<p>Hey everyone! I am currently in AP Lang and my teacher recommended we start reading some classics. What classic novels do you think will best suit me to have read before the AP exam in May? </p>
<p>All responses are appreciated, but especially those who have taken the class. </p>
<p>Thanks in advance xx</p>
<p>Everything on these lists:
<a href=“100 Classics Books”>100 Classics Lt A Gt Books;
<a href=“http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/”>http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/</a></p>
<p>These are the books I read when I took the class. Since the first part of the AP Lang Exam uses short stories to test your reading comprehension, I really recommend reading the Norton Anthology/ Reader or The New Yorker magazine. </p>
<ol>
<li>Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger</li>
<li>At the Hands of Persons Unknown by Philip Dray</li>
<li>The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne</li>
<li>The Crucible by Arthur Miller</li>
<li>Portrait of a Lady by Henry James</li>
<li>Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck</li>
<li>Emerson’s Essays</li>
<li>Civil Disobedience by Henry Thoreau</li>
<li>The Norton Reader</li>
<li>The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain</li>
<li>Beloved by Toni Morrison</li>
<li>The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald </li>
</ol>
<p>^That’s a nice list.</p>
<p>Do you know if AP Lit covers the same kind of books?</p>
<p>@Apollo11 Thanks.
AP Lit has many of the same books used on my list. Some of them have been used in the AP Lit Exam, like Beloved for example. </p>
<p>What’s the difference between the two?</p>
<p>I haven’t taken AP Lang, but here is the book list my school uses:</p>
<p>Nickel & Dimed
The Narrative of Fredrick Douglass
The Things They Carried
The Great Gatsby</p>
<p>This list seems really short/not of much value (partially why I didn’t take the course). If it helps at all, I am in AP English Lit right now, and here is our list:</p>
<p>Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad
Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell
A poetry book</p>
<p>Not sure about the lang exam specifically, but for basically any sort of reading I would recommend being very familiar with Joseph Campbell, especially his stages of a hero. Here’s an outline if you don’t know about that yet: <a href=“stages”>http://members.tripod.com/~ma_belle69/stages.html</a>. However, I suggest actually reading at least part of Hero with a Thousand Faces… it’s kind of dull when you’re reading it, but the knowledge you’ll gain from it will help you immensely.</p>
<p>Apologies if you already have studied this; I don’t mean to sound condescending or anything. :)</p>
<p>I’m in AP lang as well, our school prepares us for this exam all through the 4 year honors/AP English program. We have read/are reading (I also included a couple of non-required things off of school provided lists):</p>
<p>Books:
Great Expectations
Heart of Darkness
To Kill a Mockingbird
Tale of Two Cities
The Great Gatsby
The Scarlet Letter
The Canterbury Tales
Lord of the Flies
Moby Dick
A Separate Peace
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Wish You Well
Sense and Sensibility
The Grapes of Wrath
Catcher in the Rye
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Pride and Prejudice
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Gulliver’s Travels
Ivanhoe
Dandelion Wine
The Awakening
The Joy Luck Club</p>
<p>Plays:
Romeo and Juliet
Hamlet
Macbeth
Oedipus Rex
Tender Offer
The Crucible</p>
<p>Poetry/Essays/Short Stories:
My Last Duchess
Lots of Emerson & Thoreau
The Bear
Emily Dickinson poetry
Do not go gentle into that good night
The Metamorphasis
Ode to a Nightingale
Gimpel the Fool</p>
<p>@Apollo11
In AP Lang, you analyze the rhetoric of the English language. In AP Lit, you analyze more classics, plays, and poetry. </p>
<p>I don’t know if this is a classic but it’s the best book EVER!
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith</p>
<p>“I don’t know if this is a classic but it’s the best book EVER!
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith”</p>
<p>It really is a great book! I always thought there would be a good paper in comparing “Angela’s Ashes” with a “Tree Grows In Brooklyn.”</p>
<p>I found it by looking for New York Times Best Seller lists from the 1940’s and 50’s. What we now think of as modern literature were just ordinary Book of the Month Club selections for people before TV. </p>
<p>Runner019’s list above is comprehensive. (Like)</p>