English Summer Reading 2009
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PLEASE NOTE: As with previous years, summer reading for the English Department is optional. The list below represents a "teachers' favorites" list of books, similar to what you see at the video store when the clerks have a shelf to display their favorite movies. It is meant to pique your interest; you do not have to read the books selected by your 2009-10 English teacher, or those selected by any teacher, for that matter. In fact, you do not have to read anything at all this summer for English, although we hope that you don't select that option. Regardless of what you read, you may complete one or more of the writing options for extra credit to be turned in the first day of class in the fall.
Below, you will find some of the English Department's favorite books, as selected by each teacher in the department. Perhaps a book's description sounds intriguing, or maybe you liked all of the books you read for a certain teacher and trust her or his judgment. Either way, we would love it if you selected one of the books from this list and read it over the summer as part of your suggested summer reading.
Ms. Judith Christian
Petterson, Per. Out Stealing Horses. New York: Picador, 2003.
Although the main character is sixty-seven year old Trond Sander who has relocated from the city to a riverside cabin in the country, this is really a coming of age story. Sander may plan to retire, but his plan is disrupted by a mysterious figure he meets one night while out walking. Petterson’s spare style transports the reader back to Sander’s chaotic youth, with all of its sadness, joy and, as the title teases us, horse theft.
The NY Times listed Out Sealing Horses as One of the Ten Best Books of the Year. NPR’s All Things Considered asserted, “That’s the effect of Per Petterson’s award-winning novel: It hits you in the heart at close range.”
Lehane, Dennis. The Given Day. New York: Harper Collins, 2008.
Dennis Lehane is known for his mysteries such as Mystic River and Shutter Island. In his latest novel, The Given Day, Lehane creates a sweeping epic that tells the story of two families (one white, one black). The setting is Boston at the end of WW I. Baseball, Babe Ruth, political intrigue, social unrest, Calvin Coolidge, J. Edgar Hoover and star-crossed lovers can all be found in this rich story. The author weaves a magnificent narrative tapestry that compelled me to read long into the night.
Click here for a short video of Lehane talking about The Given Day.
Ms. Susan Cook
Paolantonio, Sal. How Football Explains America.
Sal's magnum opus is the third in my gridiron trilogy (The Education of a Coach/David Halberstam, Blindside/Michael Lewis). Sal certainly treats football here with a holy spirit as he discusses the sacrosanct origins of this American game. He makes you go "huh!" when he gives you the history of the huddle (who knew a deaf quarterback came up with it?); he revives your high-school history in Chapter 1, "How Football Explains Manifest Destiny"; and he draws some provoking if eccentric connects in Chapter 8, "How Football Explains the '60s." Now, granted, I'm no football afficionado, so for all I know, some of you pigskin pundits may claim that his connections are too loose, his claims rather simplistic. The book's still a first down. Sal Pal's voice is friendly, fascinated, and fast-paced. At the end of the day, Sal has the boldness (if some arrogance) to prove that a "mere" game defines a nation. Needless to say, watching football won't be the same for you again.
Lopez, Steve. The Soloist.
Lopez brings a journalist's quick, cinematic style to this autobiographical story about a reporter changed forever by a music man on the street. Economic, efficient, pithy and profound, Lopez's prose makes Lopez's struggle between being a reporter and being a friend, being a friend and being a savior, being a savior and being a demon so immediate, and so real. We wonder who changes whom; if "Violin Man" Nathaniel Ayers--derelict, virtuoso, schizophrenic, genius--is the man moved most by the stranger, or if L.A. Times' Lopez is the man most strangely changed. I liked Lopez's ability to zoom in and zoom out of scenes, retelling his moments in the present tense and then reflecting on those moments in retrospect.
Mr. Joseph Coyle
The Mental Edge by Kenneth Baum
A great read for the athlete who wants to improve his sports performance.
Football: Raise Your Mental Game by Richard Nugent and Steve Brown
Similar to the book above; a bit more advanced, focused only on soccer.
Football in Sun and Shadow by Eduardo Galeano
An absolute must read for any true soccer fan.
Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets by Sudhir Venkatesh
An insightful look at life in the projects of Chicago; definitely a page turner.
Bleachers by John Grisham
I read this book in two days, that is how good it is; small town football and lost dreams.
Raging Bull: My Story by Jake LaMotta
If you loved the movie then you will really want to read the book; a closer look at his life.
Frank Rizzo by S.A. Paolantonio
Should be required reading for any Philadelphia resident.
You Do Not Talk About Fight Club: I Am Jack’s Completely Unauthorized Essay Collection by Read Mercer Schuchardt and Chuck Palahniuk
A more detailed analysis of the classic American novel.
No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
The minute I finished the book I wanted to read it again; the movie was good, this is great.
Road Work: Among Tyrants, Heroes, Rogues, and Beasts by Mark Bowden
Author of Black Hawk Down; collection of his best articles from the Phila. Inquirer.
Mr. Joseph Griffin
Anaya, Rudolfo. Bless Me, Ultima.
This is a story of a boy, Antonio, and his dreams. It is also the story of La Grande, Ultima, the curandera. She is an old woman who has a special power derived from the herbs of the earth and a special knowledge of life. Ultima enters Antonio’s life while the boy is quite young. It is she who realizes the power of his dreams, however beautiful or frightening. It is she who provides him with the strength to cope with the interminable conflict between the divisions within the human spirit. Through his relationship with Ultima, Antonio receives the power to grow, to dream, to survive in a world of good and evil, faith and superstition, life and death.
Neihardt, John. Black Elk Speaks.
His name was Black Elk, warrior and medicine man of the Oglala Sioux. From the Battle of Little Big Horn, which he witnessed as a boy of 13, to the last terrible massacre of the Indians at Wounded Knee, Black Elk lived the life of the Plains Indian and saw the death of his people. In this book he tells, as no man can ever tell it again, his vision of the meaning of life on this planet as it was for the Indian of the western plains, and as it might be for all people. The great story of the Sioux is ended, and the sacred hoop of life is broken, but in this book the spirit of Black Elk’s people lives on.
Mr. Jim O’Brien
Summer reading. Well, this is a time to explore and start some books you might never finish or discover a book you can’t put down. If you are so inclined and curious, you might read the seventeenth century classic by Miguel Cervantes Don Quixote or some part of it. You don’t have to read it all to find out why the world can not forget or ignore the “Man of LaMancha.” With reading you have to stretch to grow. Perhaps, pick up a Russian novel. I read Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago in the summer after my sophomore year because it was banned in Russia and I wanted to see what the furor was about. I struggled with all the names and took the summer to finish it all, but I encountered scenes I never forgot and learned more about the Russian Revolution than I ever learned in history class. On a more modern note you might pick up Kirsten Bakis’ first novel Lives of the Monster Dogs. Here a group of prostetically engineered dogs move into Manhattan and struggle to establish a new world. .Don’t waste any time. Take a few days off and pick up a book. Have fun!
Mr. Christian Patragnoni
The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman
In this highly entertaining piece of nonfiction, Thom Friedman explores the future of the entrepreneur in a global economy. This well-researched work attempts to draw a professional blueprint for the world’s younger generations, empowering them with the vision to see the economic and professional world they will soon encounter.
Mr. Christian Rupertus
Tunnel Vision by Keith Lowe
Andy is your average twenty-something Londoner, with one exception: He is obsessed with the Underground, London’s massive subway system. Needless to say his fiancée doesn’t get it, especially when he disappears on the day before their scheduled trip on the Eurostar to Paris for their wedding. Little does she know that her Andy has made a friendly wager with one of his subway-philiac buddies. In order to obtain his ticket for the Eurostar and join his fiancée en route to their nuptials, he must ride the entire loop of Underground trains in one 24-hour period, an odyssey for the 21st century. This story is a wild, witty examination of obsession and one man’s pursuit of his passion.
Fools Crow by James Welch
Take William Wallace out of medieval Scotland and drop him into the Blackfeet tribe of northwest Montana in the 1870’s, and you’ve got Fools Crow. This young warrior and medicine man has his very existence threatened when the Napikwans, his tribe’s term for the white men, arrive to exterminate him and his brethren in the name of “manifest destiny.” To take a stand against the legions of the numerically superior United States Army, Fools Crow must summon up all of the physical skills and spiritual powers at his disposal, calling on both his fellow warriors and his long-deceased ancestors to prevent annihilation.
Mrs. Kathleen Sullivan
The Pact: Three Young Men Make a Promise and Fulfill a Dream by Drs. Sampson Davis, George Jenkins and Rameck Hunt with Lisa Frazier Page
This is the compelling true story of three African American young men, told in their own voices, of how they manage to rise above the ills of city life (poverty, drugs, and violence) in Newark, New Jersey and become doctors.
While still in high school these three young men make a pact. They decide that they will become doctors and together they will help each other plod through the many, many pitfalls that they encounter along the way.
Their story should be a “must read” for all young men, as it addresses the universal teenage struggles of broken homes, peer pressure, and the academic and social struggles inherent in transitioning from high school to college, and highlights the power of friendship to overcome the odds and attain success.
Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston & James D. Houston
This is a first person account of the Japanese American experience in an internment camp during World War II and afterwards. In the foreword Houston explains that she is writing a “web of stories—my own, my father’s, my family’s—tracing a few paths, out of the multitude of paths that led up to and away from the experience of the internment.”
Houston’s compelling story reminds us of a time that many Americans often forget; it is almost considered a footnote in our history. Houston’s account keeps it very much alive for us.