AP Reading List
The following lists are certainly not extensive. If you want to read a book that is not on the list, you will
need to get approval from me by emailing me at [email protected]. But don’t wait until the last minute to
email me; I don’t always respond to emails very quickly during the summer. Keep in mind that you will
be writing an essay on the book you choose, so if you are having a difficult time understanding the book
on an interpretive level, you should probably stop reading it and select something else. For instance, you
might understand the basic story of Camus’s The Stranger or Kafka’s The Castle, but if you don’t have
ideas about what the novel means, you are only half way there. The grade that I give you for your
summary/response paper will be based primarily on your ability to analyze the text without the benefit of
class discussion. And as you know, understanding the plot is not the same as finding deeper meaning in
the novel.
Key
+ = recommended
MC=mature content
* = a difficult read
AP List A (20th and 21st century novels)
Abe Kobo:
Achebe, Chinua:
Agee, James:
Alexie, Sherman:
Allende, Isabel:
Amado, Jorge:
Amis, Martin:
Anaya, Rudolfo:
Atwood, Margaret:
Baldwin, James:
Bellow, Saul:
Bulosan, Carlos:
Burgess, Anthony:
Byatt, A. S.:
Calvino, Italo:
Camus, Albert:
Cather, Willa:
Cheever, John:
Conrad, Joseph:
Davies, Robertson:
DeLillo, Don:
Desai, Anita:
Dorris, Michael:
Dreiser, Theodore:
Erdrich, Louise:
Eugenides, Jeffrey:
Faulkner, William:
Fitzgerald, F. Scott:
Foer, Jonathan Safran:
Ford, Ford Maddox:
Fowles, John:
The Woman in the Dunes (1962)
+Things Fall Apart (1958)
A Death in the Family (1958)
+Reservation Blues (1995), +Indian Killer (1997)
+MC-The House of the Spirits (1982), Eva Luna (1987), +MC-Daughter of Fortune
(1999)
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (1966)
Time’s Arrow (1991)
Bless Me, Ultima (1972)
Surfacing (1972), +The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), Cat’s Eye (1988), +Alias Grace (1996),
+The Blind Assassin (2000)
Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), Another Country (1962)
+The Adventures of Augie March (1953), Herzog (1964), Humbolt’s Gift (1975)
America Is in the Heart (1943)
MC A Clockwork Orange (1962)
Possession (1990)
The Baron in the Trees (1959), Invisible Cities (1975), If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler
(1979)
The Stranger (1942), The Plague (1947)
O’ Pioneers (1913), My Antonia (1918), Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927)
Falconer (1977)
*Lord Jim (1900), *The Secret Agent (1907)
Fifth Business (1970)
+White Noise (1985), Underworld (1997)
Clear Light of Day (1980), Baumgartner's Bombay (1988), Journey to Ithaca (1996),
Fasting, Feasting (1999)
+Yellow Raft in Blue Water (1993)
+An American Tragedy (1925)
+Love Medicine (1984), +Beet Queen (1986), +Tracks (1988)
Middlesex (2003), The Marriage Plot (2011)
*The Sound and the Fury (1929), *As I Lay Dying (1930), *Light in August (1932),
*Absalom, Absalom (1936)
This Side of Paradise (1920), Tender is the Night (1934)
+Everything Is Illuminated (2002), +Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005)
The Good Soldier (1915)
The Magus (1966), The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969)
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Franzen, Jonathan:
Frasier, Charles:
Fuentes, Carlos:
Gaarder, Jostein:
Gains, Ernest:
Golding, William:
Guterson, David:
Hagedorn, Jessica:
Heller, Joseph:
Hesse, Hermann:
Hemingway, Ernest:
The Corrections (2001)
+Cold Mountain (1997)
The Hydra Head (1978), Distant Relations (1980), The Old Gringo (1985)
*+Sophie’s World: A Novel about the History of Philosophy (1991)
+A Gathering of Old Men (1983), A Lesson Before Dying (1993)
The Lord of the Flies (1954).
+Snow Falling on Cedars (1995), Our Lady of the Forest (2003)
+MC-Dogeaters (1990)
+Catch-22 (1955)
+Steppenwolf (1927), +MC-Narcissus and Goldmund (1930)
The Sun Also Rises (1926), +A Farewell to Arms (1929), +For Whom the Bell Tolls
(1940)
Hosseini, Khaled:
MC-The Kite Runner (2003), +A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007)
Hurston, Zora Neale:
Jonah’s Gourd Vine (1934)
Ishiguro, Kazuo:
The Remains of the Day (1989), +Never Let Me Go (2005)
Jen, Gish:
Typical American (1991)
Johnson, Charles:
Middle Passage (1990)
Joyce, James:
*A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), *Ulysses (1922)
Junichiro Tanizaki:
The Makioka Sisters (1943-48)
Kadohata, Cynthia:
The Floating World (1989)
Kafka, Franz:
*The Castle (1926), +*Amerika (1927)
Kim, Ronyoung:
Clay Walls (1987)
Kundera, Milan:
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1979), MC*-Unbearable Lightness of Being
(1984)
Kogawa, Joy:
Obasan (1984)
Lahiri, Jhumpa:
+The Namesake (2003)
Laurence, Margaret:
A Jest of God (1966), The Diviners (1974)
Lawrence, D.H.:
MC-Sons and Lovers (1913) MC-The Plumed Serpent (1927)
Lee, Chang-Rae:
Native Speaker (1996), A Gesture Life (1999)
Lee, Gus:
China Boy (1992)
Lee, Sky:
Disappearing Moon Café (1990)
Mahfouz, Naguib:
The Cairo Trilogy: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sukkariyah (1956-57), Harafish
(1994)
Mailer, Norman:
The Naked and the Dead (1948), The Armies of the Night (1968), The Executioner’s Song
(1979),
Malamud, Bernard:
The Natural (1952), +The Assistant (1957), The Fixer (1966)
Mann, Thomas:
*Magic Mountain (1924)
Márquez, Gabriel García: One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), Love in the Time of Cholera (1985)
McCarthy, Cormac:
+*MC-Blood Meridian (1985), The Road (2006)
McEwan, Ian:
+Atonement (2001)
Mishima Yukio:
MC-Confessions of a Mask (1949), The Sound of Waves (1954), The Temple of the
Golden Pavilion (1956)
Mistry, Rohinton:
+A Fine Balance (1995)
McCullers, Carson:
+The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940)
Momaday, N. Scott:
*House Made of Dawn (1968)
Morrison, Toni:
+MCThe Bluest Eye (1970), +MC-Sula (1973), +MC*Beloved (1987), +MC A Mercy
(2011)
Mukherjee, Bharati:
Jasmine (1989), Leave It to Me (1998), Desirable Daughters (2002)
Musil, Robert:
*The Man without Qualities (2 volumes, 1930, 1933)
Naipaul, V.S.:
A Bend in the River (1979), A House for Mr. Biswas (1962)
Natsume Soseki:
I am a Cat (1906)
Nabokov, Vladimir:
+MC-Lolita (1955)
Ng, Fae Myenne:
+Bone (1993)
Oates, Joyce Carol:
+We Were the Mulvaneys (1996)
O’Brien, Tim:
Going After Cacciato (1979), In the Lake of the Woods (1994)
O’Conner, Flannery:
Wise Blood (1952)
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Ondaatje, Michael:
Orwell, George:
Ozick, Cynthia:
Paton, Alan:
Potok, Chaim:
Proulx, Annie:
Rhys, Jean:
Richler, Mordecai:
Robinson, Marilynne:
Roth, Henry:
Roth, Phillip:
Remarque, Erich M.:
Rushdie, Salmon:
Coming through Slaughter (1976), The English Patient (1992)
+MC1984 (1949)
The Puttermesser Papers (1997), Heir to the Glimmering World (2004)
+Cry, the Beloved Country (1948)
+The Chosen (1967), My Name is Asher Lev (1972)
+The Shipping News (1994)
Wide Sargasso Sea(1966)
Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1959)
+Housekeeping (1981)
Call it Sleep (1934)
Portnoy’s Complaint (1969), American Pastoral (1997)
+All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)
Midnight’s Children (1981), The Satanic Verses (1989), The Moor’s Last Sigh (1995),
The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999)
Pynchon, Thomas:
*V (1963), *The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), *Gravity’s Rainbow (1973), *Mason & Dixon
(1997)
Sapphire:
MC-Push (1996)
Sinclair, Upton:
+The Jungle (1906)
Smith, Zadie:
White Teeth (2001)
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander: +One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962), The Gulag Archipelago (1975)
Steinbeck, John:
+East of Eden (1952)
Tan, Amy:
+Joy Luck Club (1989), +The Kitchen God’s Wife (1991), +The Hundred Secret Senses
(1995), +The Bonesetter’s Daughter (2001)
Updike, John:
Rabbit, Run (1960), The Centaur (1963), Gertrude and Claudius (2000)
Valenzuela, Luisa:
The Lizard’s Tail (1983), He Who Searches (1986), Black Novel with Argentines (1992),
Clara (1999)
Vonnegut, Kurt:
+Sirens of Titan (1959), +Mother Night (1961), +Cat’s Cradle (1963), +MC-Breakfast of
Champions (1973)
Walker, Alice:
+MC-The Color Purple (1982)
Warren, Robert Penn:
All the King’s Men (1946)
Waugh, Evelyn:
*Decline and Fall (1928), *Brideshead Revisited (1945)
Welch, James:
Winter in the Blood (1974), Fools Crow (1986)
Welty, Eudora:
Delta Wedding (1946)
Wong, Shawn:
MC-American Knees (1995)
Woolf, Virginia:
*Mrs. Dalloway (1925), *+To the Lighthouse (1927)
Wright, Richard:
Native Son (1940)
Yates, Richard:
+Revolutionary Road (1962)
AP List B (18th and 19th century novels) Note: while some of these are technically written in the 20 th century,
I’ve included them here because they have a 19th century style.
Alcott, Louisa May:
Austen, Jane:
Balzac, Honore de:
Brontë, Charlotte:
Brontë, Emily:
Voltaire:
Chopin, Kate:
Cooper, James F.:
Crane, Stephen:
Dickens, Charles:
+Little Women (1868-1869)
+Sense and Sensibility (1811), +Emma (1815), Persuasion (1817), Northanger Abbey
(1818)
Pere Goriot (1835), Cousin Bette (1846)
+Jane Eyre (1847)
Wuthering Heights (1847)
*Candide (1759)
+The Awakening (1899)
*The Pilot (1824), *The Last of the Mohicans (1826), *The Pathfinder (1840), *The
Deerslayer (1841)
Red Badge of Courage (1895)
Pickwick Papers (1837), Oliver Twist (1838), Nicholas Nickleby (1839), +David
Copperfield (1850), Bleak House (1853), +Hard Times (1854), +A Tale of Two Cities
(1859), +Great Expectations (1861)
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Dostoevsky, Fyodor:
+*The Brothers Karamazov (1880), +Crime and Punishment (1866)
Dreiser, Theodore:
+Sister Carrie (1900)
Dumas, Alexander:
+The Three Musketeers (1844), +The Count of Monte Cristo (1845)
Eliot, George:
*Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), *Middlemarch (1871)
Fielding, Henry:
Tom Jones (1749), Joseph Andrews (1742)
Flaubert, Gustave:
+Madame Bovary (1857)
Forster, E.M.:
*A Room With a View (1908), *Howard’s End (1910), *A Passage to India (1924)
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang: *Faust, Part 1(1808, 1829), *Faust, Part 2 (1832)
Hardy, Thomas:
Far From the Madding Crowd (1874), +The Return of the Native (1878), The Mayor of
Casterbridge (1866), Tess of the D’urbervilles (1891), Jude the Obscure (1895)
Hawthorne, Nathaniel:
The House of Seven Gables (1851), Blithedale Romance (1852)
Hugo, Victor:
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831), *Les Miserables (1862)
James, Henry:
*The American (1877), *The Portrait of a Lady (1881), *Washington Square (1880),
*The Wings of the Dove (1902), *The Ambassadors (1903)
Malory, Sir Thomas:
+Le Morte D’Arthur (1470)
Maugham, Somerset:
Of Human Bondage (1915)
Melville, Herman:
Typee (1846), Moby Dick (1851), The Confidence Man (1857), Billy Budd (1924)
Stendhal:
The Red and the Black (1830)
Stevenson, Robert Louis: Treasure Island (1883)
Swift, Jonathan:
+Gulliver’s Travels (1726)
Thackery, William M.:
*The Luck of Barry Lyndon (1844), *Vanity Fair (1848),
Tolstoy, Leo:
+War and Peace (1865), +Anna Karenina (1875-77)
Trollope, Anthony:
The Warden (1855), Barchester Towers (1857), Can You Forgive Her? (1865)
Turgenev, Ivan:
Fathers and Sons (1862)
Wharton, Edith:
The House of Mirth (1905), +Ethan Frome (1911), The Age of Innocence (1920)
Wilde, Oscar:
+The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
Zola, Emile:
Germinal (1885)
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