High School Summer Reading Requirements and List

June 2015
Dear Students and Parents,
As the summer draws near, we are already preparing for the opening of school in
September. While the summer is a time for reflection and intellectual renewal for our students, a
time for recreation and relaxation, we are hopeful that it is also a time of preparation for the
academic year ahead. Specifically, we are hoping that the summer offers opportunities for
reading. We believe, as Richard Steele expressed centuries ago, “Reading is to the mind what
exercise is to the body.” Because of the value we place on reading, the English Department has
implemented a summer reading requirement for all students. We are encouraging all of our
students to pursue readings of their choice from the reading list (novels) compiled by the English
department. Titles chosen have been recommended by prestigious educational institutions and
organizations such as the American Library Association and The American College Board.
Additionally, students can choose texts from the IB PLT (Prescribed Literature in Translation List) or
a text by any author on the PLA (Prescribed List of Authors). Each student is required to read
three novels from the main or supplementary reading lists. One of these is assigned to all students
in each grade level, 9 through 12 as indicated in the list below. Reading lists are available on the
Marymount website.
The assigned reading for each incoming grade level is:
GRADE 9
Animal Farm - George Orwell
GRADE 10
The Things They Carried - Tim O’Brien
GRADE 11
The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
GRADE 12
The Namesake - Jhumpa Lahiri
In addition:
IB ENGLISH A LITERATURE HL / SL 2:
Desdemona - Toni Morrison (HL and SL)
Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett (HL only)
IB ENGLISH A LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE HL /2:
Things Fall Apart- Chinua Achebe
Desdemona- Toni Morrison (optional)
IB ENGLISH A LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE SL/ 2:
Desdemona- Toni Morrison (optional)
IB ENGLISH B LITERATURE HL / SL 2:
The House on Mango Street – Sandra Cisneros (HL and SL)
Once the school year begins, your English teacher will administer a written assessment based on
your summer reading. You may find it helpful to underline the most important passages and key
quotations, notate vocabulary, and to put comments to yourself in the margins as you read. Make
sure you still have the books when school starts. During the year, you will continue to read
additional books as part of our independent reading program, in addition to the novels, stories,
poetry and plays you will be reading as part of your English classes.
With your cooperation and encouragement, we believe that these reading assignments will help
our students grow intellectually as they enjoy the many benefits of summer vacation. Have a
wonderful summer and happy reading!
Sincerely,
The English Department
MARYMOUNT INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL ROME
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT HIGH SCHOOL READING LIST
A Farewell to Arms
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Hemmingway, Ernest
The best American novel to emerge out of World War I, the unforgettable story of an American
ambulance driver on the Italian front and his love for a beautiful English nurse.
A Passage to India
-
Forster, E.M.
When on a trip in 1928 to visit her son, Mrs. Moore, accompanied by her son’s fiancé, becomes
appalled at the treatment of the Indians by the ruling British government. Later, they befriend a
native Indian who, over-stepping the accepted norms of his culture, invites the two ladies on an
excursion. In a strange turn of events, he is accused of attempting to rape the young girl.
A Prayer for Owen Meany
-
Irving, John
Owen Meany, the only child of a New Hampshire granite quarrier, believes he is God’s
instrument; he is. A darkly comic, stunning meditation on predestination, faith and the unrealized
forces that shape one’s days.
A Room With a View
-
Forster, E.M
Set in 1907, when Victorian morality still held much of English society, this playful comedy
centers on Miss Lucy Honeychurch, an upper class young woman. All she wanted was a room
with a view on her first trip to Florence, Italy, and little did she realize that her wish would lead
her into impropriety, confusion, and passion.
As I Lay Dying
Faulkner, W.
The Bundren family takes the ripening corpse of Addie, wife and mother, on a gruesomely comic
journey.
A Tale of Two Cities
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Dickens, Charles
Charles Dickens's great historical novel is set against the violent upheaval of the French
Revolution. The most famous and perhaps the most popular of his works, it compresses an event
of immense complexity to the scale of a family history. Though the least typical of the author's
novels, A Tale of Two Cities still underscores many of his enduring themes--imprisonment,
injustice, and social anarchy, resurrection and the renunciation that fosters renewal.
Alias Grace
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Atwood, Margaret
An extraordinary novel based on the true story of one of the most enigmatic and notorious
women of the 1840’s, Atwood creates a tale of sexuality, cruelty and mystery.
All Quiet on the Western Front
-
Remarque, Eric Maria
Classic war novel about a young man’s vision of and realities of war.
All the King’s Men
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Warren,Robert Penn
This landmark book is a loosely fictionalized account of Governor Huey Long of Louisiana, one of
the nation's most astounding politicians. All the King's Men tells the story of Willie Stark, a
southern-fried politician who builds support by appealing to the common man and playing dirty
politics with the best of the back-room deal-makers. The award-winning book is a play of politics,
society and personal affairs, all wrapped in the cloak of history
An American Tragedy
-
Dreiser, Theodore
A complex and compassionate account of the life and death of a young antihero named Clyde
Griffiths... Dreiser's intricate speculations on the extent of Clyde's guilt are countered by his
searing indictment of materialism and the American dream of success.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Joyce, James
A novel about a young man growing up in Ireland and rebelling against family, country, and
religion.
Animal Farm
-
Orwell, George
-
McEwan, Ian
Animals turn the tables on their masters.
Atonement
A symphonic novel of love and war, childhood and class, guilt and forgiveness which follows
through the chaos and carnage of World War II and into the close of the twentieth century.
Bel Canto
-
Patchettt,Ann
The story of international guests at a dinner with a renown opera singer who are suddenly taken
hostage by a band of gun-wielding terrorists. But what begins as a life-threatening scenario
slowly evolves into something quite different.
Black Like Me
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Griffin, John
After taking medications which darkens the skin, John Griffin learned first hand what it was like
to be a black person in the deep South during the 1950’s.
Brave New World
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Huxley, Aldous
In a chilling vision of the future, babies are produced in bottles and exist in a mechanized world
without soul.
Bridge of San Luis Rey
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Wilder,Thorton
A Pulizer Prize winner, this novel about a bridge in Peru which collapses in 1714. Of the five
people on it, only one survives. Why?
Cat’s Cradle
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Vonnegut, Kurt
A masterful mixture of satire, fantasy and all-too-real-realism. An ultimate commentary on
modern man and his madness. A brilliant and important novel of the decade of the 60’s
Catch-22
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Heller, Joseph
In this satirical novel, Captain Yossarian confronts the hypocrisy of war and bureaucracy as he
frantically attempts to survive.
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin
Louis de Bernières
British author Louis de Bernières is well known for his forays into magical realism. In this novel.
de Bernières seems interested in dissecting the nature of history as he tells his ever-darkening tale
from many different perspectives. Corelli's Mandolin works on many levels, as a love story, a war
story, and a deconstruction of just what determines the facts that make it into the history books.
Ceremony
Silko,Leslie Marmon
Thirty years since its original publication, Ceremony remains one of the most profound and
moving works of Native American literature, a novel that is itself a ceremony of healing. Tayo, a
World War II veteran of mixed ancestry, returns to the Laguna Pueblo Reservation. He is deeply
scarred by his experience as a prisoner of the Japanese and further wounded by the rejection he
encounters from his people. Only by immersing himself in the Indian past can he begin to regain
the peace that was taken from him. Masterfully written, filled with the somber majesty of Pueblo
myth, Ceremony is a work of enduring power.
Cheaper By the Dozen
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Gilbreth, Frank
This heartwarming classic story tells about the humorous adventures and misadventures of the
twelve children in the Gilbreth family.
City of the Beasts
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Allende, Isabel
A scary page turner that features freaky Amazonian creatures and Allende’s characteristic
magical realism.
Cry the Beloved Country
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Paton, Alan
The compassionate story of Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son Absalom.
Dead Man Walking
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Prejean,Sister Helen
The story of the relationship between a Catholic nun and the convict she has been assigned to cou
nsel in preparation for his execution.
Don Quixote
Cervantes, Miguel de
An eccentric old gentleman sets out as a knight "tilting at windmills" to right the wrongs of the
world.
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Dracula
Stoker, Bram
A naive young Englishman travels to Transylvania to do business with a client, Count Dracula.
After showing his true and terrifying colors, Dracula boards a ship for England in search of new,
fresh blood. Unexplained disasters begin to occur in the streets of London before the mystery and
the evil doer are finally put to rest. Told in a series of news reports from eyewitness observers to
writers of personal diaries, this has a ring of believability that counterbalances nicely with
Dracula's too-macabre-to-be-true exploits.
Ethan Fromme
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Wharton, Edith
This tragic love story set in New England has become a timeless classic.
Faithful Place
Tana French
Frank Mackey, Dublin police officers goes back home to Faithful Place, the working class street in
Dublin he grew up on, to uncover why his girlfriend, Rosie, never showed up the night they were
supposed to run away together when they were teenagers.
French uses this unresolved mystery from Frank's past to highlight another story taking place in
the present. French is really good at incorporating Dublin and Ireland into her stories. You get a
sense of the country's culture, people, and economy and it all feels like a natural part of the book.
In each of her books, the setting becomes a character in the book.
NB: Tana is a Marymount International School alum.
Gulliver’s Travels
Swift, Jonathan
Gulliver encounters dwarfs and giants and has other strange adventures when his ship is wrecked
in distant lands.
If On A Winter’s Night a Traveller
Calvino, Italo
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler is a marvel of ingenuity, an experimental text that looks
longingly back to the great age of narration--"when time no longer seemed stopped and did not
yet seem to have exploded." Italo Calvino's novel is in one sense a comedy in which the two
protagonists, the Reader and the Other Reader, ultimately end up married, having almost finished
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler. In another, it is a tragedy, a reflection on the difficulties of
writing and the solitary nature of reading
In the Time of Butterflies
-
Alvarez,Julia
The four Mirabel sisters were called the Mariposas, or butterflies. Dede, the only survivor,
tells the story of courage that helps liberate the Dominican Republic from the dictator Trujillo.
Invisible Man
-
Ellison, Ralph
A young African American seeking identity during his high school and college days, and later in
New York’s Harlem, relates his terrifying experiences.
Jane Eyre
Bronte,Charlotte
A dark mystery stands between a shy governess and an unconventional employer whom she loves.
Looking Backward: 2000-1887
Belamy, Edward
Written in 1887 about a young man who travels in time to a utopian year 2000, where economic
security and a healthy moral environment have reduced crime.
Like Water for Chocolate
Esquivel,Laura
As the youngest of three daughters in a turn-of-the-century Mexican family, Tita may not marry
but must remain at home to care for her mother.
Lord of the Rings
-
Tolkien, J.R.R.
Classic fantasy about “Middle Earth” which began with The Hobbit
Love in the Time of Cholera
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia
“A love story of astonishing power and delicious comedy…humane, richly comic, almost
unbearably touching, and altogether extraordinary.” (Newsweek)
Member of the Wedding
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McCullers, Carson
12-year old Frankie takes literally her role as a member of the wedding when her brother marries
and she becomes disillusioned and enlightened in this novel of one summer in 1930’s Georgia.
Memoirs of a Geisha
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Golden, Arthur
A window into a world so closed and foreign, Golden has caputred the soul of a Japanese woman
and her geisha culture in an extraordinary fashion.
Mrs. Dalloway
-
Woolf, Virginia
As Clarissa Dalloway prepares for an elaborate party, she remembers another summer in the past,
when she was a beautiful young woman. Her preparations are interrupted by the unexpected
arrival of a former suitor from that long-ago summer. As the day of the party unfolds, Mrs.
Dalloway’s life also becomes strangely intertwined with a young man she never meets, but whose
tragic fate strikes a cord of truth, deep in her soul, that she cannot deny.
My Antonia
-
Cather, Willa
Willa Cather’s portrayal of pioneer life in Nebraska is one of the best-loved classics of American
fiction. Infused with gracious passion for the land, this work embraces its uncommon subject—
the hard life of the pioneer woman on the prairie—with poetic certitude, rendering a moving
portrait of an entire community.
Native Son
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Wright, Richard
A black man’s struggle against racism.
Oliver Twist
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Dickens, Charles
The story of a street boy on the run, who lives with outlaws, learns to love, and ultimately finds a
safe home.
On the Beach
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Shute, Neville
Classic World War III has begun and ended and the last place on earth still habitable is Australia
but only for a short while longer.
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich -
Solzhenitsn, Alexander
A day in the life of a prisoner in a Soviet work camp and his heroic struggle to survive.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
-
Kesey, Ken
“Powerful, poetic realism . . . makes the tired old subject of life in a mental hospital
into an absorbing Orwellian microcosm of all humanity.”
One Hundred Years of Solitude
-
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia
Set in a mythical South American town and told using magical realism, this novel follows the
Buendia family in the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. In each generation we find history
repeating itself.
Pillars of the Earth
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Follett, Ken
An epic novel set in the twelfth century which explores the themes of violence and the intellectual
excitement that was sweeping Europe at that time. The slow and painful birth of an early Gothic
cathedral is a fascinating central motif for a tale which evokes its period brilliantly.
Plain Truth
-
Picoult, Jodi
Moving from psychological drama to courtroom suspense, this novel is a fascinating portrait of
Amish life- and a moving exploration of the bonds of love, friendship, and the heart’s most
complex choices.
Pride and Prejudice
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Austen,Jane
In this comedy of manners, Elizabeth Bennet, a spirited heroine, doesn’t always agree with her
opinionated beau, Mr. Darcy.
Ragtime
-
E.L. Doctorow
A novel about the era between the turn of the century and World War I.
Return of the Native
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Hardy, Thomas
Vast, brooding Egdon Heath is the setting for this examination of the frailties of human love.
Room
Emma Donoghue
In many ways, Jack is a typical 5-year-old. He likes to read books, watch TV, and play games with
his Ma. But Jack is different in a big way--he has lived his entire life in a single room, sharing the
tiny space with only his mother .When their insular world suddenly expands beyond the confines
of their four walls, the consequences are piercing and extraordinary. Despite its profoundly
disturbing premise, Emma Donoghue's Room is rife with moments of hope and beauty, and the
dogged determination to live, even in the most desolate circumstances. A stunning and original
novel of survival in captivity, readers who enter Room will leave staggered, as though, like Jack,
they are seeing the world for the very first time
2010 Winner of the Booker Award
Schindler’s List
-
Keneally, Thomas
Oskar Schindler, a rich factory owner, risks his life and spends his personal fortune to save Jews
listed as his workers during World War II
Siddartha
-
Hesse, Herman
In this book, the spirituality of the East and the West meet; it is the story of a soul’s long quest in
search of the ultimate answer to the enigma of man’s role on this earth. The young Indian
Siddhartha must work out his own destiny and solve his own doubt—a tortuous road that carries
him to self-knowledge in the end.
Skeletons of the Feast
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Bohjalian,Christopher
Skeletons of the Feast paints the brutal landscape of Nazi Germany as German refugees struggle
westward ahead of the advancing Russian army. Inspired by the unpublished diary of a Prussian
woman who fled west in 1945, the novel exhumes the ruin of spirit, flesh and faith that
accompanied thousands of such desperate journeys. Bohjalian presents the difficulties
confronting two sets of travelers in parallel journeys with carefully researched detail and an
unflinching eye.
Snow Falling on Cedars
-
Huterson, David
A Japanese American fisherman’s 1954 murder trial becomes the backdrop of a story that follows
a doomed love affair between a white boy and a Japanese girl, a simmering land dispute,and the
wartime internment of San Piedro’s Japanese residents.
Stranger in a Strange Land
-
Heinlein,Robert A.
The ways of Earth are strange to the young man from Mars. First published in 1961, this novel is
a Hugo Award winner.
Tender is the Night
-
Fitzgerald, F. Scott
A novel set in the 1930’s in which a couple supports friends at the expense of their financial and
psychological stability.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn -
Twain, Mark
In this novel Huck takes a trip down the river with a runaway slave and learns the worth of life.
According to Ernest Hemingway, "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark
Twain called Huckleberry Finn."
The Andromedia Strain
-
Crichton,Michael
A satellite returns to earth lethally contaminated and four scientists are ordered to work against
the threat of worldwide epidemic.
The Art of Racing in the Rain
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Stein, Garth
Meet one funny dog—Enzo, the lovable mutt who tells this story. Enzo knows he is different from
other dogs: most dogs love to chase cars, but Enzo longs to race them. Enzo finds that life is just
like being on the racetrack—it isn't simply about going fast. And, applying the rules of racing to
his world, Enzo takes on his family's challenges and emerges a hero. In the end, Enzo holds in his
heart the dream that Denny will go on to be a racing champion with his daughter by his side. For
theirs is an extraordinary friendship—one that reminds us all to celebrate the triumph of the
human (and canine) spirit.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
-
Malcolm X
The powerful autobiography of an influential civil rights activist, assassinated in the 1960’s.
The Awakening
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Chopin, Kate
Edna Pontellier, an unhappy wife and mother, discovers new qualities in herself when she visits
Grand Isle , a resort for the Creole elite of New Orleans.
The Bean Trees
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Kingsolver, Barbara
Taylor Greer leaves Kentucky and heads west to find a new life. When a baby is abandoned in her
car, she learns that responsibilities and independence are not mutually exclusive in this story of
family and community.
The Beet Queen
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Erdrich,Louise
On a spring morning in 1932, two children seek refuge. The story is an exhilarating forty-year
saga with unforgettable characters, magic of natural events and the unending mystery of the
human condition.
The Bell Jar
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Plath, Sylvia
The autobiographical account of the author’s teenage years and descent into madness and
depression.
The Bluest Eye
-
Morrison,Toni
Pecola is subjected to some ugly things. She’s spat upon, ridiculed and raped. She yearns to be the
very opposite of what she is…to be a white child, possessed of the blondest hair and the bluest
eye.
The Chosen
-
Potok, Chaim
Two Jewish boys of different sets meet in a baseball game and become friends in spite of parental
rivalry.
The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to his White Mother McBride,James
The two voices in this moving narrative ( black musician, composer and writer and his white
mother, daughter of a failed Orthodox Jewish rabbi) are beautifully juxtaposed to resonate the
theme of family, faith, racism and forgiveness.
The Color Purple -
Walker,Alice
The Color Purple is the story of two sisters—one a missionary to Africa and the other a child wife
living in the South—who remain loyal to one another across time, distance, and silence.
Beautifully imagined and deeply compassionate, this classic of American literature is rich with
passion, pain, inspiration, and an indomitable love of life.
The Double Bind
-
Bohjalian,Christopher
Readers will be startled to learn early on that the heroine of this engrossing puzzle, 26-year-old
Laurel Estabrook, was born in West Egg. Wait a minute, wasn't West Egg where Jay Gatsby lived?
Laurel works in a Burlington, Vt., homeless shelter and is trying to overcome mental and physical
scars incurred from a brutal assault some six years earlier. After being given a portfolio of
photographs taken by a recently deceased resident of the shelter, Bobbie Crocker, she becomes
obsessed with questions surrounding what appears to be a picture of herself . The Gatsby
references form the basis of the mystery, compelling readers to try to imagine how this fictional
backdrop relates to the novel's "reality. A must-read for Gatsby lovers.
The Fixer
-
Malamud, Bernard
Victim of a vicious anti-Semitic conspiracy, Yakov Bok is in a Russian prison with only his
indomitable will to sustain him.
The Girl With the Pearl Earring
-
Chevalier,Tracy
Griet is the name of the girl with the pearl earring in the painting by Vermeer, a famous Dutch
artist. In this novel she is 16 and a servant in his household.
The God of Small Things
-
Roy,Arundhati
A compelling story that marries the deepest, smallest personal emotions with an epic narrative
set in India. The journey through a landscape of sensory imagery and the touching story of
children and the caste system makes this an extraordinary novel.
The Help
Kathryn Stockett
An array of sharply defined black and white characters in the nascent years of the civil rights
movement. The novel is a superb intertwining of personal and political history in Jackson, Miss.,
in the early 1960s.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
-
Hugo, Victor
The story of a lonely bell ringer and his love for the beautiful gypsy girl whom he rescues from
hanging.
The Joy Luck Club
-
Tan, Amy
This is a story about mothers and daughters, about Chinese mothers and Chinese American
daughters. Beautiful and rich stories are blended with superstitions and myths. The language is
evocative; horrifying events are conveyed in a dreamlike way. Tan successfully communicates the
complexity of immigrating to and growing up in America, and the transformation of American
identities.
The Jungle
-
Sinclair, Upton
Set in Chicago of the early 1900’s, this story shows the terrible sanitary and labor conditions and
exploitations in the stockyards.
The Kite Runner
-
Hosseini, Khalid
A compassionate novel set in 1970’s Afghanistan, the story centers on 12 year old Amir and
Hasssan, his low caste servant. A brilliant novel about “ the power of evil, personal and political,
and the power of hope.”
The Loved One
-
Waugh, Evelyn
A satirical story of a famous Los Angeles cemetery and the family that runs it.
The Master and Margherita
Mikhail Bulgakov
“Sparkling, enchanting, funny, deeply serious and sometimes baffling . . . [The Master and
Margarita is] a liberating, exuberant social and political satire combined with a profound moral
and political allegory . . . A bravura performance of truly heroic virtuosity, a carnival of the
imagination.” One of the truly great Russian novels of [the twentieth] century
The Power and the Glory
-
Greene , Graham
Graham Greene's novel follows a priest in his flight from authorities who are trying to eradicate
the Catholic church in a Mexican state. Andrew Sachs gives thoughtful voice to the priest's inner
life, effectively conveying his gentle, innocent nature; his guilt over both his flight and his past
sins, and his fear of death.
The Red Badge of Courage
-
Crane, Stephen
A study of fear as it affects the young and romantic presuppositions of a young Union soldier in
the Civil War
The Red Tent
-
Diamant, Anita
Told in the voice of Dinah, daughter of Jacob from the Book of Genesis, this novel reveals the
traditions and turmoils of ancient womanhood—the world of the red tent. Deeply affecting, the
novel combines rich story-telling with a new view of Biblical women’s society.
The Stranger
-
Camus, Albert
A terrifying, existential picture of a man victimized by life itself—a faceless man who has
committed a pointless murder.
The Three Musketeers
-
Dumas, Alexander
The friendship and adventurous exploits of four young swordsmen in 17th century France
The Tin Drum
Grass, Gunther
The first and still great adventure into time travel, first published in 1895. Oskar describes the
amoral conditions through which he has lived in Germany, both during and after the Hitler regime.
Fascinating read.
The Trial
-
Kafka, Franz
A terrifying psychological trip into the life of one Joseph K., an ordinary man who wakes up one
day to find himself accused of a crime he did not commit, a crime whose nature is never revealed
to him. As he grows more uncertain of his fate, his personal life--including work at a bank and
his relations with his landlady and a young woman who lives next door--becomes increasingly
unpredictable. As K. tries to gain control, he succeeds only in accelerating his own excruciating
downward spiral.
The Turn of the Screw
-
James, Henry
Perhaps the greatest ghost story ever written, this terrifying tale depicts an atmosphere of sinister
evil, into which innocent children are drawn.
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Murakami, Haruki
Haruki Murakami is a master of subtly disturbing prose. Mundane events throb with menace,
while the bizarre is accepted without comment. Meaning always seems to be just out of reach, for
the reader as well as for the characters, yet one is drawn inexorably into a mystery that may have
no solution. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is an extended meditation on themes that appear
throughout Murakami's earlier work. The tropes of popular culture, movies, music, detective
stories, combine to create a work that explores both the surface and the hidden depths of Japanese
society at the end of the 20th century.
Their Eyes Were Watching God
-
Hurston, Zora
This classic of black literature, written in 1937, tells with sympathy and immediacy the story of
Janie Crawford’s evolving selfhood through three marriages.
This Boy’s Life:A Memoir
-
Woolf, Tobias
In and out of trouble in his youth, this charter member of the “Bad Boys’ Club” survives a
boyhood that stretches from Florida to the Pacific Northwest.
To Kill a Mockingbird
-
Lee, Harper
A young girl tells of life in a small Alabama town in the 1930’s and her father’s defense in court
of an African American accused of raping a white woman.
Up the Down Staircase
-
Kaufman, Bel
A teacher’s humorous and sincere reflections on her first year of teaching in a high school.
War of the Worlds
-
Wells, H.G.
Martians arrive just outside London. The classic alien invasion story.
Water for Elephants
Sara Gruen
With its spotlight on elephants, Gruen's romantic page-turner hinges on human-animal bonds
The novel, told in flashback by nonagenarian Jacob Jankowski, recounts the wild and wonderful
period he spent with the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth, a traveling circus he
joined during the Great Depression.
White Oleander
-
Filch, Janet
The unforgettable story of Ingrid, a brilliant poet imprisoned for murder, and her daughter,
Astrid, whose odyssey through a series of Los Angeles foster homes becomes a redeeming and
surprising journey of self-discovery
Wuthering Heights
-
Bronte, Emily
A London waif accepts a family’s affections, only to repay them in later years with heartbreak.