If you like historical fiction and fantasy combined, try the Temeraire series by Naomi Novak. Circes and The Song of Achilles are both excellent retellings of Greek myths by Madeline Miller.
Unbroken by Laura Hilderbrand. One Summer: America in 1927 by Bill Bryson. I promise you, both are amazing, stirring, ahocking, engrossing and you will be moved and entertained and smarter for the experience.
Decades ago, I was told to read something from Charles Dickens. I hadn’t particularly liked Oliver Twist and Great Expectations. So, I read Martin Chuzzlewit, and liked it, even if it scoffed at some Americans.
I recommend any books by Sarah Dessen and Laurie Anderson. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, and The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison if you haven’t read them yet.
I put these books off for the longest time because my nerdy, sci-fi loving older brother really liked them and we had such different tastes. When I finally gave it a try I realized I had been a fool. So funny!
Your state probably has a list of adult and young adult books nominated for a readers choice award. This is always a great starting place with lots of variety each year.
All the Light You Cannot See, The Nightingale, Room, The Poisonwood Bible, Prodigal Summer, Me Before You, Eleanor and Park, Eli the Good, Same Sun Here, The Hate U Give, The Glass Castle, Looking for Alaska. These are in no particular order, just fantastic books for someone your age!
I was going to recommend the Glass Castle too. I gave it to my friend’s daughter at your age and it really made her appreciate what she has and empathize with others.
Sooooooooo many possibilities. So many excellent choices too. Personally I love nonfiction. I’d suggest these… Man’s Search for Meaning (Frankl), The Hiding Place (tenBoom), Leadership & Self-deception (Arbinger Institute), Think & Grow Rich (Hill), How to Win Friends & Influence People (Carnegie), How to Live on 24 Hours a Day (Bennett), The Power of Habit (Duhigg), Born a Crime (Noah), Born to Win (Ziglar), The Willpower Instinct (McGonigal), The Productivity Project (Bailey), Start With Why (Sinek), Born for This (Guillebeau), How to Be Like Walt (Denney), and When (Pink). If you only have time for one is suggest Ziglar or Duhigg.
Read a book that gives you empathy for another group of people. Something like Nightingale, The Room on Rue Amelie, or Night by Elie Wiesel. Enjoy your summer!! ❤️?
What will the English curriculum look like in your senior year? I’d probably mix it up with some classic works which may be related to some of the authors you may be studying this year. But I’d also mix it up with either something you’ve been wanting to read, or balance your list with some lighter materiel or short stories (both fiction and creative non-fiction). But without knowing what authors and type of literature you gravitate to, what you’ve already read, or what you may want to get through, it hard to recommend specific works. However, just read far and wide, and try to diversify! Outside of that, just enjoy your time reading this summer- the important thing is that you are continuing reading. ?
A Lesson Before Dying – Ernest Gaines The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje Hotel du Lac – Anita Brookner Snow Falling on Cedars – David Guterson Atonement – Ian McEwan Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis de Bernieres My Antonia – Willa Cather Ellen Foster – Kaye Gibbons
My daughter when she was in PreAp and AP English in high school would read the mandatory books for the next school year. After she was done with those, she would go to different school district websites across the country and see what was on their mandatory AP and PreAP reading lists for their summer and read those. ? It was interesting to see the spectrum of reads across the country.
My son has now started this. His mandatory is Into the Wild for 11th grade. Yet, when we looked at other school districts they had a few that were mandatory for him in 8th grade or 9th grade. One school district up north has mandatory Atlas Shrugged so he will read that one since our school district never picks that one.
I just graduated this last year and honestly, I didn’t like most of the required reading my senior year, but here are a few that I wish were on there. Catcher in the Rye- J. D. Salinger Catch-22- Joseph Heller Once and Future King- T. H. White Dune- Frank Herbert
I also recommend The Book Thief. It’s great that you are scheduling in some reading time! The Book Thief made me grateful for the gift of books that open up the world around us. There are some times, places and people who never get the privilege of reading what they want to read.
@Monse – Congratulations on entering your final year of high school! What do you like to read and what are you interested in? What do you want to pursue/study after high school? What will you be studying in school this fall? First – this is your last year as a “child” – read what you love, read what you find fun and fascinating! You are going to be writing (I hope) those college applications this fall – read about the things you are interested in studying! What Social Studies course are you taking? There are lots of historical fiction books that would pair well! What science will you be taking? Radium Girls, October Sky, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, The Origin of Species, Silent Spring, and anything by Carl Sagan or Stephen Hawking – all would be good options. Lastly – reading is wonderful, but make sure that you dedicate plenty of time with your family and friends, and maybe read some things together – a friends book club could be wonderful!
The rent collector by Cameron wright. Demonstrates lengths people will go to learn how to read. This recommended book is recommended by a retired English teacher. I wish this book had been written while I was teaching. Recommended used too many times!?
Tom Sawyer and Hicks Finn. Read some Carson McCullers especially why I live at the PO and Eudora Welty Member of the Wedding. These are southern authors and will give some perspective on the south in the early 1900s. Lord of the Rings to lose yourself in fantasy say. Jane eyre for an English feel. These are all classics. For something more modern read sisterhood of the traveling pants series . And for mystery try out Agatha Christie. For just plain humor. I think you would enjoy Carl Hiassen.
The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland by Jim DeFede…Hawaii by James Michener…Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak…The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty…An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth: What Going to Space Taught Me About Ingenuity, Determination, and Being Prepared for Anything by Chris Hadfield…Tough As Nails: One Woman’s Journey Through West Point by Gail O’Sullivan Dwyer…Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam…Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead…The Magic of Ordinary Days by Ann Howard Creel…The English American by Alison Larkin…Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shatterly…Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon–and the Journey of a Generation by Sheila Weller…The Salaryman’s Wife by Sujata Massey …The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz…The Hum and the Shiver by Alex Bledsoe…Follow the River by James Alexander Thom…The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart…Mr. Churchill’s Secretary: A Maggie Hope Mystery by Susan Elia Macneal…
I would go to the library pick out what struck me and tried it, if I didn’t like it I could take it back and pick out some thing else! Go with your interests bios, history, romance, it’s all there!
The library or library book sales for a cheap copy to keep…..go to what you are interested in …fiction or non fiction…mix it up……take your time……just enjoy…….in high school I was reading Alistair MacLean, anything about nuclear holocaust…..it was a big worry in the 50s…..books on WW2 because I wanted to know what was going on to cause my dad to leave when I was 2 days old and didn’t return till a month before I turned 3……..but by all means…start with the real deal….a book in the hand.
Anything by Margaret Atwood or Isabel Allende. My favorite book is Peace Like a River by Leif Enger. A well told tale that acknowledges both the sorrow, beauty, and magic of life. You are at the perfect age for all of these Miss Monse Gutierrez 😉
Google college reading lists. If you have a major or an area of interest at least, familiarize yourself with the essential books in that area. It would be nice to build up your chops in dealing with college level reading material. You don’t have to finish the books or read that exclusively, but that’s the direction you could head.
Anything you can get your hands on. Try some biography, some mythology, some short stories. What are you most interested in these days? Tell the librarian, and he or she will find you something wonderful with that as part of it. By 12th grade, you should be reading anything.
Look up some college reading lists, especially for schools you plan to try and attend. If you’re not planning to go to college, look up the lists for the swanky ones, that’s what I did. It made me sound smarter, which helped sometimes.
I encourage you to read something you will enjoy and connect with. A few titles you could check out include I Am the Messenger by Marcus Zusak, Flight by Sherman Alexie, The Accidental Tourist by Ann Tyler, The Metamorphosis by Frank Kafka, and Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward.
That’s terrific advice. From this retired AP English lit teacher: read as much as you can everywhere you can, and don’t worry about stuffing your head with the classics right now. Your senior English teacher will tell you WHAT to read; the important thing is knowing HOW to read. Read the newspaper every day – all of it, from the stories on the front page to the stats on the sports pages. Practice reading for speed and accuracy. Know at least a little bit about a lot of things. Read for fun, read to learn, read to learn more about the things you love, read to learn more about the things you don’t love. Read the directions on a cake mix box and the manual in your car. Become a critical reader. Don’t worry about Shakespeare and Turgenev or anybody else; just read.
My 11th grader’s World Lit reading list for the upcoming school year: Frankenstein, Night, Kite Runner, The Stranger, Cry the Beloved Country, The Metamorphosis, Siddhartha, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Candide, Les Miserables, Don Quixote, Kaffir Boy, Hiroshima, Persepolis, and Odyssey.
We started out with a much longer list and then went through and picked the ones he thought he might like the most.
Well, when I was your age I read Gone With the Wind and Rebecca during summer vacation. Stayed up way into the night reading and loved every second of it!
If you have plans of going on to study literature, you should get a grounding in Greek and Roman mythology if you don’t have it yet.
Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” is one of the most influential books ever written, the source for most of the classical allusions the great authors made, plus it’s a wonderful book in its own right. I like the public domain prose translation by Frank Justus Miller (which can be downloaded at Internet Archive in the original Loeb Classics version, or purchased from Barnes & Noble Classics, if skipping over the Latin pages is too annoying for you — it was for me). Of the copyrighted translations, I also like Rolfe Humphries’ for University of Indiana Press and A. D. Melville’s for Oxford World’s Classics.
Another important primary resource is “The Library of Greek Mythology” (or “Library” or “Bibliotheka) by Apollodorus (also called Pseudo-Apollodorus, since many experts now doubt the attribution). The translation I have is by Robin Hard for Oxford World’s Classics.
There are also books that retell the classical myths. Two of the most popular are “Bulfinch’s Mythology” by Thomas Bulfinch (in the public domain and downloadable from Project Gutenberg in the all-in-one edition or as “The Age of Fable”, which is the volume specifically dealing with Greek and Roman myths) and “Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes” by Edith Hamilton. Bulfinch is slightly more comprehensive than Hamilton on the Norse myths, but they’re both good books.
@Darby Well, to me, I think reading Ovid, Bulfinch, and Hamilton is a break. 😉 I love this stuff and wasn’t even a literature major, but did my degree in biology. Nevertheless, I find myself returning to the “Metamorphoses” time and again and always finding something fresh in it. And I was rereading “Bulfinch’s Mythology” earlier this year too, with as much pleasure as when I first read it as a child.
“Different Seasons” by Stephen King. I read it while in college, & I still think of the four novellas. Not scary, just *good*! A couple were made into movies!
My granddaughter read it for school, too. Then I read it. Very good. She also read The Real Story of Hansel and Gretel ( I think that was it) and The Diary of Anne Frank.
James Rollins for adventures. My favorite book in my late teens was Quest for the Faradawn by Richard Ford. A boy raised by a family of badgers must find the elf lords to get magic items and save the forest and creatures from bad humans.
Tell us a little more about what books you’ve liked and the ideas will flow but I’m struggling about whether you’d like any of my recent favorites: The Boston Girl, A Man Called Ove, Bear Town, Small Great Things, The Sleep Walker …
The Bell Jar – if you haven’t yet read it- there is a lot to relate to and it is an amazing window of how women were treated and what was expected of them in that time. Siddhartha is also a good choice (and it’s on th GAR list). It changed my life!
You will learn something from every book you read, new words, ideas, cultures, adventures, history. It doesn’t matter what you read, just keep reading!
Have you read Stephen King’s The Stand? It is an amazing work. I was happy that this was on the list. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. There’s another book by Dr Crichton that’s not on the list, Dragon Teeth. It’s basically fun historical fiction that moves very rapidly. If you haven’t read 1984, Fahrenheit 481, Animal Farm, To Kill a Mockingbird, all of these are books I read in my youth and I still find them memorable.
Your college of choice may have a reading list online (of suggestions). Also, check out the lists online from College Board, even if you aren’t in AP. Many of the books suggested in the comments are on that list. I agree with the many here who simply encourage you to “just read”!
Rebecca or Member of the Wedding or Wuthering Heights or Call of the Wild. I thought each was exquisite and have stayed with me over 50 years . Have fun!!
I read Oliver Twist the summer before my senior year. It is one of a few “classic” novels I’ve ever enjoyed. Now I am 64 and I just read any genre, title, story that appeals to me. You’d be surprised how many new words, customs, political views and other interesting facts you can learn from a well written romance or science fiction/ fantasy novel.
A nonfiction book that focuses on the history of your culture and what your ancestors have contributed to this country and the world. And talk to older members of your family about the content of the books. You are at an awesome age to learn history not traditionally (although it should be) taught in schools.
Everything you can get your hands on!
what do you like? Fantasy? SciFi? historical fiction? nonfiction? Give us your interests and we can give you some great reads
The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas
Anything you want. You will be spending a lot of time reading books for classes during the school year.
If you like historical fiction and fantasy combined, try the Temeraire series by Naomi Novak. Circes and The Song of Achilles are both excellent retellings of Greek myths by Madeline Miller.
Unbroken by Laura Hilderbrand. One Summer: America in 1927 by Bill Bryson. I promise you, both are amazing, stirring, ahocking, engrossing and you will be moved and entertained and smarter for the experience.
The sun is also a star by Nicola Yoon
The Book Thief
Anything and everything. I recommend a book challenge because it will push you out of your comfort zone: https://bookriot.com/2017/12/15/book-riots-2018-read-harder-challenge/
Same Sun Here by Silas House – you will love it!
And Eli the Good by Silas House!!!
Dread Nation and The Belles!
I LOVED Off to Be the Wizard.
Ship of Fools by Katherine Porter
Little Big Man by Thomas Berger; True Grit.
Decades ago, I was told to read something from Charles Dickens. I hadn’t particularly liked Oliver Twist and Great Expectations. So, I read Martin Chuzzlewit, and liked it, even if it scoffed at some Americans.
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, or Little Bee by Chris Cleave.
I recommend any books by Sarah Dessen and Laurie Anderson. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, and The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison if you haven’t read them yet.
The Great Alone by Kristen Hannah
Perfect time to read the Douglas Adams “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” series, if you haven’t already!
I put these books off for the longest time because my nerdy, sci-fi loving older brother really liked them and we had such different tastes. When I finally gave it a try I realized I had been a fool. So funny!
Pride and Prejudice
Emma is also a great choice!
Everything that you can get your hands on. Get a list from your library and read as much as often as you can.
Anything that holds your interest! The important thing is you’re reading! Good for you!
The Giver, The Outsiders, Agatha Christie, Stephen King, Jack London, Lonesome Dove, The Poisonwood Bible. I could go on forever!
I second The Poisonwood Bible!
I third! I read that book at around that age and it changed me!
Little women…Anne of Greengables series…Twilight sreies…Harry Potter series…
The Princess Bride—even more humor than the movie.
Neil Gaiman “Anansi Boys” and “Stardust”
Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
The Hate U Give
One Summer
Get out of the house and live a little bit. Then choose books that relate to you.
The Good Earth, by Pearl S. Buck.
Your state probably has a list of adult and young adult books nominated for a readers choice award. This is always a great starting place with lots of variety each year.
The Book Thief.
Anything you want to read! ?????.
The Book Thief – SO good!
The Nightingale by Kristen Hannah!
All the Light You Cannot See, The Nightingale, Room, The Poisonwood Bible, Prodigal Summer, Me Before You, Eleanor and Park, Eli the Good, Same Sun Here, The Hate U Give, The Glass Castle, Looking for Alaska. These are in no particular order, just fantastic books for someone your age!
I loved The Glass Castle.
The hate u give is really good and I know teens have been liking it.
Have you read Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls? It’s about her grandmother. Also fantastic!
I was going to recommend the Glass Castle too. I gave it to my friend’s daughter at your age and it really made her appreciate what she has and empathize with others.
@Kate my favorite books!
@Maureen, those were just a few of my favorites to get her started! ?
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler.
Find lots of stuff you really enjoy. Once you get to college, you will spend 4 years reading almost nothing but textbooks!❤️?
Recommend this book
This is classic in Chicano Lit. Anything by Luis Urrea
Are you studying British or American lit this year?
Frankenstein, The Awakening, Invisible Man, The Stranger, Einstein’s Dreams. Those were some selections from my AP English class list.
Sooooooooo many possibilities. So many excellent choices too. Personally I love nonfiction. I’d suggest these… Man’s Search for Meaning (Frankl), The Hiding Place (tenBoom), Leadership & Self-deception (Arbinger Institute), Think & Grow Rich (Hill), How to Win Friends & Influence People (Carnegie), How to Live on 24 Hours a Day (Bennett), The Power of Habit (Duhigg), Born a Crime (Noah), Born to Win (Ziglar), The Willpower Instinct (McGonigal), The Productivity Project (Bailey), Start With Why (Sinek), Born for This (Guillebeau), How to Be Like Walt (Denney), and When (Pink). If you only have time for one is suggest Ziglar or Duhigg.
Read a book that gives you empathy for another group of people. Something like Nightingale, The Room on Rue Amelie, or Night by Elie Wiesel. Enjoy your summer!! ❤️?
Team of Rivals and then Watch the movie Lincoln. The movie provides a good basis of lobbying lawmakers back in the day.
Also, Alas Babylon, 1984, The Lord of the Flies, Anything by Dickens, The Hate U Give.
What will the English curriculum look like in your senior year?
I’d probably mix it up with some classic works which may be related to some of the authors you may be studying this year.
But I’d also mix it up with either something you’ve been wanting to read, or balance your list with some lighter materiel or short stories (both fiction and creative non-fiction).
But without knowing what authors and type of literature you gravitate to, what you’ve already read, or what you may want to get through, it hard to recommend specific works.
However, just read far and wide, and try to diversify! Outside of that, just enjoy your time reading this summer- the important thing is that you are continuing reading. ?
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.
A Lesson Before Dying – Ernest Gaines
The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje
Hotel du Lac – Anita Brookner
Snow Falling on Cedars – David Guterson
Atonement – Ian McEwan
Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis de Bernieres
My Antonia – Willa Cather
Ellen Foster – Kaye Gibbons
Books you enjoy.
Try The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri!
I really did *not* like that one!
My daughter when she was in PreAp and AP English in high school would read the mandatory books for the next school year. After she was done with those, she would go to different school district websites across the country and see what was on their mandatory AP and PreAP reading lists for their summer and read those. ?
It was interesting to see the spectrum of reads across the country.
My son has now started this. His mandatory is Into the Wild for 11th grade. Yet, when we looked at other school districts they had a few that were mandatory for him in 8th grade or 9th grade. One school district up north has mandatory Atlas Shrugged so he will read that one since our school district never picks that one.
I just graduated this last year and honestly, I didn’t like most of the required reading my senior year, but here are a few that I wish were on there.
Catcher in the Rye- J. D. Salinger
Catch-22- Joseph Heller
Once and Future King- T. H. White
Dune- Frank Herbert
Some non-fiction , unless 12th grade English offers a summer reading list.
Gentleman in Moscow. A really great read Nd a way to learn about the Russian revolution through fiction.
My senior students love The Song Poet, Bastard Out of Carolina, The Poisonwood Bible, and a The Things They Carried.
Loved The Things They Carried. Great book.
The Red Tent
Read at least one newspaper every day. Preferably two or more. I don’t anymore, but I should.
The Book Thief
Follow Book Riot and ProjectLit: I read a lot of John Irving and Tom Robbins when I was your age: there are many others to choose from
The spirit catches you, then you fall
Unbroken, Band of Brothers
My daughter loved The Help, Quo Vadis, and I Am Malala
I also recommend The Book Thief. It’s great that you are scheduling in some reading time! The Book Thief made me grateful for the gift of books that open up the world around us. There are some times, places and people who never get the privilege of reading what they want to read.
The Diary of Anne Frank
So great that you are asking. Let us know what you read, and how you liked them!
Everything you can pick up….newspapers, periodicals, fiction, non-fiction.
anything and everything
@Monse – Congratulations on entering your final year of high school! What do you like to read and what are you interested in? What do you want to pursue/study after high school? What will you be studying in school this fall? First – this is your last year as a “child” – read what you love, read what you find fun and fascinating! You are going to be writing (I hope) those college applications this fall – read about the things you are interested in studying! What Social Studies course are you taking? There are lots of historical fiction books that would pair well! What science will you be taking? Radium Girls, October Sky, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, The Origin of Species, Silent Spring, and anything by Carl Sagan or Stephen Hawking – all would be good options. Lastly – reading is wonderful, but make sure that you dedicate plenty of time with your family and friends, and maybe read some things together – a friends book club could be wonderful!
Wow… thank you so much!!
All the Light We Cannot See
The rent collector by Cameron wright. Demonstrates lengths people will go to learn how to read. This recommended book is recommended by a retired English teacher. I wish this book had been written while I was teaching. Recommended used too many times!?
The Book Thief.
The Book Thief
Tom Sawyer and Hicks Finn. Read some Carson McCullers especially why I live at the PO and Eudora Welty Member of the Wedding. These are southern authors and will give some perspective on the south in the early 1900s. Lord of the Rings to lose yourself in fantasy say. Jane eyre for an English feel. These are all classics. For something more modern read sisterhood of the traveling pants series . And for mystery try out Agatha Christie. For just plain humor. I think you would enjoy Carl Hiassen.
Enjoyed why I live at the p.o. so happy to see it mentioned.
Most colleges have lists of recommended summer reading before freshman year. See if you can get one and get a jump start on college reading.
Check out The Emperor’s Edge by Lindsay Buroker. I read it my senior year and it’s still my favorite book.
Catcher in the Rye, Of Mice and Men, Romeo and Juliet, To Kill a Mockingbird, or Lord of the Flies
The Scarlet Letter.
The Stranger
Just look at covers and titles choose and read all Summer long. Enjoy your Summer Book Adventure
What are your favorite books?
Price and Prejudice!
Everything
The Glass Bead Game (Magister Ludi) by Hermann Hesse
jane austen
Amazing Adevntures of Cavalier and Klay, Zeitoun or What is the What by Dave Eggers, and a biography of a person you admire.
Something with a beach on the cover! ?
Jane Eyre
CATCHER IN THE RYE by j d salinger
Bleh. She’s likely to be force-fed that one already.
I Am Charlotte Simmons – by T. Wolfe I recommend it for all young ladies getting ready to think about life at University. The audio book is very good.
Anything on the list and anything you want – you have the freedom to choose your own taste in reading – Enjoy it!
If you haven’t read it yet: Fellowship of the Ring.
Anything and everything!!!
I remember really enjoying The Beet Queen by Louise Erdrich at your age.
The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland by Jim DeFede…Hawaii by James Michener…Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak…The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty…An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth: What Going to Space Taught Me About Ingenuity, Determination, and Being Prepared for Anything by Chris Hadfield…Tough As Nails: One Woman’s Journey Through West Point by Gail O’Sullivan Dwyer…Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam…Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead…The Magic of Ordinary Days by Ann Howard Creel…The English American by Alison Larkin…Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shatterly…Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon–and the Journey of a Generation by Sheila Weller…The Salaryman’s Wife by Sujata Massey …The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz…The Hum and the Shiver by Alex Bledsoe…Follow the River by James Alexander Thom…The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart…Mr. Churchill’s Secretary: A Maggie Hope Mystery by Susan Elia Macneal…
Everything that looks interesting to you
Everything, Everything. P.s that’s an actual book.
Yes, I have read every thing Camus has written, but not in eleventh grade. Have you read the Twilight series, Outlander or Jane Austin novels?
I would go to the library pick out what struck me and tried it, if I didn’t like it I could take it back and pick out some thing else! Go with your interests bios, history, romance, it’s all there!
Educated, a memoir, by Tara Westover.
The library or library book sales for a cheap copy to keep…..go to what you are interested in …fiction or non fiction…mix it up……take your time……just enjoy…….in high school I was reading Alistair MacLean, anything about nuclear holocaust…..it was a big worry in the 50s…..books on WW2 because I wanted to know what was going on to cause my dad to leave when I was 2 days old and didn’t return till a month before I turned 3……..but by all means…start with the real deal….a book in the hand.
All the books
Anything by Margaret Atwood or Isabel Allende. My favorite book is Peace Like a River by Leif Enger. A well told tale that acknowledges both the sorrow, beauty, and magic of life. You are at the perfect age for all of these Miss Monse Gutierrez 😉
Atwood’s books are crazy in a fun way. I hope you get to try her out.
Google college reading lists. If you have a major or an area of interest at least, familiarize yourself with the essential books in that area. It would be nice to build up your chops in dealing with college level reading material. You don’t have to finish the books or read that exclusively, but that’s the direction you could head.
Everything by Mark Twain…
The Diary of Anne Frank, A Wrinkle in Time, The BFG
Ask your librarian for some suggestions, he/she can hone into your interests and find you some germane and interesting reads
1984, Animal Farm, Old Man and the Sea.
Anything you can get your hands on. Try some biography, some mythology, some short stories. What are you most interested in these days? Tell the librarian, and he or she will find you something wonderful with that as part of it. By 12th grade, you should be reading anything.
Congratulations on being a reading senior!!! Way to go!!! 😉
Any book by Dave Ramsey!
If you plan to go to college check the suggested reading list for that college, the reading list for the reading challenge might not differ very much
https://amp.thisisinsider.com/summer-reading-list-college-books-2017-7
Great list!
Great question….
Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood
Anything John Irving
Yes, I loved a Prayer for Owen Meany.
I would look at the many suggestions that have been made here and choose one that you think would be a pleasurable read.
Try a non-fiction about philosophers like The Philosophers Book
Look up some college reading lists, especially for schools you plan to try and attend. If you’re not planning to go to college, look up the lists for the swanky ones, that’s what I did. It made me sound smarter, which helped sometimes.
Harry Potter, if u haven’t already!
Geeks, Oceans in my Ears, The Alice Network
The Great Alone.
Speak
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
by Mark Haddon
Monse what books have you liked?
Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis
The Lovely Bones, Wayward Pines, Deep End of the Ocean, A Home at the End of the World
Just read! Anything is good! Enjoy reading you have plenty of time for required reading!
Gone with the Wind
Cutting for Stone
The Book Thief
The Art of Fielding
The Shepherd of the Hills
The lovely bones. It is dark- be prepared but it us also beautiful. Sensitive subject matter.
I encourage you to read something you will enjoy and connect with. A few titles you could check out include I Am the Messenger by Marcus Zusak, Flight by Sherman Alexie, The Accidental Tourist by Ann Tyler, The Metamorphosis by Frank Kafka, and Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward.
College books
If you are taking the AP Literature exam – here are suggestions: https://blog.prepscholar.com/ap-literature-reading-list
West with the Night by Beryl Markham
I just read Circling the Sun about her…I just downloaded West With the Night..
@Pat An amazing woman
Crazy Rich Asian
The Hate U Give
The book thief..perfect for you
Life is short. Just read! My 70 something husband likes Percy Jackson, The Red Pyramid, Harry Potter, and Fablehaven.
That’s terrific advice. From this retired AP English lit teacher: read as much as you can everywhere you can, and don’t worry about stuffing your head with the classics right now. Your senior English teacher will tell you WHAT to read; the important thing is knowing HOW to read. Read the newspaper every day – all of it, from the stories on the front page to the stats on the sports pages. Practice reading for speed and accuracy. Know at least a little bit about a lot of things. Read for fun, read to learn, read to learn more about the things you love, read to learn more about the things you don’t love. Read the directions on a cake mix box and the manual in your car. Become a critical reader. Don’t worry about Shakespeare and Turgenev or anybody else; just read.
@Nanci well said!!!❤️
The Hate U Give
I read “gone with the wind” at your age and loved it!!!
I Am Malala; The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind; The Distance Between Us.
My fourth grader is reading the boy who harnessed the wind and loves it!
I read Gone with the Wind while I traveled to work on the bus. was wonderful.
Gone With the Wind
My 11th grader’s World Lit reading list for the upcoming school year: Frankenstein, Night, Kite Runner, The Stranger, Cry the Beloved Country, The Metamorphosis, Siddhartha, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Candide, Les Miserables, Don Quixote, Kaffir Boy, Hiroshima, Persepolis, and Odyssey.
We started out with a much longer list and then went through and picked the ones he thought he might like the most.
The Painted Bird
The U.S. Constitution, particularly the Bill of Rights. We should all read it.
Book thief
Whatever you want. Just read❤️
Yes!! You have sooooo many choices!!!
Classics will help you with your College Courses.
Message to the black man by Elijah Mohammed
Memoirs of an imaginary friend. Really good
The glass castle is also good!
Well, when I was your age I read Gone With the Wind and Rebecca during summer vacation. Stayed up way into the night reading and loved every second of it!
Rebecca is one of my favs!
I started reading The Catcher in the Rye when I was 17 or 18. I used to read it at least once per year after that. I need to read it again.
Life in a Jar: The Irena Sendler Project by Jack Mayer
Trials of the Earth by Mary Mann Hamilton
I would recommend, “Shes Come Undone” by Wally Lamb and “The Mermaids Singing” by Lisa Carey. ✌️
The Secret Life of Bees
If you have plans of going on to study literature, you should get a grounding in Greek and Roman mythology if you don’t have it yet.
Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” is one of the most influential books ever written, the source for most of the classical allusions the great authors made, plus it’s a wonderful book in its own right. I like the public domain prose translation by Frank Justus Miller (which can be downloaded at Internet Archive in the original Loeb Classics version, or purchased from Barnes & Noble Classics, if skipping over the Latin pages is too annoying for you — it was for me). Of the copyrighted translations, I also like Rolfe Humphries’ for University of Indiana Press and A. D. Melville’s for Oxford World’s Classics.
Another important primary resource is “The Library of Greek Mythology” (or “Library” or “Bibliotheka) by Apollodorus (also called Pseudo-Apollodorus, since many experts now doubt the attribution). The translation I have is by Robin Hard for Oxford World’s Classics.
There are also books that retell the classical myths. Two of the most popular are “Bulfinch’s Mythology” by Thomas Bulfinch (in the public domain and downloadable from Project Gutenberg in the all-in-one edition or as “The Age of Fable”, which is the volume specifically dealing with Greek and Roman myths) and “Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes” by Edith Hamilton. Bulfinch is slightly more comprehensive than Hamilton on the Norse myths, but they’re both good books.
I took the Great Books route at u of Michigan . Best ever .
But she might want a break this summer ! ?
@Darby Well, to me, I think reading Ovid, Bulfinch, and Hamilton is a break. 😉 I love this stuff and wasn’t even a literature major, but did my degree in biology. Nevertheless, I find myself returning to the “Metamorphoses” time and again and always finding something fresh in it. And I was rereading “Bulfinch’s Mythology” earlier this year too, with as much pleasure as when I first read it as a child.
Sold and The Orphan Train. And, I am so excited that there is high schooler who has joined the club. Welcome
“Bless me, Ultima” by Rudolfo Anaya. “The Handmaid’s Tale” “The 13th Tale” “Memoirs of a Geisha” ,
“Different Seasons” by Stephen King. I read it while in college, & I still think of the four novellas. Not scary, just *good*! A couple were made into movies!
Gone with the wind
Read everything you can find until you find what you like best.
Band of Brothers
To kill a mockingbird,gone with the wind…
A Fine Balance, the world According to Garp, Handmaids Tale
The Book Thief
My son is reading The Book Thief for school. I am going to purchase the book so I can follow him.?
My granddaughter read it for school, too. Then I read it. Very good. She also read The Real Story of Hansel and Gretel ( I think that was it) and The Diary of Anne Frank.
Americanah by Adichie.
I just finished reading this for one of my book clubs. My daughter really enjoyed this book.
All The Light we cannot see, The Book Thief, Sara’s key. The nightingale, to kill a mockingbird
Hunger Games, Divergent series
One Plus One, The Horse Dancer and Me Before You written by Jojo Moyes. Have a good Summer reading!
The War that saved my life. Soo good
The Help, the Color Purple
Roots, by Alex Haley, is an amazing story of history and family.
Any Luanne Moriarty books are good summer fun reading
Sarah Dessen’s books are great too! You’ll start to see characters return in cameos from other books.
Harry Potter!
Ready player one
James Rollins for adventures. My favorite book in my late teens was Quest for the Faradawn by Richard Ford. A boy raised by a family of badgers must find the elf lords to get magic items and save the forest and creatures from bad humans.
The Lord of the Rings
Read as much as you can. Read all of it!
The Poisonwood Bible
A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn.
Lord of the Flies
We Were Liars
If at birth you don’t succeed.
The Sellout by Paul Beatty
Destiny of the republic.
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Likely to be on any modern reading list at college.
anything!
Whatever you are drawn to! Just read!
One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey. Another modern lit classic by one of the greatest beat generation writers.
Tell us a little more about what books you’ve liked and the ideas will flow but I’m struggling about whether you’d like any of my recent favorites: The Boston Girl, A Man Called Ove, Bear Town, Small Great Things, The Sleep Walker …
Ah, a kindred spirit
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson.
Reading it now!
The Grapes of Wrath by John @Steinbeck.
The Bell Jar – if you haven’t yet read it- there is a lot to relate to and it is an amazing window of how women were treated and what was expected of them in that time. Siddhartha is also a good choice (and it’s on th GAR list). It changed my life!
The Hate U Give
The Hate you give by Angie Thomas great book great book really relevant and won national book award
also Ready player one by ernest cline
Going Bovine by Libba Bray
Esmeralda Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan
The Alchemist
Cats Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut!
You will learn something from every book you read, new words, ideas, cultures, adventures, history. It doesn’t matter what you read, just keep reading!
The Left Side of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin. Or her Earthsea series
Alan Gratz’s Refugee. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89sO3y75hF8
The Killer Angels by Shara
The Book Thief.
The help
Following
All the Light We Cannot See
It Can’t Happen Here, Witch of Blackbird Pond, Dread Nation, To Kill a Mockingbird, and anything else that strikes your fancy.
I am so old school – anything by the Bronte sisters or George Elliot. I read Doctor Zhivago in 12 grade.
I haven’t seen anyone else bring up Dr Zhivago, why wasn’t it on the List?
Have you read Stephen King’s The Stand? It is an amazing work. I was happy that this was on the list. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. There’s another book by Dr Crichton that’s not on the list, Dragon Teeth. It’s basically fun historical fiction that moves very rapidly. If you haven’t read 1984, Fahrenheit 481, Animal Farm, To Kill a Mockingbird, all of these are books I read in my youth and I still find them memorable.
The Stand …good recommendation!
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Handmaiden’s tale
Your college of choice may have a reading list online (of suggestions). Also, check out the lists online from College Board, even if you aren’t in AP. Many of the books suggested in the comments are on that list. I agree with the many here who simply encourage you to “just read”!
To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Great Gatsby. Jane Eyre is a classic, but good.
Jane Eyre, Pygmalion, War of the Worlds, Wuthering Heights…Anything by a great British author will help you next school year.
Honestly, whatever you want. School/college will steal all your pleasure reading time soon enough. Cherish it now.
Find out what your next year teacher or teachers will be assigning for reading and get a jump ahead of everybody else.
Read whatever you want! If you go to college, you’ll have a whole list of stuff assigned for you. Read as much for pleasure now as you can!
Jane Austen
Station Eleven. All the Light we cannot see.
Of human Bondage
East of Eden. Snow Falling on Cedars
Gone With the Wind
The Power of One
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and The Alchemist.
Phantom of the opera
I still think THE BOOK THIEF
THINGS FALL APART
Rebecca or Member of the Wedding or Wuthering Heights or Call of the Wild. I thought each was exquisite and have stayed with me over 50 years . Have fun!!
You should read whatever you like and as much as possible!
Nineteen Minutes but Jodi Pichoult. It deals with the consequences of bullying.
The Rent Collector
The Hobbit and Lord of the Ring trilogy if you haven’t already read them
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini and The Splendor of Silence by Indu Sundaresan ?
Stones From The River
I recently downloaded that book, but haven’t started it yet.
@Debbie really relevant today
I read Oliver Twist the summer before my senior year. It is one of a few “classic” novels I’ve ever enjoyed. Now I am 64 and I just read any genre, title, story that appeals to me. You’d be surprised how many new words, customs, political views and other interesting facts you can learn from a well written romance or science fiction/ fantasy novel.
Into the Wild by John Krakauer
A nonfiction book that focuses on the history of your culture and what your ancestors have contributed to this country and the world. And talk to older members of your family about the content of the books. You are at an awesome age to learn history not traditionally (although it should be) taught in schools.
John Jake series
Winds of War and War and Remembrance — both by Herman Wouk. The second one picks up where the 1st one ends. I felt like I really knew the characters.
Do you remember the mini series?! ❤️
@Maureen Yes, but I liked the books better. I was sad when I finished them.
Oh I agree with you Elizabeth- great character development there!
My Antonia by Willa Cather and The Life of Pi by Martel
Life of Pi is a great suggestion!
The Source by Michener is another really good read
Also anything by Leon Uris
How bout Pillars of the Earth?
Books by Richard Russo, especially Nobody’s Fool. Great movie of this with Paul Newman.