| Sycamore High School English Department SOPHOMORE Recommended reading list Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. Okonkwo, a proud man in an African village, is destroyed along with the traditions of his tribe. Agee, James. A Death in the Family. 1957. The enchanted childhood summer of 1915 suddenly becomes a baffling experience for Rufus Follet when his father dies. Anaya, Rudolfo. Bless Me, Ultima. 1972. Ultima, a wise old mystic, helps a young Hispanic boy resolve personal dilemmas caused by the differing backgrounds and aspirations of his parents and society. Asimov, Issac. Foundation. When the Galactic Empire started dying, a great psychohistorian set up the foundation to preserve human culture and shorten 30,000 years of chaotic barbarism. First in a series. Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid's Tale. 1986. In Gilead, a fundamentalist dystopia, fertile lower-class women serve as birth-mothers for the upper class. Auel, Jean. Clan of the Cave Bear. Through Jean M. Auel's magnificent storytelling we are taken back to the dawn of modern humans, and with a girl named Ayla we are swept up in the harsh and beautiful Ice Age world they shared with the ones who called themselves the Clan of the Cave Bear. First in a series. Bissinger, H. G. Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream. HarperCollins, 1991. The author penetrates the culture of high school football as it is lived in Odessa, Texas. (some profanity) Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. Bradbury magnifies the flaws of today's society and builds a horrifying future world where firemen burn books and television controls thought. Bradbury, Ray. Martian Chronicles. A series of stories concerning the colonization of Mars. Buck, Pearl. The Good Earth. Life in China at a time before the vast political and social upheavals transformed an essentially agrarian country into a world power. Buck traces the whole cycle of life-its terrors, its passions, its ambitions, and its rewards. Campbell, Joseph. The Power of Myth. Explores themes and symbols from world religions and their relevance to humankind's spiritual journey today. Carroll, Lewis. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. A fantasy in which Alice follows the White Rabbit to a dream world. Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) Don Quixote The adventures of an eccentric Spanish country gentleman and his companion who set out as a knight and squire of old to right wrongs and punish evil. Dumas, Alexandre. The Count of Monte Cristo Sent to prison on a false accusation in 1815, Edmond Dantes escapes many years later and finds a treasure which he uses to exact his revenge. Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. First published 1959. English schoolboys stranded on a desert island set up their own society. Hamilton, Edith. Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes. First published 1942. The classic authority on mythology and its interpretations. Herbert, Frank. Dune. First published 1965. The Atreides family is banished to planet Dune, where the ferocious Fremen live. Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. 1932. In a chilling vision of the future, babies are produced in bottles and exist in a mechanized world without soul. Irving, John. Hotel New Hampshire. The story of an eccentric family that sets up house in various unlikely hotels here and abroad. The novel is crammed with exotic characters and fantastic events. Knowles, John. A Separate Peace. First published 1959. Life, rivalry, and a tragic accident in a private boys' school during World War II. Lord, Walter. A Night To Remember. Classic account of the Titanic's sinking; nonfiction Malory, Sir Thomas. Le Morte d'Arthur 1485. Sir Thomas Malory's unique and splendid version of the Arthurian legend tells an immortal story of love, adventure, chivalry, treachery, and death. McCourt, Frank. Angela's Ashes. Born in depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants, Frank McCourt experienced a childhood fraught with poverty and occasional cruelty. This story recounts McCourt's miserable existence with remarkable exuberance and remarkable forgiveness Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four A bleak vision of a totalitarian England under Big Brother. Potok, Chaim. The Chosen. 1967. A baseball injury brings together two Jewish boys, one Hasidic, the other Orthodox, first in hostility but finally in friendship. Sophocles, Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone The story of Oedipus, King of Thebes. Abandoned as a young child, Oedipus returns to Thebes, unaware of his heritage and the prophecy surrounding his birth. Stoker, Bram. Dracula. Mysterious, gloomy castles and open graves at midnight are just two of the Gothic devices used to chilling effect in this 19th-century horror classic that turned an obscure figure from Eastern European folklore into a towering icon of film and literature. Jonathon Swift (1667-1745). Gulliver's Travels First published in 1726. The voyages of an eighteenth-century Englishman carry him to such strange places as Lilliput, where people are six inches tall, and Brobdingnag, a land peopled by giants. Tolkien, J.R.R. The Hobbit, or, There and Back Again. 1937. Bilbo Baggins, a respectable, well-to-do hobbit, lives comfortably in his hobbit-hole until the day the wandering wizard Gandalf chooses him to share in an adventure from which he may never return. White, T. H. The Once and Future King. First published 1958. The chivalry and romance of medieval England are transported to the modern world. Compiled by Jana Edwards www.janaedwards.com |
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