Summer Reading
At Gunston, we believe that reading broadens your background and strengthens verbal and writing skills. It is also a way to discover new ideas and philosophies. As the acclaimed novelist and short story writer Richard Bausch has said, “To my mind, nothing is as important as good writing, because in literature, the walls between people and cultures are broken down, and the things that plague us most—suspicion and fear of the other, and the tendency to see whole groups of people as objects, as monoliths of one cultural stereotype or another—are defeated.”
We advise you to read many books, but require at least four books this summer—Book 1: Your grade level's required novel, Book 2. The community-wide novel, Books 3 & 4. Choose any two novels from the Summer Reading List.
Book One
Grade Level Requirement
Your English teacher will give you an assignment on your required grade-level reading once you return to school.
9th Grade: We ask our students to read J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye because it asks us to think about questions of self-identity, purpose, and the individual’s role in society. We also discuss why Salinger was such an cultural iconoclast and how The Catcher in the Rye can be read as a novel responding to World War II.
10th Grade: George Orwell’s 1984 has long been the required sophomore read on our list and has recently returned to the top of bestseller lists along with other works depicting dystopias. Politically relevant, the novel questions the degree of influence a government should have in its citizens’ lives, but perhaps more importantly, it explores the nature of truth, and how truth is represented (or not) in language.
11th Grade: Students should read either: Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe; OR The Killer Angels, Michael Shaara. AP US History students should read: Mayflower, Nathaniel Philbrick.
- Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe Abraham Lincoln called Stowe “the little lady who started the war”. This book was a major factor in making northerners aware of the evils of slavery and has become one of the most popular books of all time.
- Killer Angels by Michael Shaara An in-depth telling of the Battle of Gettysburg that gets into the minds of the major, and minor, players of one of the most important battles in American history and the turning point of the Civil War.
- Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick AP U.S. History students will get a head start on their studies by reading this account of the first 75 years of settlement in New England. Philbrick tells the complicated story of the natives of New England and their encounters with the colonizing English. Conflicts within both societies, and with each other, will lead to the first major war between colonists and natives in King Phillip’s War.
12th Grade: Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy recounts the author’s work as a lawyer working in the field of social justice and in particular, the incarcerated poor. Using several of the cases he was personally involved in, Stevenson exposes the systemic racism embedded in the criminal justice system in the United States and makes a powerful argument for reform.
Book Two
Community-wide Read
Your English teacher will give you an assignment on the community read once you return to school.
This year, our community-wide read is Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle. Always the popular literary figure amongst high school hipsters (and Stranger Things heroes), Vonnegut's writing invites his readers to reconsider their relationship with reality. In particular, Cat’s Cradle is not only a critically humorous and relevant examination of our relationship with technology, science, and freedom, but the novel is also one of his finest. Vonnegut himself gave the book an A+.
Books Three & Four
Summer Reading List
Choose two books from this reading list and complete a Response Journal for both of your choices. The Journal will be due no later then Friday, September 8.
LITERATURE: NON-AMERICAN
Achebe, Chinua Things Fall Apart
Adichie, Chimananda Ngozi Half of a Yellow Sun
Alain-Fournier, Henri The Lost Domain
Allende, Isabel The House of the Spirits
Amado, Jorge The War of the Saints
Atwood, Margaret The Handmaid’s Tale
Austen, Jane Emma
Pride and Prejudice
Balzac, Honore de The Human Comedy
Barrie, J.M. Peter Pan
Beckett, Samuel Waiting for Godot
Borges, Jorge L. Labyrinths
A Personal Anthology
Bronte, Charlotte Jane Eyre
Burgess, Anthony A Clockwork Orange
Campbell, Joseph The Power of Myth
Camus, Albert The Stranger
Carey, Peter Parrot and Olivier in America
Chatwin, Bruce Songlines In Patagonia
Chaucer,Geoffrey Canterbury Tales
Chekov, Anton The Cherry Orchard
Coetzee, J.M. Disgrace
Collins, Wilkie The Moonstone
Conrad, Joseph Heart of Darkness Lord Jim
Conway, Jill Ker The Road from Coorain
Courtenay, Bryce The Power of One
Davies, Robertson The Deptford Trilogy
deBernieres, Louis Corelli’s Mandolin
Delderfield, R.F. To Serve Them All My Days
Dinesen, Isak Out of Africa
Dickens, Charles A Tale of Two Cities Oliver Twist
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor Crime and Punishment
The Brothers Karamazov
Doyle, Arthur Conan Sherlock Holmes Stories
The Hound of the Baskervilles
Dubus, Andre III House of Sand and Fog
duMaurier, Daphne Rebecca
Durrell, Gerald My Family and Other Animals
Eco, Umberto The Name of the Rose
Eliot, George Silas Marner
Flaubert, Gustav Madame Bovary
Fowles, John The French Lieutenant’s Woman
Frank, Anne The Diary of a Young Girl
Fromm, Erich The Art of Loving
Fuentes, Carlos Death of Artemio Cruz
Fugard, Athol Master Harold and the Boys
Fuller, Alexandra Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight
Gogol, Nikolai Short Stories
Golding, William Lord of the Flies
Gordimer, Nadine My Son’s Story
Grahame, Kenneth The Wind in the Willows
Grass, Gunter The Tin Drum
Graves, Robert I, Claudius King Jesus
Greene, Graham The Heart of the Matter The Quiet American
Grushin, Olga The Dream Life of Sukhanov
Hardy, Thomas Jude the Obscure Return of the Native
Heaney, Seamus Beowulf
Hesse, Hermann Siddhartha
Hosseini, Khaled A Thousand Splendid Suns
Hugo, Victor Les Miserables
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Hulme, Keri The Bone People
Huxley, Aldous Brave New World Island
Ibsen, Henrik A Doll’s House
An Enemy of the People
Ionesco, Eugene Rhinoceros
Ishiguro, Kazuo Remains of the Day
Iweala, Uzodinma Beast of No Nation
Japrisot, Sebastien A Very Long Engagement
Joyce, James Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man Dubliners
Kafka, Franz The Trial
Kawabata, Yasunari Thousand Cranes
Kincaid, Jamaica Annie John
Kipling, Rudyard Captains Courageous
King, Ross Brunelleschi’s Dome
Koestler, Arthur Darkness at Noon
Kosinksi, Jerzy The Painted Bird
Kundera, Milan The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Lagerkvist, Par Barabbas
Lawrence, D.H. Sons and Lovers The Rainbow
Lawhead, Stephen R. The Iron Lance
Levi, Carlo Christ Stopped at Eboli
Levi, Primo Survival in Auschwitz
Lewis, C.S. The Space Trilogy
Lahiri, Jhumpa The Namesake
Llosa, Mario Vargas The Feast of the Goat
Makine, Andrei Once Upon the River Love
Mann, Thomas Death in Venice
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia Autumn of the Patriarch
Love in the Time of Cholera
Maugham, Somerset Of Human Bondage
Maupassant, Guy de Bel Ami
Mauriac, Francois Therese Desqueyroux
Maurice, Edward Beauclerk The Last Gentleman Adventurer
Maxwell, Gavin Ring of Bright Water
Mayle, Peter A Year in Provence
McEwen, Ian Atonement Enduring Love
Mistry, Rohinton A Fine Balance
Mortimer, John The Rumpole Omnibus
Mowat, Farley Never Cry Wolf
Nabokov, Vladimir Pale Fire
Orwell, George Animal Farm
Ondaatje, Michael The English Patient
Pasternak, Boris Dr. Zhivago
Paton, Alan Cry, The Beloved Country
Peters, Ellis A Morbid Taste for Bones
Proust, Marcel Swann’s Way
Prevost, L’Abbaye Manon Lescaut
Remarque, Erich All Quiet on the Western Front
Rilke, Rainer Maria Letters to a Young Poet
Rhys, Jean Wide Sargasso Sea
Roy, Arhudhati The God of Small Things
Sartre, Jean-Paul No Exit
Sayers, Dorothy The Nine Tailor
Seraji, Mahbod Rooftops of Tehran
Shaw, George Bernard Pygmalion
Androcles and the Lion
Shute, Nevil On the Beach
Smith, Alexander McCall The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency
Smith, Zadie White Teeth
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Sophocles Oedipus Trilogy
Stendhal The Red and the Black
Stevenson, Robert Louis Treasure Island
Sun, Tzu The Art of War
Suskind, Patrick Perfume
Swift, Jonathan Gulliver’s Travels
Tey, Josephine Daughter of Time
Tolkien, J.R.R. Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Tolstoy, Leo Anna Karenina
Turgenev, Ivan Fathers and Sons
Unsworth, Barry The Rage of the Vulture
Voltaire Candide
Waugh, Evelyn Brideshead Revisited The Loved One
Wiesel, Elie All Rivers Run to the Sea The Gates of the Forest
Wilde, Oscar The Importance of Being Earnest The Picture of Dorian Gray
Winchester, Simon Krakatoa
Woodhouse, P.G. Leave it to Psmith
Woolf, Virginia To the Lighthouse Mrs. Dalloway
Yeats, William Butler Collected Poems
Zola, Emile L’Assommoir
Zusak, Markus The Book Thief
LITERATURE: AMERICAN
Abbey, Edward Desert Solitaire
Abernathy, Ralph And the Walls Came Tumbling Down
Albee, Edward The American Dream The Zoo Story
Alcott, Louisa May Little Women
Ambrose, Stephen Undaunted Courage
Angelou, Maya I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Asimov, Isaac Foundation
Baldwin, James Go Tell it on the Mountain
Ball, Edward Slaves in the Family
Barrett, Andrea Ship Fever
Barth, John The Sot-Weed Factor The Floating Opera
Baum, L. Frank The Wizard of Oz
Bellow, Saul Henderson, The Rain King
Boo, Katherine Behind the Beautiful Forevers
Bradbury, Ray Fahrenheit 451
A Sound of Thunder and Other Stories
Brinkley, David Washington at War
Brokaw, Tom The Greatest Generation
Brooks, Geraldine Nine Parts of Desire
Brooks, Gwendolyn Selected Poems
Brown, Dee Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Bryson, Bill The Lost Continent
Buck, Pearl S. The Good Earth
Cahill, Thomas The Gift of the Jews
Capote, Truman Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Carson, Rachel Silent Spring
Carver, Raymond Where I’m Calling From
Cather, Willa My Antonia
Chappell, Helen Oysterback Tales
Cheever, John The Short Stories
Chin, Staceyann The Other Side of Paradise
Chopin, Kate The Awakening
Cisneros, Sandra The House on Mango Street
Clark, Walter The Ox-Bow Incident
Conroy, Pat The Great Santini
The Lords of Discipline
Crane, Stephen The Red Badge of Courage
Cummings, E.E. Selected Poems
Diamant, Anita The Red Tent
Diaz, Junot Drown The Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao
Dickey, James Deliverance
Dickinson, Emily Collected Poems
Doctorow, E.L. The March
Dorris, Michael A Yellow Raft in Blue Water
Dreiser, Theodore Sister Carrie
Durrow, Heidi The Girl Who Fell from the Sky
Egan, Timothy The Worst Hard Times
Eggers, Dave The Circle
Eisley, Loren Immense Journey
Ellison, Ralph Invisible Man
Equiano, Olaudah The Interesting Narrative & Other Writings
Erdrich, Louise The Beet Queen
Eugenides, Jeffrey Middlesex
Faulkner, William The Reivers Sartoris
Fitzgerald, F. Scott Tender is the Night
Flynn, Nick Another Bull---- Night in Suck City
Foer, Jonathan Safran Everything is Illuminated
Ford, Richard Independence Day
Fountain, Ben Billie Lynn’s Long Half Time Walk
Franzen, Jonathan Freedom
Frederic, Harold The Damnation of Theron Ware
Frost, Robert Selected Poems
Gaines, Ernest J.
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
A Gathering of Old Men
Gibbon, Boyd Wye Island
Gilman, Charlotte P. The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Writings
Gladwell, Malcolm Outliers
Grann, David The Lost City of Z
Gruen, Sara Water for Elephants
Haley, Alex Roots
Hansberry, Lorraine A Raisin in the Sun
Hawthorne, Nathaniel House of Seven Gables
Heinlein, Robert Stranger in a Strange Land
Helfer, Ralph Modoc
Heller, Joseph Catch 22
Hemingway, Ernest
For Whom the Bell Tolls
The Old Man and the Sea
Garden of Eden
Hersey, John Hiroshima
A Single Pebble
Horton, Tom Turning the Tide
Horwitz, Tony A Voyage Long and Strange
Howells, William The Rise of Silas Lapham
Hume, Ivor Noel Martin’s Hundred
Hurston, Zora Neale Their Eyes Were Watching God
Irving, John Cider House Rules
A Prayer for Owen Meany
Jacobs, Harriet Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
James, Henry The Turn of the Screw
Johnson, Charles Middle Passage
Kerouac, Jack On the Road
Kesey, Ken One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Kingsolver, Barbara Poisonwood Bible
Kingston, Maxine H. The Woman Warrior
Knowles, John A Separate Peace
Krakauer, Jon Into Thin Air
Under the Banner of Heaven
Krauss, Nicole The History of Love
Lahiri, Jhumpa Interpreter of Maladies
Lee, Harper To Kill a Mockingbird
Leopold, Aldo A Sand County Almanac
Lewis, Sinclair Elmer Gantry
London, Jack Call of the Wild
Lopez, Barry Crossing Open Ground
Northrup, Solomon Twelve Years a Slave
Maclean, Norman F. A River Runs Through It
Manchester, William Young Lion
McBride, James The Color of Water
McCarthy, Cormac The Road
No Country for Old Men All the Pretty Horses
McCourt, Frank Angela’s Ashes
McCullough, David Mornings on Horseback
Meloy, Maile Both Ways is the Only Way I Want it.
Melville, Herman Moby Dick
Mendelsohn, Daniel The Lost
Meyer, Philipp American Rust
Michener, James Chesapeake
Milford, Nancy Zelda
Miller, Arthur The Crucible
Mitchell, Margaret Gone with the Wind
Morrison, Toni- Beloved
- The Bluest Eye
McPhee, John Encounters with the Archdruid Looking for a Ship
Moore, Wes The Other Wes Moore
Morrow, James Towing Jehovah
Mortenson, Greg Three Cups of Tea
Mosher, Howard Frank On Kingdom Mountain
Naylor, Gloria The Women of Brewster Place
Nichols, Peter Evolution’s Captain
O’Brien, Tim If I Die in A Combat Zone
O’Connor, Edwin The Last Hurrah
O’Connor, Flannery Short Stories
O’Neill, Eugene The Iceman Cometh
Patchett, Ann Bel Canto
Percy, Benjamin Red Moon
Philbrick, Nathaniel Mayflower
Phillips, J.B. Your God is Too Small
Plath, Sylvia The Bell Jar
Poe, Edgar Allan Short Stories
Pollan, Michael The Omnivore’s Dilemma
Potok, Chaim The Chosen
Powers, Kevin Yellow Birds
Richter, Conrad The Light in the Forest
Ridley, Matt Genome
Robbins, Tom Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates
Russell, Karen- Vampires in the Lemongrove
- St. Lucy’s Home for Girls
- Raised by Wolves
Russo, Richard Empire Falls
Ryan, W. & Pitman, W. Noah’s Flood
Salinger, J.D.- Franny and Zooey
- Nine Stories
Salter, James Dusk and Other Stories
Santayana, George The Last Puritan
Saroyan, William The Human Comedy
Saunders, George- Tenth of December
- Bad Decline in CivilWarLand
Schama, Simon Rough Crossings
Shaara, Michael The Killer Angels
Shteyngart, Gary Absurdistan
Simon, Neil The Good Doctor
Sinclair, Upton The Jungle
Skloot, Rebecca The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Smith, Betty A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Sobel, Dava Longitude Galileo’s Daughter
Starita, Joe The Dull Knives of Pine Ridge: A Lakota Odyssey
Stegner, Wallace Angle of Repose
Steinbeck, John Of Mice and Men
Stowe, Harriet Beecher Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Strayed, Cheryl Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
Strout, Elizabeth Olive Kitteridge
Styron, William Lie Down in Darkness
The Confessions of Nat Turner
Tan, Amy The Joy Luck Club
Tartt, Donna The Goldfinch
Teal, J. and M. Life and Death of the Salt Marsh
Thoreau, Henry D. Walden
Thomas, Lewis Lives of the Cell
Tilghman, Christopher Right Hand Shore
Tubman, Harriet The Moses of her People
Tuchman, Barbara A Distant Mirror
Twain, Mark The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Pudd’nhead Wilson
Updike, John Rabbit, Run
van den Berg What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us
Vonnegut, Kurt Slaughter-House Five Cat’s Cradle
Walker, Alice The Color Purple
Walls, Jeanette The Glass Castle
Wallis, Velma Two Old Women
Warner, William Beautiful Swimmers
Warren, Robert Penn All the King’s Men
Watkins, Paul Stand Before Your God
Welty, Eudora The Robber Bridegroom
Wharton, Edith Ethan Frome
Wilder, Thornton The Bridge of San Luis Rey Our Town
Williams, Tennessee The Glass Menagerie Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Wilson, August Fences
Winch, Julie A Gentleman of Color
Wolfe, Tom The Right Stuff
Wolff, Tobias This Boy’s Life
Wouk, Herman The Caine Mutiny
Wright, Richard Black Boy Native Son
Wright, Austin Tappan Islandia
Yoon, Paul Once the Shore Snow Hunters
Summer Reading Response Journal
Directions
For the two books you choose to read from the Reading List, we ask that you write a journal response of at least 500 words for each book. You may use first person (“I”) in your responses. Your journal entries should be Times Roman, 12 point, double spaced.
Here are some suggestions for writing about different components of the books:
- Personal reaction to characters, events, themes, recurring imagery and/or symbolism
- Pose questions and attempt to respond to themIdentify significant quotes and comment upon them
- Imagine you are one of the characters and then write from his or her perspective
You should avoid plot summary in your responses. Summer reading journals will be assessed in relation to the depth of engagement, as well as clarity of writing.