Senior Advanced Placement English
Summer Reading List
To prepare for the AP literature test, we will cover a number of works. Over the summer you will be required
to read the following two books:
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin
How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster
For Pride and Prejudice, explain the themes of pride and prejudice in the novel using textual evidence (300
words). For How to Read Literature Like a Professor, choose 3 of the 27 chapters and connect a book (one
NOT used as an example in the book) to the topic of the chapter and explain in 2-3 sentences why each fits. All
assignments are due the first day of class.
For more practice tests and help on terms used for the AP test, you may want to purchase CliffsNotes AP
Literature and Composition, third edition, which includes reading recommendations
The following books will be read and taught in class. Since we will annotate or take notes on these books, you
may want to purchase them. Reading them in advance may be helpful to you. Half.com, Alibris.com, and
Amazon.com are excellent sites for discount books.
Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre
The Stranger by Albert Camus
King Lear by William Shakespeare
Hamlet (the Barron’s annotated edition) by William Shakespeare
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
The following novels or plays are recommended reading for the AP test, but may not be taught in class:
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights by Charlotte Bronte
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
If you did not read the following American novels or plays during your junior year, you may want to read these:
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Scarlet Letter by Nathanial Hawthorne
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Death Of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams