Mrs. Alavi: Summer Reading List: English IV (2016)
Next year, you’ll be taking Senior English (English IV). English IV will focus on novels, poetry,
memoirs, and short stories. One of the primary themes for your senior year will be the nature of
humanity—are we inherently good? Inherently evil? How do the situations in our lives alter our nature?
As we work our way through Senior English, we will look at some British literature, particularly that of
the Romantic Era. We will also spend time reading what is called “Post-Colonial Literature,” the
literature that offers people of non-British, non-European background to tell their own story, rather than
being forced to let outsiders interpret their cultures for them.
To this end, we will begin with the one required book for this summer: Heart of Darkness by Josef
Conrad. Though this novel is short, some people think this is a tough book to read, so give yourself time.
This is not something you want to pick up for the first time, two days before we return to school in
August—the horror, the horror. As the course progresses, we will follow up this novel with others that
are either responses to the book (Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart), or pieces inspired by Conrad’s
novel (Daniel Mason’s The Piano Tuner.)
Your summer reading assignment is to read two books. The second is a book of your choice from the list
attached. If you have trouble picking a book, ask your parents and friends for suggestions, or research
some of the titles that intrigue you.
At the beginning of fall semester, you will be required to write in-class essays on the two books you read.
Please also bring your copy of Heart of Darkness to class in August, as we will spend time discussing the
book at the beginning of the school year.
Getting copies of your books:
I will hand out Heart of Darkness at the end of your junior year. The books on the summer reading list are
available at bookstores and libraries.
If you like to read in digital format: many of the books on the list are in the public domain and can be
found online. Project Gutenberg is a good place to start.
As you read, you are STRONGLY encouraged to take notes on the books you read, especially if you read
it at the beginning of the summer. Take your notes on a piece of notebook paper or on sticky notes that
you put in your book. Make a record of questions you have, as well as conflicts, characterization, themes,
and figurative language (symbolism, metaphor, imagery, etc.). Review the books you’ve read before you
come back to school, as we will start out right away with assignments related to the summer reading.
Come to class in August ready to go over these books. I want participation from you, not “excuses.”
Have a fantastic summer, and enjoy your readings!
Mrs. Alavi
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SUMMER READING LIST: Senior English, 2016
At the end of the list is a selection of works that don’t fit into British Literature in any way but
are great classics to read; you may choose a book from that list instead, if you like.
Abani, Chris (Nigeria). The Virgin of Flames. An artist on the social margins in East L.A.
-----. Graceland. A teenage Elvis impersonator in a Nigerian ghetto.
Adiga, Aravind. The White Tiger. (India) Class, poverty and globalization in India.
Atwood, Margaret (Canada). Alias Grace. A servant turns murderer.
Austen, Jane. Emma by Jane Austen (1816)
-----. Mansfield Park
-----. Northanger Abbey
-----. Persuasion
-----. Pride and Prejudice
-----. Sense and Sensibility
Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights. Melodrama and misanthropy in Yorkshire.
Burgess, A Clockwork Orange. Lots of violence, difficult language and very, very edgy.
Byatt, A.S. Angels and Insects. Contemporary novella about Victorians exploring science and
being less well-behaved than you think they were.
-----. Possession. Two contemporary academics cross paths while researching the lives of
Victorian poets. Lots of poetry & literary history.
Courtenay, Bryce (South Africa). The Power of One. A chicken, music, race, boxing and
coming of age in South Africa at the dawn of the Apartheid era. A long book that you can’t put
down. Highly recommended!!!
Charles Dickens (classic 19th century novelist). Oliver Twist
-----. David Copperfield
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. The Hound of the Baskervilles. Sherlock Holmes novel.
George Elliot, Middlemarch (if you like long, long novels)
-----. The Mill on the Floss
-----. Silas Marner
Anne Enright (Ireland). The Gathering. Acclaimed contemporary Irish novelist.
-----. What Are You Like? About twin girls who were separated at birth.
Gardner, John. Grendel. Beowulf from the point-of-view of the monster.
Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South. Class struggle and love in the age of the Industrial
Revolution.
Foreman, Amanda. Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. Bestselling and detailed biography that
was the basis for the movie The Duchess. If you like crazy 18th-early 19th century England, this
one’s for you.
Forster, E.M. A Passage to India
-----. Howard’s End Turn-of-the-century novelist
Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. Preadolescent boys stranded on an island discover t heir
dark side; an enquiry into human nature.
Hamid, Mohsin (Pakistan/Britain). The Reluctant Fundamentalist. A Pakistani recounts his
schooling at Princeton, his work on Wall Street, and his eventual political radicalization.
Hornby, Nick. High Fidelity. Record store owner dumped by girlfriend.
-----. About a Boy. Guy pretends to be a single dad to meet single moms.
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Ishiguro, Kazuo (Japan/Britain). The Remains of the Day. A butler looks back on his life.
James, Henry. Portrait of a Lady (1881, American)
-----. Washington Square. People vs. Victorian society.
Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book
-----. Kim
Kogawa, Joy. Obasan. (1981, Canadian)
Lessing, Doris (South Africa). The Good Terrorist. Squatters in 80s London.
Mansfield, Katherine (Australia). The Garden Party and Other Stories.
Mantel, Hillary. Wolf Hall. Historical novel about Henry VIII’s first divorce.
Maugham, Somerset. Painted Veil. Brits visiting China right when Cholera breaks out. Great
book!
McCourt, Frank (Ireland). Angela’s Ashes. Incredibly funny, incredibly tragic memoir about
extreme poverty in Ireland in the Depression.
Ian McEwan, Atonement.
Edna O’Brien (Ireland). The Country Girls. Growing up in Ireland.
Michael Ondaatje (Canada/Sri Lanka). Anil’s Ghost. A forensic anthropologist in Sri Lanka’s
civil war.
Orwell, George. Animal Farm
Paton, Alan (South Africa). Cry, The Beloved Country (1946).
Ratner, Vadday. In the Shadow of the Banyan. (True story) Follow a little girl through the
horrors of labor camps when Cambodia falls to the Khmer Rouge
Renault, Mary. Historical page-turners set in ancient Greece
Roy, Arundhati. (India) The God of Small Things. Difficult but brilliant book about twins and a
family disaster.
Rushdie, Salman. (India) Haroun and the Sea of Stories. A boy must save storytelling.
---- Midnight’s Children. If you’re into long books, this one is brilliant
Smith, Zadie. On Beauty. Modern-day rethinking of E. M. Forster’s Howard’s End.
-----. White Teeth. Acclaimed novel on immigrants in Britain and the diverging paths of two
families.
Stevenson, Robert Louis. Treasure Island. Swashbuckling pirates and adventure.
Bram Stoker. Dracula.
Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver’s Travels. 18th century political satire; not a kids’ book but very funny
if you’re willing to work a little.
Waters, Sarah. The Night Watch.
-----. The Little Stranger.
Waugh, Evelyn. Brideshead Revisited. Upper-class young men in Britain coming of age.
White, TH. The Once and Future King. King Arthur’s legend retold.
Wells, H. G. War of the Worlds. The father of modern science fiction.
-----. The Time Machine
-----. The Invisible Man.
Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One’s Own. (1929) Manifesto on women’s writing.
-----. To the Lighthouse. Difficult but brilliant stream-of-consciousness novel
Wodehouse, PG. Carry on, Jeeves. Humorous short stories about a bumbling aristocrat and his
valet.
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Not British in the least but good to read for ambitious students (on many AP Literature
reading lists):
Moby Dick by Herman Melville (1851, American)
Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1864, Russian)
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Trial by Franz Kafka (1925, Czech/Austrian)
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1967, Columbian)
Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1828-9, German verse play)
The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang Goethe. (German Romanticism,
passion, and emotion at their finest in an epistolary novel)
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (1877, Russian)
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1880, Russian)
Candide by Voltaire (1759, French)
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1866, Russian)
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
Fathers and Sons by Turgenev, Ivan. (Excellent 19th century Russian novel)
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, (19th century French novel about the desperate life of a
French social-climbing discontent married to a boring man)
Effie Briest by Theodor Fontane. Love and adultery in 19th century Germany.
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (1308-1321, Italian epic poem)
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (1605, Spanish Novel)
The Eumenides by Aeschylus (458 B.C., Greek play)
Medea by Euripides (431 B.C., Greek play)
Oedipus Rex by Sophocles (428 B.C., Greek play)
Creative non-fiction:
The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson (Historical non-fiction. Covers the 1854 outbreak of cholera
in London, but does it in a way that reads like fiction. Filled with action, tension and medical
mysteries.)
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by
Erik Larson (You think you’ve got problems? Another non-fiction that reads like a thriller/novel
about the murders, mysteries, and tragedies of the 1893 World’s Fair.)
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