Here is your list of awesome books to choose from. If you wish to read another book, no sweat, just make sure you check with your teacher to make sure it fits our criteria. Otherwise, peruse, purchase, and prepare to be peppered. There are three lists below in order of difficulty.
Our criteria:
- Morally decent (no glittering, sexy vampires smooching all over themselves)
- Reasonably long (over 100 pages)
- Well-written work (ideally, a work of what the AP test would call "recognized literary merit"). That doesn't mean it has to be an old classic, but it should be the kind of book that, read a second time, yields greater returns because it's considerately crafted.
The Writing Assignment: Beautiful, Good, and True Questions (due May 15 or sooner; typed, printed on paper, turned in to your teacher, and submitted to turnitin.com)
Easy Reads, For the
Most Part
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- The Hound of Baskervilles
- “The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.”
- “There's a light in a woman's eyes that speaks louder than words.”
Stephen King
- The Eyes of the Dragon
- Fairy tale...King style.
- “I think that friendship always makes us feel such sweet gratitude, because the world almost always seems like a very hard desert, and the flowers that grow there seem to grow against such high odds.”
Sorry, not this year (you already read The Hobbit) J. R. R. Tolkien
- The Fellowship of the Ring (any of the three in the series)
- "All that is gold does not glitter,
- Not all those who wander are lost;
- The old that is strong does not wither,
- Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
- From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
- A light from the shadows shall spring;
- Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
- The crownless again shall be king."
H. G. Wells
- The Island of Dr. Moreau
- The origins of dark science fiction
- “There is, though I do not know how there is or why there is, a sense of infinite peace and protection in the glittering hosts of heaven.”
- “The crying sounded even louder out of doors. It was as if all the pain in the world had found a voice.”
N. D. Wilson
- 100 Cupboards
- Modern-American Fantasy Adventure
- “Sometimes standing against evil is more important than defeating it. The greatest heroes stand because it is right to do so, not because they believe they will walk away with their lives. Such selfless courage is a victory in itself.”
Multi-cultural & Hot Topic Easy Reads
Reyna Grande (UCSC graduate)
- Across a Hundred Mountains
- Mexican-American historical fiction
- "It has two faces. She only shows one face to the world. Even though it changes shape constantly, it's always the same face we see. But her second face, her second face remains hidden in darkness. That's the face no one can see. People call it the dark side of the moon. Two identities. Two sides of a coin. Now isn't that interesting?"
Amy Chua (A Chinese American who married a Jewish guy)
- Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
- "This was supposed to be a story of how Chinese parents are better at raising kids than Western ones. But instead, it's about a bitter clash of cultures, a fleeting taste of glory, and how I was humbled by a thirteen-year-old."
Paul Coelho (Brazilian)
- The Alchemist
- "The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them."
Khaled Hosseini
- The Kite Runner
- "And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too."
A Reasonable
Challenge
John Bunyan
- Pilgrim's Progress
- Famous allegory on the Christian life
- “You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.”
- “In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart.”
- “What God says is best, is best, though all the men in the world are against it.”
Daniel Defoe
- Robinson Crusoe
- Adventure!
- “It is never too late to be wise.”
- “Thus fear of danger is ten thousand times more terrifying than danger itself.”
- A Tale of Two Cities
- “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
Alexandre Dumas
- The Three Musketeers
- “All for one and one for all.”
- “Never fear quarrels, but seek hazardous adventures.”
George MacDonald
- Phantastes
- Highly imaginative fairy tale
- “And her life will perhaps be the richer, for holding now within it the memory of what came, but could not stay.”
- “Past tears are present strength.”
- Cry, the Beloved Country
- “Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that's the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing. Nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him if he gives too much.”
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
- Darkly satirical (surprise, surprise)
- “You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”
N. D. Wilson
- The Dragon's Tooth
- Modern-American Sci-Fi Fantasy
- “Cyrus squinted through the rain at the old man, at the truck, at the crackling Golden Lady. What was going on? None of this seemed real. But it was. The rain on his skin. The soggy waffle and drooping napkins. The smell of gunpowder.”
A Real Challenge—S T R E T C H
St. Augustine
- Confessions
- Theological Autobiography
- “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.”
Dante
- Inferno
- The circles of hell.
- “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.”
- “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here."
Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Crime and Punishment
- “Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.”
- “The darker the night, the brighter the stars,
The deeper the grief, the closer is God!” - The Brothers Karamazov (only read if you have already read Crime and Punishment)
- “What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.”
- “Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”
Homer
- The Odyssey
- “Of all creatures that breathe and move upon the earth, nothing is bred that is weaker than man.”
- “Even a fool learns something once it hits him.”
Sir Thomas Mallory (translator)
- Le Morte D’Arthur
- The Legends of King Arthur
- “In the midst of the lake Arthur was ware of an arm clothed in white samite, that held a fair sword in that hand. ”
John Milton
- Paradise Lost
- The fall of mankind in verse.
- “Grace was in all her steps,
heaven in her eye,
in every gesture dignity and love.”
Sir Edmund Spencer
- The Faerie Queene (part I)
- A Legend to Honor Queen Elizabeth I.
- “The youthfull knight could not for ought be staide,
But forth vnto the darksome hole he went,
And looked in:his glistring armor made
A litle glooming light, much like a shade.”
J.R.R. Tolkien (translator; this is fair game as it isn't his original work)
- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Sir Orfeo, and Perle
- “And wonder, dread and war
have lingered in that land
where loss and love in turn
have held the upper hand.”
Still haven't found what you're looking for?
- Look over the AP Literature Exam novel list (titles that have shown up in previous years' tests). Choose one and get it approved with your teacher.
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