Mind blowing, awesome books to read over the summer?

Pre-College Topics High School Life
81

<p>Racin’, I hated the end of Andromeda Strain, too, but didn’t give up Crichton because of it. His books are formulaic, but still keep my attention (even as I eyeroll my way through them!). I can well understand giving up an author, though. I don’t know that I can ever read Heinlein again after reading about Lazarus Long and his mother; yech!</p>

<p>Am wondering what you students think of the following books, which are on my S’s summer reading list. He doesn’t have to read them all – just one – but last year, ending up reading many of the books on the summer reading list. (I thought last year’s selection was poor; I read most of them, too.)</p>

<p>I have read only the first book on this list:</p>

<p>*Angela’s Ashes<a href=“F.%20McCourt”>/i</a> - With a frequently unemployed, alcoholic father, Frank’s childhood and youth in Limerick, Ireland are characterized by poverty and hardships.</p>

<p>*Member of the Wedding<a href=“C.%20McCullers”>/i</a> - Eager to leave her Southern town, twelve-year-old Frankie Adams, 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. </p>

<p>*Road to Memphis<a href=“M.%20Taylor”>/i</a> - In her last year of high school in the early 1940s, Cassie and her friends go on a fateful trip to Memphis. </p>

<p>*Into the Wild<a href=“J.%20Krakauer”>/i</a> - A college graduate abandons his life and his possessions to live alone in the wild.</p>

82

<p>“James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake … lol.”</p>

<p>Best. Book. Ever.</p>

83

<p>Some books, very enjoyable, light reads, some with humor:</p>

<p>Water for Elephants
Catch 22 (good vocab and simply hilarious, one of my favorite books ever)
Life of Pi
Running with Scissors
The Glass Castle</p>

<p>The last two are memoirs, and very eccentric, funny memoirs. I enjoyed both of them very much. </p>

<p>So I have this list of “serious reads” that I want to get done before summer, but right now I’m just really in the mood for books with humor (ironic, not potty), or engrossing stories. Any suggestions for good memoirs or funny novels?</p>

<p>thanks</p>

84

<p>don’t read mexican high. honestly, worst book i think i’ve ever read (got it as a gift…sigh)</p>

85

<p>The Host by Stephenie Meyer</p>

<p>Just published (best seller list). Science fiction. Long (600+ pages) but easy to read and good.</p>

86

<p>

LOL dude …</p>

87

<p>The Heart is a Lonely Hunter By Carson McCullers (my favorite)
The Road by Cormac McCarthy (author of “No Country for Dead Men”)
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (classic, love it)</p>

88

<p>Owlice! another McCuller’s fan? I didn’t read through all the posts before I submitted my comment.</p>

89

<p>What about those Greek books, you know, like Odyssey and Iliad, especially the former that I had to read for school, the latter I have no clue what it is, but anyways, if you like mythology it might be a pretty good choice.</p>

90

<p>Owlice…I loved Road to Memphis. I read it 8th grade though. Will only make sense if your S has read the first two though.</p>

91

<p>THOMAS MANN is the best writer of all time.</p>

92

<p>I am America(And So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert. Its the funniest book ive ever read and it helped me a lot on the AP Eng Lang exam</p>

93

<p>“The Worthing Saga” --sci fi, by Orson Scott Card
I’m in the middle of it and it’s great.</p>

94

<p>Is that one as infused with his Mormon propaganda as all of his books after Ender’s Game have been?</p>

95

<p>the Iliad is the story of the Trojan War.</p>

<p>I definitely recommend Vergil’s Aeneid, I loved it EVEN THOUGH I had to stumble my way through the original Latin text. the Robert Fagles translation is by far the best.</p>

96

<p>All The King’s Men -Robert Penn Warren</p>

97

<p>The Secret History (Donna Tartt), The Corrections (Jonathan Franzen), Everything is Illuminated OR Extrememely Loud & Incredibly Close (Jonathan Safran Foer), Invisible Monsters (Chuck Palahniuk), Boy Detective Fails OR Hairstyles of the Damned (Joe Meno)…</p>

98

<p>A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch
The Brothers Karamazov
Crime and Punishment
Fountainhead (You don’t have to agree totally with her philosophy to enjoy it)
Catch-22</p>

99

<p>Hitchiker’s guide to the galaxy was really funny</p>

100

<p>The His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman. </p>

<p>Amazing, an easier-to-read-yet-equally-profound version of Milton’s Paradise Lost.</p>