Reading List for 12th Grade - Recommend Please!
- Classics
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
- Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
- Edith Hamilton's Mythology by Edith Hamilton
- The Nick Adams Stories by Ernest Hemingway
- Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
- The Trial by Franz Kafka
- The Sea Wolf by Jack London
- Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
- Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger
- Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
- The Night Trilogy by Elie Weisel
- Orlando by Virginia Woolf
- 20th Century Novels
- The End of the Road by John Barth
- The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
- The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
- The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
- The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
- Grendel by John Champlin Gardener
- The Celebrant by Eric Rolfe Greenberg
- Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
- Stones From the River by Ursula Hegi
- A Bell for Adano by John Hersey
- Rich in Love by Josephine Huphreys
- The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (I had to read "The Bean Trees" and I didn't really like it, so this is probably out)
- The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
- She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb
- Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John LeCarre
- A River Runs Through It by Normal MacLean
- An American Dream by Norman Mailer
- Tough Guys Don't Dance by Normal Mailer
- The Natural by Bernard Malamud
- All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
- Disappearing Acts by Terry McMillan
- Hank by Arch Montgomery (Mr. Montgomery was actually our former headmaster. I'm curious about the book. Has anyone heard about it or read it?)
- Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brien
- We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates
- The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
- Edisto by Padgett Powell
- Waterland by Graham Swift
- The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan
- The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
- The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan
- Fools of Fortune by William Trevor
- Celestial Navigation by Anne Tyler
- The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
- 20th Century Autobiographies
- I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
- Growing Up by Russel Baker
- Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin
- A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers (I have this work and have started reading it. I haven't gotten very far, but it would be convenient... if I hadn't lost the damn book. Anyway, I still ask, is the title accurate?)
- The Big Sea by Langston Hughes
- Memories of a Catholic Girlhood by Mary McCarthy
- Wolf Willow by Wallace Stegner
- This Boy's Life: A Memoir by Tobias Wolff
- Short Stories and Poetry
- Getting Even by Woody Allen
- Without Feathers by Woody Allen*
- Chilly Scenes of Winter by Anne Beattie
- The Collected Poems of Elizabeth Bishop
- Greasy Lake and Other Stories by T. Coraghessan Boyle
- The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury*
- Werewolves in Their Youth by Michael Chabon
- A Model World by Michael Chabon
- Rock Springs by Richard Ford
- Simple Speaks His Mind by Langston Hughes
- Dubliners by James Joyce
- Neon Vernacular: Selected Poems of Yusef Komunyakaa
- Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson
- Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro
- A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O'Conner
- Little Disturbances of Man by Grace Paley
- Enormous Changes at the Last Minute by Grace Paley
- Gimpel the Fool and Others by Isaac Bashevis Singer
- The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens
- The Old Forest by Peter Taylor
- Sebastopol Stories by Leo Tolstoy
- In the Garden of the North American Martyrs by Tobias Woolf
Update (6/1/03) - my top 11 possible choices are bolded
Here's the deal. I just received an enormous summer reading list for entering my 12th grade year, and I have to pick out any three books on this list and read them. Rather than finding more info on all of these books and narrowing down the field, I figured I'd open discussion to Listology's bookworms and get some recommendations.
What I'm looking for is a continually interesting book, preferably in the genre of comedy or mystery, or possibly a good scifi book, but the genre doesn't really matter that much as long as the plot is good, and the ending is good - I love great endings. And please, no antiquated styles of English that make it hard to read; call me ignorant, but as much as I loved the plot for "A Tale of Two Cities", I hated actually reading it.
Books with an asterisk are ones that I have already read. I guess I could cheat and just say I read those over the summer or skim them again, but I don't read as much as I should, and this list could help me find some great titles.
So, recommend away!
I realized that my criteria mainly only applied for novels. I meant no slight against the biographies or short story collections, and I have no bias towards the novels. Feel free to recommend anything you like!
The Grapes of Wrath and The Unbearable Lightness of Being are two of my personal favorites.
Me, I'd go for Pride and Prejudice (just read the first page, which had me laughing out loud when I first opened the book years ago), Crime and Punishment, and er, maybe the Tolstoy collection (I'm not sure which stories are in that one, but I've loved most every short story of his I've read). Les Miserables is also great.
Now, going off of your criteria, obviously Getting Even is a prime contender. You might also like the Le Carre; I haven't read that novel yet, but several of his books are quite good, especially The Spy Who Came in From the Cold and The Night Manager.
Something tells me you might like the Nick Adams stories, but I could be *really* wrong about that.
Kafka's The Trial is terrific and has something of a mystery element to it. Kind of. Sorta.
Anyway, there are many great books here! I hope you enjoy which ever ones you choose!
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Thanks for posting here, lbangs, and thanks to you too, AAA.
Pride and Prejudice is certainly an option I was considering. Crime and Punishment does sound pretty interesting but I'm afraid it's too long for me. The Tolstoy collection seems pretty hard to find. A Google search for "Sebastopol Stories" Tolstoy produced only 20 results. I don't think I'll be able to read that one. Les Mis, I'm not sure about; I'll ask my friend who is absolutely obsessed with the book, play, movie, music, etc.
Getting Even is a top contender, as are the LeCarre and the Kafka. I read a few Hemingway short stories this year, and I don't think I can stomach a whole book full of them. I'm not a big Hemingway fan; his style is often too arrogant and his plots are usually either too abstruse or too depressing. On bored.com, there used to be a featured site at www.chickenjoke.com, which features famous people's responses to that classic question: Why did the chicken cross the road? The Hemingway response is, "To die. In the rain. Alone." and I thought that was pretty accurate. I can take Hemingway in small doses, but if you're talking about a whole book full of his stories, his icebergs can stay underwater.
AAA, to be honest, the plot of Grapes of Wrath both as a book and as a movie has never sounded very interesting to me. But Unbearable Lightness of Being does, and it's a top contender for me.
I finished The Trial last night... well actually, very early this morning. I liked it a lot, but I wouldn't say it's much of a mystery.
Grendel is excellent and short. For brownie points, read Beowulf first, which is also excellent, short, and the inspiration for bertie's marvelous Plot Number One list.
Excellent, eh? Short, eh? Sounds good to me. And I loved Beowulf. Hmm...
I looked up a few of these books on my own. The ones that intrigued me the most were Edisto (by Powell), Greasy Lake (by Boyle), and The English Patient (by Ondaatje). Anyone read these?