Summer Reading Policy for Grapevine High School
English Language Arts Department
9th grade GT requires incoming freshman to read either The Odyssey (either version) or Edith Hamilton’s
Mythology.
10th grade GT requires incoming sophomores to read one fiction and one non-fiction selection of their choice.
11th grade AP Language and Composition requires incoming juniors to read In Cold Blood by Truman Capote and
another non-fiction book, which they may select from the attached list.
AP Language Summer Assignment 2013-2014
Read In Cold Blood by Truman Capote and
choose from one of the books below.
We expect you to have both books read by
Day Two of school (August 27, 2013).
We will have a Twitter Chat on In Cold
Blood on August 22 from 8:00-9:00 p.m. at
@Dianna_Trang
Hope to see you there!
Memoirs:
Colored People, Henry Louis Gates
West with the Night, Beryl Markham
The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston
This Boy’s Life, Tobias Wolff
Hunger of Memory, Richard Rodriquez
The Duke of Deception, Geoffrey Wolff
Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt
In Patagonia, Bruce Chatwin
A Monk Swimming, Malachy McCourt
Out of Africa, Isaak Dinesen
The Road From Coorain, Jill Ker Conway
An American Childhood, Annie Dillard
The Color of Water, James McBride
Hand To Mouth: A Chronicle of Early Failure,
Paul Auster The Autobiography of Malcolm X
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down,
Anne Fadiman
Speak, Memory, Vladimir Nabokov
Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi
A Hope in the Unseen, Ron Suskind
Life on the Mississippi, Mark Twain
The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two
Fates, by Wes Moore
I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced, by Nujood
Ali and Delphine Minoui
Travel Narrative:
The Pillars of Hercules, Paul Theroux
The Seasons of Rome, Paul Hofmann
The Great Railway Bazaar, Paul Theroux
Balkan Ghosts, Robert Kaplan
Confederates in the Attic, Tony Horwitz
A Wolverine Is Eating My Leg, Tim Cahill
A Year in Provence, Peter Mayle
Road Fever, Tim Cahill
Coming into the Country, John McPhee
Kon-Tiki, Thor Heyerdahl
Under the Tuscan Sun, Francis Mayes
Blue Highways, William Least-Heat Moon
A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson
Essayists and other General Non-Fiction:
The White Album, Joan Didion (essays)
After Henry, Joan Didion (essays)
Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion
(essays)
Salvador, Joan Didion (travel/essays)
The Armies of the Night, Norman Mailer (war)
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, James Agee
and Walker Evans (hard to classify)
Eichmann in Jerusalem, Hannah Arendt
(political)
Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell
(political/war)
Walden, Henry David Thoreau (nature)
The Art of Eating, M.F.K. Fisher (food critic)
I Lost It At the Movies, Pauline Kael (film critic)
Waist-High in the World, Nancy Mairs (essays)
Lincoln at Gettysburg, Garry Wills (history)
Mother Tongue, Bill Bryson (language)
Made in America, Bill Bryson (language)
The Miracle of Language, Richard Lederer
(language)
Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain (food)
Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser (food)
Socrates Café, Christopher Phillips (philosophy)
Bad, or The Dumbing of America, Paul Fussell
(cultural criticism)
Red Lobster, White Trash, and the Blue Lagoon,
Joe Queenan (cultural criticism)
The Age of American Unreason, Susan Jacoby
(cultural criticism)
The Working Poor, David K. Shipler (cultural
criticism)
Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich (cultural
criticism)
The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf (cultural
criticism)
Into the Buzzsaw, Kristina Borjesson (media
studies)
Killed Cartoons, David Wallis (media studies)
Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell
(sociology/psychology)
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the
Hidden Side of Everything, by Steven D. Levitt
and Stephen J. Dubner
Letters to a Young Brother: Manifest Your
Destiny, by Hill Harper
Please also acquire a copy of Strunk and White’s
The Elements of Style
A used copy is fine.
12th grade AP Literature and Composition requires incoming seniors to read selections from their textbook. This
list is also attached. http://www.gcisdk12.org/cms/lib4/TX01000829/Centricity/Domain/514/2013%20AP%20Literature%20Summer%20Reading.pdf
On-level and PAP ELA classes do not require summer reading, although it is highly recommended that students
continue to read for pleasure during the summer.