In addition to the texts we read as
a class, you will read two novels
from the attached reading lists this semester.
You will have class time every Thursday / Friday to read your outside
reading book. Bring your book to
class every Thursday / Friday; this is a weekly homework assignment and an easy
5 points per week.
The purpose of this assignment is to give you an opportunity to select and read books that match your interests and to expand your knowledge of quality classic and contemporary literature. This is an opportunity for you to learn and grow as a reader. You may not count a book that you have already read. Ask Mr. Bachmeier if you need help finding a book.
When you finish reading your books, you will have an opportunity to demonstrate your understanding of both the texts and the elements of fiction (setting, characters, point of view, plot, style, theme).
Frequently asked questions:
s
“Mr. Bachmeier, can I read a book that’s not on the
list?” A: “No.”
s
“Why do we have to read these stupid books? They’re all boring.” A: “Until you have read all 150 books on
the list, you are not qualified to judge the list as a whole or any single book
that you have not read. Read the books
first, then you can make informed judgments of their literary merit.”
Bellingham High School
Library
676-6575 x7220
210 Central Avenue 112 Grand Avenue
676-6899(hours) 734-6855
676-6860(information)
109 Grand Avenue 1210 11th Street
733-6272 671-2626
These books are
selected from the New York State Recommended Reading List for High School
Students(http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/5818/booklists.html). This is
meant to be a guide to possible selections, not a complete list. You may ask me about another author that you
feel should be included on this list.
Fiction and Nonfiction:
Richard Adams Watership Down
Laurie
Halse Anderson Speak
(Maya Angelou I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings)
Arthur Ashe Days of Grace
Margaret Atwood The
Handmaid’s Tale
Isaac Azimov I, Robot
Russell Baker
Growing Up
William Bell
Forbidden City
Ray Bradbury The Illustrated Man
Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering
Heights
James Clavell
Shogun
Pat Conroy Prince of
Tides
Robert Cormier After the First Death
Stephen Crane Maggie Girl of the Streets
Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities
Fyodor Dostoyevsky Crime and Punishment
I. G. Edmonds Trickster Stories
George Elliot Silas Marner
William Goldman The Princess
Bride
Sheila Gordon Waiting for the Rain
Alex Hailey Roots
Edith Hamilton Mythology
Lorraine Hansberry A Raisin in
the Sun
(Thomas Hardy Tess of the D’Urbervilles)
Lillian Hellman Pentimento
Robert A. Heinlein Stranger in a
Strange Land
Victor Hugo Les Miserables
James Joyce A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man
John F. Kennedy Profiles in Courage
William Kennedy Ironweed
Martin Luther King Stride Toward Freedom
Camara Laye Dark Child
Niccolo Machiavelli The Prince
Sir Thomas Malory Tales of King Arthur
Thomas Mann A Death in Venice
Robert Massie Nicholas and Alexandra
James McBride Color of Water
Cormac McCarthy All the Pretty Horses
William Least Heat Moon Blue Highways
Toni Morrison Song of Solomon, (Beloved)
Bill Moyers The Power of Myth
(George Orwell 1984)
(Alan Paton Cry the Beloved Country)
Robert Newton Peck A Day No Pigs Would Die
Erich Maria Remarque All Quiet on the Western Front
Eleanor Roosevelt My Day
(Alexander Solzhenitsyn One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch)
Gary
Soto Baseball in April, Jessie, Living Up the Street
Amy Tan The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s Wife
Studs Terkel Hard Times
J. R. R. Tolkien The Hobbit, The Fellowship
of the Ring, The Two Towers, Return of the King
Barbara W. Tuchman The Guns of August
Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev Fathers and Sons
John Updike Rabbit, Run
Leon Uris Exodus, Trinity
Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse Five, Sirens of Titan
Alice Walker The Color Purple
H.G. Wells The Time Machine
Jane Yolen Briar Rose
Eugene Zarnation We
1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
(2. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger)
(3. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck)
(4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee)
5. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
6. Ulysses by James Joyce
(7. Beloved by Toni Morrison)
(8. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding)
(9. 1984 by George Orwell)
10. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
11. Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov
(12. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck)
13. Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
14. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
15. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
(16. Brave New World by Aldous
Huxley)
(17. Animal Farm by George Orwell)
18. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
19. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
20. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
21. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
22. Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne
(23. Their Eyes are Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston)
24. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
25. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
26. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
27. Native Son by Richard Wright
28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
29. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
30. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
31. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
(32. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway)
33. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
34. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
35. Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
36. Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
37. The World According to Garp by John
Irving
38. All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
39. A Room with a View by E.M. Forster
40. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
41. Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally
42. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
43. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
44. Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
45. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
46. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
47. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
48. Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H.
Lawrence
49. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
50. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
51. My Antonia by Willa Cather
52. Howards End by E.M. Forster
53. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
54. Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
55. The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
56. Jazz by Toni Morrison
57. Sophie's Choice by William Styron
58. Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
59. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
60. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
61. A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor
62. Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
63. Orlando by Virginia Woolf
64. Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence
65. Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
66. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
(67. A Separate Peace by John Knowles)
68. Light in August by William Faulkner
69. The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
(70. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe)
71. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
72. A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
73. Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
74. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
75. Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence
76. Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe
77. In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway
78. The Autobiography of Alice B. Tokias by Gertrude Stein
79. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
80. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
81. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
82. White Noise by Don DeLillo
83. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
84. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
85. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
86. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
87. The Bostonians by Henry James
88. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
89. Death Comes for the Archbishop by
Willa Cather
90. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
91. This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
92. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
93. The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles
94. Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
95. Kim by Rudyard Kipling
96. The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
97. Rabbit, Run by John Updike
98. Where Angels Fear to Tread by E.M. Forster
99. Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
100. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
***Books listed in parentheses are included in the BHS English curriculum and may be required reading in future English courses.***