World War I is the setting for this love story of an English nurse and a wounded ambulance officer.
O’Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried.
Interrelated short stories follow O’Brien’s platoon of American soldiers through a variety of personal and military encounters during the Vietnam War.
Lefevre, Didier, Lemercier, Frederic & Guibert, Emmanuel. The Photographer: Into War-Torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders.
A unique graphic novel chronicling the three-week journey of Didier Lefèvre, a photojournalist, over the mountains with pack animals to visit M*A*S*H-style clinics. His photos tell stories of the Afghani people and their magnificent country, while Guibert’s drawings tell the story of Lefèvre.
Remarque, Erich. All Quiet on the Western Front.
Follows the life of 19 year old German soldier Paul Baumer during World War I. Paul joins thearmy along with his friends, after hearing romantic tales of war from their school teachers. They quickly learn the reality of the monotony, horror and cruelty of war.
Beah, Ishamael. A Long Way Gone. Memoirs of a Boy Soldier.
Beah was a 12-year-old child soldier, hopped up on drugs and wielding an AK-47, swept up in the horrors of civil war in his homeland of Sierra Leone.
Myers, Walter Dean. Sunrise Over Fallujah.
An 18-year old growing up in Harlem, Robin always intended to go to college. But after September 11, he decides instead to volunteer for the army.
Amazing and True
Alexander,Caroline. The Endurance. Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition
In August 1914. the renowned explorer Ernest Shackleton and a crew of twenty-seven set sail for the South Atlantic in pursuit of the last unclaimed prize in the history of exploration: the first crossing on foot of the Antarctic continent. Weaving a treacherous path through the freezing Weddell Sea, they came within eighty-five miles of their destination when their ship, Endurance, was trapped fast in the ice pack.
Krakauer, John. Into Thin Air
In Nepal in 1996 to report on the commercialization of climbing Everest, Krakauer became a witness to disaster when eight climbers were killed and several others were stranded by a storm.
Junger, Sebastian. The Perfect Storm. A True Story of Men against the Sea.
Adventure narrative about the doomed swordfish boat and the crew that perished in 1991 off the coast of Nova Scotia.
Larson, Erik. The Devil in the White City Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair That Changed America.
The 1893 Chicago World’s Fair captured the imagination of the whole world, and also provided a playground for a cunning serial killer.
Mortenson, Greg and David Oliver Relin. Three Cups of Tea. One Man’s Mission to promote Peace Once School at a Time.
Lost and near death following an unsuccessful attempt to climb K2, Mortenson is nursed back to health in a remote village. Out of gratitude, he returns to build a school there.
Simon, Rachel. Riding the Bus with My Sister: A True Life Journey.
Simon begins to accompany his sister, who is developmentally delayed, on her days spent riding buses in the Pennsylvania city where she lives.
Katz, Jon. Geeks. How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho
Eddie and Jesse, poor high school students, social outcasts and online geeks find that an obsession with computers and technology is their ticket to college and success.
Poets – not all Dead
Ciardi, John and Miller, Williams. How Does A Poem Mean?
A poet and a critic discuss the value and nature of poetry, using selections from six centuries of American and English poems.
Blum, Joshua, Editor. The United States of Poetry.
Contemporary poems enhanced by outstanding photographs and other illustrations highlight poets ranging from Nobel laureates to Rappers.
Gillan, Maria Mazziotti, and Gillan, Jennifer. Editors. Unsettling America: An Anthology of Contemporary Multicultural Poetry.
Poetry “feast” challenges stereotypes about who or what is America.
Sporting tales
Asinof, Eliot. Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series.
The players, the scandal, the shame and the damage the 1919 World Series caused America’s national pastime.
Bissinger, H.G. Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team and a Dream.
Follows individual team members and townspeople exploring racial attitudes and favoritism shown to the athletes, representing both the flaws and the attraction of the football craze in Texas.
Blais, Madeline. In These Girls, Hope Is A Muscle.
Learn about the year of heart, sweat, and muscle that transformed the Amherst Lady Hurricanes basketball team into state champions.
Coulton, Larry. Counting Coup: A True Story of Basketball and Honor on the Little Big Horn.
Working through racism, alcoholism and domestic violence, the players on Hardin High School’s basketball team struggle to win in life as well as on the court.
Dystopia
Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World
Classic science fiction work set in London during the 26th century. Serves as a warning to the dangers of governments that grow increasingly powerful and invasive of its citizens liberties.
Anderson, M.T. Feed.
In this society your brain cyberfeed provides an endless stream of information, entertainment and advertising.
Card, Orson Scott. Ender’s Game.
In a world decimated by alien attacks, the government trains young geniuses like Ender Wiggin in military strategy with increasingly complex computer games.
Biographies
Angelou, Maya. I know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
Angelou traces her coming of age in 1930’s and 40’s America.
Mah, Adeline. Chinese Cinderella: The True Story of an Unwanted Daughter.
Wu Mei is the fifth Younger Sister of her family, and the one who bears the blame for all their bad fortune.
Goodwin, Doris Kearns. Team of Rivals
Illuminates Lincoln's political genius, as the prairie lawyer rises from obscurity to prevail over three gifted rivals of national reputation to become president. The story follows as Lincoln then brings his disgruntled opponents together, creates the most unusual cabinet in history, and marshals their talents to the task of preserving the Union and winning the war.
McBride, James. The Color of Water. A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother.
McBride blends his own story with that of his white mother, who battled poverty and racism to raise 12 children in Queens.
Frank, Anne. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
Frank was a Holocaust victim born and raised in the Netherlands. Her diary begins during WWII when she was 13 years of age and Jews were already wearing yellow stars in Amsterdam.
Wolfe, Tom. The Right Stuff.
The story of post WWII American test pilots and the first American Astronauts. It is both a candid and entertaining account of their lives and accomplishments.
Journeys
Anderson, Laurie Halse. Speak
Calling the police to a party is a tough choice but what made Melinda call is the devastating secret that keeps her locked in silence.
Haddon, Mark. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
Fifteen-year-old Christopher, who has Asperger’s syndrome, has two mysteries to solve: who killed Wellington the dog, and what happened to his mother.
Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner.
The first Afghan novel to be written in English, The Kite Runner tells a sweeping story of family, love, and friendship that takes us from Afghanistan in the final days of the monarchy to the atrocities of the present.
Kidd, Sue Monk. The Secret Life of Bees.
Searching for the truth about her mother’s life and death, a grieving Lily finds the answers, love and acceptance where she least expects them.
Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye
Pecola yearns to have beautiful blue eyes like the little white girls she sees. The Bluest Eye is a powerful coming of age novel not to be missed.
Allende, Isabel. The House of the Spirits
Allende’s most famous novel chronicles the life of a family, as the patriarch grows from a child to an elder, with the world changing all around him while he tries to keep it the same. Through the lenses of the Trueba family, we follow the portion of Chilean history that eventually leads to the 1973 coup.
Alexie, Sherman. Indian Killer
A serial murderer is terrorizing Seattle, hunting and scalping white men. Seattle's Native Americans are shaken and confused, none more so than John Smith. Born Indian, raised white, Smith desperately yearns for his lost heritage and seeks his elusive true identity.
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. One Hundred Years of Solitude.
The book is considered García Márquez's masterpiece, metaphorically encompassing the history of Colombia. The novel chronicles a family's struggle, and the history of their fictional town, Macondo,
for one hundred years.
Dorris, Michael. A Yellow Raft in Blue Water
At times separated by hardships and angry secrets but always bonded by kinship, three generations of Native American women tell their stories in their search for self-identity.
Wright, Richard. Black Boy: A Record of Childhood and Youth.
Wright recalls his pre-World War II youth when racial and personal obstacles seemed insurmountable.
Alvarez, Julia. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents.
Collection of 15 tales that chronicle a Dominican family’s exile to the Bronx. A common thread running through the stories is the four Garcia daughters’ rebellion against their immigrant elders, highlighting the tensions families undergo as younger members look to the foreign culture and leave their traditions behind.
A Sense of time and place
Zuzak, Marcus. The Book Thief.
Living in Nazi Germany, young Liesel and her family choose to lie and steal to protect a Jewish refugee hiding in their basement. Narrated by Death, this is not your typical WWII story.
Follet, Ken. The Pillars of the Earth.
Epic tale of ambition, anarchy, and absolute power set against the canvas of 12th-century England. Fascinating characters and a spellbinding introduction to medieval religion, architecture, politics and daily life.
Chevalier, Tracy. Girl with a Pearl Earring.
Sixteen year old Griet tells the story of her time as a maid in the busy 17th century household of Delft painter Johannes Vermeer. Griet has an artistic eye and eventually becomes assistant and muse to the famous artist. But she is confined to the class system of her time.
Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice.
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." So begins Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen's witty comedy of manners--one of the most popular novels of all time--that features splendidly civilized sparring between the proud Mr. Darcy and the prejudiced Elizabeth Bennet as they play out their spirited courtship in a series of eighteenth-century drawing-room intrigues
Fitzgerald. F. Scott. The Great Gatsby
A portrait of the Jazz Age in all of its decadence and excess, Gatsby captured the spirit of the author's generation and earned itself a permanent place in American mythology. Self-made, self-invented millionaire Jay Gatsby embodies some of Fitzgerald's--and his country's--most abiding obsessions: money, ambition, greed, and the promise of new beginnings.
Classics
(The Dead or Nearly Dead Namesakes of our List)
Foster, Thomas. How to Read Literature like a Professor.
All authors leave clues to lead readers deeper into the inner meanings of their writings. Learn how to follow literary breadcrumbs in any story with this practical and entertaining guide.
Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath.
An Oklahoma farmer and his family leave the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression to go to the promised land of California. A powerful novel that poses questions about justice, ownership and stewardship of the land, the role of government, power and the very foundations of capitalist society.
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Huck Finn, the novel’s 13 year old narrator is escaping his abusive father. Jim, who joins him on his flight to freedom, is escaping slavery. Set in 1830’s Missouri.
Stoker, Bram. Dracula.
Naïve young Englishman who travels to Transylvania to do business with a client, Count Dracula.
Golding, William. Lord of the Flies.
The classic tale of a group of English schoolboys who are stranded on a deserted island during a nuclear war.
Steinbeck, John. Of Mice and Men.
This is a novel about the friendship between two men and a murder. The main characters are Lenny, a large man with a mental disability, and George, a smaller, quick-witted man. They are migrant workers
in California during the 1930’s.
Orwell, George. 1984.
In a society of the future, individual privacy is invaded as the Thought Police persuade the people that “War is peace – Freedom is Slavery – Ignorance is Strength.”
Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird.
A young girl tells of life in a small Alabama town in the 1930s and her father’s defense in court of an African American accused of raping a white woman.
Heller, Joseph. Catch-22
In this satirical novel, Captain Yossarian confronts the hypocrisy of war and bureaucracy as he frantically attempts to survive.
Salinger, J.D. The Catcher in the Rye.
A bawdy, hilarious and touching tale of a sixteen-year-old’s wanderings in New York for three days after he is dropped from his school.
Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle.
This gritty description of urban life at the turn of the century shows the moral and physical degradation of a “jungle” in which humans barely live better than animals.
Poe, Edgar Allan. The Fall of the House of Usher, and other Tales.
Desolation and impending doom press heavily on these splendid tales of physical horror and psychological terror.
Hear Me Roar
Words of Struggle and Change
Horton, Ros. "Women Who Changed the World",
A celebration of the achievements of womankind, this book honors fifty amazing women and the incredible impact they have had on our world. From empire builders and healers to daring explorers and iconoclastic thinkers, these are moving stories of dedication, conflict, tragedy and triumph, as dramatic as any fiction. Each will both inspire readers and provide a greater understanding of the crucial role these women played in shaping our culture and history.
Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique.
Many feel that the first edition of this book precipitated the women’s liberation movement by inspiring new appraisals of roles and aspirations.
Hansen, Drew. The Dream: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Speech that inspired a nation.
The fascinating and little known history of King’s August 1963 speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
Cuomo, Kerry Kennedy. Speak Truth to Power.
Human Rights Defenders Who Are Changing Our World. Collection of autobiographical sketches of ordinary people from 25 countries who are leading the fight to ensure basic human rights for everyone.
Ford, Michael Thomas. The Voices of AIDS:
Twelve Unforgettable people Talk about how AIDS has changed their lives.
Read, Investigate, Prepare
Annotated College Bound Reading List
Life’s Great Questions
Scott, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer yet her cells, taken without her knowledge, became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions. Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.
Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring.
This landmark book about pesticides and other chemicals gave birth to the environmental movement and is still chillingly relevant today.
Picoult, Jodi. My Sister’s Keeper.
My Sister's Keeper examines what it means to be a good parent, a good sister, a good person. Is it morally correct to do whatever it takes to save a child's life, even if that means infringing upon the rights of another? Is it worth trying to discover who you really are, if that quest makes you like yourself less? Should you follow your own heart, or let others lead you?
Albom, Mitch. Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man and Life’s Greatest Lesson.
Albom’s Tuesday night visits with his dying sociology professor, Morrie, offers valuable lessons about the art of living and dying with dignity.
Wiesel, Elie. Night.
Through his reflections of the time leading up to and including his experiences in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps, Wiesel explores belief in God in the face of tragedy and the inhumanity of man toward his fellow humans.
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden and Other Essays
For two years and two months, Thoreau decided to live in the Concord Wilderness near Walden Pond, as an experiment in self-reliance. One of the best known American texts, it is no surprise that Walden has rarely been out of print since its publication in 1854.
Allison, Gediman, Gregory, Merrick, editors. This I Believe
Based on the National Public Radio series of the same name, This I Believe features eighty essayists--from the famous to the unknown--completing the thought that begins the book's title. Each piece compels readers to rethink not only how they have arrived at their own personal beliefs but also the extent to which they share them with others.
Shelly, Mary. Frankenstein.
1818 story of a brilliant scientist who is obsessed with creating a living human being.
Our Artistic Side
McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art.
McCloud tells the history of using pictures to tell stories and explains how comics are created and how they should be read.
Livingstone, Lili Cockerville. American Indian Ballerinas.
Four Native American Women from Oklahoma share the struggles and triumphs of their dance careers and personal lives in stories that inspire with courage and beauty.
Friedlander, Paul. Rock and Roll: A Social History
This book chronicles the first forty years of rock/pop music history. Picture the various musical styles as locations on a giant unfolding road map. As you open the map, you travel from place to place, stopping at each chapter to sample the artistry.
Corio, David, and Vivian Goldman. The Black Chord.
The often painful evolution of African American music is explored with a funky text by Vivian Goldman and lively, original photographs by David Corio.
Goldbert, Vicki. The Power of Photographs: How Photography Changed Our Lives.
The history of the photograph is traced from the daguerreotype to the present. Famous photographs are reproduced and studied for their influence on larger events such as the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement.
Strickland, Carol. The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modern.
Featuring succinct page-length essays, instructive sidebars, and more than 300 photographs, The Annotated Mona Lisa takes art history out of the realm of dreary textbooks, demystifies jargon and theory, and makes art accessible.
The Play’s The Thing
Shakespeare, William. Midsummer Night’s Dream.
A forest, four young lovers, a group of actors, some fairies and the imaginative power of love.
Miller, Arthur. Death of A Salesman.
Pulitzer Prize winning play in which a traveling salesman “riding on a smile and a shoeshine” realizes that his dreams will never be real.
Shakespeare, William. King Lear
King Lear decides to divide his kingdom among his daughters, according to how well they express their love for him. Political deception and romantic jealousy cause tragic ends for all.
Shaw, George Bernard. Pygmalion.
Professor Higgins bets a friend he can turn common Eliza Doolittle into a duchess.
Wilder, Thornton Our Town
First produced in 1938, the Pulitzer-Prize winning Our Town has become an American stage treasure and is Wilder's most renowned and frequently performed play. Set at the turn of the 20th century, the play reveals the ordinary lives of the people in the small town of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, U.S.A.
Bryson, Bill. Shakespeare: The World as Stage.
Witty exploration of the world of Shakespeare and the mystery surrounding the man and his plays.
Graphic Novels
Satrapi, Marjane. The Complete Persepolis.
Satrapi’s graphic memoir beginning with her childhood in Iran during the Islamic Revolution.
Spiegelman, Art. Maus, A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History. Maus II, A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began
The author portrays his parents’ experiences during the Holocaust and their time at Auschwitz, survival and years in the United States, along with his own struggle to come to terms with the past.
Gaiman, Neil & P. Craig Russell Sandman: The Dream Hunters.
Prose folktale of a Buddhist monk and the fox who loves him in an exquisitely beautiful graphic novel inspired by traditional Asian art.
Sciences
Hawking, Stephen. A Brief History of Time.
One of the great minds of our time, Stephen Hawking’s book explores such profound questions as: How did the universe begin—and what made its start possible? Does time always flow forward? Is the universe unending—or are there boundaries? Are there other dimensions in space? What will happen when it all ends? The best part? Only one equation in the entire book!
Ayres, Ian. Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart.
With real life examples from sports, medicine, online dating and airline pricing Ayres describes how data about all of us are collected and ‘crunched” to profile consumers and make predictions.
Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies.
The rise of human civilizations is explained in terms of geography, ecology and the development of agriculture by this professor of physiology and geography.
Pollan, Michael. The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World.
Traces the evolution of apples, tulip, cannabis and potatoes in four chapters titled sweetness, beauty, intoxication and control – to demonstrate the complex, reciprocal relationships between humans and the natural world.
Brown, David. Inventing Modern America: From the Microwave to the Mouse.
Brown reveals the human stories and faces behind American scientific and technological innovations and achievements from the computer mouse to the pacemaker.
Horvitz, Leslie A. Eureka! Scientific Breakthroughs That Changed The World.
Explores the dramatic events and thought processes of 12 great minds that led to profound scientific discoveries, including television and double helix.
War, Conflict and the human spirit
Keneally, Thomas. Schindler’s List
Oskar Schindler, a rich German factory owner, risks his life and spends his personal fortune to save Jews listed as his workers during WWII.
Shapiro, Harvey, editor. Poets of World War II.
They have been called the Greatest Generation, and in their own voices they reveal the true price of their call to arms.
Galloway, Steven. The Cellist of Sarajevo.
This brilliant novel tells the story of three people trying to survive in a city rife with fear, and of the sorrowing cellist who plays undaunted in their midst. One day a shell lands in a bread line and kills twenty-two people as the cellist watches from a window in his flat. He vows to sit in the hollow where the mortar fell and play Albinoni’s Adagio once a day for each of the twenty-two victims.
Hemingway, Ernest. A Farewell to Arms.
World War I is the setting for this love story of an English nurse and a wounded ambulance officer.
O’Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried.
Interrelated short stories follow O’Brien’s platoon of American soldiers through a variety of personal and military encounters during the Vietnam War.
Lefevre, Didier, Lemercier, Frederic & Guibert, Emmanuel. The Photographer: Into War-Torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders.
A unique graphic novel chronicling the three-week journey of Didier Lefèvre, a photojournalist, over the mountains with pack animals to visit M*A*S*H-style clinics. His photos tell stories of the Afghani people and their magnificent country, while Guibert’s drawings tell the story of Lefèvre.
Remarque, Erich. All Quiet on the Western Front.
Follows the life of 19 year old German soldier Paul Baumer during World War I. Paul joins thearmy along with his friends, after hearing romantic tales of war from their school teachers. They quickly learn the reality of the monotony, horror and cruelty of war.
Beah, Ishamael. A Long Way Gone. Memoirs of a Boy Soldier.
Beah was a 12-year-old child soldier, hopped up on drugs and wielding an AK-47, swept up in the horrors of civil war in his homeland of Sierra Leone.
Myers, Walter Dean. Sunrise Over Fallujah.
An 18-year old growing up in Harlem, Robin always intended to go to college. But after September 11, he decides instead to volunteer for the army.
Amazing and True
Alexander,Caroline. The Endurance. Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition
In August 1914. the renowned explorer Ernest Shackleton and a crew of twenty-seven set sail for the South Atlantic in pursuit of the last unclaimed prize in the history of exploration: the first crossing on foot of the Antarctic continent. Weaving a treacherous path through the freezing Weddell Sea, they came within eighty-five miles of their destination when their ship, Endurance, was trapped fast in the ice pack.
Krakauer, John. Into Thin Air
In Nepal in 1996 to report on the commercialization of climbing Everest, Krakauer became a witness to disaster when eight climbers were killed and several others were stranded by a storm.
Junger, Sebastian. The Perfect Storm. A True Story of Men against the Sea.
Adventure narrative about the doomed swordfish boat and the crew that perished in 1991 off the coast of Nova Scotia.
Larson, Erik. The Devil in the White City Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair That Changed America.
The 1893 Chicago World’s Fair captured the imagination of the whole world, and also provided a playground for a cunning serial killer.
Mortenson, Greg and David Oliver Relin. Three Cups of Tea. One Man’s Mission to promote Peace Once School at a Time.
Lost and near death following an unsuccessful attempt to climb K2, Mortenson is nursed back to health in a remote village. Out of gratitude, he returns to build a school there.
Simon, Rachel. Riding the Bus with My Sister: A True Life Journey.
Simon begins to accompany his sister, who is developmentally delayed, on her days spent riding buses in the Pennsylvania city where she lives.
Katz, Jon. Geeks. How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho
Eddie and Jesse, poor high school students, social outcasts and online geeks find that an obsession with computers and technology is their ticket to college and success.
Poets – not all Dead
Ciardi, John and Miller, Williams. How Does A Poem Mean?
A poet and a critic discuss the value and nature of poetry, using selections from six centuries of American and English poems.
Blum, Joshua, Editor. The United States of Poetry.
Contemporary poems enhanced by outstanding photographs and other illustrations highlight poets ranging from Nobel laureates to Rappers.
Gillan, Maria Mazziotti, and Gillan, Jennifer. Editors. Unsettling America: An Anthology of Contemporary Multicultural Poetry.
Poetry “feast” challenges stereotypes about who or what is America.
Sporting tales
Asinof, Eliot. Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series.
The players, the scandal, the shame and the damage the 1919 World Series caused America’s national pastime.
Bissinger, H.G. Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team and a Dream.
Follows individual team members and townspeople exploring racial attitudes and favoritism shown to the athletes, representing both the flaws and the attraction of the football craze in Texas.
Blais, Madeline. In These Girls, Hope Is A Muscle.
Learn about the year of heart, sweat, and muscle that transformed the Amherst Lady Hurricanes basketball team into state champions.
Coulton, Larry. Counting Coup: A True Story of Basketball and Honor on the Little Big Horn.
Working through racism, alcoholism and domestic violence, the players on Hardin High School’s basketball team struggle to win in life as well as on the court.
Dystopia
Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World
Classic science fiction work set in London during the 26th century. Serves as a warning to the dangers of governments that grow increasingly powerful and invasive of its citizens liberties.
Anderson, M.T. Feed.
In this society your brain cyberfeed provides an endless stream of information, entertainment and advertising.
Card, Orson Scott. Ender’s Game.
In a world decimated by alien attacks, the government trains young geniuses like Ender Wiggin in military strategy with increasingly complex computer games.
Biographies
Angelou, Maya. I know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
Angelou traces her coming of age in 1930’s and 40’s America.
Mah, Adeline. Chinese Cinderella: The True Story of an Unwanted Daughter.
Wu Mei is the fifth Younger Sister of her family, and the one who bears the blame for all their bad fortune.
Goodwin, Doris Kearns. Team of Rivals
Illuminates Lincoln's political genius, as the prairie lawyer rises from obscurity to prevail over three gifted rivals of national reputation to become president. The story follows as Lincoln then brings his disgruntled opponents together, creates the most unusual cabinet in history, and marshals their talents to the task of preserving the Union and winning the war.
McBride, James. The Color of Water. A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother.
McBride blends his own story with that of his white mother, who battled poverty and racism to raise 12 children in Queens.
Frank, Anne. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
Frank was a Holocaust victim born and raised in the Netherlands. Her diary begins during WWII when she was 13 years of age and Jews were already wearing yellow stars in Amsterdam.
Wolfe, Tom. The Right Stuff.
The story of post WWII American test pilots and the first American Astronauts. It is both a candid and entertaining account of their lives and accomplishments.
Journeys
Anderson, Laurie Halse. Speak
Calling the police to a party is a tough choice but what made Melinda call is the devastating secret that keeps her locked in silence.
Haddon, Mark. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
Fifteen-year-old Christopher, who has Asperger’s syndrome, has two mysteries to solve: who killed Wellington the dog, and what happened to his mother.
Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner.
The first Afghan novel to be written in English, The Kite Runner tells a sweeping story of family, love, and friendship that takes us from Afghanistan in the final days of the monarchy to the atrocities of the present.
Kidd, Sue Monk. The Secret Life of Bees.
Searching for the truth about her mother’s life and death, a grieving Lily finds the answers, love and acceptance where she least expects them.
Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye
Pecola yearns to have beautiful blue eyes like the little white girls she sees. The Bluest Eye is a powerful coming of age novel not to be missed.
Allende, Isabel. The House of the Spirits
Allende’s most famous novel chronicles the life of a family, as the patriarch grows from a child to an elder, with the world changing all around him while he tries to keep it the same. Through the lenses of the Trueba family, we follow the portion of Chilean history that eventually leads to the 1973 coup.
Alexie, Sherman. Indian Killer
A serial murderer is terrorizing Seattle, hunting and scalping white men. Seattle's Native Americans are shaken and confused, none more so than John Smith. Born Indian, raised white, Smith desperately yearns for his lost heritage and seeks his elusive true identity.
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. One Hundred Years of Solitude.
The book is considered García Márquez's masterpiece, metaphorically encompassing the history of Colombia. The novel chronicles a family's struggle, and the history of their fictional town, Macondo,
for one hundred years.
Dorris, Michael. A Yellow Raft in Blue Water
At times separated by hardships and angry secrets but always bonded by kinship, three generations of Native American women tell their stories in their search for self-identity.
Wright, Richard. Black Boy: A Record of Childhood and Youth.
Wright recalls his pre-World War II youth when racial and personal obstacles seemed insurmountable.
Alvarez, Julia. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents.
Collection of 15 tales that chronicle a Dominican family’s exile to the Bronx. A common thread running through the stories is the four Garcia daughters’ rebellion against their immigrant elders, highlighting the tensions families undergo as younger members look to the foreign culture and leave their traditions behind.
A Sense of time and place
Zuzak, Marcus. The Book Thief.
Living in Nazi Germany, young Liesel and her family choose to lie and steal to protect a Jewish refugee hiding in their basement. Narrated by Death, this is not your typical WWII story.
Follet, Ken. The Pillars of the Earth.
Epic tale of ambition, anarchy, and absolute power set against the canvas of 12th-century England. Fascinating characters and a spellbinding introduction to medieval religion, architecture, politics and daily life.
Chevalier, Tracy. Girl with a Pearl Earring.
Sixteen year old Griet tells the story of her time as a maid in the busy 17th century household of Delft painter Johannes Vermeer. Griet has an artistic eye and eventually becomes assistant and muse to the famous artist. But she is confined to the class system of her time.
Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice.
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." So begins Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen's witty comedy of manners--one of the most popular novels of all time--that features splendidly civilized sparring between the proud Mr. Darcy and the prejudiced Elizabeth Bennet as they play out their spirited courtship in a series of eighteenth-century drawing-room intrigues
Fitzgerald. F. Scott. The Great Gatsby
A portrait of the Jazz Age in all of its decadence and excess, Gatsby captured the spirit of the author's generation and earned itself a permanent place in American mythology. Self-made, self-invented millionaire Jay Gatsby embodies some of Fitzgerald's--and his country's--most abiding obsessions: money, ambition, greed, and the promise of new beginnings.
Classics
(The Dead or Nearly Dead Namesakes of our List)
Foster, Thomas. How to Read Literature like a Professor.
All authors leave clues to lead readers deeper into the inner meanings of their writings. Learn how to follow literary breadcrumbs in any story with this practical and entertaining guide.
Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath.
An Oklahoma farmer and his family leave the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression to go to the promised land of California. A powerful novel that poses questions about justice, ownership and stewardship of the land, the role of government, power and the very foundations of capitalist society.
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Huck Finn, the novel’s 13 year old narrator is escaping his abusive father. Jim, who joins him on his flight to freedom, is escaping slavery. Set in 1830’s Missouri.
Stoker, Bram. Dracula.
Naïve young Englishman who travels to Transylvania to do business with a client, Count Dracula.
Golding, William. Lord of the Flies.
The classic tale of a group of English schoolboys who are stranded on a deserted island during a nuclear war.
Steinbeck, John. Of Mice and Men.
This is a novel about the friendship between two men and a murder. The main characters are Lenny, a large man with a mental disability, and George, a smaller, quick-witted man. They are migrant workers
in California during the 1930’s.
Orwell, George. 1984.
In a society of the future, individual privacy is invaded as the Thought Police persuade the people that “War is peace – Freedom is Slavery – Ignorance is Strength.”
Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird.
A young girl tells of life in a small Alabama town in the 1930s and her father’s defense in court of an African American accused of raping a white woman.
Heller, Joseph. Catch-22
In this satirical novel, Captain Yossarian confronts the hypocrisy of war and bureaucracy as he frantically attempts to survive.
Salinger, J.D. The Catcher in the Rye.
A bawdy, hilarious and touching tale of a sixteen-year-old’s wanderings in New York for three days after he is dropped from his school.
Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle.
This gritty description of urban life at the turn of the century shows the moral and physical degradation of a “jungle” in which humans barely live better than animals.
Poe, Edgar Allan. The Fall of the House of Usher, and other Tales.
Desolation and impending doom press heavily on these splendid tales of physical horror and psychological terror.
Hear Me Roar
Words of Struggle and Change
Horton, Ros. "Women Who Changed the World",
A celebration of the achievements of womankind, this book honors fifty amazing women and the incredible impact they have had on our world. From empire builders and healers to daring explorers and iconoclastic thinkers, these are moving stories of dedication, conflict, tragedy and triumph, as dramatic as any fiction. Each will both inspire readers and provide a greater understanding of the crucial role these women played in shaping our culture and history.
Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique.
Many feel that the first edition of this book precipitated the women’s liberation movement by inspiring new appraisals of roles and aspirations.
Hansen, Drew. The Dream: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Speech that inspired a nation.
The fascinating and little known history of King’s August 1963 speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
Cuomo, Kerry Kennedy. Speak Truth to Power.
Human Rights Defenders Who Are Changing Our World. Collection of autobiographical sketches of ordinary people from 25 countries who are leading the fight to ensure basic human rights for everyone.
Ford, Michael Thomas. The Voices of AIDS:
Twelve Unforgettable people Talk about how AIDS has changed their lives.