Non-fiction Reading Requirement and Suggestions AP English Language and Composition AP Goal: Demonstrate understanding and mastery of standard written English as well as stylistic maturity in your own writing. Rationale: As you will need a wide variety of reading experiences to inform your writing, reading a non-fiction book will give you an opportunity to see rhetorical devices and appeals extended into a book length piece of writing. Directions: Read the note below and begin the process of selecting your book. You will most likely wish to do some Internet research on several books before making your selection. Ask your parents for permission to read whichever book you select. If you have other books you would like to read of similar, non-fiction literary merit, please consult with your teacher before selecting the book. The minimum page requirement for any nonfiction book is 200 pages. Please Note: These books are suggested reading which exhibit the depth and breadth of the non-fiction genre. As they may contain mature themes, language, and/or content, parents are encouraged to take part in the selection process. The AP English Language teachers do not advocate or promote any of the ideas or beliefs included in these readings; the books are selected to promote discussion and examination of thought. The words of Lester Asheim, in his classic essay "Not Censorship but Selection" (Wilson Library Bulletin, 1953), remain apt: “The selector begins, ideally, with a presumption in favor of liberty of thought; the censor does not. The aim of the selector is to promote reading not to inhibit it; to multiply the points of view which will find expression, not limit them; to be a channel for communication, not a bar against it." (adapted from Carol Jago, Jodi Rice, and the American Library Association)

101 Things To Do Til The Revolution – Claire Wolfe Blood Done Sign My Name – Timothy Tyson In Defense Of Food – Michael Pollan A Bright Shining Lie – Neil Sheehan Botany Of Desire — Michael Pollan In The American Grain – William Carlos Williams A Conflict Of Visions: Ideological Origins Of Political Brother, I’m Dying – Edwidge Danticat James Joyce – Richard Ellmann Struggles – Thomas Sowell But Is It True? – Aaron Wildavsky Jefferson And His Time – Dumas Malone A Feeling For Books – Janice Radway Cadillac Desert – Marc Reisner John Adams – David McCullough A Life Of One’s Own – David Kelley Children Of Crisis – Robert Coles Justice: What’s The Right Thing To Do? — A Mathematician Reads The Newspaper – John Allen Classical Individualism: The Supreme Michael J. Sandel Paulos Importance Of Each Human Being – Tibor Kaffir Boy – Mark Mathebane A Mathematician’s Apology – G. H. Hardy Machan Libertarianism: A Primer – David Boaz A Modern Prophet – Harold Klemp Cod: The Biography Of The Fish That Changed Long Way Gone: Memoir Of A Boy Soldier – A Preface To Morals – Walter Lippmann The World – Mark Kurlansky Ishmael Beah A Room Of One’s Own – Virginia Woolf Cognitive Therapy And The Emotional Disorders Longitude – Dava Sobel – Aaron T. Beck A Sense Of The World: How A Blind Man Became Melbourne – Lord David Cecil Collapse – Jared Diamond History’s Greatest Traveler – Jason Robert Men To Match My Mountains – Irving Stone Darkness Visible – William Styron A Study Of History – Arnold J. Toynbee Modern Times – Paul Johnson Death By Government – R. J. Rummel A Theory Of Justice – John Rawls More Guns, Less Crime – John R. Lott A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule Dianetics: The Modern Science Of Mental Health – L. Ron Hubbard More Liberty Means Less Government – The Future – Daniel Pink Walter Williams Doors Of Perception – Aldous Huxley Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do – Peter Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest Of McWilliams Dumbing Us Down – John Taylor Gatto Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure Ambivalence: Crossing The Israel Palestine Divide – Economics In One Lesson – Henry Hazlitt The World – Tracy Kidder Jonathan Garfinkel Ecoterror – Ron Arnold Neither Here Nor There: Travels In Europe – Bill America’s Great Depression – Murray N. Rothbard Eleven Rings – Phil Jackson Bryson American Gay – Stephen O. Murray Eminent Victorians – Lytton Strachey Nickel And Dimed – Barbara Ehrenreich An American Dilemma – Gunnar Myrdal Enrique’s Journey – Sonia Nazario Not Out Of Africa – Mary Lefkowitz Anatomy Of A Face– Lucy Greely Eros The Bittersweet – Anne Carson Notes Of A Native Son – James Baldwin Anatomy Of Criticism – Northrop Frye Fingerprints Of The Gods – G. Hancock Objectivism: The Philosophy Of Ayn Rand – Leonard Peikoff Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year Of Food Life – Florence Nightingale – Cecil Woodham-Smith Barbara Kingsolver On Growth And Form – D’arcy Thompson Free To Choose – Milton And Rose Friedman Art And Illusion – Ernest H. Gombrich Operating Instructions – Anne Lamott Freedom In Chains – James Bovard Aspects Of The Novel – E. M. Forster Ordinarily Sacred – Lynda Sexson Goodbye To All That – Robert Graves Autobiographies – W. B. Yeats Orientalism – Edward Said Healing Our World – Mary Ruwart Ayn Rand: A Sense Of Life – Michael Paxton Out Of Africa – Isak Dinesen Holidays On Ice – David Sedaris Battle Cry Of Freedom – James M. Mcpherson Out Of The Crisis – W. Edwards Deming Homage To Catalonia – George Orwell Behind The Mask – Ian Buruma Outliers: The Story of Success – Malcolm How To Lie With Statistics – Darrell Huff Beyond Liberal And Conservative – William Maddox Gladwell And Stuart Lilie How To Talk About Books You Haven’t Read – Parliament Of Whores – P. J. O’Rourke Pierre Bayard Black Boy – Richard Wright Patriotic Gore – Edmund Wilson Ideas And Opinions – Albert Einstein Black Lamb And Grey Falcon – Rebecca West Philosophy And Civilization – John Dewey In A Dark Wood – Alston Chase Black Like Me – John Griffin Pilgrim At Tinker Creek – Annie Dillard In Cold Blood – Truman Capote Placing Movies – Jonathon Rosenbaum White The Sense Of An Ending – Frank Kermode Present At The Creation – Dean Acheson The End Of Racism – Dinesh D’Souza The Shadow University: The Betrayal Of Liberty Principia Ethica – G. E. Moore The Face Of Battle – John Keegan On America’s Campuses – Alan Charles Kors Principia Mathematica – Alfred North Whitehead The Flute Of God – Paul Twitchell The Soloist – Steve Lopez And Bertrand Russell The Forever War – Dexter Filkins The Souls Of Black Folk – W.E.B. Du Bois Private Parts – Howard Stern The Frontier In American History – Frederick The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down: A Property Matters: How Property Rights Are Under Jackson Turner Hmong Child, Her American Doctor, And The Collision Of Two Cultures – Anne Assault And Why You Should Care – James V. De The Future And Its Enemies – Virginia Postrel Long Fadiman The Gate Of Heavenly Peace – Jonathan D. Psychiatry: The Ultimate Betrayal – Bruce Wiseman The Strange Career Of Jim Crow – C. Vann Spence Woodward Radical Son – David Horowitz The General Theory Of Employment, Interest, The Strange Death Of Liberal England – Real Presences – George Steiner And Money – John Maynard Keynes George Dangerfield Religion And The Rise Of Capitalism – R. H. Tawney The Gnostic Gospels – Elaine Pagels The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions – Reverse Angle – John Simon The God Of The Machine – Isabel Paterson Thomas S. Kuhn Right From The Beginning – Patrick J. Buchanan The Golden Bough – James Frazer The Sweet Science – A. J. Liebling Rise Of The Unmeltable Ethnics – Michael Novack The Great Bridge – David Mccullough The Taming Of Chance – Ian Hacking Salt: A World History – Mark Kurlansky The Great War And Modern Memory – Paul The Telephone Book – Avital Ronell Samuel Johnson – Walter Jackson Bate Fussell The Texan – C. S. Barrios Science And Civilization In China – Joseph Needham The Greatest Story Never Told – Lana Cantrell The Tipping Point And Outliers – Malcolm Gladwell Selected Essays–1917-1932 – T. S. Eliot The Guns Of August – Barbara Tuchman The True Believer – Eric Hoffer Send In The Waco Killers – Vin Suprynowicz The Hero Of A Thousand Faces – Joseph The Ultimate Resource – Julian Simon Campbell Separating School And State: How To Liberate The Undertaking: Life Studies From The Dismal America’s Families – Sheldon Richman The House Of Morgan – Ron Chernow Trade – Thomas Lynch Sexual Personae – Camille Paglia The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – Rebecca The Varieties Of Religious Experience – William James Skloot Shadow And Act – Ralph Ellison The Virtue Of Selfishness – Ayn Rand The Job – William Burroughs Silent Interviews – Samuel R. Delany The Western Canon – Harold Bloom The Journalist And The Murderer – Janet Silent Spring – Rachel Carson Malcolm The White Goddess – Robert Graves Six Easy Pieces – Richard P. Feynman The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank – Willy The Year Of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion Slats Grobnik And Some Other Friends – Mike Royko Lindwer Think And Grow Rich – Napoleon Hill Speak, Memory – Vladimir Nabokov The Liberal Imagination – Lionel Trilling This Boy’s Life – Tobias Wolff Storming Heaven – Jay Stevens The Lives Of A Cell – Lewis Thomas Three Cups Of Tea – Greg Mortenson Strength In What Remains– Tracy Kidder The Mainspring Of Human Progress – Henry Tipping Point – Malcolm Gladwell Studies In Iconology – Erwin Panofsky Grady Weaver Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, The Affluent Society – John Kenneth Galbraith The Making Of The Atomic Bomb – Richard Thomas Jefferson, And The Opening Of The Rhodes American West – Stephen E. Ambrose The Age Of Jackson – Arthur Schlesinger Jr. The Making Of The English Working Class – E. P. Under The Sign Of Saturn – Susan Sontag The American Language – H. L. Mencken Thompson Up From Slavery – Booker T. Washington The American Political Tradition – Richard The Minuteman: Restoring An Army Of The Hofstadter Vermeer – Lawrence Gowing People – Gary Hart The Ants – Bert Hoelldobler And Edward O. Wilson Vindicating The Founders – Thomas West The Mirror And The Lamp – Meyer Howard The Art Of Memory – Frances A. Yates Abrams Walden – Henry David Thoreau The Art Of The Soluble – Peter B. Medawar The Mismeasure Of Man – Stephen Jay Gould Waking And Dreaming – Joseph Hart The Autobiography Of Alice B. Toklas – Gertrude The Nature And Destiny Of Man – Reinhold Ways Of Seeing – John Berger Stein Niebuhr West With The Night – Beryl Markham The Autobiography Of Malcolm X – Alex Haley And The Omnivore’s Dilemma – Michael Pollan Why Government Doesn’t Work – Harry Malcolm X The Open Society And Its Enemies – Karl Popper Browne The Autobiography Of Mark Twain – Mark Twain The Power of Habit – Charles Duhigg Why We Can’t Wait – Martin Luther King Jr. The Botany Of Desire: A Plant’s Eye View Of The The Power Broker – Robert A. Caro Working – Studs Terkel World – Michael Pollan The Promise Of American Life – Herbert Croly Zeitoun– Dave Eggers The Boys in the Boat – Daniel James Brown The Proper Study Of Mankind – Isaiah Berlin The City In History – Lewis Mumford The Right Stuff – Tom Wolfe The Civil War – Shelby Foote The Rise Of The West – William H. Mcneill The Contours Of American History – William Appleman Williams The Rise Of Theodore Roosevelt – Edmund Morris The Declaration Of Independence – Carl L. Becker The Road To Serfdom – F. A. Hayek The Discovery Of Freedom – Rose Wilder Lane The Roosevelt Myth – John T. Flynn The Double Helix – James D. Watson The Second World War – Winston Churchill The Education Of Henry Adams – Henry Adams The Secret Life Of Lobsters – Trevor Corson The Elements Of Style – William Strunk And E. B. The Selfish Cell – Richard Dawkins