<p>Hey guys. I'm taking AP English Lit next year as a senior after having taken AP English Lang this year as a junior. I'm a strong and confident writer, but I feel like I need to expand my breadth of literature. Major works I've read so far in high school are Romeo & Juliet, Julius Caesar, Jane Eyre, The Scarlet Letter, The Great Gatsby, and The Awakening. However, I know that none of these are the "big books" that are far more common recommendations for reading and writing in AP Lit. </p>
<p>Now, my school is one that actually doesn't assign summer reading for AP Lit. I've spoken to my future AP Lit teacher, though, and she recommended a few novels for me: Atlas Shrugged, The Color Purple, Catcher in the Rye, and The Invisible Man. What novels would you consider reading to best prepare me for AP Lit, and do you agree with or disagree with any of these novels?</p>
<p>I recommend reading <em>Sound and Sense</em>, a poetry textbook. You should also get your grammar on point for the essays.</p>
<p>For novels/plays, read any great lit work and then follow it up with the Bloom’s Guide for it–it’s incredibly helpful to read some serious academic analysis and crit. of a canonized work.</p>
<p>On the AP test, there is an essay question called the open question, where you pick a book applicable to the question and write about it. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest works for about 80% of these questions, so I recommend reading it. Plus it’s an entertaining book.</p>
<p>The books you’ve listed are perfectly fine. Any of the books your teacher assigns or recommends will probably be fine. The books I read for AP Lit in HS were: The Awakening by Kate Chopin, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, The Stranger by Albert Camus, Othello by William Shakespeare, All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Doestyevsky (spelling, ugh)… And probably a few others. Plus some poetry. For summer reading (the summer before), we had to read The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, plus four other books from a pre-approved list. The one I remember was The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner.</p>
<p>If you look at past AP Lit FRQs on the College Board’s website, you’ll see that they provide a list of works with “literary merit” at the end of the open question prompt. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison is on 2011’s list. I also recommend Madame Bovary (Gustave Flaubert), Wuthering Heights (Emily Bront</p>
<p>I would skip Atlas Shrugged. Not only will it waste time you could be reading several other books (it is very lengthy), but it is also more notable for it’s political and economic statements than beautiful prose or riveting storyline. The others, however, seem like good picks. I would add in some Hemingway and additional Shakespeare (because if you can read him you can read most works), I personally recommend Henry VI-Richard III. I would also like to second illinoisD93’s choice of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and add A Clockwork Orange to the list. Some more contemporary plays would be a nice addition as well, such as A Streetcar Named Desire, Death of a Salesman, and The Iceman Cometh. These are all quick reads because they are short and entertaining. Oh, 1984 is a masterpiece as well so keep that in consideration.</p>
<p>I’m taking ap lit next year too and over the summer we have to read Frankenstein, Prode and Prejudice, and How to Read literature like a Professor. Maybe you could read those</p>
<p>My summer reading list includes books I have never heard of before:
All My Sons by Arthur Miller
Dubliners by James Joyce
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston</p>
<p>However, I have read James Joyce and Arthur Miller before and did read a short story from Dubliners now that I think about it. </p>
<p>For each book, I have to write a two page paper taking on a perspective.</p>
<p>I’m not really sure what other books to recommend besides those suggested by previous people. </p>
<p>I do know that my AP language teacher taught us Beowulf and Canterbury Tales before the end of the year so we would have it for next year. But I’m not sure if they would help on the exam.</p>
<p>Yea, I have 2 books to read this summer:
How to read Literature like a Professor
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn</p>
<p>Not excited at all (well, maybe a bit excited for the first one).</p>
<p>I think that you should definitely read How to read Literature like a Professor during the summer. My AP English Lang and Lit teacher says he really recommends all AP Lit kids to read it, since the readings in both courses are a little different. In AP Lang, you have to analyze rhetoric and be able to analyze a reading for SOAPSTone in order to determine the development of purpose, tone, etc. In AP Lit, you’re using SOAPSTone to analyze a writers prose or poetic language, not rhetoric per say. </p>
<p>@Maverick95 Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston are awesome! I read them in the 9th and 10th grades!</p>
<p>One book that I always, always suggest for anyone inquiring of what book should be read for AP Lit is The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. As of recent, it has become a novel that has been continuously present on Q. #3 as a suggestion. It covers nearly every topic you can think of. It’s a rather difficult novel, and rather lengthy, but if you can preserver through it and actually analyze it, you should do exceptionally well on FRQ 3. That is, if you can write well. Nonetheless, PWB is a wonderful book and a fabulous read wether for the AP exam or not.</p>
<p>My teacher last year, in the one useful thing he did all year, gave me a list of all the books that have appeared on the Free Response section over the years. The three that have appeared the most are Invisible Man, Wuthering Heights, and Great Expectations. (I can send you the whole list if you’d like.)
Princeton Review also recommends Shakespeare’s plays, as they tend to encompass any of the prompts the test throws at you. </p>
<p>But then again, I didn’t read any of those and still got a 5 on the exam, so take the statistics with a grain of salt. I only prepared to write about the books I actually genuinely liked (Death of a Salesman, Long Day’s Journey into Night, The Metamorphosis, Pride and Prejudice) so I could write a genuine, passionate essay. Don’t get too caught up in numbers or hearsay - as long as you have prepared a few books that you genuinely love that encompass a variety of themes, you will be A-OK.</p>
<p>My class has to read 3 books this summer: Animal Farm, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Frankenstein. Some books from first semester that I might look over are Of Mice and Men, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Hamlet, King Lear. </p>
<p>^ agree with above posts, the How to Read is really nice!</p>
I only prepared to write about the books I actually genuinely liked (Death of a Salesman, Long Day’s Journey into Night, The Metamorphosis, Pride and Prejudice) so I could write a genuine, passionate essay. Don’t get too caught up in numbers or hearsay - as long as you have prepared a few books that you genuinely love that encompass a variety of themes, you will be A-OK.</p>