Each student has two required summer reading books:
- A community-wide selection, A Home on the Field by Paul Cuadros
- One attached to the course he/she will take in the fall (see box below)
Nobles encourages and expects students to spend part of their summer reading for enjoyment. Scroll to the bottom of this page for English faculty recommendations. Although not required, the suggested reading list includes something for everyone!
| Required Summer Reading |
PLEASE NOTE: YOU MAY ORDER REQUIRED READING THROUGH CLASSBOOK.COM.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER BOOKS ONLINE |
| Senior Electives |
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English II: |
Typical American, Gish Jen |
| The Novel |
The Amazing Adventure of Cavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon |
English III: |
July's People, Nadine Gordimer |
| Ethics in Literature |
The Johnstown Flood, David McCullough |
English IV: |
The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver |
| Family in Literature |
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, David Wroblewski |
Class V: |
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak |
| Literature of India |
White Tiger by Aravind Adiga |
English Via Latin |
Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Salman Rushdie |
| Expository Writing |
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell |
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| Poetry |
The Meadow, James Galvin |
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| Shakespeare |
The Complete Pelican Shakespeare AND The Meaning of Shakespeare Vol.1 |
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| The Epic |
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones |
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English Faculty Recommendations:  Dick Baker
Gia Batty
Jess Brennan
Chris Burr
Bill Bussey
Tim Carey
Shannon Clark
Kate Coon
Thomas Forteith
Sandi MacQuinn
Alden Mauck
Kate Ramsdell
Peter Raymond
Tom Resor
Julia Russell
Vicky Seelen
Sarah Snyder
Dick Baker
Upper School
Atonement, Ian McEwan
Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
Giovanni’s Room, James Baldwin
Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens
The Honorable Schoolboy, John Le Carre
Sometimes a Great Notion, Ken Kesey
Native Son, Richard Wright
July's People, Nadine Gordimer
Middle School
Cry of the Kalahari, Mark James & Cordelia Dykes
Boys of Summer, Roger Kahn-Go to top-Gia Batty
A Son of the Circus by John Irving
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
Possession by A.S. Byatt-Go to top-Jess Brennan
What is the What by Dave Eggers
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell (non-fiction)
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
Delights and Shadows by Ted Kooser (poetry)
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Amsterdam by Ian McEwan
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Old School by Tobias Woolf-Go to top-Chris Burr
Classes IV & III:
Seabiscuit, Laura Hillebrand
The Yearling, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Icy Sparks, Gwyn Hyman Rubio
Northern Borders, Howard Frank Mosher
Endurance, Shackleton’s Incredible Adventure, Alfred Lansing
The Heart of the Sea, Nathaniel Philbrick
Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger
A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson
The Last Shot, Darcy Frey
Classes II & I:
The Natural, Bernard Malamud
Expecting Adam, Martha Beck
Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis
The Sacred Journey, Frederick Buechner
Salvation on Sand Mountain, Dennis Covington
Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky
An American Tragedy, Theodore Dreiser
The Long Gray Line, Atkinson
Jayber Crow, Wendell Berry
Gilead, Maryilynne Robinson-Go to top-Bill Bussey
Upper School, Non-fiction:
The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific, J. Maarten Troost
My Traitor's Heart: A South Africa Exile Returns to Face His Country, His Tribe, and His Conscience, Rian Malan
Babe, Robert Creamer
The Post-American World, Fareed Zakaria
I'm Down: A Memoir by Misha Wolff
Upper School, Fiction:
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, John LeCarre
Regeneration, Pat Barker
The History of Love, Nicole Krauss
All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy
Absurdistam, Gary Shteyngart
Middle School, Non-Fiction:
Papillon, Henri Chariere
Second Wind, Bill Russell and Taylor Branch
Fiction:
I Am One of You Forever, Fred Chappell
The Human Comedy, William Saroyan
The Moon Is Down, John Steinbeck
When The Emperor Was Divine, Julie Otsuka
Poetry:
Yellow Star, Jennifer Roy-Go to top-Tim Carey
Upper School:
All the King’s Men, Robert Penn Warren
A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
Family Matters, Rohinton Mistry
A Lesson Before Dying, Ernest Gaines
The Devil in the White City, Erik Larsen (Non-Fiction)
King of the World, David Remnick (Non-Fiction)
Ragtime, EL Doctorow
The View From Castle Rock, Alice Munro
A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley
Empire Falls, Richard Russo
Middle School:
Twisted, Laurie Halse Anderson
Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson
Ophelia: a Novel, Lisa Klein
On the Wings of Heroes, Richard Peck-Go to top-Shannon Clark
Check back soon!-Go to top-Kate Coon
Fiction:
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
Howard’s End by E.M. Forster
The Law of Dreams by Peter Behrens
What is the What by David Eggars
The Indian Lawyer by James Welch
Exit Music by Ian Rankin
Angel’s Flight by Michael Connelly
The Meadow by James Galvin
Non-Fiction:
The Places in Between by Rory Stewart
Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
Neither Wolf nor Dog by Kent Nerburn
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
The Big Necessity by Rose George
Infidel by Aliya Hirsi Ali
Animal, Vegetable, Mineral by prolific novelist Barbara Kingsolver
Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Random Family by Adrian Nicole Le Blanc
Counting Coup: A True Story of Basketball and Honor on the Little Big Horn by Larry Colton.
Middle School:
His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman
(The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass)
Watership Down by Richard Adams
-Go to top-Thomas Forteith
Upper School:
Cane, Jean Toomer
Life and Times of Michael K, J.M. Coetzee
A Friend of the Earth, T.C. Boyle
Everything That Rises Must Converge, Flannery O’Connor
Master Harold and The Boys, Athol Fugard
Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse
Close Range: Wyoming Stories by Annie Proulx
Middle School:
The Pearl, John Steinbeck
The Conch Bearer, Chitra Divakaruni
The Illustrated Man, Ray Bradbury
Buddha Boy, Kathe Koja
His Dark Materials Series by Philip Pullman-Go to top-Sandi MacQuinn
Upper School:
Kite Runner, Kahled Hosseini
The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
Snow Falling on Cedars, David Guterson
The Brothers K, Robert James Duncan
Middle School:
I Am the Cheese, Robert Cormier
Winterkill, Craig Lesley
The Earthsea Trilogy, Ursula K. LeGuin
In These Girls, Hope is a Muscle, Madeline Blais
Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card-Go to top-Alden Mauck
Fiction:
Bless Me, Ultima, Rudolfo Anaya
July's People, Nadine Gordimer
The Plot against America, Philip Roth
The Yiddish Policeman's Union, Michael Chabon
A Gathering of Old Men, Ernest Gaines (Middle School)
Murder on the Orient Express, Agatha Christie (Middle School)
Non Fiction:
Brunelleschi's Dome, Ross King
A Path between the Seas (building of the Panama Canal), David McCullough
A Flame of Pure Fire: Jack Dempsey and the Roaring '20s, Roger Kahn
A Wind to Shake the World ('38 Hurricane), Evereett Allen (Middle School)
The Teammates (Ted Williams and friends), David Halberstam (Middle School)-Go to top-Kate Ramsdell
Upper School:
Stories of Eva Luna, Isabel Allende (Fiction)
The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende (Fiction)
Silent Spring, Rachel Carson (Non-Fiction)
Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis De Bernieres (Fiction)
Tom Jones, Henry Fielding (Fiction)
Ahab's Wife, Sena Jeter Naslund (Fiction)
East of Eden, John Steinbeck (Fiction)
The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan (Fiction)
The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton (Fiction)
The Professor and the Madman, Simon Winchester (Non-Fiction)-Go to top-Peter Raymond
Upper School:
The Laramie Project, Moses Kaufman, Drama (re-enactment)
The End of the Affair, Graham Greene, Fiction
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen, Fiction
Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Fiction
Middle School:
Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer, Non-fiction
Isaac's Storm, The Drowning of Galveston, Erik Larson, Non-fiction
A Sense of Where you Are, John McPhee, Non-fiction
The Last Unicorn, Peter Beagle, Fiction/Fantasy-Go to top-Tom Resor
Fiction
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
The Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett
Montana 1948 by Larry Watson
Plainsong by Kent Haruf
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
A River Runs Through It and Other Stories by Norman MacLean
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Yellow Raft in Blue Water by Michael Dorris
Non-Fiction
An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War That Came Between Us by James Carroll
The Best American Sportswriting (any year) by Glenn Stout
Black Ice by Lorene Cary
The Blind Side by Michael Lewis
Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
October 1964 by David Halberstam
We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families by Phillip Gourevitch-Go to top-Julia Russell
Upper School:
Monkeys, Susan Minot
Too Late the Phalarope, Alan Paton
Oranges Are not the Only Fruit, Jeannette Winterson
Stones From the River, Ursula Hegi
The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
Sula, Toni Morrison
Regeneration, Pat Barker
Peace like a River, Leif Enger
The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin (nonfiction)
The Autobiography of a Face, Lucy Grealy (nonfiction)
Middle School:
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers
Ellen Foster, Kaye Gibbons
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou
-Go to top-Vicky Seelen
Animal Dreams, Barbara Kingsolver
The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje
Daniel Deronda, George Eliot
House of Mirth, Edith Wharton
Dreaming in Cuban, Christina Garcia
Heat and Dust, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
#1 Ladies’ Detective Agency (Series), Alexander McCall Smith
Non-Fiction:
Ex Libris, Anne Fadiman
An American Childhood, Annie Dillard
Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt
Poetry:
White Pine, Mary Oliver
Donkey Dreams, Tony Hoagland-Go to top-Sarah Snyder
Upper School:
Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
The History of Love, Nicole Krauss
Unless, Carol Shields
Aloft, Chang-Rae Lee
Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood
Sailing Around the Room, (poetry) Billy Collins
The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems, (poetry) Pablo Neruda
Empire Falls, Richard Russo
Zorro, Isabelle Allende
Middle School:
A Girl Named Disaster, Nancy Farmer
The Land, Mildred Taylor
Children of the River, Linda Crew
Hope Was Here, Joan Bauer
The Power of One, Bryce Courtenay
The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
The Red Rose Crew, (non-fiction) Daniel J. Boyne-Go to top-
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