Our List of Critically Acclaimed Books and Authors
Books and authors on this list are considered to have a critical reputation. There are lots of other
books that also have a critical reputation but to ensure that you choose appropriately for the
standard, you MUST choose your critically acclaimed books or author from the list. This list will
be updated throughout the year and posted in the library and on eCol.
This list will also help you read across a range of texts and help you meet the requirements of the
standard. Texts that meet the different culture requirement will have DC beside the title.
This list will be updated by the fifth week of Term one and must be adhered to.
Classics
Charles Dickens Great Expectations
Alexander Dumas The Three Musketeers
Mary Shelley Frankenstein
Robert Louis Stevenson Treasure Island
Bram Stoker Dracula
Mark Twain Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
20th Century Classics
William Golding Lord of the Flies
Eric Remarque All quiet on the Western Front
Ernest Hemingway The Old Man and the Sea
John Irving The World According to Garp
George Orwell Animal Farm, 1984
J D Salinger The Catcher in the Rye
John Steinbeck Of Mice and Men, East of Eden, The
Red Pony
Harper Lee To Kill a Mocking Bird
Maya Angelou I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
(/Afri Am DC)
Bryce Courtenay The Power of One, (Sth Af DC)
Robert Harris Fatherland
Jack Kerouac On the Road
Elie Wiesel Night (Jewish DC)
Albert Wendt Sons for the Return Home (Samoa DC)
Anne Frank Diary of Anne Frank (Dutch/Jewish DC)
Award Winning Teen Fiction
Bernard Beckett Jolt
Ken Catran Jacko Moran: Sniper (NZ)
Aidan Chambers Postcards from No-Man’s Land
Gary Crew Strange Objects
Robert Cormier The Chocolate War
Ted Dawe Thunder Road (NZ)
Mark Haddon The Curious Incident of the Dog in the
Night-Time
Jan Mark Thunder and Lightnings
John Marsden Tomorrow (series)
Robert Swindells Smash
S E Hinton Outsiders
Sport
Warren Adler Jonah: My Story
Lance Armstrong It’s Not About the Bike
Richard Becht Standing Tall: The Tawera Nikau Story
Nick Hornby Fever Pitch
Lloyd Jones The Book of Fame
Joe Simpson Touching the Void, A beckoning Silence
Award Winning Non Fiction
Anonymous Go ask Alice
Bill Bryson A Walk in the Woods,
Michael Moore Stupid White Men
Dave Pelzer A Child Called It
Tobias Wolff This Boy’s Life
John Krakauer Into Thin Air
Frank McCourt Angela’s Ashes
James McNeish Lovelock (NZ)
Historical Fiction
Steven Pressfield Gates of Fire
Mary Renault The Mask of Apollo
Gore Vidal Lincoln
Sebastian Faulks Birdsong
Umberto Eco The Name of the Rose
Science fiction/ Fantasy
M T Anderson Feed
Eion Colfer Artemis Fowl
Orson Scott Card Enders Game
Lian Hearn Across the Nightingale Floor
Garth Nix Lirael
William Nicholson The Wind Singer
Philip Pullman - the Dark Materials trilogy
JRR Tolkien The Hobbit, Fellowship etc
John Wyndham The Day of the Triffids
Douglas Adams Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Jonathan Stroud Amulet of Samarkand
NZ Fiction
Alan Duff Once Were Warriors(NZ Maori DC)
Patricia Grace Tu (NZ / Maori DC)
Witi Ihimaera Bulibasha(NZ / Maori DC)
Lloyd Jones Mr Pip(DC)
Craig Marriner Stonedogs
Maurice Gee In my Father’s Den
Contemporary Fiction
Dan Brown The Da Vinci Code
John Grisham The Runaway
Thomas Harris Red Dragon series
Larry McMurtry Lonesome Dove
Yann Martel The Life of Pi
DBC Pierre Vernon God Little
Alice Sebold The Lovely Bones
Sia Figiel Where We Once Belonged (DC Samoa)
Khaled Hosseini The Kite Runner (Afghanistan DC)
James S. Hirsch Hurricane: The Life of Rubin Carter,
Fighter (NF / African American DC)
Elizabeth Laird A Little Piece of Ground (Palestine
DC)
James McBride Colour of Water (NF/Afr Am DC)
Dai Sijie Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
(China DC)
Chaim Potok The Chosen (Jewish DC)