SUMMER READING SUGGESTIONS: 2008

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO BOOKS THAT HAVE HAD AN IMPACT ON OUR LIVES 

  

• Ackroyd, Peter. The Fall of Troy
• Adams, Richard. Watership Down
• Adams, Douglas, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series
• Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Purple Hibiscus/Half of a Yellow Sun
• Alvarez, Julia. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
• Allende, Isabelle. Ines of My Soul/Zorro
• Amirrezvani, Anita. The Blood of Flowers
• Anam, Tahmima. A Golden Age
• Angelou, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (NF)
• Archer, Jeffrey. A Prisoner of Birth/Not a Penny More Not a Penny Less
• Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale
• Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice/Persuasion 
• Badami, Anita. Can you Hear the Nightbird Call? 
• Barker, Clive. Abarat /Weaveworld
• Baum, L. Frank. The Wizard of Oz
• Beah, Ishmael. Memoirs of a Boy Soldier/A Long Way Gone (NF)
• Behrens, Peter. The Law of Dreams 
• Boulle, Pierre. The Bridge over the River Kwai
• Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451/Something Wicked This Way Comes
• Bray, Libba. A Great and Terrible Beauty
• Barnes, Julian. Arthur and George
• Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre 
• Bronte, Emily. WutheringHeights
• Brooks, Geraldine. People of the Book/March
• Buck, Pearl S. The Good Earth

• Capote, Truman. In Cold Blood

• Carey, Peter. Oscar and Lucinda/The True History of the Kelly Gang
• Carrol, Lewis. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
• Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring (NF)

• Chabon, Michael. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay/The Yiddish Policemen’s Union

• Chbosky, Stephen.  The Perks of Being a Wallflower

• Chevalier, Tracy. Burning Bright/The Girl with a Pearl Earring
• Chopin, Kate. The Awakening

• Christie, Agatha. Murder on the Orient Express
• Clarke, Susanna. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell 
• Coetzee, J. Foe 
• Colfer, Eoin. Artemis Fowl
• Collins, Wilkie. The Moonstone 

• Conroy, Pat. The Prince of Tides
• Courtney, Bryce. Power of One/Four Fires/Jessica 

• Crichton, Michael. Andromeda Strain/The Terminal Man/Prey/Next
• Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe 

• DeLillo, Don. Falling Man

• Desai, Kiran. The Inheritance of Loss
• Diamant, Anita. The Red Tent
• Dillard, Annie. Teaching A Stone to Talk (NF)
• Diamond, Jared. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail of Succeed/Guns, Germs and Steel. (NF)
• Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment/The Idiot
• Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
• Dumas, Alexander. The Count of Monte Cristo/The Man in the Iron Mask
• Dunant, Sarah, The Birth of Venus
• Eco, U. The Name of the Rose 

• Edwards, Kim. The Memory Keeper’s Daughter
• Eliot, George. Middlemarch
• Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man
• Foer, Jonathan Safran. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close/Everything is Illuminated

• Follett, Ken. World Without End/Pillars of the Earth
• Forester, C.S. The Hornblower series
• Fowles, John. The Magus

• Furst, Alan. The Spies of Warsaw/The Foreign Correspondent
• Gaines, Earnest. A Lesson Before Dying

• Garcia Marquez, Gabriel. One Hundred Years of Solitude/Love in the Time of Cholera
• Golden, Arthur. Memoirs of a Geisha 
• Goldman, William. The Princess Bride
• Green, Jonathan. Looking for Alaska
• Greenberg, Joanne. I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
• Gregory, Philippa. The Other Boleyn Girl/The Constant Princess/The Queen’s Fool
• Grenville, Kate.  The SecretRiver
• Griffin, John Howard. Black Like Me
• Grisham, John. A Painted House

• Haddon, Mark. A Spot of Bother/The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
• Hay, Elizabeth. Late Nights on Air
• Hale, Shannon. Book of A Thousand Days
• Heller, Joseph. Catch-22

• Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea/The Sun Also Rises
• Herbert, Frank. Dune (series)
• Herman, Arthur. How the Scots Invented the Modern World (NF)
• Hesse, Herman. Demian/Narcissus & Goldmund/The Glass Bead Game
• Hill, Lawrence. The Book of Negroes
• Homer. Odyssey/Illiad 
• Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner/A Thousand Splendid Suns
• Hopkinson, Nalo. Brown Girl in the Ring/The Salt Roads
• Hurston, Zora Neal. Their Eyes Were Watching God: A Novel
• James, Henry. The Turn of the Screw 

• Johnston, Wayne. The Navigator of New York
• Jones, Lloyd. Mr. Pip
• Kafka, Franz. Metamorphosis
• Kerouac, Jack. On the Road

• Kesey, Ken. One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
• Kidd, Sue Monk. The Secret Life of Bees

• King, Ross. The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade that gave the world Impressionism (NF)
• Kingsolver, Barbara. Prodigal Summer: A Novel
• Kushner, Tony. Angels in America

• Lahiri, Jhumpa. Interpreter of Maladies/The Namesake
• Lessing, Doris. Canopus in Argos Archives (series)
• Levy, Andrea. Small Island
• Lewycka, Marian. A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
• Martel, Yann. The Life of Pi
• Matar, Hisham. In the Country of Men 
• Maugham, Somerset. The Moon and Sixpence/The Razor's Edge 
• McCall-Smith, Alexander. No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency (series)
• McCourt, Frank. Angela's Ashes (NF)

• MacDonald, Ann-Marie. The Way the Crow Flies/Fall on Your Knees
• McEwen, Ian. On Chesil Beach/Atonement
• MacMillan, Margaret. Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World (NF)
• Meyer, Stephenie. The Host /Breaking Dawn (Twilight Saga series, Book 4) /
• Mitchell, Margaret. Gone With the Wind
• Mistry, Rohinton. A Fine Balance/Family Matters
• Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye
• Mortenson, Greg and D. O. Relin. Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations. (NF)
• O'Connor, Flannery. Wise Blood

• Orwell, George. 1984 / Down and Out in Paris and London(NF)
• Otsuka, Julie. When the Emperor was Divine.
• Oz, Amos. Panther in the Basement/Touch the Water, Touch the Wind
• Perez-Reverte, Arturo. The Club Dumas 
• Peters, Ellis. Any of the mysteries in the “Brother Cadfael” series
• Picoult, Jodi. My Sister's Keeper / Nineteen Minutes/Tenth Circle 
• Pittman, Jane. Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
• Pratchett, Terry. Anything in the “Discworld” series
• Pullman, Phillip. The Golden Compass
• Puzo, Mario. The Godfather
• Rand, Ayn. The Fountainhead/Atlas Shrugged 
• Ravel, Edeet. Ten thousand Lovers/A Wall of Light/Look for Me
• Redhill, Michael. Consolation
• Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis 
• Sebold, Alice. The Lovely Bones
• See, Lisa. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan/Dragon Bones 
• Seierstad, Asne. The Bookseller of Kabul(NF)
• Setterfield, Diane. The Thirteenth Tale
• Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle
• Smith, Betty. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
• Sparks, Nicholas. A Walk to Remember
• Spinelli, Jerry. Stargirl
• Steinbeck, John. Travels with Charley (NF)/The Moon is Down/The Grapes of Wrath
• Stevenson, Robert Louis. Dr.Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
• Sun Tzu. The Art of War (NF)
• Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels 
• Tan, Amy. The Kitchen God's Wife/The Joy Luck Club 
• Tolkein, J.R.R. The Hobbit
• Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina/War and Peace
• Torday, Paul. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen
• Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• Uris, Leon. Exodus/Haj
• Verne, Jules. Journey to the Center of the Earth
• Vreeland, Susan. The Girl in Hyacinth Blue 
• Vonnegut, Kurt. Cat's Cradle/Welcome to the Monkey House
• Walker, Alice. The Color Purple
• Wells, H.G. Anything or everything
• Winchester, Simon. The Man Who Loved China(NF)
• Wharton, Edith. The House of Mirth
• Wiesel, Elie. The Night Trilogy 
• Wilde, Oscar. The Portrait of Dorian Grey
• Wiseman, Alan. World Without Us (NF)
• Wong, Jan. Beijing Confidential (NF)
• Wright, Richard. Native Son
• Wright, Ronald. A Scientific Romance/A Short History of Progress (NF)
• Zafon, Carlos Ruiz. The Shadow of the Wind
• Zusak, Markus. The Book Thief 

Compiled by

Julia Beck