HL2, I. B. English
Summer Reading List, 2013
Seniors entering HL2 English are required to read two non-fiction books. If you are
writing the extended essay, then you may choose a book that is not on this list for your research.
The other book needs to come from the list below.
Students are asked to report on both books. You need to do one written response and
one oral report. You choose which book would work best for which option below. Both
responses are due the first day of class.
Written Options (choose one): 50 points
1. Write 3 poems (at least 15 lines each) that relate to some aspect of the work. These could
be poems written by 3 different people in the book, or 3 poems that deal with themes, issues,
or different points of view presented by the author. For full points the poems should reflect
both content of the work read, as well as poetic devices.
2. Write a historical-fictional account of an excerpt/section of the book (e.g. journal entries,
letters, chapter): 800 words, typed.
3. Write a book review and a critique of a published book review: review = 500+ words.
Provide specifics from the book; critique = 350 words, and print/submit the original
critique with yours.
Oral Options (choose one): 50 points
1. Create a 20 – 25 slide power point presentation of the book: Summarize, critique, and
apply ideas of the book to real world, and/or connections to the TOK “Ways of
Knowing”.
2. Arrange an email, or face-to-face interview with the book’s author or an expert on the
book’s topic. Submit the email discussion or recording of the live interview.
3. Create a dramatic scene or dramatic monologue to perform in class. Three pages scene or
one page of a dramatic monologue.
4. Record/Video a “book club” discussion with at least 2 other students: Submit a 30minute tape or video discussion, along with a list of the discussion-group questions.
Nonfiction Book Club Discussion Questions
There are many different types of nonfiction, so these questions will aim at the general nonfiction book.
1. What life lesson can be learned from this event or story? (General Nonfiction)
2. Did the book read like a story, a newspaper article, a report, something else? Give examples. (General
Nonfiction)
3. What one new fact did you learn from reading this book? (General Nonfiction)
4. What was the motivation for the writing of this book? (General but great for Bio or Auto Bio)
5. Did you feel this book truly belonged in the nonfiction genre? (Memoir)
6. Was the point of the book to share an opinion, explain a topic, tell about a personal journey, or
something else? Did the author do it well? (General Nonfiction)
7. What part of this book inspired you in some way? Explain. (Motivational, Self Help)
8. Will you read other books by this author? Why or why not? (General Nonfiction)
9. Did this book change your life in a positive or negative way? Explain (General Nonfiction)
If your book offers a cultural portrait of life in another country or region of your own country…
10 . What observations are made in the book?
Does the author examine economics and
politics, family traditions,
the arts, religious beliefs, language or food?
11. Does the author criticize or admire the culture? Does he/she wish to preserve or change the way of life? Either
way, what would be risked or gained?
12. What is different from your own culture? What do you find most surprising, intriguing or difficult to
understand?
13. What is the central idea discussed in the book? What issues or ideas does the author explore? Are they personal,
sociological, global, political, economic, spiritual, medical, or scientific?
14. Do the issues affect your life? How so—directly, on a daily basis, or more generally? Now or sometime in the
future?
16. What evidence does the author use to support the book's ideas? Is the evidence convincing...definitive
or...speculative? Does the author depend on personal opinion, observation, and assessment? Or is the evidence
factual—based on science, statistics, historical documents, or quotations from (credible) experts?
17. What kind of language does the author use? Is it objective and dispassionate? Or passionate and earnest? Is it
polemical, inflammatory, and sarcastic? Does the language help or undercut the author's premise
18. What are the implications for the future? Are there long- or short-term consequences to the issues raised in the
book? Are they positive or negative...affirming or frightening?
19. What solutions does the author propose? Who would implement those solutions? How probable is success?
20. How controversial are the issues raised in the book? Who is aligned on which sides of the issues? Where do you
fall in that line-up?
21. Talk about specific passages that struck you as significant—or interesting, profound, amusing, illuminating,
disturbing, sad...? What was memorable?
22. What have you learned after reading this book? Has it broadened your perspective about a difficult issue—
personal or societal? Has it introduced you to a culture in another country...or an ethnic or regional culture in your
own country?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
This list of non-fiction titles, accumulated and culled over thirteen years, comes mainly from
many teachers at Southwest High School. Occasionally proposals from students, parents, or
outsiders make their way onto the list too. We always entertain suggestions for good books.
Abbey, Edward. Desert Solitaire, A Season in the Wilderness.
Adams, Fred. The Five Ages of the Universe: Inside the Physics of Eternity.
Deception and Its Consequences
Anderson, Jon Lee. Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life
Amen, Daniel G. Unleash the Power of the Female Brain
Baldwin, James. Notes of a Native Son
Berman, Morris. The Twilight of American Culture
Bloom, Stephen G. Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America.
Boo, Katherine. Beyond the Beautiful Forevers
Brafman, Ori and Rom. Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior
Bryson, Bill. The Mother Tongue. (An entertaining history of English)
Bryson, Bill. A Short History of Nearly Everything
Burns, Sarah. The Central Park Five
Cahill, Thomas. Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter.
Cahill, Thomas. How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Heroic
Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe.
Cain, Susan. Quiet: The Power of the Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking
Campbell, Joseph and Bill Moyers. The Power of Myth. It’s a famous book. (293 pgs)
Carson, Rachel. The Silent Spring. (The book that launched the ecological movement in the
U.S.)
Coyne, Jerry A. Why Evolution Is True
Cullen, Dave. Columbine. (A study of the 1999 high school shooting)
Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene. (A famous, enlightening study of genetics)
Didion, Joan. The White Album
Dillard, Annie. A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (Reflections of a Pulitzer Prize winning naturalist)
Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies.
Du Bois, W.E.B., The Souls of Black Folks.
Dungy, Tony. Quiet Strength (Life lessons from a great NFL coach)
Dylan, Bob. Chronicles Vol. I
Edmonds, David and John Eidinow. Bobby Fischer Goes to War: How a Lone American Star
Defeated the Soviet Chess Machine
Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.
Feiler, Bruce. Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses
Foer, Joshua. Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything
Foote. The Civil War: A Narrative. (These three volumes will count as three books for the
summer reading assignment.)
Foer, Franklin. How Soccer Explains the World.
Foster, Thomas C. How to Read Like a Professor
Frankl, Victor. Man’s Search for Meaning (Life lessons from a Holocaust survivor)
Franzen, Jonathan. How to Be Alone: Essays.
Freud, Sigmund. On Dreams.
Friedman, Thomas. From Beirut to Jerusalem.
Friedman, Thomas. The World Is Flat
Galbraith, John. The Affluent Society
Gladwell, Malcolm. Blink, The Power of Thinking Without
Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers
Gleick, James. Chaos: Making a New Science
Gombrich, Ernest H. Art and Illusion.
Goodwin Kearns, Doris. Team of Rivals
Gourevitch, Philip. We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed with Our
Families: Stories from Rwanda.
Guttenplan, D.D. The Holocaust on Trial
Grandin, Temple. Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal
Behavior
Halberstad, David, and John McCain. The Best and the Brightest. (How America became
involved in Vietnam)
Harden, Blaine. Escape from Camp 14
Hecht, Jennifer. Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation . . .
Herrara, Hayden. Frida (A biography of Frida Kahlo)
Hillenbrand, Lauren. Unbroken
James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience
Kessler, David. The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite
Kindlon, Daniel, et. al. Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys.
King, Martin Luther. Why We Can’t Wait
Kiernan, Denise. The Girls of Atomic City
Klein, Naomi. Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
Kolbert, Elizabeth. Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature and Climate Change
Kozol, Jonathan. Savage Inequalities. (On inequalities in educational opportunities in the U.S.)
Krakauer,Jon. Into The Wild
Kristoff, Nicholas and WuDunn, Sheryl. Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for
Women Worldwide
Larson, Erik. In the Garden of the Beast
Larson, Erik. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed
America.
Levin, Janna. How the Universe Got Its Spots: Diary of a Finite Time in a Finite Space.
Lightman, Allen. A sense of the Mysterious: Science and the Human Spirit
Malcolm X. The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Mayer-Schonberger, Viktor and Cukier, Kenneth. Big Data
McCall, Nathan. Makes Me Wanna Holler: A Young Black Man in America.
McDougall, Christopher. Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes and the Greatest Race the
World Has Never Seen.
Mendelson, David. The Lost: A search for Six of Six Million
Pausch, Randy. The Last Lecture
Peterson, Ivars. The Mathematical Tourist: New and Updated Snapshots of Modern
Mathematics.
Pipher, Mary. Reviving Ophelia. (Female adolescence in America)
Pollan, Michael. In Defense of Food. (Changing America’s food culture)
Power, Samantha. A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide.
Power, Samantha. Chasing the Flame: One Man’s Fight to Save the World.
Rhodes, Richard. The Making of the Atomic Bomb.
Robison, John Elder. Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger’s.
Roberts, Jason. A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History’s Greatest Traveler.
Rome, Adam. The Bulldozer in the Countryside: Suburban Sprawl and the Rise of American
Environmentalism
Rubin, Gretchen. The Happiness Project
Ruppert, Michael. Crossing the Rubicon The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the
Age of Oil.
Russell, K., M. Wilson, and R. Hall. The Color Complex. (The effects of color differences within
the African American community)
Said, Edward. On Late Style: Music and Literature Against the Grain.
Shermer, Michael. Why People Believe Weird Things.
Shermer, Michael. The Science of Good and Evil: Why People Cheat, Gossip, Care, Share, and
Follow the Golden Rule.
Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Steeves, Rick. Travel as a Political Act
Stone, Merlin. When God Was a Woman (Surprising historical insights into Western society,
religion, and gender roles)
Symanski and Suter. Soccernomics (World professional soccer from mathematical, statistical,
and economic perspectives)
Suzuki, Daisetz. Zen and Japanese Culture.
Takakai, Ronald. Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans.
Terkel, Studs. Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About
What They Do
Thomas, Lewis. The Lives of a Cell. (Essays on science)
Tolle, Echart. The Power of Now (A book about moving beyond the analytical mind)
Trilling, Lionel. The Liberal Imagination and Rand, Ayn. The Virtue of Selfishness.
(Paired books. These two books count as one.)
Tuchman, Barbara. The Guns of August: Practicing History (Events leading to World War I)
Veblen, Thorstein, The Theory of the Leisure Class (A Minnesota native’s landmark 1899 study
exposing American affluence)
Walls, Jeannette. The Glass Castle
Weatherford, Jack Indian Givers (contributions of Native American cultures to "Western
Civilization")
Woodward, Carl and Carl Bernstein. All the President's Men
Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One's Own. (An introduction to twentieth century feminism)
Stone, Rosamund and Benjamin Zander.. The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and
Personal Life
Zimbardo, Philip. The Lucifer Effect, Understanding How Good People Turn Evil.