12th Grade – Summer Reading List 2010

Adams, Douglas. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Two survivors of the Earth’s destruction search for the meaning of the universe in the clever science fiction parody.

Capote, Truman. In Cold Blood. Factual account of a midwestern murder.

Cisneros, Sandra. Caramelo. A multigenerational story of a Mexican-American family whose voices create a dazzling weave of humor, passion, and poignancy—the very stuff of life.

Ellison, Ralph. The Invisible Man. The story of an anonymous African-American man who experiences many adventures in the South and the North during his quest for personal identity.

Greenberg, Joanne. I Never Promised You a Rose Garden. A disturbed woman’s search for identity.

Hersey, John. Hiroshima. Interviews of survivors of Hiroshima’s bomb when the ashes were still warm.

Hiaasen, Carl. Tourist Season. Brian Keyes, reporter turned private eye, must move from muckraking to rooting out murder, in a caper that will mix football players, politicians, and police with a group of fanatics and a very hungry crocodile.

Kerouac, Jack. On the Road. Sal Paradise is the narrator of Kerouac’s most popular novel, which focuses on his relationship with Dean Moriarty.

Rand, Ayn. Anthem. One man dares to take a stand against the paralyzing collectivism of a future the author fears will come to pass.

Sebold, Alice. The Lovely Bones. This is the story of a family devastated by a gruesome murder—a murder recounted by the teenage victim.

Tan, Amy. The Kitchen God’s Wife. A Chinese immigrant who is convinced she is dying threatens to celebrate the Chinese New Year by unburdening herself of everybody’s hidden truths.

Tyler, Anne. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. Ever since 1944 when Pearl’s husband left her, she has raised her three very different children on her own. Now grown, they have gathered together—with a dazzling story to tell.

Wright, Richard. Native Son. One of the most unrelenting, and finest written, accounts of growing up as an African-American. As Amazon.com puts it, “A more compelling story than Native Son has not been written in the 20th century by an American writer.”

Yolen, Jane. Briar Rose. A young journalist investigates the mystery of her grandmother’s life and is led to an astonishing revelation.

Required reading for Honors English IV:

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. Addresses the problem of the intrusion in the 1890s of white missionaries and colonial government into Nigerian life.

Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying. The harrowing account of a family’s struggle to get their mother properly buried.