Blessed Sacrament - St. Gabriel High School Summer 2010
12A Seniors:
You must read at least one book from this list. Besides a reading quiz, you’ll use this book
for assignments both first and second quarters. You may read several so that you have a choice of
assignments. You must read two books altogether but one may be from the regular senior list.
Some of these are long. Skim the book before you choose -- and be sure you want to read it. If not,
pick another! Allow enough time so you can relax and enjoy the book.
If it’s in paperback, we advise owning your own copy, so you can underline, star passages, etc. In the
second quarter, you’ll look up reviews of the book and write a paper on varying reactions to it.
Ø The Alienist. Caleb Carr, 1994, $7.50, 599 pp. Fictional story of how a journalist and a psychologist
helped Theodore Roosevelt solve a string of gruesome murders of young boys in turn-of-the-century
New York. Combination mystery/thriller/police procedural.
Ø Atonement. Ian McEwan, 2001, $14.95, 496 pp. Thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis has an active imagination,
and is jealous of her older sister. The lie she tells in the summer of 1935 haunts the rest of their lives.
Ø Bel Canto. Ann Patchett, 2001, $13.95, 336 pp. Somewhere in South America, at a party at the home of
the country’s Vice President, gun-wielding terrorists break in and hold the international guests hostage
in a siege that lasts for months. Unexpected bonds begin to form. (2002 PEN/Faulkner Fiction Award)
Ø Black Swan Green. David Mitchell, 2006, $15.00, 304 pp. Thirteen chapters provide snapshots of thirteen-
year-old Jason Taylor’s coming of age in small-town England in 1982. His parents’ disintegrating
marriage and the cruelty of adolescent boys form the backdrop of a year in which he earns the respect
of his classmates. (Many British expressions.)
Ø The Book Thief. Marcus Zusak, 2006, $16.95 hardcover, 550 pp. Death narrates the story of Liesel
Meminger, who is nine when she is placed in foster care in 1939 Germany. Books keep her sane, and
she grows into a human being whom even Death can love, although he was very busy in Nazi Germany.
Ø Dreaming In Cuban. Cristina Garcia, 1992, $12.00, 245 pp. Intercuts, from Havana to Brooklyn, of the
stories of four women from the Del Pino family, strong-willed individuals divided by political loyalties
and bound by love.
Ø
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia.. ElizabethGilbert, 2006, $15.00, 352 pp. Autobiography. After divorce and depression, Gilbert sought to find her-
self by traveling for a year: tasting pleasure in Italy, devotion in India, and a balance between enjoyment
and spirituality in Bali. Bestseller.
Ø Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Jonathan Foer, 2005, $13.95, 368 pp. Oskar Schell is 9, on
an urgent secret search throughout New York to find the lock that fits a mysterious key left by his
father, who died in the World Trade Center. Imaginative, charming, determined—and haunted by
how he reacted to his father’s final phone calls on the morning of Sept.11th. Complexly structured.
Ø The Golden Compass. Philip Pullman, 1995, $10.00, 399 pp. First of a fantasy-thriller trilogy. Children
are disappearing all over England, and young Lyra Belacqua and her personal daemon are drawn into
a wider war between good and evil. ("Endearingly spunky heroine . . . original . . . fascinating.")
(continued)
Ø The Kite Runner. Khaled Hosseini, 2003, $14.00, 371 pp. The story of a friendship between two boys
from different classes in Afghanistan, with dramatic plot changes as they grow. "A deeply personal
tale about how childhood choices affect our adult lives." (Booklist).
Ø
Life of Pi: a Novel. Yann Martel, 2001, $14.00, 319 pp. When Pi Patel is sixteen, his family and their zooanimals emigrate from India to America aboard a Japanese cargo ship. When the ship sinks, Pi finds
himself in a lifeboat with a 450-pound tiger. Can they find their way to land, alive? Booker Prize.
Ø
Never Let Me Go. Kazuo Ishiguro, 2005, $14.00, 304 pp. Life at the Hailsham School in the Englishcountryside is sheltered. The children are taught to believe themselves special. For a long time, they
do not know that they are clones, being raised to donate their organs when they become adults.
Ø
women drifters take up residence in a former convent. The townsmen seize on them as the source of
all evil, but learn a mysterious lesson. (One of the best from a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.)
Ø
Pigs in Heaven. Barbara Kingsolver, 1992, 448 pp. When adopted six-year-old Native American TurtleGreer witnesses a freak accident at the Hoover dam and thereby saves a man’s life, her appearance on the
Oprah show leads a Cherokee lawyer to attempt to regain custody of her for the tribe.
Ø
news of 12-year-old daughter’s kidney failure. Her runaway mother, obsessed with make-up and fashion,
is terrified of surgery to donate a kidney; her father, a state trooper, volunteers, but only has one kidney
himself.
Ø The Things They Carried. Tim O’Brien, 1990, $14.95, 256 pp. Based on O’Brien’s experiences during
the Viet Nam war, the twenty-two stories take place in the characters’ childhoods, their time in the
jungles of Viet Nam, and their lives back home two decades later. A classic.
Ø
A Thread of Grace. Mary Doria Russell. 2005, $15.00, 430 pp. During World War II, Italy became a battle-ground for Allies, Nazis, Jewish refugees, Italian resistance fighters and Italian civilians Claudia Blum is
14 when she crosses the Alps with her father, meets the Italian soldier she will marry, the Jewish ex-aviator
who plays multiple resistance roles, and ex-Nazi doctor who begins to atone for his role in the Holocaust.
Ø Thousand Splendid Suns. Khalid Hosseini, 2007, $25.95, 347 pp. In a loveless marriage, Mariam resents
Laila, a woman from a higher class whom her husband has taken as a second wife. Then they become
friends, defying both their abusive husband and the Afghanistan authorities.