Senior Recommended Reading
Current Recommendations:
Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan
Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante (the whole Neapolitan series is wonderful!)
Epic Yarns:
The Soldier of the Great War, Mark Helprin
The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett
Solomon Gursky Was Here, Mordecai Richler
Mysteries and Spy Novels:
Pilgrim, Timothy Findley
The Bookman’s Wake, John Dunning
Death on the Nile, Agatha Christie
And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, John LeCarre
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, John LeCarre
The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle
Adventures and Stories of War:
Life of Pi, Yann Martel
The Wars, Timothy Findley
The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien
All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
The True History of the Kelly Gang, Peter Carey
The Last Crossing, Guy Vanderhaeghe
Romance:
The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje
Atonement, Ian McEwan
The Time Traveller’s Wife, Audrey Niffeneffer
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Family Sagas:
House of Spirits, Isabel Allende
Solomon Gursky Was Here, Mordecai Richler
Such a Long Journey, Rohinton Mistry
Fall on Your Knees, Ann Marie MacDonald
A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley (rewrite of King Lear)
The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields
Tales of Growing Up:
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith
The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
Cat’s Eye, Margaret Atwood
The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt
Crow Lake, Mary Lawson
The Book Thief, Marcus Zusak
Multi-Cultural Perspective:
Jade Peony, Wayson Choy
The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck
Disappearing Moon Cafe, Sky Lee
The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
The Kitchen God’s Wife, Amy Tan
The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
Such a Long Journey, Rohinton Mistry
The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
Classics From Europe and Britian:
Of Human Bondage, Somerset Maugham
(my personal favourite!)
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson
Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
The Three Musketeers, Alexander Dumas
The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo
Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy
Down and Out in Paris and London, George Orwell
Canadian Classics:
Fifth Business, Robertson Davies
Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
Not Wanted on the Voyage, Timothy Findley
The Diviners, Margaret Laurence
Lives of Girls and Women, Alice Munro
Three Day Road, Joseph Boyden
Barney’s Version, Mordecai Richler
American Classics:
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
East of Eden, John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
Catcher and the Rye, JD Salinger
On the Road, Jack Kerouac
Tragic Tear Jerkers:
Night, Elie Weisel
Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt
The Book Thief, Marcus Zusak
A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
Stories That Make You Laugh…and Cry…Then Laugh Again:
Catch 22, Joseph Heller
Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut
A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
Cider House Rules, John Irving
Hotel New Hampshire, John Irving
Fantasy, Science Fiction and the Dystopian:
The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood
The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman
1984, George Orwell
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
The Road, Cormac McCarthy
Blindness, Jose Saramago
Moral and Allegorical Tales:
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
Life of Pi, Yann Martel
Bel Canto, Ann Patchett
The Colour Purple, Alice Walker
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee