Freshman English I – Book Club Recommendations –
Directions: Step 1 – Choose at least 10 books on this list to investigate on your own. Go to amazon.com or goodreads.com or a similar website (wikipedia.com) that has information about the book. (Type in “books for 9th graders” to access the goodreads site.) Step 2– On a separate sheet of paper make a list of 5-7 book entries (also known as annotations). Each entry should contain: the title and author and date of publication of a particular book + a 3-sentence summary on what you have discovered about the book’s genre, setting, plot and characters + a 1-2 sentence explanation of why you would be inclined or disinclined to read this book.
Older Classics
(1) Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe [short but challenging]
(2) Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott [long, challenging, but highly readable]
(3) Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte [long, but highly readable]
(4) Emma or (5) Persuasion or (6) Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen [mid-length and somewhat challenging]
(7) The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas [long but highly readable]
(8) Little Women by Louisa May Alcott [long but highly readable
(9) The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins [long but highly readable]
(10) Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass [short, compelling and challenging]
(11) Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev [short]
(12) First Love by Ivan Turgenev [short]
(13) Billy Budd by Herman Melvillec [short and challenging]
(14) The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins [long but compelling]
(15) Great Expectations by Charles Dickens [long and challenging]
(16) The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
(17) The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson [short]
(18) Dracula by Bram Stoker [long , highly readable gothic page-turner]
(19) The Death of Ivan Illych + The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy [short but challenging]
(20) Youth + The Secret Sharer or (21) The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad [short but challenging]
(22) The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka [short but challenging]
(23) The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton [mid-length but challenging]
(24) The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton [mid-length but challenging]
(25) The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain [short]
(26) The Turn of the Screw and other Stories by Henry James [short but challenging short story collection]
(27) The Time Machine by H.G. Wells [short science fiction]
(28) The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emmuska Orczy [relatively short]
(29) The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells [short science fiction]
(30) The Jungle by Upton Sinclair [famous muckraking fiction]
(31) The Phantom of the Opera by Guston Leroux [famous horror story]
(32) The Hobbit by J. R.R. Tolkien [mid-length but highly readable]
(33) The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R.R. Tolkien [somewhat long but highly readable]
(34) Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison [long , compelling and somewhat challenging]
(35) The Once and Future King by T.H. White [long King Arthur saga]
(36) The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck [historical fiction]
(37) OtherVoices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote
(38) A Town like Alice by Nevil Shute
(39) East of Eden by John Steinbeck [family drama]
(40) The Ox Bow Incident by Walter V. Clark
(41) The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett[detective/crime fiction]
(42) The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler [detective/crime fiction]
(43) Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier [somewhat long but readable]
(44) The Natural by Bernard Malamud [relatively short]
(44) Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
(45) The Heart is a Lonely Hunter or (46) The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers
(47) Fahrenheit 451 or (48) The Martian Chronicles by (1953) Ray Bradbury [short]
(49) Watership Down (1974) by Richard Adams [long but readable]
(50) Ferris Beach by Jill McCorkle [short to mid-length]
(51) The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark [short]
(52) True Grit by Charles Portis [short western]
(53) One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
(54) A Separate Peace (1959) by John Knowles [short]
(55) The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1970) by Ernest Gaines
(56) Dance of the Happy Shades by Alice Munro [short story collection]
(57) Blindness by Jose Saramago
(58) Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
(59) Beloved (1987) by Toni Morrison [challenging]
(60) A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley [long]
(61) A Map of the World by Jane Hamilton [long]
(62) The Remains of the Day or (64) Never Let You Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
More Recent Fiction – YA High Interest
(63) After the First Death or (64) The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier [relatively short and readable]
(65) Fallen Angels or (66) Monster or (67) The Glory Field by Walter Dean Myers (1988)
(68) The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan (1989)
(69) A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (1989)
(70) Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
(71) A Lesson before Dying by Ernest Gaines [mid-length]
(72) White Teeth (2000) by Zadie Smith
(73) The Book Thief (2006) or (74) I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak
(75) The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (2012)
(76) An Abundance of Katherines by John Green (2006)
(77) Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt (1996)
(78) The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne (2006)
(79) Compound by S.A. Bodeen (2008)
(80) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon (2003)
(81) Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin (2005)
(82) Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
(83) Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer (2005)
(84) Feed by M.T. Anderson (2002)
(85) What is the What by Dave Eggers (2007)
(86) If I Stay by Gayle Forman (2009)
(87) A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah (2007)
(88) The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky (1999)
(89) Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson (2000)
(90) Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher (2006)
(91) Unwind by Neal Shusterman (2007)
(92) Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (2006)
(93) Where the Heart Is by Billie Betts (1995)
(94) In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick
(95) Delirium or (96) Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver
(97) Going Bovine by Libba Bray
(98) The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
(99) Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns
(100) The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie