English Department
Summer Reading
2010
For students entering
Grade 12
Dear Student,
Please note that all students in the College Literature program are
required to read two books from the list. During the month of September,
you will be asked to respond to an in-class assignment based on your books. You will receive a grade which will be part
of your first quarter average.
Sincerely,
Twelfth Grade English Teachers
FICTION
Boyle, T. Coraghessan
Drop City
As in many of his
works, Boyle deals here with the collision of two very different cultures. In the late ‘60’s, a hippie commune is about
to be forced off of their Northern California homeland. Wanting to keep their
utopian dream alive, they decide to move as a group to Alaska, our last
frontier. This sharp, moving and humorous story tells the tale of the uneasy
relationships that develop between the commune members and their very
conservative new neighbors.
Carr, Caleb
When a madman
begins stalking victims on the streets of 1896
Chabon, Michael
A witty and
sometimes touching story of two talented Jewish cousins --one a writer, the
other an artist-- who, at the beginning of WWII, collaborate to create comic
book action heroes who battle Hitler and his minions.
Diaz, Junot
The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Oscar, a 300-pound gamer
nerd who dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien, is the central figure
in this sprawling, tragicomic family saga by the author of Drown.
Ellison, Ralph
Invisible Man
This
novel chronicles the journey of a nameless black man who searches for his own
identity in a society that alienates him.
Gold, Glen David
Carter Beats the Devil
Fans
of films like The Prestige and The Illusionist will love this story,
which is set in the 1920’s. It begins when President Harding dies the night
after he attends a performance by Carter, the world’s greatest magician. Pay
very close attention to what follows, because nothing is what it appears to
be...
Kogawa, Joy
Obasan
One
of the most difficult chapters in American history was the internment of
Japanese-Americans in camps during World War II. Lesser known is the fact that
the same thing happened in Canada; based on the author’s own childhood, this is
the little-told story of life in those camps.
Motherless
A brilliant novel by one of
Pessl, Marisha
Special Topics in Calamity Physics
From
her freshman dorm at Harvard, punk genius Blue Van Meer recounts the story of
her senior year at the exclusive St. Gallway prep school. There, she became involved
with an exclusive group of students centered on Hannah, a charismatic English
teacher who was not exactly what she appeared to be.
The Fool on the Hill
A gloriously funny and sweet comic fantasy set in the
rolling hills of Cornell University. Our hero is Stephen, a young would-be
romantic poet, who is led by a sorceress into an adventure that reveals an
imaginary world that co-exists with his own. A tribute to the power of love and
imagination.
A thousand years of Jewish persecution, from the
expulsion from
The Lovely Bones
A fourteen-year-old girl, the victim of a horrible crime,
narrates the story from her vantage point in Heaven. From there, she watches over her family and
friends, the detective in charge of her case, and the man who may have
committed the crime.
This novel is
multifaceted retelling of the story of John Henry, the black steel-driver, who
died outracing a machine designed to replace him.
Zabor, Rafi
A walking,
talking, alto sax playing, Blake-and- Shakespeare-quoting bear has musical,
spiritual, and romantic adventures
NON-FICTION
Asinof, Eliot
Eight Men Out:
The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series
Asinof captures
the feeling of
Based on hundreds
of interviews with directors, stars, producers, agents, studio executives,
etc., Easy Riders, Raging Bulls follows the wild ride that was
Campbell, Joseph
The Hero with a
Thousand Faces
Diamond, Jared
Guns, Germs and
Steel:
The Fates of Human
Societies
Jared Diamond
offers a convincing explanation of the way the modern world came to be and
stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history.
Dickstein, Morris
Gates of
American Culture
in the Sixties
An original and
entertaining analysis of how American literature influenced and was influenced
by the turbulence of the 1960's.
Gabler, Neal
Life, the Movie:
How Entertainment Conquered Reality
Culture critic
Gabler explores the story of how our bottomless appetite for novelty, gossip,
glamour and melodrama has turned everything of importance-from news and
politics to religion and high culture-into one vast public entertainment.
Gladwell,
Malcolm
The
Tipping Point
Why do some things and ideas catch on and others do
not? In this popular and wide-ranging analysis, Gladwell explores how and fads
seem to come from nowhere, spread like viruses, and disappear as quickly as
they came.
Klein,
Naomi
No Logo
In this controversial, entertaining work, Klein
examines the influence of marketing and advertising on American and global
cultures. She argues that the “Brand”
has become more important in our consumer society than political, social or
religious bonds; in fact, the “Brand” has become more important than the
products themselves.
Lama,
Dalai
The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living
Through
meditation, stories, and the meeting of Buddhism and psychology, the Dalai Lama
tells how to defeat day-to-day depression, anxiety, anger, jealousy, or just an
ordinary bad mood, and how to ride through life's obstacles to find a deep and
abiding source of inner peace.
Larson, Erik
The Devil in the
Although it feels like a
novel, this book is actually the incredible, true story of the bizarre events
surrounding the huge 1893 World’s Fair in
Pollan, Michael
The Omnivore’s Dilemma
The topic of Pollan’s beautifully written book is essentially this: we
have lost any sense of where the food we eat comes from, how it is grown and
produced and how it gets to our table. In describing and assessing the impact
that this has on our health and our environment, Pollan advocates for a
simpler, more local approach to food.
Schlosser, Eric
Fast Food Nation
Schlosser
documents the effects of fast food on
Singh, Simon
Fermat's Enigma:
The Epic Quest to Solve the World's Greatest Mathematical Problem
Singh tells the
story of the 350-year search for a proof for Fermat's Last Theorem, focusing on
the work of two modern-day mathematicians.
Williams, Gregory Howard
Life on the Color Line
One of the most important accounts of racial
identity in recent years, this is the autobiographical story of a poor son of a
racially mixed marriage in the 1950’s who, after coming to grips with his true
identity, goes on to great success as the dean of the law school at Ohio State.
Woolf, Michael
Burn Rate
The humorous, fascinating and occasionally appalling
true story of the great Internet technology “bubble” of the late 1990’s, and
how reckless speculation led to great wealth for a few and financial ruin for
many, many others.
Zinn, Howard
A People's History of the
This moving
history of the American people presents more than 500 years of American social
and cultural history, going well beyond the wars and presidencies contained in
traditional texts to tell the stories of working men and women.