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.
English
| FICTION | NONFICTION |
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How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez |
The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson |
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Jane Eyre (pairs with Wide Sargasso Sea) by Charlotte Brontë |
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari |
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Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston |
Tribe by Sebastian Junger |
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Brave New World by Aldous Huxley |
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah |
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Wide Sargasso Sea (pairs with Jane Eyre) by Jean Rhys |
Gulp by Mary Roach |
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Whose Names Are Unknown, Sanora Babb |
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson |
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The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck |
Transcendence: How Humans Evolved through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time by Gaia Vince |
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Dreaming in Cuban, Cristina García |
AP Literature and Composition Required Reading
| NONFICTION |
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How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster |
Shakespeare Required Reading
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NONFICTION |
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The Elizabethan World Picture by E. M. W. Tillyard |
Gothic Fiction Required Reading
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NONFICTION |
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Dracula by Bram Stoker (recommended free edition available through “Dracula Daily” email subscription) |
Writing and Rhetoric Required Reading
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NONFICTION |
| Dictionary of the Undoing by John Freeman |
9th Grade Required Reading
| 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 |
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Art and Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time, and Light by Leonard Shlain |
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The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World by Lewis Hyde (Goodreads Author) |
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Your Inner Critic Is a Big Jerk: And Other Truths About Being Creative by Danielle Krysa |
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Color: A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finlay |
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Wabi-Sabi: For Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers by Leonard Koren |
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The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait by Frida Kahlo, Carlos Fuentes (Introduction), Sarah M. Lowe (Introduction) |
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An Illustrated Life: Drawing Inspiration From The Private Sketchbooks Of Artists, Illustrators And Designers by Danny Gregory |
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Ways of Seeing by John Berger |
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Annie Leibovitz at Work by Annie Leibovitz |
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PERFORMING ARTS NONFICTION: MUSIC |
PERFORMING ARTS NONFICTION: THEATRE |
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Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece by Ashley Kahn |
Other People's Shoes: Thoughts on Acting by Harriet Walter |
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Sing For Your Life: A Story of Race, Music, and Family by Daniel Bergner |
Will In The World by Stephen Greenblatt |
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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 |
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How Music Works by David Byrne |
Sondheim & Co. by Craig Zanan |
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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 |
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Introduction to French Poetry (a dual-language book) |
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Small Country: A Novel by Gaël Faye (Petit pays : roman in its original French) |
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Readings in Chinese Culture Vol. I (Paper copy) for Coming Chinese III |
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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 |
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Nineteenth-Century French Short Stories (a dual-language book) |
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In the Time of Butterflies by Julia Alvarez (En el tiempo de mariposas in Spanish) |
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Under the Feet of Jesus by Helena Maria Viramontes … And The Earth Did Not Devour Him by Tomás Rivera (bilingual edition |
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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 |
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The House is on Fire by Rachel Beanland
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New England Bound: Slavery and Colonization in Early America by Wendy Warren
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The Daughters of Nantucket: A Novel by Julie Gerstenblatt
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The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America by John Demos
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The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
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The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England by Carol Karlsen
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The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundati Roy
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Unruly Waters: how rains, rivers, coasts, and seas have shaped Asia’s history by Sunil Amrith
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Washington Black by Esi Edugyan
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Plutopia: Nuclear families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters by Kate Brown
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The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
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The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America by Timothy Eagan
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The Things We Cannot Say by Kelly Rimmer
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Churchill’s Secret War: The British empire and the ravaging of India during World War II by Madhusree Mukerjee
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The Radiance of Tomorrow by Ishmael Beah (A sequel to A Long Way Gone)
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First Principles: What America’s Founders learned from the Greeks and Romans and how that shaped our country by Thomas Ricks
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Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
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Coffeeland: one man’s dark empire and the making of our favorite drug by Augustine Sedgewick
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Empire of Guns: The violent making of the Industrial Revolution by Priya Satia
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The Blood of Emmett Till by Timothy B. Tyson
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Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs by Camilla Townsend
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The Deviant's War: The Homosexual vs. the United States of America by Eric Cervini
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All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake by Tiya Miles
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Math
| FICTION | NONFICTION |
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Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margo Lee Shetterly
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Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty and Happiness After the Digital Explosion (2nd edition) by Hal Abelson, Ken Ledeen, Harry Lewis, Wendy Seltzer
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Properties of Light: A Novel of Love, Betrayal and Quantum Physics by Rebecca Goldstein
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What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe
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Math with Bad Drawings: Illuminating the Ideas that Shape Our Reality by Ben Orlin
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Physical Education
| NONFICTION |
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Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
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The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown
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Fast into the Night by Debbie Clarke Moderow
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Wild: From Lost to Found by Cheryl Strayed
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Strong by Kara Goucher
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Norwich by Karen Crouse
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Science
The text in bold is required reading for APES students and recommended for AP Bio students.
| NONFICTION |
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The Sixth Extinction, An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert
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The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature by David George Haskell
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Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman by Richard P. Feynman
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A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
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The Illustrated Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
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Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
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Redefining Realness by Janet Mock
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I, Rigoberta Menchú, Rigoberta Menchú
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Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies, de las Cazas
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We shall overcome, César Chávez
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You want me white, Alfonsina Storni
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To Julia de Burgos, Julia de Burgos
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Self Portrait, Rosario Castellanos
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No Ashes in the Fire, Darnell Moore
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