Summer Reading 2023: Merle-Smith Campus

June 09, 2023

Please choose a total of three (3) texts to read this summer.  At least two (2) of your texts should be selected from the lists of different departments/disciplines, while your third choice may be a text that does not appear on this list.

Note: 9th graders and other students taking AP Literature and Composition, Shakespeare, APES, APUSH, AP French, and Writing and Rhetoric have specific texts to read that will count towards your total of three.

The summer reading list is here but can also be downloaded as a printer-friendly PDF using the button below. 

Summer 2023 Reading List: Merle-Smith

English 

FICTION NONFICTION

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez

The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson

Jane Eyre (pairs with Wide Sargasso Sea) by Charlotte Brontë

Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari 

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Tribe by Sebastian Junger 

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

Wide Sargasso Sea (pairs with Jane Eyre) by Jean Rhys

Gulp by Mary Roach 

Whose Names Are Unknown, Sanora Babb

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck

Transcendence: How Humans Evolved through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time by Gaia Vince

Dreaming in Cuban, Cristina García

 

 

AP Literature and Composition Required Reading

NONFICTION

How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster

 

Shakespeare Required Reading

NONFICTION

The Elizabethan World Picture by E. M. W. Tillyard 

 

Gothic Fiction Required Reading

NONFICTION

Dracula by Bram Stoker (recommended free edition available through “Dracula Daily” email subscription)

 

Writing and Rhetoric Required Reading

NONFICTION

Dictionary of the Undoing by John Freeman

 

9th Grade Required Reading

MEMOIR

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

 

Fine and Performing Arts

VISUAL ARTS FICTION VISUAL ARTS NONFICTION
Cheese Monkeys: A Novel in Two Semesters by Chip Kidd

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles

 

Art and Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time, and Light by Leonard Shlain

 

The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World by Lewis Hyde (Goodreads Author)

 

Your Inner Critic Is a Big Jerk: And Other Truths About Being Creative by Danielle Krysa

 

Color: A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finlay

 

Wabi-Sabi: For Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers by Leonard Koren

 

The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait by Frida Kahlo, Carlos Fuentes (Introduction), Sarah M. Lowe (Introduction)

 

An Illustrated Life: Drawing Inspiration From The Private Sketchbooks Of Artists, Illustrators And Designers by Danny Gregory 

 

Ways of Seeing by John Berger

 

Annie Leibovitz at Work by Annie Leibovitz

 

PERFORMING ARTS NONFICTION: MUSIC

PERFORMING ARTS NONFICTION: THEATRE

Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece by Ashley Kahn

Other People's Shoes: Thoughts on Acting by Harriet Walter

Sing For Your Life: A Story of Race, Music, and Family by Daniel Bergner

Will In The World by Stephen Greenblatt

This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession by Daniel J. Levitin

Finishing The Hat/Look I Made A Hat by Stephen Sondheim

How Music Works by David Byrne

Sondheim & Co. by Craig Zanan

Evenings With the Orchestra by Hector Berlioz, Translation by Jacques Barzun

Everything Was Possible by Ted Chapin

 

Global Language 

Please note that you do NOT need to be a student of the language in order to read and enjoy these books in English. 

Students taking AP French must read one of the five French-only texts (in bold) that they have not already read.

FICTION NONFICTION POETRY

The Plague by Albert Camus

(La peste in its original French)

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

(Persepolis in its original French)

Introduction to French Poetry (a dual-language book)

Small Country:  A Novel by Gaël Faye

(Petit pays : roman in its original French)

Common Knowledge about Chinese Culture (bilingual book)

【诗歌之美】十六首中国现代诗巅峰之作!_但斌

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

(Madame Bovary in its original French)

Readings in Chinese Culture Vol. I (Paper copy) for Coming Chinese III

 

Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow:  A Novel by Faïza Guène

(Kiffe kiffe demain in its original French)

Readings in Chinese Culture Vol. II (paper copy) for Coming AP Chinese

 

Nineteenth-Century French Short Stories 

(a dual-language book)

   

In the Time of Butterflies by Julia Alvarez  

(En el tiempo de mariposas in Spanish)

   

Under the Feet of Jesus by Helena Maria Viramontes

… And The Earth Did Not Devour Him by Tomás Rivera (bilingual edition

   

名叫牛皮的插班生_在线阅读_马小跳系列书_皮皮少儿阅读频道

   

Paper copy of novels for Chinese II students: (Students pick one to read)

My Teacher is A Martian

The Secret Garden

A Journey to the Center of the Earth

   

 

History and Social Sciences

Students taking APUSH must read one (1) of the three texts in bold.

FICTION NONFICTION
The House is on Fire by Rachel Beanland
New England Bound: Slavery and Colonization in Early America by Wendy Warren
The Daughters of Nantucket: A Novel by Julie Gerstenblatt
The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America by John Demos
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England by Carol Karlsen
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundati Roy
Unruly Waters: how rains, rivers, coasts, and seas have shaped Asia’s history by Sunil Amrith
Washington Black by Esi Edugyan
Plutopia: Nuclear families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters by Kate Brown
The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America by Timothy Eagan
The Things We Cannot Say by Kelly Rimmer
Churchill’s Secret War: The British empire and the ravaging of India during World War II by Madhusree Mukerjee
The Radiance of Tomorrow by Ishmael Beah (A sequel to A Long Way Gone)
First Principles: What America’s Founders learned from the Greeks and Romans and how that shaped our country by Thomas Ricks
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Coffeeland: one man’s dark empire and the making of our favorite drug by Augustine Sedgewick
Empire of Guns: The violent making of the Industrial Revolution by Priya Satia
 
The Blood of Emmett Till by Timothy B. Tyson
 
Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs by Camilla Townsend
 
The Deviant's War: The Homosexual vs. the United States of America by Eric Cervini
 
All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake by Tiya Miles

 

Math

FICTION NONFICTION
Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margo Lee Shetterly
Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty and Happiness After the Digital Explosion (2nd edition) by Hal Abelson, Ken Ledeen, Harry Lewis, Wendy Seltzer
Properties of Light: A Novel of Love, Betrayal and Quantum Physics by Rebecca Goldstein
What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe
 
Math with Bad Drawings: Illuminating the Ideas that Shape Our Reality by Ben Orlin

 

Physical Education

NONFICTION
Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown
Fast into the Night by Debbie Clarke Moderow
Wild: From Lost to Found by Cheryl Strayed
Strong by Kara Goucher
Norwich by Karen Crouse

 

Science

The text in bold is required reading for APES students and recommended for AP Bio students.

NONFICTION
The Sixth Extinction, An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert
The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature by David George Haskell
Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman by Richard P. Feynman
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
The Illustrated Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

 

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

NONFICTION
Black Feminist Thought by Patricia Hill Collins
How To Be An Antiracist by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad
Raising Our Hands by Jenna Arnold
Redefining Realness by Janet Mock
Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
All About Love by bell hooks
I, Rigoberta Menchú, Rigoberta Menchú
Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies, de las Cazas
We shall overcome, César Chávez
You want me white, Alfonsina Storni
To Julia de Burgos, Julia de Burgos
Self Portrait, Rosario Castellanos
No Ashes in the Fire, Darnell Moore

 

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