Honors English 9 Independent Novel List

 Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart
A classic of modern African writing, this is the tale of what happens to tribal customs and old ways when white settlers arrive.

Adams, Richard. Watership Down
The quest of a band of Berkshire rabbits for a new home has allegorical overtones but treats the conditions of wildlife with accuracy.

Adams, Richard. The Plague Dogs
Two British dogs escape their government-sponsored animal experimentation laboratory home. Rumored to be infected with plague virus, they struggle to escape their human hunters and learn to survive in a hostile environment.

Allende, Isabel. Daughter of Fortune
An orphan raised in Chile by a Victorian-era spinster and her brother, young Eliza Sommers follows her outlaw lover to California during the Gold Rush of 1849.

Allende, Isabel. Portrait in Sepia
Sequel about Eliza’s granddaughter’s search for her roots.

Austen, Jane. Emma
Charming, willful Emma Woodehouse amuses herself by planning other people’s lives. When her interfering backfires, she learns a bitter lesson about interference and respect.

Austen, Jane. Persuasion
Anne Elliot sent Frederick Wentworth away seven years ago when she was an unhappy girl beset by troubles. Now she regrets it. When he returns, it takes a fortuitous series of accidents to set things right.

Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice
The romances of the Bennett girls and ardent desire of their mother to have them all well married.

Austen, Jane. Sense and Sensibility
The Dashwood sisters are very different from each other in appearance and temperament; Elinor’s good sense and readiness to observe social rules contrast with Marianne’s impulsive behavior and excessive sensibility. Both struggle to maintain their integrity and find happiness in a competitive marriage market.

Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre
An unassuming British orphan becomes a governess and falls in love with her employer.

Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights
A story of intense and frustrated love, hate and revenge, that takes place over two generations in the wild moors of rural England.

Burgess, Anthony. A Clockwork Orange
This hilarious and disturbing novel creates an alarming futuristic world vision of violence, high technology and authoritarianism.

Camus, Albert. The Plague
Citizens of a French town are cut off from the outside world when rats pass the plague throughout the population.

Cervantes, Miguel. Don Quixote
The adventures of an eccentric Spanish country gentleman and his companion who set out as a knight and squire of old to right wrongs and punish evil. Perhaps the first novel ever written.

Clavell, James. King Rat
Set against the seething backdrop of a WWII prison camp run by the Japanese, an epic novel of savagery and survival, and of one man’s all-consuming dominance over fellow captives and captors alike.

Clavell, James. Shogun
A bold English adventurer. An invincible Japanese warlord. A beautiful woman torn between two ways of love. All brought together in a might saga of a time and place aflame with conflict, passion, ambition, and the struggle for power.

Conrad, Joseph. Lord Jim
His romantic self-image shattered by cowardice, Jim seeks to recoup his lost honor through an act of heroism.

Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe
Based on the true story of Alexander Selkirk’s sea experiences, this novel is about the adventures of a man who spends 24 years on an isolated island. Perhaps the first English-language novel ever written.

Delderfield, R.F. God Is an Englishman
Adam Swann returns home in 1858 after service with Her Majesty’s army in the Crimea and India, determined to build his fortune in the dog-eat-dog world of Victorian commerce. Swann is captivated by Henrietta, the high-spirited daughter of a local mill owner. The two share adventures, reversal and fortune.

Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations
The hero, Pip, reared by humble relatives, is informed he is to be made a gentleman of “great expectations” by a mysterious benefactor.

Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist
A young orphan boy lives in a filthy workhouse until he runs away and is captured by a gang of thieves, and endures much hardship while the truth of his identity is concealed from him.

Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities
In Paris and London during the French Revolution, a French nobleman renounces his position and leaves his country, then returns to save the life of a servant, putting himself in grave danger. His life crosses paths with a man of strikingly similar appearance, and their fates are intertwined.

Dinesen, Issak. Out of Africa
The European narrator reminisces about the years between WWI and WWII spent managing a coffee plantation in Kenya. Evokes the country of Africa as strongly as any character.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Brothers Karamazov
This turbulent story centers on the murder of a corrupt landowner, and the aftermath for his sons: one passionate, one coldly intellectual, one spiritual, and one illegitimate.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment
A sensitive intellectual is driven by poverty to believe himself exempt from moral law.

Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. The Hound of the Baskervilles
Sherlock Holmes is asked to investigate the tale of a hound that haunts the moors around the Baskervilles’ ancestral home.

Dumas, Alexander. The Count of Monte Cristo
An adventure story of a man’s unjust imprisonment, escape, and return to a new life motivated by revenge against his betrayers.

Dumas, Alexander. The Man in the Iron Mask
The adventures of d’Artagnon, who battles political intrigues in the service of King Louis XIV in 17 th-century France.

Dumas, Alexander. The Three Musketeers
During the reign of France’s King Louis XIV, d’Artagnon and the three musketeers unite to defend the honor of Anne of Austria against the plots of evil Cardinal Richeliu.

DuMaurier, Daphne. Rebecca
The timid new mistress of Manderley is haunted by the shadow of her new husband’s first wife, the vibrant Rebecca.

Eliot, George. The Mill on the Floss
Impulsive, loving Maggie and her plodding brother Tom find in death the solution to their emotional conflicts.

Eliot, George. Silas Marner
Embittered by a false accusation and disappointed in friendship and love, the weaver Silas Marner retreats into a life alone with his loom and his gold. Fate steals his gold and replaces it with a golden-haired orphan child.

Forster, E.M. A Room with a View
A classic tale of British middle-class love, this novel displays Forster’s skill in contrasting British sensibilities with those of foreign cultures, as he portrays the love of a British woman for an expatriate living in Italy.

Forster, E.M. A Passage to India
East and West clash in India when an Englishwoman accuses an Indian man of attacking her.

Fowles, John. The Collector
Miranda, a beautiful young art student, is the object of obsession and kidnapping victim of the psychopathic Frederick, the butterfly collector who has watched her for years.

Fowles, John. The French Lieutenant’s Woman
A love story set in 1800s England. A young gentleman of tradition and social standing is engaged to a proper, wealthy girl. His destiny is haunted, however, by the scandalous and mysterious presence of another woman.

Fowles, John. The Magus
Nicholas Urfe, an evasive young Englishman, accepts a teaching position on a remote Greek island, where his friendship with a reclusive, demonic millionaire lures him into an elaborate series of staged hallucinations, riddles, and psychological traps meant to test his concept of reality.

Garcia Marquez, Gabriel. One Hundred Years of Solitude
The Latin American novel portrays seven generations in the lives of the Buendia family. The author uses a technique called magic realism: the use of magic, myth, and religion to intensify reality.

Hardy, Thomas. The Mayor of Casterbridge
In a drunken rage, Micheal Henchard sells his wife and daughter to a visiting sailor at a local bar. When they return to Casterbridge 19 years later, he has gained power and success as the town’s mayor, but finds that he cannot erase the past or the guilt that consumes him.

Hardy, Thomas. Tess of the d’Urbervilles
A Victorian novel in which the happiness and marriage of Tess and her husband are destroyed because she confesses to him that she bore a child as the result of a rape by her employer’s son.

Hesse, Herman. Steppenwolf
An experimental combination of symbolism, realism, and fantasy, this is the story of the conflict between the spirit and the flesh inherent in human nature and a searing critique of Western civilization of the early 20 th century.

 Hilton, James. Lost Horizon
On the northwestern frontier of India, Conway is a passenger on a plane that disappears in the Tibetan mountain wilderness. He and his fellow survivors discover ShangriLa, paradise on earth. But will they give up the hope of returning home for the chance to enjoy it forever?

Hugo, Victor. The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Set in 1482, this novel relates the tragic life of the deformed Quasimodo and his hopeless love for the gypsy dancer Esmerelda.

Hugo, Victor. Les Miserables
Traces the life of Jean Valjean, a peasant who steals a loaf of bread to feed his starving children and thereby becomes a convict.

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World
In this chilling vision of the future, babies are produced in bottles and citizens exist in a mechanized, sanitized world with no soul.

 Ishiguro, Kazuo. The Remains of the Day
The life of Stevens, an aging English butler, changes after three decades of service to the same employer.

Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
A young Irish student struggles to become a writer. Joyce pioneered the modern novel, partly through his use of stream-of consciousness narration.

Kafka, Franz. The Trial
Joseph K., a bank official, is arrested, tried, and convicted of an unnamed crime of which he knows nothing.

Kingston , Maxine Hong. The Woman Warrior
More non-fiction than fiction, a Chinese American woman recalls the Chinese myths, family stories and events of her California childhood that have shaped her identity.

Lewis, C.S. The Chronicles of Narnia(You must read three consecutive books in the series.)
Enter the magical world of Narnia where enchanted creatures live and fierce battles are fought between good and evil. Can be read as religious allegory.

Lewis, C.S. ‘Til We Have Faces
Suggested by the myth of Cupid and Psyche, this novel tells of the struggle between unselfish faith and selfish pride, of the conflict between the spirit and the flesh. Can be read as religious allegory.

Markandaya, Kamala. Nectar in a Sieve
In a small village in India, a simple peasant woman recalls her life as a child bride, a farmer’s wife, and a devoted mother amid fights to meet changing times, poverty, and disaster.

Orwell, George. 1984
In a society of the future, individual privacy is invaded as the “Thought Police:” persuade the people that “Was is peace; freedom is slavery; ignorance is strength.”

Pasternak, Boris. Dr. Zhivago
One of the most powerful books published in the 20 th century, it not only brings the Russian Revolution and the early Soviet era to life; it also tells the stories of some of the most memorable characters in literature.

Rand, Ayn. The Fountainhead
The story of a gifted young architect, his violent battle against conventional standards, and his explosive love affair with a beautiful woman who struggles to defeat him.

Rand, Ayn. Atlas Shrugged
A satire on the follies and dangers of collectivism in which the U.S. is faced with the prospect of economic collapse when the country’s leading innovators and industrialists go into hiding.

Remarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front
Through the eyes and mind of a German WWI private, the reader shares life on the battlefield at its least romantic.

Rolvaag, O.E. Giants in the Earth
A vast and rich account of the Scandinavian peasant immigrants who settled throughout America.

Scott, Sir Walter. Ivanhoe
Relates the adventures of the Saxon knight Ivanhoe in 1194, the year of Richard the Lionhearted’s return from the Third Crusade.

Shelly, Mary. Frankenstein
A gothic tale of terror in which Frankenstein creates a monster from corpses. Because everyone who sees him fears him, the monster despairs and turns on his creator.

Shute, Nevil. On the Beach
The last generation, innocent victims of an accidental nuclear war, live out their last days, make plans that will never be carried out, and hope for a miracle that will not come.

Stevenson, Robert Louis. Treasure Island
While going through the possessions of a deceasedguest who owed them money, the mistress of the inn and her young son find a treasure map that leads them to a pirate’s fortune. The origin of the pirate Long John Silver.

Stewart, Mary. The Crystal Cave(series)
This telling of the Arthurian legend brings to life one of the world’s greatest legends and mysteries, shedding a fascinating new light on the turbulence of 5 th-century Britain.

Stoker, Bram. Dracula
Count Dracula’s nasty practice of drinking the blood of his victims is finally ended by a brave band of English men and women. The story is told from varying points of view, mostly in letters and diary entries.

Swift, Jonathon. Gulliver’s Travels
A satire on mankind in which an 18 th century gentleman visits foreign lands populated by bizarre creatures who illuminate many of the vices and weaknesses of the author’s society.

Thackeray, William Makepeace. Vanity Fair
Becky Sharp is an ambitious social climber in Victorian London.

Tolkein, J.R.R. The Hobbit
Bilbo Baggins reluctantly commits himself to saving Middle Earth from destruction, and begins an epic battle of good against evil.

Tolkein, J.R.R. The Fellowship of the Ring
Young Frodo Baggins inherits Bilbo’s magic ring and the responsibility of destroying it.

Tolkein, J.R.R. The Two Towers
The trilogy continues.

Tolkein, J.R.R. The Return of the King
The trilogy concludes.

Tolstoy, Leo. War and Peace
When Napoleon invades Russia, characters both real and fictional find their lives changed.

Turgenev, Ivan. Fathers and Sons
A straightforward novel that dramatizes the conflict and differences between generations in Russia.

Verne, Jules. The Mysterious Island
Based on the true-life survival of Alexander Selkirk for five years on an uninhabited island, this is the tale of five men and a dog who escape Civil War Virginia in a balloon during a storm. Landing on an uncharted island, they overcome nature’s violence to create a new civilization. Mystery, suspense, and science fiction combine as the men ultimately learn the island’s secret.

White, T.H. The Once and Future King
The magical epic of King Arthur and his shining Camelot; of Merlin and Owl and Guinevere; of beasts who talk and men who fly; of wizardry and war. The fantasy masterpiece by which all others are judged.

Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray
An incredibly handsome young man in Victorian England retains his youthful appearance over the years while his portrait reflects both his age and evil soul as he pursues a life of decadence and corruption.