<p>I am entering the 9th Grade and I am required to read two books for summer reading. I want to impress my new teacher by reading very mature and challenging books. I have a very high reading level, and I was wondering what books you read or would recommend.</p>
<p>I’m reading Jane Eyre over the summer for my English. It’s gonna be a drag though because the beginning was good but then it got really boring.</p>
<p>I’m assuming you mean any book at all? I’d suggest you pick one impressive-sounding book, but if you can also just pick something that looks good to you! Books with slashes share an author. These aren’t all difficult to read (although the first two are especially tedious) but most of them are considered literary classics.</p>
<p>Wuthering Heights
Jane Eyre
Gone with the Wind (one of my favorites)
Anything Jane Auste
Anything Charles Dickens
1984
A Thousand Splendid Suns or The Kite Runner
Murder on the Orient Express/And Then There Were None
Catch-22
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Great Gatsby
Fahrenheit 451/Something Wicked This Way Comes
Gulliver’s Travels
Lord of the Flies
Of Mice and Men
Hound of the Baskervilles
Slaughterhouse Five
Watership Down
The Catcher in the Rye
The Outsiders</p>
<p>But, really, only read it if it appeals to you. If you have to write a report on it especially.</p>
<p>Fahrenheit 451!!! It’s short, interesting, and has a deep social and liturgical meaning. Please chance me for my fav school !!
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?p=12778045[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?p=12778045</a></p>
<p>depending on what you like reading, i would suggest
The Pact (Jodi Picoult) [ it is more a romance than a super deep thinking novel, but it is a great book]
Crank
Glass
Burned
Impulse (all by Ellen Hopkins; the formatting, since it is written in poetry, is funky, but i really love the way it is written) [most of these are about overcoming an addiction to cocaine or meth, and since she has had personal experience with this sort of thing, the books are amazing]
Unwind (Neal Shusterman) [ it is kind of dark. and creepy. and it is a teen novel, but i think it’s great.]</p>
<p>these are lighter in comparison to emeraldEvi’s suggestions, if that was what you were looking for.</p>
<p>[color=blue]Finnegan’s Wake<a href=“James%20Joyce”>/color</a></p>
<p>I’m reading it now; it’s one of the most challenging (and, if you can understand it, rewarding) books in the English language.</p>
<p>Pentagon Papers</p>
<p>Shakespeare???</p>
<p>I second Slaughterhouse Five, the Outsiders, the Catcher in the Rye, To Kill A Mockingbird, the Great Gatsby, and 1984.</p>
<p>My honors English class read Romeo & Juliet along with the Outsiders.</p>
<p>Night by Elie Wiesel is also a pretty good book, if you haven’t read it. Not necessarily a classic piece of literature but it is very good. About the Holocaust.</p>
<p>Those are all great books, but you are more than likely to wind up having to reread them along with your class at some point in hs.</p>
<p>If it is indeed a great book, rereading is twice as fun.</p>
<p>I lol’d @ someone “reading” Finnegans Wake.</p>
<p>Try Gravity’s Rainbow on for size.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the suggestion! I’ve read the Outsiders, and it is an amazing book. Currently from your suggestions, I may read 1984, Wuthering Heights, Fahrenheit 451, or The Great Gatsby. What do you all think of The Odyessy?</p>
<p>The Odyssey is good. Read only 10 pages maximum a night, or your brain will get lost in all the Greek drama. :D</p>
<p>Don’t read something to impress your teacher, read something that you think you’ll appreciate and enjoy, that way you’re more likely to understand and absorb more of the book than if you just chose two really challenging books that you didn’t comprehend at all.</p>
<p>@Notnaomi, I agree with Astro blue… </p>
<p>read what you love, what speaks to you … if I were you, I would take the suggestions, look up (or most of) the books up on B&N or Amazon and see which description you like… then make a choice from that! A book should have you gripped with anticipation and up all night trying to finish it!!!</p>
<p>My DD14 and I went with some friends to their old private/boarding school here in CT for an impromptu “those were the good old days” tour back in October and they had all of the required reading books on display in the bookstore…</p>
<p>Outliers by Malcom Gladwell
Warriors Dont Cry by Melba Beals
Hotel on Bitter And Sweet by Jamie Ford
1984 by Orwell
The Catcher in the Rye by
Bel Canto by Patchett
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
Black Ice by Lorene Cary
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
The Feminine Mystique by Betty Freidan
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
The Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah</p>
<p>I took the time/wrote down the titles/ordered all these books for my dtr though she is not a student @ that school… she goes to public school here in our city but I felt that if the books were being read by her counterparts in private school… then she should have them in her library as wel! </p>
<p>Why not exceed the 2 book limit? If your schedule allows you to over the summer! It will keep your mind busy and help you with your wiring skills that are ever so important in hs/for the SATS! </p>
<p>@collgeorcod… when I was in school… I read most of the classics… but my dtrs school does not require them! Which is a travesty… she read many of them in her k-8 catholic school… but now that she is in public school… they are only required reading of those who take AP Lit(in grades 11 and 12)… Which still has me shaking my head… I have taken the time to download most of the classics to our Ebooks. The books that she hasn’t yet read, she will be required to read them here @ home!!!</p>
<p>Literature novels and plays would be a good place to start. Here are some of my favorites.</p>
<p>Have a lovely dose of dystopia:</p>
<p>1984 - Orwell
Fahrenheit 451 - Bradbury
Brave New World - Huxley
A Clockwork Orange - Burgess</p>
<p>And Oscar Wilde:</p>
<p>The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Importance of Being Earnest</p>
<p>And Shakespeare (I recommend seeing these live on stage before reading them; don’t watch the movies, it’s not the same):</p>
<p>A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Twelfth Night
The Winter’s Tale
As You Like It
Richard III
(anything else besides Julius Caesar and Romeo & Juliet)</p>
<p>What AstroBlue said.
I’d suggest Lord of the Rings, A Song of Ice and Fire, or the Dresden Files series, but I like my Fantasy books.
If you want to read more “classical” literature, then Homer’s works aren’t bad, and neither is Shakespeare. I’d read some of the stuff that you probably won’t cover in school (so R&J, Hamlet, Taming of the Shrew, Julius Casear, etc. are out).
Avoid William Faulkner’s stuff at all costs.</p>
<p>I loved the great gatsby. Of men and mice is short and really good as well.</p>
<p>Also, to answer your question, I personally don’t care for the Odyssey. Some find it fascinating, but I read it twice at the requirement of two really lackluster teachers and it kind of lessened my appreciation for it.</p>