For the College Bound:
American Literature Reading List - Compiled by Mrs. Roberts

Fiction

Agee, James
A Death in the Family
Story of loss and heartbreak felt when a young father dies.

Anderson, Sherwood
Winesburg, Ohio
A collection of short stories lays bare the life of a small town in the Midwest.

Atwood, Margaret (Canadian)
The Edible Woman
The Edible Woman is about women and their relationships to men, to society, and to food and eating. It is through food and eating that Atwood discusses a young woman's rebellion against a modern, male-dominated world.
Oryx and Crake
In Oryx and Crake, a science fiction novel that is more Swift than Heinlein, more cautionary tale than "fictional science" (no flying cars here), Margaret Atwood depicts a near-future world that turns from the merely horrible to the horrific, from a fool's paradise to a bio-wasteland.
Handmaids Tale
Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian and theocratic state that has replaced the United States of America. Because of dangerously low reproduction rates, Handmaids are assigned to bear children for elite couples that have trouble conceiving.

Baldwin, James
Go Tell It On the Mountain
Semi-autobiographical novel about a 14-year-old black youth's religious conversion

Bellamy, Edward
Looking Backward: 2000-1887
Written in 1887 about a young man who travels in time to a utopian year 2000, where economic security and a healthy moral environment have reduced crime.

Bellow, Saul
Seize the Day
A son grapples with his love and hate for an unworthy father.
Henderson the Ram King
Parody and satire of stoic Hemingway heroes

Bradbury, Ray
Fahrenheit 451
Reading is a crime and firemen burn books in this futuristic society.

Cather, Willa
My Antonia
Immigrant pioneers strive to adapt to the Nebraska prairies.

Chopin, Kate
The Awakening
The story of a New Orleans woman who abandons her husband and children to search for love and self-understanding

Clark, Walter Van Tilburg
The Ox-Bow Incident
When a group of citizens discovers one of their members has been murdered by cattle rustlers, they form an illegal posse, pursue the murderers, and lynch them.

Cormier, Robert
The Chocolate War
Jerry Renault challenges the power structure of his school when he refuses to sell chocolates for the annual fundraiser.

Crane, Stephen
The Red Badge of Courage
During the Civil War, Henry Fleming joins the army full of romantic visions of battle which are shattered by combat.

Davies, Robertson (Canadian)
Fifth Business
The first novel in the now classic Depford Trilogy is about a murder examined from multiple perspectives.
World of Wonders
World of Wonders —the third book in the series after The Manticore—follows the story of Magnus Eisengrim—the most illustrious magician of his age—who is spirited away from his home by a member of a traveling sideshow, the Wanless World of Wonders.
The Rebel Angels
Sometimes philosophical tale of academic life at the College of St. John - Frederick Davidson tells a story of peculiar events and characters whose lives are entwined through scholarly passions of one type or another.

Davey, Rita
Through the Ivory Gate
This is a moving novel about Virginia King - a gifted musician, actress and puppeteer - who returns to her hometown of Akron, Ohio, to work as an artist-in-residence at an elementary school. Her homecoming provokes a flood of memories surrounding her childhood, the family's abrupt move to Arizona, her college days, and her ill-fated romance with a fellow musician.

Dillard, Annie
The Maytrees
Lou Bigelow meets her husband-to-be, Toby Maytree, when Toby returns to Provincetown following WWII. In the house Lou inherits from her mother, they read, cook soup, play games with friends, vote and raise a child. Toby writes poetry and does odd jobs; Lou paints.

Dorris, Michael
A Yellow Raft in Blue Water
Three generations of Native American women recount their searches for identity and love.

Erdrich, Louise
Love Medicine
The novel deals extensively with the love-hate relationships between family members.
Beet Queen
The Beet Queen deals with the themes of parenting and being a parent through various characters : 

Ellison, Ralph
Invisible Man
A black man's search for himself as an individual and as a member of his race and his society

Faulkner, William
As I Lay Dying
The Bundren family takes the ripening corpse of Addie, wife and mother, on a gruesomely comic journey.

Fitzgerald, F. Scott
The Great Gatsby
A young man corrupts himself and the American Dream to regain a lost love.

Gaines, Ernest
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
In her 100 years, Miss Jane Pittman experiences it all, from slavery to the civil rights movement.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel
The Scarlet Letter
An adulterous Puritan woman keeps secret the identity of the father of her illegitimate child.

Heller, Joseph
Catch-22
A broad comedy about a WWII bombardier based in Italy and his efforts to avoid bombing missions.

Hemingway, Ernest
A Farewell to Arms
During World War I, an American lieutenant runs away with the woman who nurses him back to health.

Hoffman, Eva
The Secret: A Fable for Our Time
Futuristic novel about cloning

Hurston, Zora Neale
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Janie repudiates many roles in her quest for self-fulfillment.

Kesey, Ken
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
A novel about a power struggle between the head nurse and one of the male patients in a mental institution

Kinkaid, Jamaica
Lucy
Moving to a new region of the world makes you a stranger to your surroundings, growing from a child into an adult makes you a stranger in your own skin. In Jamaica Kincaid’s novel Lucy, a young woman follows her lifelong dream of leaving her small room and childhood bed and moving to a place that she has always dreamed of. A place filled with buildings, streets and bridges that she read about in her school books. 

Kingston, Maxine Hong
Tripmaster Monkey
A fifth-generation Californian feels alien to both his Chinese heritage and the American culture that stereotypes him and others of his race .

Laurence, Margaret (Canadian)
The Diviners
In The Diviners, Morag Gunn, a middle aged writer who lives in a farmhouse on the Canadian prairie, struggles to understand the loneliness of her eighteen-year-old daughter. With unusual wit and depth, Morag recognizes that she needs solitude and work as much as she needs the love of her family.

Lee, Harper
To Kill a Mockingbird
At great peril to himself and his children, lawyer Atticus Finch defends an African-American man accused of raping a white woman in a small Alabama town.

Lewis, Sinclair
Main Street
A young doctor's wife tries to change the ugliness, dullness and ignorance which prevail in Gopher Prairie, Minn.

London, Jack
Call of the Wild
Buck is a loyal pet dog until cruel men make him a pawn in their search for Klondike gold.

Maclead, Allistair (Canadian)
No Great Mischief
Orphaned twins grow up learning of a lost heritage

McCullers, Carson
The Member of the Wedding
A young southern girl is determined to be the third party on a honeymoon, despite all the advice against it from friends and family.

Melville, Herman
Moby-Dick
A complex novel about a mad sea captain's pursuit of the White Whale

Morrison, Toni
Sula
The lifelong friendship of two women becomes strained when one causes the other's husband to abandon her.
Beloved
Beloved is written in bits and images, smashed like a mirror on the floor and left for the reader to put together. In a novel that is hypnotic, beautiful, and elusive, Toni Morrison portrays the lives of Sethe, an escaped slave and mother, and those around her.
Bluest Eye
With its vivid evocation of the feat and loneliness at the heart of a child's yearning, and the tragedy of it's fulfillment, The Bluest Eye remains one of Toni Morrison's most powerful, unforgettable novels—and a significant work of American fiction.
Song of Solomon
In an effort to hide his southern, working class roots, Macon Dead, an upper-class Northern black businessman tries to insulate his family from the danger and despair of the rank and file blacks with whom he shares the neighborhood

O'Connor, Flannery
A Good Man is Hard to Find
Social awareness, the grotesque, and the need for faith characterize these stories of the contemporary South.

Parks, Gordon
The Learning Tree
A fictional study of a black family in a small Kansas town in the 1920s

Plath, Sylvia
The Bell Jar
The heartbreaking story of a talented young woman's descent into madness

Poe, Edgar Allan
Great Tales and Poems
Poe is considered the father of detective stories and a master of supernatural tales.

Potok, Chaim
The Chosen
Friendship between two Jewish boys, one Hasidic and the other Orthodox, begins at a baseball game and flourishes despite their different backgrounds and beliefs.

Salinger, J.D.
The Catcher in the Rye
A prep school dropout rejects the "phoniness" he sees all about him.

Sinclair, Upton
The Jungle
The deplorable conditions of the Chicago stockyards are exposed in this turn-of-the-century novel.

Steinbeck, John
The Grapes of Wrath
The desperate flight of tenant farmers from Oklahoma during the Depression

Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Uncle Tom's Cabin
The classic tale that awakened a nation about the slave system

Twain, Mark
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Huck and Jim, a runaway slave, travel down the Mississippi in search of freedom.

Vonnegut, Kurt
Slaughterhouse-Five
Billy Pilgrim, an optometrist from Ilium, New York, shuttles between World War II Dresden and a luxurious zoo on the planet Tralfamadore.

Walker, Alice
The Color Purple
A young woman sees herself as property until another woman teaches her to value herself.

Wells, H.G.
The Time Machine
A scientist invents a machine that transports him into the future.

Welty, Eudora
Thirteen Stories
A collection of short stories about people and life in the deep South.

Wolfe, Thomas
Look Homeward, Angel
A novel depicting the coming of age of Eugene Gant and his passion to experience life

Wright, Richard
Native Son
Bigger Thomas, a young man from the Chicago slums, lashes out against a hostile society by committing two murders

Biography/History

Angelou, Maya
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
An African-American writer traces her coming of age.  

Ashe, Arthur and Arnold Rampersad
Days of Grace
Biography of a highly respected tennis star and citizen of the world who dies of AIDS

Baker, Russell
Growing Up
A columnist with a sense of humor takes a gentle look at his childhood in Baltimore during the Depression.

Berenbaum, Michael
The World Must Know: The History of the Holocaust as told in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum .

Brown, Dee
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
A narrative of the white man's conquest of the American land as the Indian victims experienced it.

Cooke, Alistair
Alistair Cooke's America
A history of the continent, with anecdotes and insight into what makes America work

Crow Dog, Mary and Richard Erdoes
Lakota Woman
Mary Crow Dog stands with 2,000 other Native Americans at the site of the Wounded Knee massacre, demonstrating for Native American rights.

Delany, Sara and A. Elizabeth with Amy Hill Hearth
Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years
Two daughters of former slaves tell their stories of fighting racial and gender prejudice during the 20th century.

Franklin, Benjamin
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Considered one of the most interesting autobiographies in English

Haley, Alex
Roots
Traces Haley's search for the history of his family, from Africa through the era of slavery to the 20th century

Hurston, Zora Neale
Dust Tracks on a Road
Zora Neale Hurston's unrestrained account of her rise from childhood poverty in the rural South to prominence among the leading artists and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance - Full of wit and wisdom, and audaciously spirited, Dust Tracks on a Road offers a rare, poignant glimpse of the life -- public and private -- of a premier African-American writer, artist, anthropologist and champion of the black heritage.

Karlsen, Carol
The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England
The status of women in colonial society affects the Salem witch accusations.

Keller, Helen
The Story of My Life
The story of Helen Keller, who was both blind and deaf, and her relationship with her devoted teacher Anne Sullivan

Kennedy, John F.
Profiles in Courage
A series of profiles of Americans who took courageous stands in public life.

King, Martin Luther, Jr.
A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr.
King's most important writings are gathered together in one source.

Kovic, Ron
Born on the Fourth of July
Paralyzed in the Vietnam War, 21-year-old Ron Kovic received little support from his country and its government.

Malcom X, with Alex Haley
The Autobiography of Malcom X
Traces the transformation of a controversial Black Muslim figure from street hustler to religious and national leader

McPherson, James
Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era
From the Mexican War to Appomattox, aspects of the Civil War are examined.

Mills, Kay
This Little Light of Mine: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer
Fannie Lou Hamer, a sharecropper's daughter, uses her considerable courage and singing talent to become a leader in the civil rights movement.

Rogosin, Donn
Invisible Men: Life in Baseball's Negro Leagues
Negro League players finally gain recognition for their contributions to baseball.

Thoreau, Henry David
Walden
In the mid-19th century, Thoreau spends 26 months alone in the woods to "front the essential facts of life."

Tocqueville, Alexis de
Democracy in America
This classic in political literature examines American society from the viewpoint of a leading French magistrate who visited the U.S. in 1831.

Williams, Juan
Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-65
From Brown vs. the Board of Education to the Voting Rights Act, Williams outlines the social and political gains of African-Americans