Honors/A.P. English
Book List 2011-2012
Please use the following list for selecting independent reading throughout the school year. The books on the list have been selected to represent the types of books you should be reading to prepare for the A.P. exam and college reading. If you are interested in reading a book that is not on the list, then it must be approved by your teacher first. Your reading selections must meet specific criteria. Also, do not assume that another book by a listed author is acceptable, as it may be reserved by your teachers for their curriculum.
Abbey, Edward Desert Solitaire*
Adair, Douglas Fame and the Founding Fathers*
Adams, Douglas Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Alvarez, Julia In the Time of the Butterflies
Anaya, Rudolfo Bless Me, Ultima
Asimov, Issac Foundation
Austen, Jane (any) recommended: Emma
Baldwin, James Go Tell it on the Mountain
Beckett, Samuel Waiting for Godot
Bronte, Emily Wuthering Heights
Burton, Robert The Anatomy of Melancholy
Camus, Albert The Stranger; The Plague
Capote, Truman In Cold Blood*
Cather, Willa Death Comes for the Archbishop; My Antonia
Cervantes, Miguel de Don Quixote
Christie, Agatha Murder on the Orient Express
Conrad, Joseph Lord Jim
Cooper, James Fenimore The Last of the Mohicans
Dickens, Charles Great Expectations; A Tale of Two Cities
Dreiser, Theodore An American Tragedy
Dumas, Alexander The Count of Monte Cristo; The Three Musketeers
Eliot, George The Mill on the Floss
Ellison, Ralph Invisible Man
Endo, Shusaku Deep River
Ehrenreich, Barbara Nickel and Dimed*
Faulkner, William As I Lay Dying; The Sound and the Fury
Fielding, Henry Tom Jones
Flaubert, Gustav Madame Bovary
Forster, E.M. A Passage to India; A Room with a View
Grant, Ulysses S. Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant *
Gunter, John J. Death Be Not Proud*
Guterson, David Snow Falling on Cedars
Hardy, Thomas Tess of the D’urbervilles; Return of the Native
Hawthorne, Nathaniel The House of Seven Gables
Heat-Moon, William Least Prairie Earth*, Blue Highways*
Heller, Joseph Catch-22
Hemingway, Ernest For Whom the Bell Tolls; Farewell to Arms, The Sun AlsoRises
Hickman, HomerRocket Boys*
Hosseini, Khaled A Thousand Splendid Suns
Hugo, Victor Les Miserables
Huxley, Aldous Brave New World
Irving, John The Cider House Rules; A Prayer for Owen Meany
James, Henry The Portrait of a Lady
Joyce, James The Dubliners; Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Kafka, Franz The Trial; The Metamorphosis
Kerouac, Jack On the Road
Kincaid, Jamaica Annie John; The Autobiography of My Mother
Kingston, Maxine Hong The Woman Warrior
Krakauer, Jon Into Thin Air*
Lamb, Wally She’s Come Undone
Larson, Erik Isaac’s Storm*
Lewis, Sinclair Babbitt Main Street
McCullough, David (any) recommended: John Adams*, 1776*
Mann, Thomas The Magic Mountain
May, Rollo The Courage to Create
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia One Hundred Years of Solitude
Maugham, Somerset Of Human Bondage; Razor’s Edge
McCarthy, Cormac Blood Meridian; All the Pretty Horses
McCullers, Carson The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Melville, Herman Moby Dick
Miller, Arthur The Crucible
Mitchell, Margaret Gone with the Wind
Michener, James (any) recommended:Chesapeake
Morrison, Toni (any) recommended: Song of Solomon
O’Brien, Tim The Things They Carrie
Onuf, Peter Thomas Jefferson, An Anthology*
Patan, Alan Cry the Beloved Country
Persig, Robert Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Philbrick, Nathaniel In the Heart of the Sea*
Plath, Sylvia The Bell Jar
Proust, Marcel Remembrance of Things Past; In Search of Lost Time
Rand, Ayn The Fountainhead
Rawlings, Marjorie The Yearling
Richter, Conrad The Awakening Land (three book series: The Trees, The Fields, The Town)
Sagan, Nick Idlewild
Salinger, J.D. Franey and Zooey
Shelley, Mary Frankenstein
Shields, Charles J. I Am Scout
Sides, Hampton Ghost Soldiers*
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksander One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Stendhal, Margaret The Charter House of Parma
Stoker, Bram Dracula
Tademy, Lalita Roots
Tan, AmyThe Kitchen God’s Wife
Thackeray, William M. Vanity Fair
Thoreau, Henry DavidWalden*
Tolstoy, Leo War and Peace; Anna Karenina
Turgenev, Ivan Fathers and Sons
Twain, Mark (any) Huckleberry Finn
Vonnegut, Kurt (any) Slaughterhouse Five
Walker, Alice The Color Purple
Warren, Robert Penn All the King’s Men
West, Nathaniel Miss Lonelyhearts
Wharton, Edith Ethan Frome
Wiesenthal, Simon The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness*
Wolfe, Thomas Look Homeward, Angel
Wolfe, Tom The Right Stuff*
Woolf, Virginia Orlando; To the Lighthouse; A Room of One’s Own
Wright, Richard Native Son; Black Boy
* denotes non-fiction