Special Collections
Teacher Recommended Reading: Grades 9-12
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Oedipus Trilogy
by SophoclesClassical Greek tragedy. [This text is listed as an example that meets Common Core Standards in English language arts in grades 9-10 at http://www.corestandards.org.]
The Odyssey
by Homer and Alexander PopeHomer's classical Greek epic poem, as translated by Alexander Pope. [This text is listed as an example that meets Common Core Standards in English language arts in grades 6-8 at http://www.corestandards.org.]
Notes from the Underground
by Fyodor DostoyevskyDescription: The passionate confessions of a suffering soul; the brutal self-loathing of a tormented man; the scathing scorn of an alienated antihero who has become one of the greatest figures in all literature.
Night
by Elie Wiesel and Stella RodwayWhen Elie Wiesel was liberated from Buchenwald in 1945, having also been in Birkenau, Auschwitz, and Buna, he imposed a ten-year vow of silence upon himself before trying to describe what had happened to him and over six million other Jews. When he finally broke that silence, he had trouble finding a publisher. Such depressing subject matter. When Night was finally published, over twenty-five years ago, few people wanted to read about the Holocaust. Such depressing subject matter. But we cannot indefinitely avoid depressing subject matter, particularly if it is true, and in the subsequent quarter century the world has had to hear a story it would have preferred not to hear-the story of how a cultured people turned to genocide, and how the rest of the world, also composed of cultured people, remained silent in the face of genocide.
Mythology
by Edith HamiltonA collection of Greek and Roman myths in the form of stories categorized under seven parts.
Moll Flanders
by Daniel DefoeMoll Flanders, Defoe's 18th Century classic novel, was "marketed" in its day in much the same way that a modern commercial novel might be - its title page promised the racy details of a woman's life spent in thievery and whoredom. The book is much more than this; it is a Puritan tale of sin, repentance, conversion, and redemption. It is also seen by many critics as a satirical and ironic picaresque novel with a twist (that being its female protagonist). On yet another level, it is a playful and beguiling social commentary set between the Puritan age (which saw humankind as fallen) and the Age of Reason in which humankind was seen as born innocent and good and corrupted by society. Taking center stage in this whorl of irony, humor, pathos, and religious faith is one Moll Flanders - both the most plausible sinner and the most pious repentant in English literature; arguably the most notorious heroine in the canon of fiction in the English language. She is as controversial today as when she first appeared in 1722.
The Metamorphosis and Other Stories
by Franz KafkaThe Metamorphosis is the story of a young man who, transformed overnight into a giant beetlelike insect, becomes an object of disgrace to his family, an outsider in his own home, a quintessentially alienated man. [This text is listed as an example that meets Common Core Standards in English language arts in grades 9-10 at http://www.corestandards.org.]
The Merchant of Venice
by William ShakespeareShakespearean play with two subplots 1) Antonio defaults on a loan from Shylock the Jew, who demands his life as bond 2) Portia must marry the man who passes a test her father arranged.
The Martian Chronicles
by Ray BradburyChronicles of man and Mars as man conquers Mars and Mars conquers man.
Madame Bovary
by Gustave Flaubert and Eleanor Marx-AvelingFrom inside flap: Flaubert's devastatingly realized tale of a young woman destroyed by the reckless pursuit of her romantic dreams
Love's Labour's Lost
by William ShakespeareThe play opens with the King of Navarre and three noble companions, Berowne, Dumaine, and Longaville, taking an oath to devote themselves to three years of study, promising not to give in to the company of women - Berowne somewhat more hesitantly than the others. Berowne reminds the king that the princess and her three ladies are coming to the kingdom and it was suicidal for the King to agree to this law. The King denies what Berowne says, insisting that the ladies make their camp in the field outside of his court. The King and his men comically fall in love with the princess and her ladies.
Kim
by Rudyard KiplingIt is the tale of an orphaned sahib and the burdensome fate that awaits him when he is unwittingly dragged into the Great Game of Imperialism.
The Jungle
by Upton SinclairBack cover: Upton Sinclair's unflinching chronicle of crushing poverty and oppression set in Chicago in the early 1900s.
Julius Caesar
by William ShakespeareShakespeare's timeless tragedy of conspiracy and betrayal tells the story of the murder of Julius Caesar and the gruesome aftermath as Rome descends into a violent mob. This edition includes: An overview of Shakespeare's life, canon, and dramaturgy An introduction to the play by Barbara Rosen and William Rosen of the University of Connecticut Selections from Plutarch's Lives of Noble Grecians and Romans, the source from which Shakespeare derived the play Also included are the following commentaries: Maynard Mack: The Modernity of Julius Caesar Coppelia Kahn: A Voluntary Wound Roy Walker: From Unto Caesar: A Review of Recent Productions Richard David: A Review of Julius Caesar (Royal Shakespeare, 1972) Ralph Berry: On Directing Shakespeare: An Interview with Trevor Nunn, Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company Peggy Goodman Endel: Julio Cesar: The 1986 Florida Shakespeare Festival Sylvan Barnet: Julius Caesar on the Stage and Screen
Jude the Obscure
by Thomas HardyBook Description Hardy's masterpiece traces a poor stonemason's ill-fated romance with his free-spirited cousin.
The Joy Luck Club
by Amy TanAmy Tan’s beloved, New York Times bestselling tale of mothers and daughters
Four mothers, four daughters, four families whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's "saying" the stories. In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk. United in shared unspeakable loss and hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Rather than sink into tragedy, they choose to gather to raise their spirits and money. "To despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable." Forty years later the stories and history continue.
With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined. Mothers boast or despair over daughters, and daughters roll their eyes even as they feel the inextricable tightening of their matriarchal ties. Tan is an astute storyteller, enticing readers to immerse themselves into these lives of complexity and mystery.
Journey to the Center of the Earth
by Jules VerneA team of explorers makes an expedition into a crater in Iceland which leads to the center of the earth and to incredible and horrifying discoveries.
Johnny Tremain 75th Anniversary Edition
by Nathan Hale and Esther Hoskins ForbesThis striking 75th Anniversary edition of this Newbery Medal-winning historical fiction classic is updated with new jacket art and an illustrated foreword from author-illustrator Nathan Hale. Johnny Tremain is one of the finest historical novels ever written for children. To read this riveting novel is to live through the defining events leading up to the American Revolutionary War. Fourteen-year-old Johnny Tremain, an apprentice silversmith with a bright future, injures his hand in an accident, forcing him to look for other work. In his new job as a horse boy, he encounters John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and Dr. Joseph Warren. Soon Johnny is involved in pivotal events from the Boston Tea Party to the shots fired at Lexington. For this anniversary edition, Nathan Hale brings his distinct graphic-novel storytelling to a new foreword.
Advisory: Bookshare has learned that this book offers only partial accessibility. We have kept it in the collection because it is useful for some of our members. Benetech is actively working on projects to improve accessibility issues such as these.
Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Brontë"Come to me-come to me entirely now," said he. "Make my happiness--I will make yours." Born into a poor family and raised by an oppressive aunt, young Jane Eyre becomes the governess at Thornfield Manor to escape the confines of her life. There her fiery independence clashes with the brooding and mysterious nature of her employer, Mr. Rochester. But what begins as outright loathing slowly evolves into a passionate romance. When a terrible secret from Rochester's past threatens to tear the two apart, Jane must make an impossible choice: Should she follow her heart or walk away and lose her love forever? Unabashedly romantic and utterly enthralling, Jane Eyre endures as one of the greatest love stories of all time. This must-have edition of a timeless classic is beautifully presented for a modern teen audience.
Invisible Man
by Ralph EllisonInvisible Man is a milestone in American literature, a book that has continued to engage readers since its appearance in 1952.
The nameless narrator of the novel describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of "the Brotherhood", and retreating amid violence and confusion to the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be.
The book is a passionate and witty tour de force of style, strongly influenced by T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, Joyce, and Dostoevsky.
Winner of the National Book Award
Illusions
by Richard BachWhat if a Siddartha or a Jesus came into our time, with power over the illusions of the world because he knew the reality behind them? And what if I could meet him in person, if he were flying a biplane and landed in the same meadow with me? What would he say, what would he be like?
I Heard the Owl Call My Name
by Margaret CravenA novel about the clash of the ancient culture versus the modern culture of the Indians of the Pacific Northwest.