PARKVIEW SUMMER READING 2012
“To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself
a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.” – Somerset Maugham
This summer all students and faculty will be reading a school-wide Parkview summer reading choice
for advisement. When you return to school in August, you should be prepared to discuss this book in your
guided study class. Below are the assignments for each grade:
Freshmen: Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom. “Maybe it was a grandparent, or a teacher, or a
colleague. Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching,
helped you see the world as a more profound place, gave you sound advice to help you make your way
through it.
For Mitch Albom, that person was Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly twenty years ago.
Maybe, like Mitch, you lost track of this mentor as you made your way, and the insights faded, and the world
seemed colder. Wouldn't you like to see that person again, ask the bigger questions that still haunt you, receive
wisdom for your busy life today the way you once did when you were younger?
Mitch Albom had that second chance. He rediscovered Morrie in the last months of the older man's life.
Knowing he was dying, Morrie visited with Mitch in his study every Tuesday, just as they used to back in
college. Their rekindled relationship turned into one final “class”: lessons in how to live.
Tuesdays with Morrie is a magical chronicle of their time together, through which Mitch shares Morrie's lasting
gift with the world.” (Amazon.com)
Sophomores: Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. “In this stunning new book,
Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of ‘outliers’—the best and the
brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers
different?
His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to
where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of
their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great
soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.
Brilliant and entertaining, Outliers is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.”
(Amazon.com)
Juniors: Into the Wild by John Krakauer. “What would possess a gifted young man recently graduated
from college to literally walk away from his life? Noted outdoor writer and mountaineer Jon Krakauer tackles
that question in his reporting on Chris McCandless, whose emaciated body was found in an abandoned bus in
the Alaskan wilderness in 1992.
Described by friends and relatives as smart, literate, compassionate, and funny, did McCandless simply read
too much Thoreau and Jack London and lose sight of the dangers of heading into the wilderness alone?
Krakauer, whose own adventures have taken him to the perilous heights of Everest, provides some answers by
exploring the pull the outdoors, seductive yet often dangerous, has had on his own life.” (Amazon.com)
Seniors: In the Garden of the Beasts by Erik Larson. “The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William
E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in
history.
A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha.
At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with
their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the ‘New
Germany,’ she has one affair after another, including with the surprisingly honorable first chief of the Gestapo,
Rudolf Diels. But as evidence of Jewish persecution mounts, confirmed by chilling first-person testimony, her
father telegraphs his concerns to a largely indifferent State Department back home. Dodd watches with alarm
as Jews are attacked, the press is censored, and drafts of frightening new laws begin to circulate. As that first
year unfolds and the shadows deepen, the Dodds experience days full of excitement, intrigue, romance—and
ultimately, horror, when a climactic spasm of violence and murder reveals Hitler’s true character and ruthless
ambition.
Suffused with the tense atmosphere of the period, and with unforgettable portraits of the bizarre Göring and
the expectedly charming--yet wholly sinister--Goebbels, In the Garden of Beasts lends a stunning, eyewitness
perspective on events as they unfold in real time, revealing an era of surprising nuance and complexity. The
result is a dazzling, addictively readable work that speaks volumes about why the world did not recognize the
grave threat posed by Hitler until Berlin and Europe were awash in blood and terror.” (Amazon.com)