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CTL graduates become voracious readers: that's a fact. But after 8th grade-and without booktalks and classroom libraries-it can be hard to find books for pleasure reading. Nancie created these lists of recommended titles for high school guys and girls looking for the next level of great books to read independently. If you're a CTL alum who's found a great book that's not on the list, would you give Krista a call? We'd love to add your beloved new titles and spread the word.

Pleasure Reading for High School Guys

Adams, Douglas    The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series
Adigo, Aravind    The White Tiger
Alexie, Sherman    Flight
Anderson, M.T.    The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: The Pox Party
     and The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: The Kingdom on the Waves
Atwood, Margaret    A Handmaid's Tale
Banks, Russell    Rule of the Bone
Barker, Pat    Regeneration
Benioff, David    City of Thieves
Bissinger, H.G.    Friday Night Lights
Bolaņo, Roberto    The Savage Detectives
Bradbury, Ray    Fahrenheit 451
Bryson, Bill    A Short History of Nearly Everything, The Thunderbolt Kid, and
     A Walk in the Woods
Bowden, Mark    Blackhawk Down
Burgess, Anthony    A Clockwork Orange
Carroll, Jim    The Basketball Diaries
Chabon, Michael    Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, The Yiddish
    Policeman's Union,
and Wonder Boys
Cheever, John    The Wapshot Chronicles
Dick, Phillip    Man in the High Castle
Dawidoff, Nicholas    The Crowd Sounds Happy
Doctorow, E.L.    Ragtime and The March
Eggers, Dave    A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and What Is
     the What

Fleming, Keith    The Boy with a Thorn in His Side
Foer, Jonathan Safran    Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Frazier, Charles    Cold Mountain
Gaiman, Neil    American Gods and Anansi Boys
Galloway, Gregory    As Simple as Snow
Garland, Alex    The Beach
Gladwell, Malcolm    Blink, The Tipping Point, and Outliers
Gore, Al    An Inconvenient Truth
Guest, Judith    Ordinary People
Guterson, David    Snow Falling on Cedars
Haddon, Mark    The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Haig, Matt    The Dead Fathers Club
Heller, Joseph    Catch-22
Herbert, Frank    Dune
Hillenbrand, Laura    Seabiscuit
Hornby, Nick    High Fidelity, About a Boy, and Slam
Hosseini, Khaled    The Kite Runner
Huxley, Aldous    Brave New World
Irving, John    The Ciderhouse Rules, Hotel New Hampshire,
     A Prayer for Owen Meany,
and The World According to Garp
Ishiguro, Kazuo    Never Let Me Go
Jones, Lloyd    Mr. Pip
Joravsky, Ben    Hoop Dreams
Kesey, Ken    One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Kneale, Matthew    When We Were Romans
Kovic, Ron    Born on the Fourth of July
Krakauer, John    Into Thin Air and Into the Wild
Lee, Harper    To Kill a Mockingbird
Lehane, Dennis    Mystic River
Maclean, Norman    Young Men and Fire
McCarthy, Cormac    The Crossing, The Road, and No Country for Old Men
McEwan, Ian    Atonement and Saturday
Mailer, Norman    The Naked and the Dead
Martel, Yann    Life of Pi
Martinez, A. Lee    Gil's All-Fright Diner
Mezrich, Ben    Bringing Down the House
Moehringer, J.R.    The Tender Bar
Mosley, Walter    47
Nasar, Sylvia    A Beautiful Mind
Obama, Barack    Dreams from My Father
O'Brien, Patrick    The Master and Commander series
O'Brien, Tim    The Things They Carried and If I Die in a Combat Zone
O'Neill, Joseph    Netherland
Prachett, Terry    Nation
Proulx, E. Annie    The Shipping News
Rice, Anne    Interview with the Vampire
Robbins, Tom    Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
Robinson, Lewis    Water Dogs
Roth, Phillip    Good-bye, Columbus and The Human Stain
Russo, Richard    Empire Falls
Sacco, Joe    Palestine and Safe Area Gorazde
Sagan, Carl    Contact
Salinger, J.D.    Catcher in the Rye
Satrapi, Marjane    Persepolis and Persepolis II
Sedaris, David    Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, Naked,
     
and Me Talk Pretty One Day
Sharra, Michael    The Killer Angels
Shepard, Jim    Project X
Silverstein, Ken    The Radioactive Boy Scout
Spiegelman, Art    Maus I and Maus II
Swofford, Anthony    Jarhead
Tartt, Donna    The Secret History
Tinti, Hannah    The Good Thief
Trumbo, Dalton    Johnny Got His Gun
Updike, John    The Centaur, Couples, and the Rabbit trilogy
Vizzini, Ned    Be More Chill and It's Kind of a Funny Story
Vonnegut, Kurt    Welcome to the Monkeyhouse, Armageddon in Retrospect,
    Slapstick,
and Slaughterhouse-Five
Walls, Jeanette    The Glass Castle
Whitehead, Colson    Sag Harbor
Wiesel, Elie    Night
Wolff, Tobias    In Pharaoh's Army, Our Story Begins, Old School,
    and This Boy's Life
Wright, Richard    The Invisible Man
Wroblewski, David    The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
Young, Rusty and Thomas McFadden    Marching Powder
Zusak, Markus    The Book Thief and I Am the Messenger
Zinn, Howard    A People's History of the United States

Pleasure Reading for High School Girls

Allende, Isabel    The House of the Spirits
Atkinson, Kate    Behind the Scenes at the Museum
Atwood, Margaret    Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, Cat's Eye,
     The Handmaid's Tale, Moral Disorder,
and Surfacing
Austen, Jane    Emma, Pride and Prejudice, and Mansfield Park
Bank, Melissa    The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing and The Wonder Spot
Banks, Russell    The Rule of the Bone and The Sweet Hereafter
Barker, Pat    Regeneration
Bauby, Jean-Dominique    The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Beattie, Ann    Chilly Scenes of Winter
Brontë, Charlotte    Jane Eyre
Byatt, A.S.    Possession
Chabon, Michael    Wonder Boys and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier
    and Clay

Chang, Jung    Wild Swans
Cheever, John    The Wapshot Chronicles
Colwin, Laurie    Happy All the Time, Shine On, Bright and Dangerous Object
Desai, Kiran    The Inheritance of Loss
Doctorow, E.L.    The Book of Daniel and Ragtime
Donnelly, Jennifer    A Northern Light
Dorris, Michael    A Yellow Raft in Blue Water
Dudman, Martha    Augusta Gone
DuMaurier, Daphne    Rebecca
Edwards, Kim    The Memory Keeper's Daughter
Eggers, Dave    A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Enright, Anne    The Gathering
Eugenides, Jeffrey    Middlesex and The Virgin Suicides
Fitch, Janet    White Oleander
Fitzgerald, F. Scott    The Great Gatsby and Tender Is the Night
Foer, Jonathan Safran    Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Forster, E.M.    Howard's End and A Room with a View
Fowler, Karen    The Jane Austen Book Club
Fowles, John    The French Lieutenant's Woman
Franzen, Jonathan    The Corrections
Frazier, Charles    Cold Mountain
Freudenberger, Neil    Lucky Girls
Galloway, Gregory    As Simple As Snow
Gilbert, Elizabeth    Stern Men
Gladwell, Malcolm    Blink, The Tipping Point, and Outliers
Green, Hannah    I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
Guest, Judith    Ordinary People
Haig, Matt    The Dead Fathers Club
Harris, Jane    The Observations
Harris, Joanne    Chocolat
Haddon, Mark    The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Haruf, Ken    Plainsong
Hoffman, Alice    At Risk
Hornby, Nick    About a Boy and High Fidelity
Irving, John    Ciderhouse Rules, The Hotel New Hampshire,
     A Prayer for Owen Meany,
and The World According to Garp
Ishiguro, Kazuo    Never Let Me Go and The Remains of the Day
Johnson, Diane    Le Divorce
Johnson, Joyce    Minor Characters
Jones, Lloyd    Mr. Pip
Karr, Mary    Cherry and Liar's Club
Kaysen, Susanna    Girl, Interrupted
Kidd, Sue Monk    The Secret Life of Bees
Kingsolver, Barbara    Animal Dreams, The Bean Trees,
     
and The Poisonwood Bible
Kneale, Matthew    When We Were Romans
Krakauer, John    Into the Wild and Into Thin Air
Krauss, Nichole    The History of Love
Lamott, Anne    Blue Shoe
Lee, Harper    To Kill a Mockingbird
Letts, Billie    Where the Heart Is
Levy, Andrea    A Small Island
McCarthy, Mary    A Charmed Life and The Group
McEwan, Ian    Atonement
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia    Love in the Time of Cholera
     
and One Hundred Years of Solitude
Martin, Steve    Shopgirl
Messud, Claire    The Emperor's Children
Minot, Susan    Evening and Monkeys
Moody, Rick    The Ice Storm
Moore, Lorrie    Birds of America and Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?
Morrison, Toni    Beloved, The Bluest Eye, and A Mercy
Munro, Alice    Dance of the Happy Shades, Friend of My Youth,
     Lives of Girls and Women, The Love of a Good Woman, Runaway,
     
and Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You
Nabukov, Vladimir    Lolita and Pale Fire
Nafisi, Azar    Reading Lolita in Tehran
Nasar, Sylvia    A Beautiful Mind
Oates, Joyce Carol    We Were the Mulvaneys
Obama, Barack    Dreams from My Father
O'Brien, Tim    The Things They Carried
Ondaatje, Michael    The English Patient
Patchett, Anne    Bel Canto and Truth and Beauty
Perotta, Tom    Election
Pessl, Marisha    Special Topics in Calamity Physics
Plath, Sylvia    The Bell Jar
Prose, Francine    Goldengrove
Proulx, E. Annie    The Shipping News
Robinson, Marilyn    Gilead and Housekeeping
Reichl, Ruth    Tender at the Bone
Rosoff, Meg    How I Live Now and What I Was
Roth, Philip    Good-bye Columbus and The Human Stain
Roy, Arundhati    The God of Small Things
Russo, Richard    Empire Falls
Salinger, J.D.    The Catcher in the Rye
Satrapi, Marjane    Persepolis and Persepolis II
Sebold, Alice    Lovely Bones
Sedaris, David    Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim,
     Me Talk Pretty Some Day,
and Naked
Shields, Carol    Unless
Simpson, Mona    Anywhere But Here
Sittenfeld, Curtis    Prep
Smiley, Jane    A Thousand Acres
Smith, Ali    The Accidental
Smith, Alison    Name All the Animals
Smith, Dodie    I Capture the Castle
Smith, Zadie    On Beauty and White Teeth
Spencer, Scott    Waking the Dead
Stewart, Leah    The Myth of You and Me
Stegner, Wallace    Angle of Repose and Crossing to Safety
Strout, Elizabeth    Amy and Isabelle and Olive Kitteridge
Sullivan, J. Courtney    Commencement
Tan, Amy    The Joy Luck Club
Tartt, Donna    The Secret History
Tinti, Hannah    The Good Thief
Toews, Miriam    A Complicated Kindness
Trillin, Calvin    About Alice, Remembering Denny, and others
Updike, John    The Centaur, Couples, The Witches of Eastwick, and
    the Rabbit series
Vonnegut, Jr., Kurt    Slapstick and Slaughterhouse Five
Walbert, Kate    A Short History of Women
Wall, Jeanette    The Glass Castle
Waugh, Evelyn    Brideshead Revisited
Wharton, Edith    House of Mirth
Woolf, Virginia    To the Lighthouse and A Room of One's Own
Wroblewski, David    The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
Young, Rusty and Thomas McFadden    Marching Powder
Zinn, Howard    A People's History of the United States
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