In order to encourage the habit and joy of reading, the Jesuit English department has compiled the following suggestions for summer reading. In general, these are books which the English department is normally not able to assign during the school year but, nonetheless, are very worth reading. (This reading list is not part of the annual Big “J” Read.) These books are  “suggested” reading; students’ summer reading will not be testing during the year. Although the list is divided according to grade levels, there is no need to adhere strictly to these divisions.

Pre-freshmen English

Aesop’s Fables
Black Arrow – Stevenson
To Break the Silence: 13 Short Stories for Young Readers – Barrett
Captain’s Courageous – Kipling
The Devil’s Children – Dickinson
Fantastic Voyage – Asimov
Fr. Brown Mystery Stories – Chesterton
The Ghost Belong to Me – Peck
The Grey King – Cooper
The Halloween Tree – Bradbury
The Haunting of Hill House – Jackson
Heartsease – Dickinson
The Hero and the Crown – McKinley
The Incredible Journey – Bunford
Kim – Kipling
When Knighthood was in Flower – Major
Kon Tiki – Heyerdahl
Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come – Fox
Otto of Silver Hand / Men of Iron – Pyle
The Red Pony – Steinbeck
Scruffy – Gallico
Secret Garden – Burnett
Snow Geese – Gallico
The Swiss Family Robinson – Wyss
Treasure Island – Stevenson
War of the World – Wells
The Weathermonger – Dickinson
Wind in the Willows – Grahame
The Yearling – Rawlings

English I

The Andromeda Strain – Crichton
Ben Hur – Wallace
Black Like Me – Griffin
Blinded by the Light – Brancato
The Boy Who Drank Too Much – Greene
Close Enough to Touch – Peck
Fail Safe – Burdich and Wheele
Lincoln: A Photo Biography –Freedman
Men Against the Sea – Nordhoff & Hall
Never Cry Wolf – Mowat
The Odyssey –Homer
Pitcairn’s Island – Nordhoff & Hall
Sixteen: Short Stories by Outstanding Young Writers for Young Adults – Gallo
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold – Fleming
The Time Machine – Verne
Up the Down Staircase – Kaufman
The Virginian – Wister

English II

The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights – Steinbeck
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman – Gaines
Cat’s Cradle – Vonnegut
Confessions of a Teenage Baboon – Zindel
The Count of Monte Cristo – Dumas
The Crystal Hills – Stewart
Cyrano de Bergerac – Rostand
The Diary of Ann Frank – Cadrain
Gone with the Wind – Mitchell
The Good Earth – Buck
The Hollow Hills – Stewart
If I Love You, Am I Trapped Forever – Kerr
I Sing the Body Electric – Bradbury
In the Heart of the Valley – Hinton
Kidnapped – Stevenson
The Last Enchantment – Stewart
Marathon Man – Goldman
The Mill on the Floss – Eliot
Nine Tomorrows – Asimov
Player Piano – Vonnegut
Profiles in Courage – Kennedy
Rebecca – DuMaurier
Robinson Crusoe – Defoe
Short Stories – Poe
Tomorrow’s Children – Asimov
Travels with Charlie – Steinbeck
We Have Always Lived in the Castle – Jackson
The Wicked Day – Stewart

English III

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court – Twain
All the King’s Men – Warren
Babbit – Sinclair
The Caine Mutiny – Wouk
Confessions of Nat Turner – Styron
Down Where the Moon is Small – Llewellyn
Dracula – Stoker
The Fixer – Malamud
For Whom the Bell Tolls – Hemingway
Franny and Zooey – Salinger
The Grapes of Wrath – Steinbeck
Green, Green My Valley Now – Llewellyn
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter – McCullers
House of the Seven Gables – Hawthorne
In Cold Blood – Capote
Johnny Got His Gun – Trumbo
Lake Woebegone Days – Keillor
The Moviegoer – Percy
Nicholas and Alexandra – Massie
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Kesey
Red Sky at Morning – Bradford
Seven Story Mountain – Merton
Slaughterhouse Five – Vonnegut
Winesburg, Ohio – Anderson

English IV & V

All the King’s Men – Warren
Brave New World – Huxley
Brideshead revisited – Waugh
The Brothers Karamazov – Dostoevsky
Candide – Voltaire
Crime and Punishment – Dostoevesky
David Copperfield – Dickins
Dr. Faustus – Marlow
Ethan Frome – Wharton
Ghosts – Ibsen
Leave it to Psmith – Wodehouse
Little Dorrit – Dickens
Lord of the Rings – Tolkien
The Loved One – Waugh
Moby Dick – Melville
Of Human Bondage – Maugham
Passage to India – Forster
The Rector of Justin – Auchincloss
Right from the Beginning – Buchanan
The Sea Gull – Chekhov
Shardik – Adams
The Sound and the Fury – Faulkner
Steppenwolf – Hesse
Trinity – Uris
Vanity Fair – Thackeray