Colleges want to know about your personal reading list, NOT just what your english teacher assigned last semester.

We’re always swapping reading ideas with our students. The books listed below are recommendations from our students as well as our own books of choice. Some of them may be considered difficult, but we like to be challenged and inspired. This is always a working list; it’s not a manifesto of our political or religious views. Feedback and suggested additions are always welcome. Happy reading!

• 1984 – George Orwell
• A Supposedly Fun Thing I Will Never Do Again – David Foster Wallace
• A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius – Dave Eggers
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith
• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carrol
• Blindness – Jose Saramago
• Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
• Dubliners – James Joyce
• The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
  
• Get Me Out Of Here – Rachel Reiland
• Godel Escher Bach - Douglas Hofstadter
• The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
• The History of Love – Nicole Krauss
• House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski
• Interpreter of Maladies – Jhumpa Lahiri
• The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
• Letters to a Young Poet – Rainer Maria Rilke
• Life of Pi – Yann Martel
• Me Talk Pretty One Day – David Sedaris
• Special Topics in Calamity Physics – Marisha Pessl (This book is awesome and is especially great for teen girls who may not read often.)
• The Secret Life of Bees – Sue Monk Kidd (I’m not going to lie: I preferred the movie. But that’s unusual.)
• Wicked - Gregory Maguire
• Women of the Silk - Gail Tsukiyama
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig