Now that school is over, you can start focusing on summer reading. The staff and students at Staples High School have put together their
summer reading list, but since it is so long, I have modified the list and added some of my own picks as well:
High School Summer Reads
Suggestions from The Westport Library and Staples High School Staff
• The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream by Paulo Coehlo: A magical story of a shepherd boy’s travels from his home in Spain across the Egyptian desert to a fateful encounter with an alchemist.
• Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction by David Sheff: An accompaniment to the book Tweak by Nic Sheff, this is the story of a son’s addiction to drugs and alcohol told through the perspective of his father, a journalist.
• Bel Canto by Ann Patchett: A band of gun-wielding terrorists burst into an elegant party, taking all guests hostage. During the long siege, the terrorists and hostages form unexpected bonds.
• Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Aron Ralston: Aron Ralston’s account of his six days trapped in one of the most remote spots in America, and how one inspired act of bravery brought him home.
• Blink: The Power of Thinking About Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell: A staff writer for The New Yorker weighs the factors that determine good decision-making.
• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak: Set in Nazi Germany, a girl steals books to give to neighbors during bombing raids and finds that books feed souls.
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz: Oscar grows up in a Dominican neighborhood in New Jersey as an overweight, homely lover of sci-fi and fantasy. His time is consumed by reading and writing, but what he really wants is love.
• A Cook’s Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines by Anthony Bourdain: The only thing celebrity chef and internationally bestselling author Anthony Bourdain loves as much as cooking is traveling. Inspired by the question, "What would be the perfect meal?" Tony sets out on a quest for his culinary holy grail.
• Devil in the White City by Erik Larson: Based on real-life events, an architect and a serial killer intersect during the building and opening of the great Chicago World’s Fair of 1892.
• Franny and Zooey by J.D. Sallinger: Two interrelated stories about siblings in a family of geniuses.
• The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls: Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were both their curse and their salvation. As her father succumbed to alcoholism and her mother became more detached, her home life became one of dysfunction and neglect.
• The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb: Relocating to a family farm in Connecticut after surviving the Columbine school shootings, Caelum and Maureen discover a cache of family memorabilia dating back five generations, which reveals to Caelum unexpected truths about painful past events.
• Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town by John Grisham: Grisham tells the actual story of Ron Williamson, a black minor league baseball player, who was sent to death row for murder and rape.
• Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger’s by John Elder Robison: Ever since he was young, John Robison longed to connect with other people, but by the time he was a teen, his odd habits had earned him the label “social deviant.” However, it was not until he was 40 that he was diagnosed with a form of autism called Asperser’s syndrome.
• Naked by David Sedaris: Sedaris has fashioned a hilarious memoir about his dysfunctional family and wonderfully offbeat life.
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy: Profoundly moving story of a journey through a postapocalyptic future with no hope where a father and son struggle to survive. Soon to be a major motion picture. Written by the author of No Country For Old Men.
• Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto by Chuck Klosterman: Klosterman takes the reader on a witty and highly entertaining tour through portions of pop culture not usually subjected to analysis and presents his thoughts on Saved by the Bell, Billy Joel, John Cusack movies, MTV's The Real World, and much more.
• The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger: Clare and Henry fall deeply in love, but Henry has a condition which periodically resets him in time (past or future). They desperately try to retain their complex relationship against unimaginable odds. Soon to be a major motion picture.
• Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri: Eight short stories dealing with various male/female relationships in the context of Indian immigration to the U.S.
• White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean: Hearing-imparied Sym is fascinated with the Antarctic and the men who explored it, so when her Uncle Victor whisks her away on a trip to the South Pole, she is excited, yet unprepared for the dangerous journey that this madman has planned. Winner of the 2008 Michael L. Printz Award.
• The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell: Essayist and public radio regular Vowell traces America’s Puritan roots through the 1630 journey of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, interspersing her history lesson with her trademark humorous anecdotes, like a colonial history lesson via The Brady Bunch.
• Year of Wonders: A Story of the Plague by Geraldine Brooks: The Bubonic Plague comes to a small village in 17th century England and the villagers must make a choice: do they flee the village in hopes of outrunning the disease, or do they stay?
Do you have any summer reading suggestions of your own? Feel free to comment!
Edit: A super-awesome PDF version can be found here:High School summer reads.pdf.
