American Classics Reading List

Junior English

Mr. Koenig’s Classes

 

   

                       

F Age              Agee, James.  Death in the Family, A.  First published in 1957.

The story of a family for the first few days after the accidental death of the 35-year-old husband and father.  The novel shows how such a loss affects the young widow, her two children, her atheistic father and the dead man’s alcoholic brother.

 

378.1  Alb       Albom, Mitch.  Tuesdays with Morrie.  First published in 1997.

The author, an alumnus of Brandeis University, tells of his meetings with a former professor suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease and of the lessons he learned about life and death from his college mentor.

 

                        Alcott, Louisa May.  Jo’s Boys.  First published in 1886.

                                A sequel to "Little Men," which follows the further adventures, successes, and failures of the young men of Plumfield School.

 

F Alc               Alcott, Louisa May.  Little Men.  First published in 1871.

Follows the adventures of Jo March and her husband Professor Bhaer as they try to make their school for boys a happy, comfortable, and stimulating place.

 

F Alc               Alcott, Louisa May.  Little Women.  First published in 1868.

ebook                      The four March sisters experience joys and sorrows as they grow into young women in nineteenth century New England.

 

                        Alcott, Louisa May.  Long Fatal Love Chase.  Written in 1866, but remained unpublished until 1995.

When young Rosamond marries to escape her reclusive life with her grandfather, she discovers the truth about her husband's dark past and flees their home.

   

F Ald               Aldrich, Bess.  Lantern in Her Hand, A.  First published in 1928.

Tells the story of Abbie MacKenzie, who gives up the promise of a comfortable city life to face the challenge of homesteading on the American frontier.

 

B Ang             Angelou, Maya.  I know Why the Caged Bird Sings.  Biography.   First published in 1969.

Poet Maya Angelou chronicles her early life, focusing on her childhood in 1930s rural Arkansas, including her rape at the age of five, her subsequent years of muteness, and the strength she gained from her grandmother and Mrs. Bertha Flowers, a respected African-American woman in her town.

 

F Asi               Asimov, Isaac.  Fantastic Voyage.  Science Fiction.  First published in 1966.

Five people are miniaturized and sent on a rescue mission through a man's body where they have sixty minutes to reach and break up a blood clot in his brain.

 

F Asi               Asimov, Isaac.  I, Robot.  First published in 1950.

"The Robot Series.”   Dr. Susan Calvin, the first great practitioner of the new science of robopsychology in 2008, looks back on her career with U.S. Robotics on the occasion of her retirement fifty years later, telling stories of how the mechanical race developed.

 

                        Attaway, William.  Blood on the Forge.  First published in 1969.

Three Moss brothers, Melody, Big Mat, and Chinatown, left their home in Kentucky to see out better fortunes working in the factories of the industrial north in post World War II America, where they lived and worked in the harshest of conditions while struggling to make ends meet.

 

F Aue              Auel, Jean M.  Clan of the Cave Bear.  First published in 1080

Ayla, clearly a member of the Others, is raised by the Clan of the Cave Bear, a rival race of humanoid creatures living in prehistoric Europe.

 

F Bal               Baldwin, James.  Go Tell it on the Mountain.  First published in 1953.

Describes a day in the life of several members of a Harlem fundamentalist church. The saga of three generations of people is related through flashbacks.

 

                        Barrett, William E.  Lilies of the Field, The.  First published in 1962.

                                A young African-American man driving through the Southwest helps a group of German refugee nuns build a church.

 

                        Barth, John.  Giles Goat-Boy.  First published in 1966.

An orphan raised by goats is the only hope for New Tammany College, a school held hostage by WESCAC, its computer system, which has become disturbingly human.

 

F Bau              Baum, L. Frank.  Wizard of Oz.  First published in 1900.

                                After a cyclone transports her to the land of Oz, Dorothy must seek out the great wizard in order to return to Kansas.

 

F Bel               Bellamy, Edward.  Looking Backward:  2000 – 1887.  First published in 1888.

Presents Edward Bellamy's utopian novel, originally published in 1888, which follows the adventures of Julian West after he falls asleep in 1887 and awakens to find Boston in the year 2000 a near-perfect society.

 

                        Bellow, Saul.  Adventures of Augie March.   American Classic.  First published in 1953.

A Jewish boy in Depression-era Chicago rejects what he sees as his brother's slavery to family, responsibility, and the almighty dollar and embarks on a bohemian-style journey of discovery.

 

F Bel               Bellow, Saul.  Herzog.  First published in 1964.

A mid-twentieth-century Jewish man who has failed in all of his major professional and personal endeavors sets out on a philosophical letter writing campaign to anyone and everyone who will read his thoughts--friends, enemies, and strangers.

 

F Bel               Bellow, Saul.  Humbolt’s Gift.  First published in 1975.

Charlie Citrine has failed to live up to his potential, until Humboldt's gift arrives, a mocking gift from the grave that sends Charlie groping towards redemption.

 

F Bel               Bellow, Saul.  Mr. Sammler’s Planet.  First published in 1970.

Arthur Sammler, a gentleman, an intellectual, and a Holocaust survivor, struggles to come to terms with modern life and its attendant sorrows.

 

F Bel               Bellow, Saul.  Seize the Day.  First published in 1956.

                                A portrait of one day in the life of Tommy Wilhelm, a man on the brink of despair.

 

812.54  Bli      Blinn, William.  Brian’s Song.   Screenplay written in 1971.

A drama about football star Brian Piccolo, who died at twenty-six after a seven-month battle against cancer.

 

F Bor               Borland, Hal.  When the Legends Die.  First published in 1963.

An orphaned Ute Indian boy wins stardom on the rodeo circuit but, disillusioned by his success, returns to the ways of his ancestors.

 

F Bra               Bradbury, Ray.  Dandelion Wine.  Science Fiction.  First published in 1957.

                                In a small town in 1928, a twelve year-old boy savors the magic of childhood and the wonders of summer.

 

F Bra               Bradbury, Ray.  Fahrenheit 451.  Science Fiction.  First published in 1953.

A story set in the future about a society in which all books are banned.  Deals with issues that the morally, socially, or politically aware human being must face today.

 

F Bra               Bradbury, Ray.  Martian Chronicles, The.  Science Fiction.  First published in 1950.

The first Earth people to attempt the colonization of Mars try to build their new world in the image of the civilization they left behind.

 

F Bra               Bradbury, Ray.  Something Wicked This Way Comes. Science Fiction.   First published in 1962.

Two boys, best friends in a small midwestern town, finally come to understand that of all the terrors threatening them from Cooger and Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show the greatest menace exists within themselves.

 

970.4 Bro        Brown, Dee.  Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.  First published in 1970.

Documented account of the systematic plunder of the American Indians during the second half of the nineteenth century.

 

                        Brown, William Wells.  Clotel.  First published in 1853.

                                Fictional account of the life of the illegitimate, mulatto daughter of Thomas Jefferson, who was sold into slavery.

 

F Buc              Buck, Pearl.  Good Earth, The.  First published in 1931.

The story of a Chinese peasant and his passionate, dogged accumulation of land during famine, drought, and revolution.

 

F Bur              Burdick, Eugene.  Fail-safe.  First published in 1962.

                                A malfunction in a computer defense system leads to a nuclear cataclysm between two superpowers.

 

                        Burroughs, Edgar Rice.  Return of Tarzan.  First published in 1913.

ebook                      Tarzan encounters dangerous situations when he goes to the rescue of La, the priestess of Opar, the lost outpost of Atlantis.

 

F Bur              Burroughs, Edgar Rice.  Tarzan of the Apes.  First published in 1914.

ebook                      Tarzan, abandoned as a baby in the jungle of Africa, is adopted into a tribe of great apes and grows to become Lord of the Jungle until his domain is disturbed by civilized men who cause Tarzan to question his true identity.

 

F Cap              Capote, Truman.  Breakfast at Tiffany’s.  First published in 1958.

A young writer tells of his interest in an eccentric, charming call girl named Holly Golightly and her various escapades.

 

364.1 Cap       Capote, Truman.  In Cold Blood.  First published in 1965.

Examines the lives and deaths of four members of the Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas, and the two men who murdered them on November 15, 1959.

 

F Car              Card, Orson Scott.  Ender’s Game.  Science Fiction.  First published in 1985.

Young Ender Wiggin may prove to be the military genius Earth needs to fight a desperate battle against a deadly alien race that will determine the future of the human race.

 

 

F Cat               Cather, Willa.  Death Comes for the Archbishop.  First published in 1927.

                                The literal and spiritual journey of two French priests who come to the American Southwest as missionaries in the mid-1800s.

 

F Cat               Cather, Willa.  My Antonia.  First published in 1918.

ebook                      The heroin, Bohemian immigrant Antonia Shimerda, is forced to work as a servant on the farms of her neighbors after her father kills himself in despair at his failure to become a successful farmer.  She eventually becomes the patient and strong wife of a Bohemian farmer, the mother of a large family, and a typical woman of the pioneer West.

 

F Cat               Cather, Willa.  O Pioneers!   First published in 1913.

ebook                      Alexandra, daughter of a Swedish immigrant farmer in Nebraska, inherits the family farm and finds love with an old friend.

 

                        Chesnutt, Charles W.  Colonel’s Dream.  First published in 1905.

Colonel French returns to his hometown of Clarendon, North Carolina, hoping to use his wealth to bring racial harmony and economic prosperity to the region in the years following the Civil War.

 

                        Chesnutt, Charles W.  House Behind the Cedars.  First published in 1900.

John and Rena Walden, two young African-Americans, decide to cross the color line in the post-Civil War South by attempting to pass for white.

 

 

F Cho              Chopin, Kate.  Awakening, The.   First published in 1899

ebook                      Edna Pontellier, a Victorian-era wife and mother, is awakened to the full force of her desire for love and freedom when she becomes enamored with Robert LeBrun, a young man she meets while on vacation.

 

F Chr              Christie, Agatha.  And Then There Were None  (Ten little Indians).  Mystery.  Originally published in 1940 in the U.S. as And then there were none.

Ten strangers--each with a sordid past--are summoned by an absent millionaire to a private island off the coast of Devon and begin to die one by one upon arrival.

 

                        Christie, Agatha.  Dead Man’s Folly.  Mystery.  First published in 1956.

Hercule Poirot is summoned by his old acquaintance, writer-detective Ariadne Oliver, to attend a "Murder Hunt" at Nasse House in Devonshire.

 

F Cla               Clark, Walter Van Tilburg.  Ox-Bow Incident, The.  First published in 1940.

When a group of citizens discover that one of their members has been murdered by cattle rustlers, they form an illegal posse, pursue the murderers and lynch them.

 

                        Conroy, Pat.  Prince of Tides, The.  First published in 1986.

Tells the story of the narrator's struggle to overcome the psychological damage inflicted by his dysfunctional childhood in South Carolina.

 

F Coo              Cooper, James Fennimore.  Deerslayer, The.  First published in 1841.

Although the last to be written, this is the first of five books which comprises the author’s Leatherstocking Tales in which the chief character is Natty Bumppo, also known as Leatherstocking.  This story is a record of Natty Bumppo’s early days as a young hunter brought up among the Delaware Indians.  Natty and his friend Hurry Harry March fight the Hurons with the aid of the British.

 

F Coo              Cooper, James Fennimore.  Last of the Mohicans, The.  First published in 1826.  Sequel to The Deerslayer.

ebook                      The second of the Leatherstocking Tales.  The plot revolves around the efforts of Alice and Cora Monro to join their father, the British commander at Fort William Henry.  Their course is blocked by Magua, the leader of a group of Hurons, who are leagued with the French against the British.

 

F Coo              Cooper, James Fennimore.  Pioneers, The.  First published in 1822.  Sequel to The Pathfinder.

Natty Bumppo makes his first appearance as an older man who has witnessed the coming of civilization to the wilderness.  The central conflict in the book concerns the opposition between the laws of nature, upheld by Natty, and the laws of civilization.

 

F Coo              Cooper, James Fennimore.  Prairie, The.  First published in 1827. 

This historical novel is the third novel written by Cooper  that features Natty Bumppo, his fictitious frontier hero.  Chronologically, The Prairie is the fifrth and final installment of the Leatherstocking Tales and depicts Natty in the final year of his life still proving helpful to people in distress on the American frontier.

 

F Cor              Cormier, Robert.  Chocolate War, The.  First published in 1974.

A high school freshman discovers the devastating consequences of refusing to join in the school’s annual fund raising drive, arousing the wrath of the school bullies—an underground gang called the Vigils.

                               

F Cor              Cormier, Robert.  I am the Cheese.  First published in 1977.

                                A young boy's desperate search for his father leads him to discover secrets of his past that might very well threaten his life.

 

SC Cra           Crane, Stephen.  Maggie:  A Girl of the Streets.  First published in 1893.

ebook                      The life of Maggie, a beautiful New York tenement girl, takes a downward spin when she becomes involved with Pete.

                       

 

 

 

F Cra              Crane, Stephen.  Red Badge of Courage.  First published in 1895.

One of the great novels of the Civil War.  A young Union soldier, Henry Fleming, tells of his feelings when he is under fire for the first time during the battle of Chancellorsville.  He is overcome by fear and runs from the field, but later returns to lead a charge that reestablishes his own reputation, as well as that of his company.

F Cra              Craven, Margaret.  I Heard the Owl Call My Name.  First published in 1967.

                                Sent to live with an Indian tribe in British Columbia, a young minister learns not to fear his impending death.

 

910.4  Dan      Dana, Richard.  Two years before the mast.  First published in 1840.

ebook                      Recounts the joys and hardships of a sailor's life in a daily journal written on a journey around Cape Horn to California between 1834 and 1836 aboard the brig Pilgrim.

 

                        Dennis, Patrick.  Auntie Mame.  First published in 1955.

This novel chronicles the madcap adventures of a boy, Patrick, growing up as the ward of his deceased father’s eccentric sister, Mame Dennis.

 

F Doc               Doctorow, E. L.  Ragtime.  First published in 1975.

This work of historical fiction is mostly set in New York City from about 1900 until 1917 when the U.S. entered into World War I.  The novel entwines three fictional American families and the real lives of Henry Ford, Harry Houdini, J.P. Morgan, Theodore Dreiser, Sigmund Freud, and Emiliano Zapata.

 

F Dor               Dorris, Michael.  Yellow Raft on Blue Water, A.  First published in 1987.

A saga of three generations of Indian women, beset by hardship and torn by angry secrets, yet joined by the indissoluble bonds of kinship.

 

                        Douglass, Frederick.  My Bondage and My Freedom.  Autobiography.  First published in 1855.  

Presents the 1855 autobiography of Frederick Douglass, telling of his experiences as a slave and discussing his life after he was able to escape to freedom.

 

B Dou             Douglass, Frederick.   Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave.   American Classic.    ebook                         Autobiography.   First published in 1845.

An autobiographical account by the runaway slave Frederick Douglass that chronicles his experiences with his owners and overseers, and discusses how slavery affected both slaves and slaveholders.

 

F Dre               Dreiser, Theodore.  American Tragedy, An.  First published in 1925.

The story of a young man whose troubles with women and the law take him from his religious upbringing in Kansas City to the fictional town of Lycurgus, New York.

 

F Dre               Dreiser, Theodore.  Sister Carrie.  First published in 1900.

ebook                      The story of a young woman from Wisconsin who goes to Chicago, becomes an actress, marries and goes to New York, and when her husband loses his job, goes onstage again.

 

                        Du Bois, W. E. B.  John Brown.  Biography.  First published in 1909.

                                Biography of the abolitionist who led the raid on Harper's Ferry at the beginning of the Civil War.

 

301.451  DuB Du Bois, W. E. B.  Souls of Black Folk, The.  First published in 1953.

ebook                      A classic work dealing with the spiritual dimension of the black man's struggle for dignity and self-realization.

 

F Ell                Ellison, Ralph.  Invisible Man.  First published in 1953.

In the course of his wanderings from a Southern college to New York's Harlem, an African-American man becomes involved in a series of adventures.

 

F Erd               Erdrich, Louise.  Love Medicine.  First published in 1984.

Presents the story of the Kashpaws and the Lamartines, two extended families who live on and around a Chippewa reservation in North Dakota and of Lipsha Morrissey, a young man who attempts to bring his wandering grandfather back to his long-suffering grandmother with a love medicine made from goosehearts.

 

F Fas               Fast, Howard.  April Morning.  First published in 1961.

Adam Cooper signs up on the muster roll of the Lexington Militia on April 19th, 1775, and then lives through the first day of conflict with the British, during which his father is killed.

 

F Fau               Faulkner, William.  Absalom, Absalom!  First published in 1936.

A Harvard freshman pieces together the strange story of a southern tragedy involving an ambitious planter who settled in Mississippi in 1833.

 

F Fau               Faulkner, William.  As I Lay Dying.  First published in 1930.

Describes a family's struggle to get their mother properly buried, while they encounter catastrophes of flood and fire, as well as the chaos of their own feelings.

 

F Fau               Faulkner, William.    Intruder in the Dust.  First published in 1948.

Charles, a sixteen-year-old white boy, repays a debt he owes to an elderly black man, Lucas. After Lucas is accused of murdering a white man, Charles proves his innocence and saves him from a lynching in a southern town.

 

 

 

F Fau               Faulkner, William.  Light in August.  First published in 1932.

Joe Christmas, who appears to be white but is part African-American, kills Joanna Burden, a spinster with whom he has had an affair. He is captured and killed by outraged townspeople.

 

F Fau               Faulkner, William.  Sound and the Fury, The.  First published in 1929.

                                The members of a genteel Southern family are portrayed as petty failures, drunkards, and pathological liars.

                               

F Fau               Faulkner, William.  Unvanquished.  First published in 1934.

Set in Mississippi during the Civil War and Reconstruction, the Sartoris family, who with their code of personal responsibility and courage, stands for the best of the Old South's traditions.

 

F Fer               Ferber, Edna.  Cimarron.  First published in 1929.

Follows the adventures of newspaper editor and lawyer Yancey Cravat, his wife Sabra, and their young son Cim, in Osage, Oklahoma in the years before the territory became a state.

 

F Fer               Ferber, Edna.  Giant.  First published in 1952.

A novel about Leslie Benedict, a New England woman who meets and marries a Texas rancher whose life is consumed by a rivalry with Jett Rink, a former employee who made good.

 

                        Ferber, Edna.  Saratoga Trunk.  First published in 1941.

                                Follows the adventures of Mr. and Mrs. Clint Maroon as they travel to New Orleans to find peace with their past.

                                                                                       

                        Ferber, Edna.   Show Boat.  First published in 1926.

Tells the story of Magnolia Ravenal and of her marriage to the river gambler, Gaylord Ravenal, black sheep son of an aristocratic family. It is also the story of their daughter Kim, who became a famous Broadway actress.

 

F Fer               Ferber, Edna.   So Big.  First published in 1924.

The story follows the life of Selina De Jong, her marriage, widowhood, eventual success as a truck farmer.  Circumstances force Selina to take over working on the farm to give her son Dirk a future.

 

                        Fitzgerald, F. Scott.  Beautiful and the Damned, The.  First published in 1922.

In 1913 New York, a young Harvard graduate set to inherit a fortune from his grandfather marries and embarks on a life of alcohol and indulgence, assuming that he and his wife will soon be wealthy, but falls into self-destruction and despair when the money does not come through.  

 

F Fit                Fitzgerald, F. Scott.   Great Gatsby, The.  First published in 1925.

Tells the tragic love story of Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan, a dashing, enigmatic millionaire obsessed with an elusive, spoiled young woman.

                                 

                        Fitzgerald, F. Scott.   Tender is the Night.  First published in 1934.

The tragic and haunting story of Dick Diver, a young psychiatrist whose career is thwarted and his genius numbed through marriage to the exquisite and wealthy Nicole Warren.

 

                        Fitzgerald, F. Scott.   This Side of Paradise.  First published in 1920.

ebook                      The coming of age story of, Amory Blaine, a young college man in his twenties including his years in prep school and his times at Princeton.

 

                        Flanagan, Thomas.  Year of the French, The.  First published in 1979.

In 1798, Irish patriots determined to free their country from England join forces with French troops and travel the Irish countryside, drumming up support from peasants and land owners alike as they plan to overthrow the English rule, until a devastating counterattack destroys their dreams.

 

F For               Forbes, Esther.  Johnny Tremain.  First published in 1943.

After injuring his hand, a silversmith's apprentice in Boston becomes a messenger for the Sons of Liberty in the days before the American Revolution.

 

F Fra               Frank, Pat.  Alas, Babylon.  First published in 1959.

The story of a group of people who rely on their own courage and ingenuity to survive in a small Florida town that escaped nuclear bombing.

 

B Fra               Franklin, Benjamin.  Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.  First published in 1818.

ebook                      Statesman Benjamin Franklin recalls his life, from his youth as a rebellious runaway apprentice, to successful leader, printer and journalist, social and political reformer, scientist, and philosopher.

 

F Gai               Gaines, Earnest.  Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, The.  First published in 1971.

The narrator of this story, a 110-year-old African-American woman reminisces about her life, which has stretched from the days of slavery to the black militancy and civil rights movements of the 1960s.

 

F Gai               Gaines, Earnest.  Lesson Before Dying, A.  First published in 1993.

Tells the story of a young African-American man sentenced to death for a murder he did not commit, and a teacher who tries to impart to him his learning and pride before the execution.

 

 

F Gar              Gardner, John.  Grendel.  First published in 1971.

Grendel, the monster, tells his side of the Beowulf story, and compares his values with the chief values of human beings.

 

812  Gib          Gibson, William.  Miracle Worker, The.  Drama.  First published in 1957.

William Gibson's play about teacher Annie Sullivan's determined quest to give twelve-year-old Helen Keller, blind, deaf, and mute, the gift of language.

 

B Gil               Gilbreth, Frank B.  Cheaper by the Dozen.  First published in 1948.

Reveals the family life of the twelve Gilbreth children and their engineer father who runs the household with his unique methodology.

 

                        Gilman, Charlotte Perkins.  Yellow Wallpaper, The.  First published in 1892.

Classic 19th century psychological short story of a woman who is prevented from becoming a writer and is imprisoned in her bedroom.

 

822  Gol          Goldman, James.  Lion in Winter, The.  Drama.  First published in 1966.

Christmas of 1183 finds Henry II of England and his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine together in the castle at Chinon, where he flaunts his latest mistress while she plots against him with their sons, all the time loving each other to distraction.

 

                        Goldman, William.  Princess Bride, The.   Fairy tale.  First published in 1973.

Westley, a farm boy, goes off to seek his fortune shortly after declaring his love for Buttercup, the most beautiful woman in the world, but their relationship is put to the test when his ship is captured by pirates and she is summoned to become the bride of the prince.

 

                        F Gre              Greenberg, Joanne.  I never promised you a rose garden.  First published in 1964.

                                Chronicles the three-year battle of a mentally ill, but perceptive, teenage girl against a world of her own creation, emphasizing her relationship with the doctor who gave her the ammunition of self-understanding with which to destroy that world of fantasy.

 

F Gre              Greene, Bette.  Summer of My German Soldier.  First published in 1973.

                                When German prisoners of war are brought to her Arkansas town during World War II, twelve-year-old Patty, a Jewish girl, befriends one of them and must deal with the consequences of that friendship. 

 

                        Grey, Zane.  Riders of the Purple Sage.  First published in 1912.

ebook                      Jane Withersteen, a wealthy young woman and ranch owner in Mormon Utah in the late 1800s, having angered the Church elders by refusing to marry, is championed by Lassiter, a gunman who has a special dislike for the Mormons.

                       

301.45  Gri     Griffin, John H.  Black like Me.  First published in 1960.

The author, a white man, recounts his experiences when he darkened his skin and traveled through the South as an African-American man.

 

F Gri               Grisham, John.  Painted House, A.  First published in 2003.

Seven-year-old Arkansas farm boy Luke Chandler loses his innocence over the course of a contentious and strenuous cotton harvest in 1952, during which time Luke's family hires several Mexicans and an Ozark family and Luke begins keeping dangerous secrets.

                       

F Gri               Grisham, John.  Time to Kill, A.  First published in 1996.

In Clanton, Mississippi, the life of a ten-year-old is shattered by two drunken and remorseless men. The mostly white town reacts with shock and horror at the inhumane crime, until her African-American father acquires an assault rifle and takes justice into his own hands.

 

F Gue              Guest, Judith.  Ordinary People.  First published in 1976.

After spending eight months in a mental institution following a suicide attempt, seventeen-year-old Conrad returns home and finds that he must rebuild his life.

 

B Gun             Gunther, John.  Death Be Not Proud:  a Memoir.  First published in 1949.

                                A biography of the author's son, who died at seventeen after a fourteen-month illness caused by a brain tumor.

 

B Hal              Haley, Alex.  Roots:  the Saga of an American Family.  First published in 1976.

                                A black American traces his family's origins back to the African who was brought to America as a slave in 1767.

 

                        Hall, Oakley.  Warlock.  Western.  First published in 1958.

After Deputy Canning is shot down, the people of Warlock send for Clay Blaisedell, a newly hired gun-slinging lawman who tries to restore order to the mythical silver mining town of Warlock, Calif.

 

F Ham             Hammett, Dashiell.  Maltese Falcon, The.  First published in 1930.

In San Francisco in 1928, Sam Spade searches for a priceless statuette. He finds himself torn between loyalty to his murdered partner and an opportunity for personal gain.

 

F Ham             Hammett, Dashiell.   Thin Man, The.  First published in 1934.

                                Detectives Nick and Nora Charles investigate a murder.

 

812 Han          Hansberry, Lorraine.  Raisin in the Sun, A.  Drama.  First published in 1959.

A three-act play concerned with the tensions in a middle- class African American family living on Chicago's Southside in the 1950s.

 

Harris, Joel Chandler.  Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings:  The Folk-lore of the Old Plantation. First published in 1880.

                                A comprehensive collection of Uncle Remus tales featuring Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, Brer Bear, Brer Possum and other characters.

                               

F Haw             Hawthorne, Nathaniel.  Blithedale Romance, The.  First published in 1852.

Two men and two women become entangled in a web of love, jealousy, and despair while taking part in an experiment in communal living in nineteenth-century New England.

 

F Haw             Hawthorne, Nathaniel.  House of the Seven Gables.  First published in 1854.

ebook                      Follows the Pyncheon family who lived for generations under a dead man's curse until his death restored their house.

 

F Haw             Hawthorne, Nathaniel.  Marble Fawn, The.    First published in 1860.

Three American art students, befriended by the alluring Italian, Donatello, while studying in Rome, find their lives irrevocably changed when one of the group commits an unspeakable crime.

                  

F Haw             Hawthorne, Nathaniel.  Scarlet Letter, The.  First published in 1850.

ebook                      Classic tale about Hester Prynne, her lover, their child, and Hester's husband, and the effect of sin on the mind and spirit of these characters.               

 

                        Head, Ann.  Mr. And Mrs. Bo Jo Jones.  First published in 1967.

                                A pregnant sixteen-year-old bride and her seventeen-year-old groom have serious problems adjusting to their new life.

 

F Hei               Heinlein, Robert A.  Citizen of the Galaxy.  Science Fiction.  First published in 1957.

A youth who has known only the primitive life of a galaxy slave is purchased by a beggar who turns out to be a man with many extracurricular activities.

 

F Hei               Heinlein, Robert A.  Have Space Suit—Will Travel.   Science Fiction.  First published in 1958.

A high school senior wins a space suit in a soap jingle contest, takes a last walk wearing "Oscar" before cashing him in for college tuition, and suddenly finds himself on a space odyssey.

 

F Hei               Heinlein, Robert A.  Starman Jones.  Science Fiction.  First published in 1953.    

When his stepmother's remarriage drives him from home, Max and a hobo fake their way into the Space Stewards, Cooks, and Purser's Clerks brotherhood to get an opportunity for space travel in an age when only the wealthy are privileged.

 

F Hei               Heinlein, Robert A.  Stranger in a Strange Land.   Science Fiction.  First published in 1961.

After his arrival on Earth from his home on Mars, Valentine Michael Smith becomes the founder and pastor of a new religious sect.

 

F Hel               Heller, Joseph.  Catch 22.  First published in 1961.  

Captain Yossarian, a paranoid bomber pilot stationed in the Italian theater during World War II, faces a "catch-22" in this comic novel when he wants to fly fewer combat missions.

 

F Hem             Hemingway, Ernest.  Farewell to Arms, A.  First published in 1929.

                                An American ambulance officer serving on the Austro-Italian front deserts to join an English nurse after the retreat of Caporetto.

 

F Hem             Hemingway, Ernest.  For Whom the Bell Tolls.  First published in 1940.

The story of an American, Robert Jordan, who fought during the Civil War in Spain with the anti-fascist guerrillas in the mountains of Spain.

 

B Hem            Hemingway, Ernest.  Moveable Feast.  First published in 1964.

Sketches of the author's early life in Paris in the twenties provide nostalgic reminiscences of his first marriage and the discipline of developing his own literary craft.

 

F Hem             Hemingway, Ernest.  Old Man and the Sea, The.  First published in 1952.

                                An old fisherman battles the sea and sharks to bring home the giant marlin he caught.

 

F Hem             Hemingway, Ernest.  Sun Also Rises, The.  First published in 1926.

Focuses on a "lost generation" of Americans who fought in France during World War I and who expatriated themselves from America after the war.

  

F Her              Herbert, Frank.  Dune.  Science Fiction.  First published in 1965.

ebook                      Dune tells the story of young Paul Atreides, as he and his family accept control of the desert planet Arrakis, the only source of the spice melange, the most important and valuable substance in the universe.

 

F Her              Hersey, John.  Bell for Adano, A.  First published in 1944.

                                During World War II an American Major is placed in charge of the Italian village of Adano.

 

940.54  Her    Hersey, John.  Hiroshima.  First published in 1946.

                                An account of the dropping of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945, from the viewpoint of the people who lived through it.

 

                        Hinton, S.E.  Rumble Fish.  First published in 1975.

                                A junior high school boy idolizes his older brother, the coolest, toughest guy in the neighborhood, and wants to be just like him.

 

                        Hinton, S.E.  Tex.  First published in 1979.

The love between two teen-age brothers helps to alleviate the harshness of their usually parentless life as they struggle to grow up.

 

                        Hinton, S.E.  That was Then, This is Now.  First published in 1971.

Sixteen-year-old Mark and Bryon have been like brothers since childhood, but now, as their involvement with girls, gangs, and drugs increases, their relationship seems to gradually disintegrate.

 

                        Howells, William Dean.  Hazard of New Fortunes.  First published 1889.

    A novel that juxtaposes people of various classes and places in 1880s New York City and examines the social realities of people in this time period, focusing on the middle-class March family.

 

F How             Howells, William.   Rise of Silas Lapham, The.  First published in 1885.

ebook                      Yankee Silas Lapham, a self-made millionaire, attempts to crash Boston's old-guard, aristocratic society.

 

                        Hughes, Langston.  Tambourines to Glory.  First published in 1958.

                                Classic novel about two women from Harlem in the 1950s who find their way out of poverty by starting a street ministry.

 

F Hur              Hurston, Zora Neale.  Moses, Man of the Mountain.  First published in 1939.

A novel based on the biblical story of the Exodus, blending the Moses of the Old Testament with the Moses of African-American folklore and song, and tracing his life from birth to emancipator of his people.

 

F Hur              Hurston, Zora Neale.  Their Eyes Were Watching God.  First published in 1937.

An African-American woman searches for a fulfilling relationship through two loveless marriages and finally finds it in the person of Tea Cake, an itinerant laborer and gambler.

 

F Irv                Irving, John.  Prayer for Owen Meany, A.  First published in 1989. 

A terrifying and unforgettable story of what happens in Meany's life as a result of hitting a foul ball that kills his best friend's mother.

                       

F Jac            Jackson, Helen Hunt.  Ramona.  First published 1884.

Ramona, an illegitimate half-Indian orphan, lives a privileged life as a ward on the Moreno ranch until her love for an Indian causes her to leave the ranch and plunges her into the tragedies and poverty of life among the Indians.

 

F Jac               Jackson, Shirley.  Haunting of Hill House.  First published in 1959.

                                Four visitors to Hill House are unaware that the old evil mansion will soon choose one of them to make its own.

 

F Jac               Jackson, Shirley.  We Have Always Lived in the Castle.  First published in 1962.

Merricat Blackwood protects her sister, Constance, from the curiosity and hostility of the villagers after murders occur on the family estate.

 

F Jam              James, Henry.  Ambassadors, The.  First published in 1903.

ebook                      Middle-aged American Lambert Strether, sent to Paris by his patron Mrs. Newsome to find her son Chad and bring him home, finds Chad transformed by the influence of a remarkable woman, and soon follows suit, letting himself be swept away by the charms of the city and the mysterious Madame de Vionnet.

 

                        James, Henry.  Bostonians, The.  First published in 1886.

Set during the feminist movement in Boston in the 1870s, inspirational speaker, Verena Tarrant is embroiled in a triangular relationship with two distant cousins who seek to control her.

 

F Jam              James, Henry.  Daisy Miller.   First published in 1878.

ebook                      Classic novella about a captivating young American, Daisy Miller, whose behavior causes conflicting feelings in the mind of would-be suitor, Winterbourne.

 

                        James, Henry.  Ivory Tower, The.  Unfinished novel posthumously published in 1917.

This brooding story of Gilded Age America centers on the riches earned by a pair of dying millionaires and ex-partners, Abel Gaw and Frank Betterman, and their possibly corrupting effect on the people around them.

 

F Jam              James, Henry.  Portrait of a Lady, The.  First published in 1881.

    In the late 1800s, American girl Isabel Archer travels to England to fulfill her potential with her eccentric English aunt, and captures the hearts of a British aristocrat, a brash American, and the adoration of her invalid cousin, leading to intrigue, deception, and betrayal.

 

                        James, Henry.  Outcry, The.  First published in 1911.

Breckenridge Bender, a wealthy American, travels to England to acquire some fine art, and ends up encountering a devious aristocrat named Lord Theign who tries to sell a painting to cover his daughter's gambling debts.

 

F Jam              James, Henry.  Turn of the Screw, The.  First published in 1898.

Presents the nineteenth-century short story in which a governess believes her two charges, ten-year-old Miles and eight-year-old Flora, are being haunted by the ghosts of former servants.

 

 

 

F Jam              James, Henry.  Washington Square.  First published in 1880.

ebook                      Catherine Sloper, an heiress favored by neither beauty nor brilliance, finds herself torn between an attractive suitor and her adored father who believes the young man to be a fortune hunter.

 

                        James, Henry.  Wings of the Dove, The.  James, Henry.  First published in 1902.

Milly Theale, a young heiress with a short time to live, sets out to make her life worthwhile--as Merton Densher and Kate Croy set forth on a plan of betrayal.

 

                        Jewett, Sarah Orne.  Country Doctor, A.  First published in 1884.

The story of a woman's independence and how she must choose between marriage and commitment to her vocation as a country doctor in Maine in the late 1800s.

 

                        Jones, James.  From Here to Eternity.  First published in 1951.

A story of army life in Hawaii in 1941 during the second World War. Private Robert Lee Prewitt is a champion welterweight and a fine bugler who refuses to join the company's boxing team. He gets "the treatment" which may break him or kill him.

 

B Kel              Keller, Helen.  Story of My Life, The.  Biography.  First published in 1903.

    An autobiography of Helen Keller, written while she was a young woman, in which she tells of her early life, her relationship with her teacher Anne Sullivan, and her struggles to triumph over blindness and deafness.

 

920  Ken         Kennedy, John F.  Profiles in Courage.  First published in 1956.

Presents John F. Kennedy's Pulitzer Prize-winning study of men who, at a risk to themselves, stood fast for a principle, covering John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Sam Houston, Robert Taft, and others.  

 

F Ker               Kerouac, Jack.  Dharma Bums, The.  First published in 1958.

                                Two young men search for Truth the Zen way in California and Washington State.

                               

F Ker               Kerouac, Jack.  On the Road.  First published in 1957.

A thinly fictionalized autobiography chronicling the author’s cross-country adventure across North America on a quest for self-knowledge as experienced by his alter-ego, Sal Paradise and Sal's friend Dean Moriarty--Kerouac's real life friend Neal Cassady.

 

F Kes               Kesey, Ken.  One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.  First published in 1962.

The struggle for power between a head nurse and a male patient in a mental institution leads to a climax of hate, violence, and death.

 

F Key              Keyes, Daniel.  Flowers for Algernon.  First published in 1966.

Charlie Gordon, born with an unusually low IQ, must face his gradual return to his former state when the astounding results of an experimental surgery that increased his intelligence prove to be only temporary.

 

F Kin               Kingsolver, Barbara.  Bean Trees, The.  First published in 1988.

Taylor, a poor Kentuckian, makes her way west with an abandoned baby girl and stops in Tucson. There she finds friends and discovers resources in apparently empty places.

 

    Kingston, Maxine Hong.   Woman Warrior:  memoirs of a girlhood among ghosts.   American Classic.  First published in  1976.

    A memoir of the American-born daughter of Chinese immigrants who lived within the traditions and fears of the Chinese past as well as the realities of the alien modern American culture.     

                                 

F Kno              Knowles, John.  Separate Peace, A.   First published in 1959.

Gene Forrester looks back fifteen years to a World War II year in which he and his best friend Phineas were roommates in a New Hampshire boarding school. Their friendship is marred by Finny's crippling fall, an event for which Gene is responsible and one that eventually leads to tragedy.

 

F Kos               Kosinski, Jerzy.  Being There.  First published in 1971.

Chauncey "Chance" Gardiner emerges from nowhere to become a much-quoted media darling, but no one can seem to figure out why.

 

305.23  Kot     Kotlowitz, Alex.  There Are No Children Here: the story of two boys growing up in the other America.   First published in 1991.

Explores life in an inner city Chicago housing project discussing the residents' daily encounters with neighborhood violence, drugs, and gangs.

 

959.704 Kov    Kovic, Ron.  Born on the Fourth of July.  First published in 1976.

                                A veteran of Vietnam describes his experiences in the war and his reentry into American society after he was paralyzed.

 

917.9804  Kra KraKauer, Jon.  Into the Wild.  First published in 1996.

Tells the story of Chris McCandless, a twenty-four-year-old who walked into the Alaskan wilderness on an idealistic journey and was found dead of starvation four months later. Attempts to discover what led the young man to that point.

 

796.522  Kra   KraKauer, Jon.  Into Thin Air.  First published in 1997.

The author relates his experience of climbing Mount Everest during its deadliest season and examines what it is about the mountain that makes people willingly subject themselves to such risk, hardship, and expense.

 

LaFarge, Oliver.  Laughing Boy.  First published in 1929.

A young silversmith, Laughing Boy, falls in love with Slim Girl, a beautiful educated Navajo girl; however, their relationship is threatened by the changing way of life in the American Southwest.

 

 

                        L’Amour, Louis.  Hondo.  First published in 1983.

The story of a lonely, harsh man, yet beneath the harshness and the necessary violence, he was a kind and just man who had come to terms with the land in which he lived.

 

F L’Am           L’Amour, Louis.  Sackett’s land.  First published in 1975.

                                The adventures of members of the Sackett family in the frontier West.

 

                        L’Amour, Louis.  To the Far Blue Mountains.  First published in 1976.

                                Follows the adventures of members of the Sackett family in the frontier West.

 

                        Larsen, Nella.  Passing.  First published in 1929.

Irene, an African-American woman with a comfortable life, is disturbed by the return of a childhood friend, Clare, who has passed for white since adolescence and now wants to rejoin the African-American community.

 

812  Law         Lawrence, Jerome.  Inherit the Wind.  Drama.  First published in 1951.

Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee's 1951 play based on the Scopes Trial in Dayton, Tennessee, July 1925, which opened the debate over the teaching of creationism and evolution.

 

F Lee               Lee, Harper.  To Kill a Mockingbird.  First published in 1960.

Scout Finch, the young daughter of a local attorney in the Deep South during the 1930s, tells of her father's defense of an African-American man charged with the rape of a white girl.

 

F Lew              Lewis, Sinclair.  Arrowsmith.  First published in 1925.

The story of a doctor who struggles to maintain his integrity as he is forced to give up successive positions as an instructor in medicine, small town doctor, and research pathologist-by various obstacles.

 

F Lew              Lewis, Sinclair.  Babbitt.  First published in 1922.

ebook                      George Babbitt, a successful middle-aged businessman living in 1920s Ohio, is shocked when his best friend is convicted of murder.

 

F Lew              Lewis, Sinclair.   Main Street.  First published in 1920.

ebook                      After marrying doctor Will Kennicott, young, free-spirited Carol Milford finds it difficult to adjust to life in a small town in Minnesota.

 

F Lip               Lipsyte, Robert.  Contender, The.  First published in 1967.

After a successful start in a boxing career, a Harlem high school dropout decides that competing in the ring isn't enough of life and resolves to aim for different goals.

 

                        London, Jack.  John Barleycorn.  First published in 1913.

ebook                      Presents an autobiographical memoir in which Jack London recalls his first taste of alcohol, his first experience being drunk, and later the worst of his alcoholic periods.

 

F Lon              London, Jack.   Sea Wolf, The.  First published in 1904.

Humphrey Van Weyden, having endured weeks of brutality at the hands of Captain Wolf Larsen, decides to take desperate measures to save himself and rest of the crew aboard the "Ghost."

 

                        London, Jack.  Star Rover, The.  First published in 1915.

A novel based on London's own brief experience in jail, in which death row inmate Darrell Standing tells tales of life inside California's San Quentin prison.

 

F Lon              London, Jack.   White Fang.  First published in 1905.

ebook                      Chronicles a wolf-dog's struggles to survive in two worlds, those of people and other dogs, where he endures abuse and a career as a vicious fight dog before learning to trust one of the "gods," a human.

 

                        Lovecraft, H. P.  At the Mountains of Madness, and Other Tales of Terror.  First published in 1931.

Contains the title work "At the Mountains of Madness" in which a team of scholars makes a terrifying discovery while on an expedition into the Antarctic Plateau, and includes three additional horror stories: The shunned house-- The dreams in the witch-house -- The statement of Randolph Carter.

 

305.4092 Mah        Mahmoody, Betty.  Not without my daughter.  First published in 1987.

The true story of Betty Mahmoody's desperate struggle to survive and to escape with her daughter from the alien and frightening culture of Iran.

 

F Mal              Malamud, Bernard.  Fixer, The.  First published in 1966.

Yakov Bok, a Jewish handyman, is accused of the murder of a young Russian boy and refuses to confess to a crime he did not commit in spite of the injustices committed against him.

 

 

B Mal              Malcolm X.  Autobiography of Malcolm X, The.  First published in 1965.

The personal story of the man who rose from hoodlum, thief, dope peddler, and pimp to become a leader of the Black Revolution of the 1960s.

 

F Mar              Marshall, Catherine.  Christy.  First published in 1967.

                                In 1912, nineteen-year-old Christy Huddleston leaves her comfortable home to teach in a one-room schoolhouse in an isolated area of the Great Smokies.

 

B McC            McCourt, Frank.  Angela’s Ashes.  First published in 1996.

The author chronicles his impoverished childhood in Limerick, Ireland, in the 1930s and 1940s, describing his father's alcoholism and talent for storytelling; the challenges and tragedies his mother faced, including the loss of three children; and his early experiences in the Catholic church, and balances painful memories with humor.

 

F McC             McCullers, Carson.  Heart is a Lonely Hunter, The.  First published in 1940.

A deaf mute who has lost his only friend to a hospital for the insane becomes the recipient of the confidences of several other town residents.

 

F McC             McCullers, Carson.  Member of the Wedding, The.  First published in 1946.

Frankie Addams, a motherless twelve-year-old raised by her father and the family's African-American cook, struggles with conflicting feelings about her brother's upcoming wedding.

 

F Mel              Melville, Herman.  Bartleby the Scrivener.  First published in 1853.

                                Bartleby, a copyist at a New York City law office, begins to inexplicably refuse work with the line "I would prefer not to".

 

F Mel              Melville, Herman.  Benito Cereno.  First published in 1855.

ebook                      A story of rebellion aboard a slave ship.

 

F Mel              Melville, Herman.  Billy Bud.  First published in 1924.

                                Powerful tale of innocence victimized by harsh reality on the high seas.

 

F Mel              Melville, Herman.  Moby Dick.  First published in 1851.

ebook                      American epic tells a tale about a captain of a whaleship and his obsession to catch the whale named Moby Dick.

 

F Mel              Melville, Herman.  Typee.  First published in 1846.

ebook                      Story of Toby and Tommo, two sailors who flee their harsh life as sailors only to fall into the hands of the mysterious Typee tribe.

 

F Mic               Michener, James.  Bridges at Toko-Ri.  First published in 1953.

Story of the men of a naval task force operating in the icy waters off the Korean shore with a vital mission to perform; to destroy with jet bombers the heavily guarded bridge at Toko-ri and thus to stop essential supplies from moving to the Communist front lines.

 

F Mic               Michener, James.  Hawaii.  First published in 1959.

A novel that chronicles the history of the Hawaiian people, dramatizing the interactions of Hawaii's original Polynesians, the first missionaries who arrived there, and the Chinese, Japanese, and Filipinos who intermarried with the Hawaiians and helped shape their culture.

 

812  Mil          Miller, Arthur.  Crucible, The.  Drama.  First published in 1953.

                                A vengeful teenager in 1692 Salem accuses her former lover and his wife of witchcraft.

 

812  Mil          Miller, Arthur.  Death of a Salesman.  Drama.  First published in 1949.

Pulitzer Prize-winning play in which Willy Loman, a sixty-three-year-old traveling salesman, is forced to face the reality he has avoided all his life.

 

F Mil               Miller, Walter.  Canticle for Leibowitz, A.  Science Fiction.  First published in 1959.

Many years after a nuclear war, scholars seeking the old learning come to a monastery where much knowledge has been preserved.

 

F Mit               Mitchell, Margaret.  Gone With the Wind.  First published in 1936.

After the Civil War sweeps away the genteel life to which she has been accustomed, Scarlett O'Hara sets about to salvage her plantation home.

 

F Mom            Momaday, N. Scott.  House Made of Dawn.  First published in 1969.

Abel, a young American Indian home from a foreign war, finds himself torn between his father's world on the reservation and the lure of industrial America.

 

                        Moody, Anne.  Coming of Age in Mississippi.  Autobiography.  First published in 1968.

                                The personal story of a young African-American woman growing up in 1940s and 1950s Mississippi.

 

                        Morrison, Toni.  Beloved.  First published in 1987.

Sethe, an escaped slave living in post-Civil War Ohio, struggles to keep Beloved, an intruder, from gaining possession of her present while throwing off the legacy of her past.

 

F Mor              Morrison, Toni.  Bluest Eye, The.  First published in 1970.

An eleven-year-old African-American girl in Ohio, in the early 1940s, prays for her eyes to turn blue so that she will be beautiful.

 

F Mor              Morrison, Toni.  Jazz.  First published in 1992.

A mysterious voice weaves the story of an African-American door-to-door salesman who shoots his young lover, and of his wife who tries to disfigure the corpse with a knife.

 

F Mor              Morrison, Toni.  Song of Solomon.  First published in 1977.

Follows the life of Macon Dead, Jr., the son of the richest black family in a midwestern town, as he leaves home on a quest for personal freedom.

 

F Mor              Morrison, Toni.  Sula.  First published in 1974.

Sula Peace returns to her hometown of Medallion, Ohio, in 1937 after a decade away, bringing danger and controversy into the life of her childhood friend Nel--now a conventional housewife--with whom she shares a dark secret.                     

 

F Mor              Morrison, Toni.  Tar Baby.  First published in 1981.

A beautiful African-American woman of privilege finds herself attracted to the kind of man she has dreaded since childhood: uneducated, violent, and contemptuous of her.

 

F Nor               Norris, Frank.  Octopus, The:  A Story of California.  First published in 1901.

ebook                      A novel about the impact of railroads on American ranchers and the methods farmers took to strike back, based on a violent dispute between wheat farmers and the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1880.

                               

                        Norris, Frank.  Pit, The:  A Story of Chicago.  First published in 1902

ebook                      The story of Curtis Jadwin, a man whose increasing attention to earning money in the wheat market of Chicago almost destroys his marriage.

 

                        O’Brien, Tim.  Going after Cacciato.  First published in 1978.

                                An American soldier in Vietnam decides to leave the war and simply walks out of the jungle, with the intent of going to Paris.

 

                        O’Brien, Tim.   Northern Lights.  First published in 1975. 

In 1970, two brothers, one who went to Vietnam and one who didn't, are forced to help each other survive a sudden Minnesota north woods blizzard.

 

F O’Br            O’Brien, Tim.  Things They Carried, The.  First published in 1990.

A collection related fiction short stories with recurring characters, interwoven plot and themes told by a foot soldier retelling his experiences in the Vietnam War.

 

F O’Co           O’Connor, Flannery.  Wise Blood.  First published in 1952.

After his release from the army at age twenty-two, Hazel Motes of Eastrod, Tennessee, moves to a Southern city where he falls under the spell of Asa Hawks, a blind street preacher who is led around by his daughter, Sabbath Lily.

 

                        O’Neill, Eugene.  Beyond the horizon.  Drama.  First published in 1920.

Ruth breaks her engagement with Andrew to marry his brother Robert, and trouble follows all three of them in the years ahead as Ruth finds she made the wrong choice, Robert fails as a farmer, and Andrew returns from sea a changed man.

 

                        O’Neill, Eugene.  Long Day’s Journey into Night.   American Classic.   Drama.  First published in 1941.

Depicts the struggles of the Tyrone family as they face drug addiction, alcohol abuse, tuberculosis, and lost dreams in this semi-autobiographical play.

 

F Par               Parks, Gordon.  Learning Tree, The.  First published in 1963.

                                An African-American youth in a small town in Kansas finds himself the only witness to a murder.

 

F Pec               Peck, Robert Newton.  Day No Pigs Would Die, A.  First published in 1972.

To a thirteen-year-old Vermont farm boy whose father slaughters pigs for a living, maturity comes early as he learns "doing what's got to be done," especially regarding his pet pig who cannot produce a litter.

 

                        Peck, Richard.  Something for Joey.  Biography.  First published in 1978.

    Biography of football player John Cappelletti, winner of the 1973 Heisman Trophy, and his younger brother Joey, who fought a losing battle with leukemia.

 

F Pla               Plath, Sylvia.  Bell Jar, The.  First published in 1963.

The author presents a first-person narrative that chronicles the mental break-down of Esther Greenwood from the doctor's office to the asylum.

 

F Por               Porter, Katherine Anne.  Pale horse, pale rider : three short novels.  First published in 1939.

Three short novels deal with turn of the century family life, a new hired hand, and the World War I homefront and the influenza epidemic.

 

F Por               Porter, Katherine Anne.   Ship of Fools.  First published in 1962.

                                Presents an allegory that describes the passengers on board a ship sailing from Mexico to Germany in 1931.

 

F Pot               Potok, Chaim.  Book of Lights.  First published in 1981.

Gershon Loran, a young rabbi drawn to Jewish mysticism, begins to question his faith when he is drafted to serve as a chaplain in postwar Korea.

 

                        Potok, Chaim.  Chosen, The.  First published in 1967.

Recounts the story of Reuven Malter and Danny Saunders--one an orthodox Jew, the other the son of a Hasidic rabbi--and the course of their friendship as they grow up in Brooklyn.

 

                         Potok, Chaim.  I Am the Clay.  First published in 1992.

                                Tells the story of an old man, his wife, and a young boy brought together by chance during the horror of the Korean War.

 

398  Pyl          Pyle, Howard.  Story of King Arthur and his Knights, The.  First published in 1903.

Tells of King Arthur, his rise to the throne, the winning of his queen, and the stories of the three worthies of his court, Merlin, Sir Pellias, and Sir Gawaine.

 

F Pyn              Pynchon, Thomas.  Gravity’s Rainbow.  First published in 1973.

Shortly after the German army's secret V-2 bombs begin falling on London, U.S. Army Lt. Tyrone Slothrop realizes the bombing locations exactly match the sites of his own sexual liasons, and that the coincidence has been noticed by British intelligence, sending Slothrop on a journey across Europe in hopes of escaping British officers who think he has knowledge about the attacks.

 

F Ran              Rand, Ayn.  Anthem.  First published in 1938.

ebook                      In a future world, only one man dares to think, strive, and love as an individual in the midst of a paralyzing collective humanity.

 

F Ran              Rand, Ayn.  Atlas Shrugged.  First published in 1957.

A satire on the follies and dangers of collectivism in which the United States is faced with the prospect of economic collapse when the country's leading innovators and industrialists go into hiding.

 

F Ran              Rand, Ayn.  Fountainhead, The.  First published in 1943.

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.

 

F Ran              Rand, Ayn.  We the Living.  First published in 1936.

                                In the time of the Russian Revolution, Kira is torn between two men who love her, one a Communist, the other an aristocrat.              

F Ric               Rice, Anne.  Interview with the Vampire.  First published in 1976.

                                Presents the confessions of Louis, a vampire, and tells of his relationship with the vampire Lestat.

 

                        Rose, Reginald.  Twelve Angry Men.  Drama. First published in 1954.

A play in which a juror in a murder trial holds out on a guilty verdict and tries to get the other jurors to look at the situation without being swayed by their personal prejudices or biases.

 

F Sal               Salinger, J. D.  Catcher in the Rye.  First published in 1951,

                                An adolescent boy, knowing he is about to be dropped by his school, spends three days and nights in New York City.

 

F Sal               Salinger, J. D.  Franny & Zooey.  First published in 1961.

After suffering a fainting spell while visiting her boyfriend at college, twenty-year-old Franny Glass comes home to recover and sort out a number of personal conflicts.

 

F Sar               Saroyan, William.  Human Comedy, The.  First published in 1944.

Working as a telegraph messenger in California during World War II, fourteen-year-old Homer Macauley gains an understanding of the world and an acceptance of his brother's death.

 

F Sch               Schaefer, Jack.  Shane.  First published in 1949.

A stranger rides into a small Wyoming town in 1889 and creates a lasting impact on its inhabitants, especially on young Bob Starrett and his family.

 

F Sha              Shaara, Jeff.  Gods and Generals.  Written as a prequel to The Killer Angels.  First published in 1996.

This Civil War novel traces the lives, passions, and careers of military leaders Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, Winfield Scott Hancock, Joshua Chamberlain, and Robert E. Lee, who all meet on the same battlefield for the first time at Fredericksburg, where they experience the battle from four very different points of view.

 

F Sha              Shaara, Michael.  Killer Angels, The.  First published in 1974.

A fictional account of four days in July, 1863 at the Battle of Gettysburg discussing tactics, plans, and preparations for battle from both the Northern and Southern points of view.

 

F Shu              Shulman, Irving.  West Side Story:  a Novelization.  First published in 1961.  A novelization of the Broadway musical "West Side Story

Maria, a young Puerto Rican girl living in New York, and sister to Sharks gang leader Bernardo, falls in love with Tony, former leader of the rival gang, the Jets, setting the stage for tragedy.

 

 

 

Silko, Leslie Marmon.  Ceremony.   American Classic.  First published in 1977.

Follows Tayo, a young Native American, after his release from a veteran's hospital following World War II as he searches for meaning and sanity in his life.

 

F Sin               Sinclair, Upton.  Jungle, The.  First published in 1906.

ebook                      Describes the conditions of the Chicago stockyards through the eyes of a young immigrant struggling in America. 

F Smi              Smiley, Jane.  Thousand Acres, A.  First published in 1991.

Dark truths and long-suppressed emotions come to the surface in 1979 when a successful Iowa farmer decides to cut one of his daughters out of his will.

 

                        Steinbeck, John.  Cannery Row.  First published in 1945.

Recounts the adventures and misadventures of cannery workers living in the run-down waterfront section of Monterey, California.       

 

F Ste               Steinbeck, John.  East of Eden.  First published in 1952.

                                The saga of three generations of the Trask and Hamilton families in the early 1900s in Northern California.

 

F Ste               Steinbeck, John.  Grapes of Wrath, The.  First published in 1939.

The story of a farm family's Depression-era journey from the Dustbowl of Oklahoma to the California migrant labor camps in search of a better life.

 

F Ste               Steinbeck, John.  Pearl, The.  First published in 1947.

                                Terrible events follow the discovery of a magnificent pearl by a poor Mexican fisherman.

 

F Ste               Steinbeck, John.  Red Pony, The.  First published in 1933.

                                Ten-year-old Jody learns about life and death through her ownership of a beautiful red pony.

 

F Ste               Steinbeck, John.  Tortilla Flat.  First published in 1935.

Above the town of Monterey on the California coast lies the shabby district of Tortilla Flat where Danny and his colorful group of friends live and where their revels recall the exploits of King Arthur's knights.

 

910  Ste          Steinbeck, John.  Travels with Charley:  in Search of America.  First published in 1960.

Contains observations about life and descriptions of nature as described by Steinbeck as he traveled from coast to coast at sixty years of age with his French poodle, Charley.

 

F Sto               Stowe, Harriet Beecher.  Uncle Tom’s Cabin.  First published in 1852.

Presents the controversial novel, published in 1852, in which author Harriet Beecher Stowe offers an indictment of the pre-Civil War South through the story of Uncle Tom, an elderly slave who maintains his human dignity in the face of cruelty, suffering, and death.

 

F Sty               Styron, William.  Lie Down in Darkness.  First published in 1951.

                                Story of the Loftis family living in the South, haunted by infidelity and driven by a vengeful love.

 

F Sty               Styron, William.  Sophie’s Choice.  First published in 1979.

Three friends, Stingo, a twenty-two-year-old writer; Sophie, a survivor of the Nazi camps; and Nathan, her mercurial lover, share magical, heart-warming times until doom overtakes them as Sophie's and Nathan's darkest secrets are revealed.


                        Tada, Joni Eareckson.  Joni:  an unforgettable story.  First published in 1989.

Christian author and artist Joni Eareckson Tada describes the physical, emotional, and spiritual struggle she underwent after a diving accident left her quadriplegic at the age of seventeen.

 

F Tan               Tan, Amy.  Joy Luck Club.  First published in 1989.

In 1949 four Chinese women began meeting in San Francisco to play mah jong. They called their gathering the Joy Luck Club. Forty years later they look back and remember.

 

818 Tho           Thoreau, Henry David.  Walden.  First published in 1854.

ebook                      Presents nineteenth-century American author Henry David Thoreau's reflections on living alone among nature for two years on Walden Pond in Massachusetts.

 

                        Trumbo, Dalton.  Johnny Got His Gun.  First published in 1939.

A young man who was severely wounded in World War One thinks about his life and about the horror and futility of war and its toll on him.

 

F Cle               Twain, Mark.  Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  First published in 1885.

ebook                      Huckleberry Finn, the son of the town drunk, and Jim, an escaped slave, make a break for freedom down the Mississippi River on a raft, sharing many adventures along the way.

 

F Cle               Twain, Mark.  Adventures of Tom Sawyer.  First published in 1876.

ebook                      The tale of a mischievous boy growing up in a nineteenth-century Mississippi River town.

 

F Cle               Twain, Mark.  Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, A.  First published in 1889.

ebook                      Nineteenth-century mechanic Hank Morgan suffers a blow to the head and wakes up in King Arthur's Court where he tries to introduce modern technology and political ideas to the inhabitants.   

 

818 Twa          Twain, Mark.  Innocents Abroad, The.  First published in 1869.

    Mark Twain's classic 1869 chronicle of his travels with a group of fellow "pilgrims" through Europe and the Holy Land, in which he makes fun of both European snobbery and American coarseness.

 

F Cle               Twain, Mark.  Life on the Mississippi.  First published in 1883.

ebook                      An account of life on the Mississippi in the old steamboat days and Twain's experiences as a pilot.

 

F Cle               Twain, Mark.  Prince and the Pauper, The.  First published in 1881.

ebook                      When young Edward VI of England and a poor boy who resembles him exchange places, each learns something about the other's very different station in life.

 

F Cle               Twain, Mark.  Pudd’nHead Wilson.  First published in 1894.

                                Hoping to ensure a better life for her child, a young slave woman exchanges her light-skinned baby for her master's.              

 

                        Twain, Mark.  Tramp Abroad, A.  First published in 1880.

ebook                      An edited version of Mark Twain's description of his adventures on a walking trip across Europe.

 

F Tyl                Tyler, Anne.  Accidental Tourist, The.  First published in 1985.

Macon Leary, the lonely author of guidebooks for traveling businessmen, has become very set in his ways, but he is forced into an engagement with life after meeting Muriel, a woman with a talent for finding adventure.

 

F Upd              Updike, John.  Centaur, The.  First published in 1963.

Retells the myth of Chiron, wisest of the centaurs who gives up immortality for Prometheus, in a modern setting where Chiron is a high-school science teacher, George Caldwell, and Prometheus is his fifteen-year-old son, Peter.

 

                        Updike, John.  Rabbit at Rest.  First published in 1990.

Ex-basketball player Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom has acquired heart trouble, a second grandchild, and he is looking for a reason to live.

                   

F Tyl                Updike, John.  Rabbit Run.  First published in 1960.

Twenty-six-year-old Harry (Rabbit) Angstrom, unhappy with his life, deserts his pregnant wife and young son and becomes involved with another woman, but when his wife gives birth, he returns home, only to be met by tragedy.

 

F Von              Vonnegut, Kurt Jr.  Breakfast of Champions.  Science Fiction.   First published in 1973.

Dwayne Hoover, a successful automobile dealer in Midland City, suddenly decides that he is a machine and begins to act accordingly. Science fiction writer Kilgore Trout is on his way to the Midland City Festival of the Arts. When they meet, the result is catastrophe.              

 

F Von              Vonnegut, Kurt Jr.  Cat’s Cradle.  Science Fiction.  First published in 1963.

In the year 2000, a young man discovers ice-nine, which can set off a chain reaction more deadly than a nuclear bomb, and a new prophet whose teachings sweep the world.

 

F Von              Vonnegut, Kurt Jr.  Sirens of Titan.  Science Fiction.  First published in 1959.

The richest, most depraved man in America blasts off in his private space ship for parts unknown with the one beautiful woman capable of resisting him.

 

F Von              Vonnegut, Kurt Jr.  Slaughterhouse-Five.    Science Fiction.  First published in 1969.

A fourth-generation German-American is tortured by his memories of the firebombing of Dresden in 1944 which he witnessed while a prisoner of war.

 

F Wal              Walker, Alice.  Color Purple, The.  First published in 1982.

    Tells the story of two sisters: Nettie, a missionary in Africa, and Celie, a child-wife living in the South, in the medium of their letters to each other and in Celie's case, the desperate letters she begins, "Dear God."

 

F War             Warren, Robert Penn.  All the King’s Men.  First published in 1946.

Willie Stark, a well-intentioned, idealistic, back-country lawyer is unable to resist greed for power and lust for politics during his rise and fall as an American demagogue.

 

301.451  Thr   Washington, Booker T.  Up from Slavery.  First published in 1901.

ebook                      Booker T. Washington, the son of a slave woman and a white man, recounts his rise from slavery to become the most influential black leader of his time in the U.S., and founder of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.

 

812 Was         Wasserman, Dale.  Man of La Mancha.  Drama.  First published in 1966.

                                Based on Don Quixote, this is a popular and enduring play.     

 

F Wel              Welty, Eudora.  Optimist’s Daughter, The.  First published in 1972.

A woman who has left the South returns when her father is dying. After his death, she and her silly young stepmother go back to the small Mississippi town where she grew up.

 

F Wha             Wharton, Edith.  Age of Innocence, The.  First published in 1920.

ebook                      Newland Archer, a young lawyer in upper-crust 1870's New York, becomes a victim of social expectations and restrictions when he becomes infatuated with his docile fiancee's nonconformist cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska.

 

F Wha             Wharton, Edith.  Ethan Frome.  First published in 1911.

Contains the story of Ethan Frome, a New England farmer who is married to a hypochondriac, but in love with his wife's lively cousin, Mattie.

 

F Wha             Wharton, Edith.  House of Mirth, The.  First published in 1905.

ebook                      Lily Bart, an orphaned child of a New York merchant, calmly prepares a campaign to marry for the power and luxury that money brings.

 

F Wil              Wilder, Thornton.  Bridge of San Luis Rey.  First published in 1927.

                A tiny footbridge in Peru breaks, and five people hurtle to their deaths. For Brother Juniper, a humble monk who witnesses the catastrophe, the question is: Why those five?   

       

808.82 Gas V.3    Wilder, Thornton.  Our Town.  Drama.  First published in 1938.

Portrays life in Grover's Corner, New Hampshire, in the early 1900's through the routine daily events and the major moments in the lives of George Gibbs, Emily Webb, and their families; and how their lives, although mundane, are touched by the universal forces of love, despair, apathy, nature, and death.

 

258  Wil         Wilkerson, David.  Cross and the Switchblade, The.  First published in 1963.

A minister who left his small church in Pennsylvania to go to New York City relates his experiences working with streetgang members.

 

                        Williams, John.  Butcher’s Crossing.  First published in 1960.

Will Andrews drops out of Harvard, heads west, and end up at Butcher's Crossing, a small Kansas town, where he is talked into joining a growp of men eager to make their fortune hunting buffalo in the Colorado Rockies.

 

808.82  Six     Williams, Tennessee.  Glass Menagerie, The.  Drama.  First published in 1944.

Amanda, a dominating mother, hopes to match her crippled daughter, Laura, with an eligible "gentleman caller;" her son, Tom, supports the family; and the painfully shy Laura evades her mother's schemes and reality by retreating to the make-believe world of her glass animal collection.

 

808.82  Tue     Williams, Tennessee.  Streetcar Named Desire, A.  Drama.  First published in 1947.

Blanche DuBois, a haggard and fragile southern beauty finds her pathetic last grasp at happiness cruelly destroyed in large part by her brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski.

 

F Wol              Wolfe, Thomas.  Look Homeward, Angel:  a Story of the Buried Life.  First published in 1929.

Describes the coming of age of Eugene Gant, his boyhood in North Carolina and his growing passion to experience life.

 

                        Wolfe, Thomas.  Of Time and the River:  a Legend of Man’s Hunger in His Youth.  First published in 1935.

Sequel to: Look homeward angel. Follows Eugene Grant in his desperate search for fulfillment from rural North Carolina, through England and France, to his ultimate return home.

 

F Wol              Wolfe, Thomas.  You Can’t Go Home Again.  First published in 1940.

The story of an American artist who flees scandal, bitterness, and despair as he journeys from his family home in a small Southern town to the gaudy capitals of prewar Europe.

 

B Kes              Wolfe, Tom.  Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.  First published in 1968.

Presents a portrait of novelist Ken Kesey and the West Coast "Merry Pranksters" during a several year pursuit of the LSD experience and development of psychedelia.

 

812 Wou         Wouk, Herman.  Caine Mutiny, The:  A Novel of world War II.  First published in 1951.

This book is the account of a well-to-do man who serves on a minesweeper during World War II, describing the events on the Navy ship Caine and what ultimately led the first mate, Lieutenant Maryk, a man with little schooling or experience, to take command of the vessel from Captain Queeg and the subsequent court-martial of Maryk.

 

F Wou             Wouk, Herman.  Marjorie Morningstar.  First published in 1955.

A novel about a beautiful, popular, New York Jewish girl in the 1930’s who longs to become an actress.  She invents the stage name of “Marjorie Morningstar” and beings her quest to become a star.

 

F Wou             Wouk, Herman.  War and Remembrance.  First published in 1978.

Sequel to "The Winds of War.  Follows the lives of members of the American Henry family as they deal with the triumphs and tragedies of life during the World War II years.

 

F Wou             Wouk, Herman.  Winds of War.  First published in 1971.

The lives of the members of the Henry family, headed by Naval Commander 'Pug' Henry, are irrevocably changed in the days heading up to the outbreak of World War II.

 

B Wri             Wright, Richard.  Black Boy:  (American Hunger) : A Record of Childhood and Youth.  First published in 1945.

The autobiography of an African-American writer, recounting his early years and the harrowing experiences he encountered drifting from Natchez to Chicago to Brooklyn.

 

F Wri              Wright, Richard.  Native Son.  First published in 1940.

    Trapped in the poverty-stricken ghetto of Chicago's South Side, a young African-American man finds release only in acts of violence.HH