SCHOOL SUMMER READING SUMMER 2015 READING LISTS
Please note: Course specific books (Vth form electives) will be on a separate document and will be sent via email after schedules are released in July.
The following are lists of required books that all students must read by the start of classes in September 2015. This list includes a “school text” that all students and faculty will read over the summer. Although you will not have to complete assignments in response to these texts by the start of classes, you are expected to have read the texts closely. In physical books this would entail underlining, making annotations in the margin of the text. For all selections you should be writing down questions prompted by your reading and taking reading notes. In the first week of school, teachers will administer quizzes or in-class writing assignments on the readings. Therefore, it is imperative that the reading be completed prior to the start of school. Please choose any edition of the texts save when the ISBN of an edition is marked. These books are readily availabe on Amazon and at Classbook.com
Whatever you plan to do this summer, you must find time to read. If you’re not an enthusiastic reader, these summer months give you the chance to develop the habit of reading for pleasure. If you already love to read, you know that you need to read the way you need to eat or breathe, just to sustain yourself and keep your soul beating. Keep a book on your bedside table. Carry a book with you as you travel. In addition to making your mind a more interesting place to live, reading for pleasure will make you a better student in every discipline.
There is also a list of suggested texts to read for pleasure on the Bunn Library homepage at: http://www.lawrenceville.org/bunn-library/reading-suggestions/index.aspx http://libguides.lawrenceville.org/summerreading
The Library has a summer reading challenge for you. Read books for fun, checkout our summer reading libguide, add a comment about the book you read with your name and you will be entered for gift card prizes during fall orientation
ALL SCHOOL READING REQUIRED READING FOR ALL STUDENTS (ALL FORMS)
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury ISBN-13: 978-1451673319
VTH FORMERS AND POST GRAD STUDENTS: The summer reading book selections for your Vth Form Electives will be sent out after schedules are released. Please note that you are still required to select and read at least one other book from the list ofrecommended books listed at the bottom of this document.
ENGLISH TEXTS FOR II - IV FORMERS
Requirements: The second, third and fourth forms will read one required form-wide book, which will be discussed and examined during the first week of classes in the fall. In addition, we would like you to select and read at least one other book from the list of recommended books listed at the bottom of this document. When you return to school, you should bring your edition of the required book, with your margin notes, to use as part of a first assignment to be determined by your teacher.
Second formers required reading: J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye ISBN: 978 - 0316769174
Third formers required reading: Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried ISBN: 978 - 0618706419
Fourth formers required reading: Julia Otsuka’s When the Emperor Was Divine ISBN: 978-0385721813
HISTORY (IVTH, VTH, AND PG STUDENTS ONLY)
The following are the required texts for history summer reading according to course:
THEMES IN US HISTORY 2015-16
The Shoemaker and the Tea Party: Memory and the American Revolution by Alfred Young ISBN-10: 0807054054 ISBN-13: 978-0807054055
Students should be able to discuss the meaning of the full title of the book when they return.
HONORS US
The Americanization of Ben Franklin by Gordon Wood ISBN: 978-0143035282
Books for the following courses will be listed when the schedules are released in mid-July: Honors Government
The 1960s
Immigration Stories/Theories
Honors Math Seminar: Intro To Number Theory
The Universe Story ENGLISH DEPARTMENT RECOMMENDATIONS FOR SUMMER READING
Your teachers in the English Department look forward to talking with you about your reading and encourage you to share your recommendations so we can improve this list in future. Because our individual taste differs widely, we have each made a few suggestions. We hope you will find something among these recommended titles that works for you. Read as many as you like, but be prepared to talk about at least one book when we return to school. If you love to read, plan to attend the English Department’s regular Book Lovers’ Salons during the year.
CHAMP ATLEE
White Noise by Don DeLillo. DeLillo's satire of campus life and of the ecological perils that have replaced the world of the bomb. A very funny and instructive portrait.
A Very Long Engagement by Sebastien Japrisot. A lovely story set in post World War I France in which a crippled young woman sets out to discover the truth behind her fiancé’s execution for desertion.
Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy. The final book of the Border Trilogy that includes All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing, this novel brings together the protagonists from the previous narratives in an often hilarious but ultimately tragic dialogue about the disappearing values of the west.
KATIE CHAPUT
The Violent Bear it Away by Flannery O’Connor-When young Tarwater’s old uncle suddenly dies at the breakfast table, Tarwater is left to figure out how much of what the Old Man taught him was actually true. Filled with O’Connor’s token religious symbolism, this book is also a fascinating “coming of age” tale. O’Connor’s dark humor may have you laughing to yourself...or not.
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese - Twin boys are born in a mission hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to a secret union between a famous surgeon and a nun. The story follows the boys as they grow up in an Ethiopia on the brink of revolution, to when they are later reunited in the United States. I love it for the historical and cultural insights about Ethiopia, and for its intense surgical scenes (Verghese is a professional surgeon in his day job). The True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey - The book opens during the famous shoot-out between Ned Kelly and the law that finally ended his years on the run. Told in first-person, from Kelly’s perspective, the fictional work draws from historical accounts of the gang’s movements across the Australian bush. A fun read for anyone who enjoys a loveable outlaw, or wants to learn more about Australia’s “Robin Hood.”
MIRANDA CHRISTOFFERSEN
Why pretend we’re all grown up already? Some of my enduring favorites for summer reading were originally aimed at children but have much to offer good readers of any age. Forget the movie version and try Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series that starts with The Golden Compass. Second formers and others who have read Homer’s Odyssey will smile frequently as they read Rick Riordan’s series about Percy Jackson and the Olympians, especially once they get past the first book, The Lightning Thief (again, forget the movie version) and into the second book, The Sea of Monsters. If it makes you uncomfortable to read the same books as your 5th grade sibling but you’re looking for irreverent allusions and connections to well-known pieces of British Literature, I second Ms. Lee’s recommendation that you pick up Jasper Fforde’s series aboutThursday Next. The series begins with The Eyre Affair. If reading Jasper Fforde inspires you to read Charlotte Bronte’s original novel, Jane Eyre, so much the better. Come talk to me about the Brontes.
I’m also the faculty advisor for Lawrenceville’s small but active book lovers group which meets periodically during the year to foster love of reading and encourage the habit of reading for pleasure. All are welcome to attend our gatherings. This fall we plan to discuss one of the plays written by Pulitzer Prize winning author Thornton Wilder, who taught at Lawrenceville in the 1920s. Look for more information about the book lovers’ salons on activities night in the fall.
CHRISTOPHER CUNNINGHAM
Dune by Frank Herbert. Frank Herbert’s Dune is to science fiction what J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings is to fantasy: a far future that is rich, compelling, fully imagined; a large cast of interesting, complicated characters, including one of the most memorable bad guys of modern literature; a complex plot that includes great battles, political intrigue, love , and religion.
If you saw the movie and liked it, read the book, which is even better:Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. If you read Ender's Game and liked it, then you should also read Ender's Shadow, which tells Bean's story, narrating some of the events from the first book from his perspective. It sounds derivative, but it's equally as good as the original novel. If you never saw the movie: Ender is one of a group of child prodigies taken from their families, thrown together, and trained to be brilliant, deadly fighting machines in a war with distant, incomprehensible aliens. The novel is insightful about the challenges of giftedness and asks provocative questions about the social, personal, and moral consequences of war. Science fiction may be the best genre for combining big, interesting ideas and engaging plots—both of these books do this well.
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez tells the epic story of the rise and fall of the Aureliano family and the rise and fall of their small town—and small country—over the course of, yes, one hundred years. The story is funny and strange and sad—any story about people and the passage of time is sad—and Marquez’s prose is poetic and haunting. This is a challenging book (think Joyce, Woolf, Faulkner) but very beautiful—one of my favorite books of all time.
The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth. Set in San Francisco in the early 1980s, Seth’s short novel is, at heart, a love story, alternately sad and funny. The plot and characters are compelling, but what makes the novel unforgettable is that the entire thing (including the acknowledgements and table of contents and author bio) is written in verse (specifically, in Onegin sonnets). While that may sound scary and oppressively literary, the reality is that Seth’s language is light and witty—and colloquial and accessible.
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John Le Carre. This early novel follows Alec Leamas, a British agent who runs double agents in 1960s Cold War Berlin. Things go wrong; Leamas tries to fix them--to say more would ruin it. I love Le Carre (and if you like this novel, there are a score more to enjoy) for the beauty of his prose, the complexity of his plots, for his flawed, fallible heroes operating in a fallen, cynical world. Le Carre, like Graham Greene before him, raises the spy novel to the status of literature.
And three more for good measure: White Teeth by Zadie Smith, The Roadby Cormac McCarthy, and Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri.
GUS HEDBERG
Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh. Funny and literary. A great introduction to the English—and the Welsh.
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. A perfect adventure novel. If not now, you’ll never read it.
The Red and the Black by Stendhal. A classic study of the intersection of honor and upward mobility
CHRIS HYSON
Bottom of the 33rd: Hope, Redemption, and Baseball's Longest Game by Dan Barry-On April 18, 1981 the longest game of baseball began in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. For fans of baseball and small mill towns, this novel captures the hopes, the dreams, and the fate of athletes and communities. Being a Rhode Islander, I will say that it is a wicked good book.
Down the Shore A Novel by Stan Parish- a story by a Lawrenceville alum. You should all relate to a story about a day student at Lawrenceville. The protagonist goes through the odyssey of having to find himself after losing himself in the privilege and expectations of an elite institution.
Any novel by New Jersey author Harlan Coben , a great writer of mystery and suspense.
MATT JOHNSON
Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
If you read Catcher in the Rye and loved it--read this. A perhaps more mature, more thoughtful riff on the same ideas.
If you read Catcher in the Rye and hated it--1) Ew. 2) Read this. A perhaps more mature, more thoughtful riff on the same ideas (which are, by the way, big, important ideas).
Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
Funny, poignant, British. Coming of age. If you read Catcher in the Rye,and thought, "This book would be good, if it were a different book" then read this.
The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall
Unlike Catcher in the Rye, this book has a gripping, identifiable plot. Kind of sci-fi, very nerdy. Conceptual sharks eat the protagonist's memory, and there's a cat named Ian in it.
The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
If you read Catcher in the Rye, and thought "I should re-read this", then do that.
Radioactive: A Tale of Love and Fallout by Lauren Redniss
A graphic novel about Marie Curie's life. It's amazing and beautiful and scientific!
The Beautiful Struggle by Ta-Nehisi Coates
A wonderful memoir by one of the best writers alive today. RON KANE
Trinity by Leon Uris. A gripping novel that re-creates Ireland's struggle for independence. The story of young Catholic rebel who departs a small village in Donegal and enters the dangers of divided Belfast. A story of love, faith and money.
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle. The story of a 10 year-old working class boy in 1960's Dublin. A novel that captures the charm, playfulness and cruelty of boyhood. A book that sits comfortably withCatcher in theRye andHuckleberry Finn.
The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield. A philosophical fantasy which uses the sport of golf to explore the inner spirit. Fog, storms, howling winds - inside and out
PIER KOOISTRA
Unbroken , by Laura Hillenbrand; Flyboys , by James Bradley; and/or The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors , by James D. Hornfischer: War is hideous. The ways in which people respond are sometimes inspiring.
Washington’s Crossing , by David Hackett Fischer: July 4 wouldn’t mean what it does without the events that unfolded in the Delaware Valley, and right here in Trenton and Princeton, six months later.
Empire of the Summer Moon , by S.C. Gwynne. As the book jacket promises, the story of the rise and fall of the Comanches “will leave dust and blood on your jeans.”
Half the Sky , by Sheryl WuDunn and Nicholas Kristoff: There is no more important mission than what the authors envision—turning oppression into opportunity for women worldwide.
At Swim-Two-Birds , by Flann O'Brien: A perfect summer read, frivolous, ridiculous, uproariously imaginative. Life just doesn't provide us with enough opportunities to encounter wild-west scenes on the streets of early-twentieth-century Dublin...or, for that matter, to build SAT vocab while having nothing but fun.
KATEY O’MALLEY
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. The novel concerns a young boy, Daniel, whose father takes him to the secret Cemetery of Forgotten Books to choose a book for his birthday. Daniel selects a book called The Shadow of the Wind and becomes immediately engrossed in the story. When he attempts to look for other books by the author, however, a mysterious figure confronts and threatens Daniel, wanting to take the book from him. Terrified, Daniel returns the book to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books but continues to seek for the elusive author. In doing so, Daniel becomes entangled in an age old conflict that involves love, betrayal, murder, and Daniel himself.
Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut. A collection of very funny short stories, each making a strong statement/observation about the world in which we live. The stories range from war-time epics to futuristic thrillers, delivered with satire and Vonnegut's unique edge. Many of the tales are inter-twined and convey the same underlying messages on human nature and present society.
The Lady in White by Wilkie Collins. One of the first mystery novels ever written, the story tells the story of a poor art teacher, Walter, who falls in love with one of his students, Laura. Though she loves Walter, she is already engaged to another. They are parted and she marries, but she and her resourceful half-sister, Marian, are then caught up in her new husband's plot to steal her fortune and identity. Throughout the story they encounter a mysterious woman in white, whose own sad story seems entangled with those of Laura and her husband, and who plays a crucial role in the novel's main events.
LORRY PERRY
In high school, I loved the only two fantasy novels I've ever liked: Mark Helprin's A Winter's Tale , and Joyce Carol Oates Bellefleur . Helprin's gorgeous novel is set in New York City in the 20th century as it nears Armageddon. This would be a great book for horse lovers, as a huge white horse looms large in this long tome. Oates' novel is the voluptuous and gothic tale of a wealthy and notorious clan that lives someplace very much like the Adirondacks. Even though I grew up in Utah and had never been to the Adirondacks when I read Bellefleur , this book made me feel homesick for upstate New York.
The book that first made me think I could be an English teacher was Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita . Nabokov called it "a firebomb that I have just finished putting together," and it is that. You'll find it filthy, but if you don't also find it tremendously funny, put it down and pick it up again in fifteen years. Get the annotated edition. And then watch both the Kubrick and the Lyne versions of Lolita . Both are excellent, though I prefer the Lyne (Nabokov probably would, too, as he wrote the screenplay for the Kubrick and didn't like the way the movie came together). Lyne's Lolita is the best film adaptation of a novel that I've ever seen. If you enjoy my favorite book ever, you might also try House of Meetings by Martin Amis, which draws explicitly on Nabokov's story.
The Meadow by Jim Galvin, one of my teachers at the University of Iowa. He's primarily a poet, and this is one of his two novels. It's my favorite book about the American West. It's the only book that has ever made my dad cry. Geek Love by Katherine Dunn is the quiet, creeping horror of a story about a family of circus freaks. I loved this book as a high schooler and it's the book I most give as a gift.
In a Strange Room, by Damon Galgut, is not for the faint of heart, and it’s probably the best book I’ve read in five years. Galgut is a South African author who narrates three travel experiences in Africa through a fictional “Damon.” The first section has the weirdest narrative propulsion I think I’ve ever seen, while the last chapter made me sick. Having borrowed the title from a line of Faulkner, this book is gorgeously crafted, and Galgut finds brilliant ways to deal with the distance between the past and the present.
Read anything by George Saunders. Think Pynchon and Vonnegut, ferocious and funny.
I love Haruki Murakami, though I would steer you to his shorter works instead of his recent novel, 1Q84.
I wish I were Lorrie Moore, who wrote Anagrams and a host of short story collections. You get the sense, in reading her, that she is a wonderfully smart, observant woman who carries a pen and paper everywhere she goes. She is endlessly witty, and I wish that my world were peopled by her cast of characters. Her book has the most touching (and weird) depiction of motherhood that I’ve ever seen. Her recent novel, A Gate at the Stair , is not where I would start with Moore. She is a master of the short story, and I didn’t think her novel was any great success.
MARGARET RAY
A Visit From the Goon Squad , by Jennifer Egan. This is either a novel or a collection of short stories (which do you think it is?) about the music industry and the people who inhabit it. If it’s a novel, it’s a game of narrative tag, where you meet what you think will be the main character in the first chapter, only to discover that the second chapter is told from the perspective of her boss, a minor character in chapter one. Then each progressive chapter moves like that, taking a peripheral character from the previous chapter for its narrator, until you get halfway through the book and realize you’re starting to see the intricate web of connections between these people. It’s a book that will make the world feel small, but it’s also funny, sad, well-written, and one chapter is a powerpoint presentation. Read it.
Life After Life , by Kate Atkinson. The protagonist is an English girl born in the interim between WWI and WWII, but she keep dying. In the first chapter, she doesn’t survive more than a few minutes after her birth during a snowstorm. She gets reborn and lives longer in each succeeding chapter, and the question becomes something like this: is she really getting to live over and over again all these attempts at her life? Or are these alternate, parallel universes splitting off, all happening simultaneously? The book begins to show you which one it is, but not until about halfway through, and the backdrop of WWII and London during the Blitz make the story all the more urgent. Beautifully written, and alternately funny, sad, and triumphant.
The Gate of Angels by Penelope Fitzgerald. Witty, intricate, and thought-provoking. Fitzgerald’s protagonist is a physics fellow at Cambridge University in 1904 while scientists are hypothesizing new models of the atom. He meets a girl in a biking accident and falls in love with her, but he cannot find her again after the incident. His bike collision mirrors the sub-atomic collisions posited by the scientists, and before long, the logical Fred Fairly finds himself questioning whether his accident was random or fated. Fitzgerald writes with the wit of a modern-day Wilde, and if you like physics, this is a novel for you.
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. If you are at all a fan of Downton Abbey , this is another glimpse into that kind of world, albeit a tragic glimpse. In the vein of The Great Gatsby , the story centers around a narrator’s fascination with a compelling central character (Sebastian) and his family.
Tenth of December by George Saunders. A witty collection of short stories told by a series of narrators in whom you might often be able to see a version of yourself...but these stories have a strange, dark feel to them that makes you think they might be allegorical...but you’re also quite certain they must be literal...
If on a winter’s night a traveller by Italo Calvino. The most fun I’ve had reading a novel.....maybe ever. This is another kind of modernist, testing the limits of what constitutes narrative. An answer to the question: how can you write a story in the second person?
BERNADETTE TEELEY
Lost Horizon by James Hilton is a novel about a group of travelers whose plane is lost in the mountains near Tibet. The weary group is mysteriously rescued and led to Shangri-La, a paradise of many secrets. The setting and plot line are unforgettable, as are the characters’ dilemmas over morality, loyalty and destiny. I should mention that a few years ago there was a newspaper article about a plane that was lost in a storm near the same mountain range. I saved the clipping-- maybe the legend is true.
Freckles by Gene Stratton Porter. Written in 1904, by this novel captures the natural beauty of the Limberlost swamp in Northern Indiana (eventually logged, drained and turned into farmland ). The plot is simple and the story has a happy ending. The main character, a one-handed Irish orphan named Freckles, embodies the American ideas of diligence, perseverance, industriousness, and honesty. Gene Stratton Porter is an American naturalist, and this novel includes descriptions of the native plants and animals of the swamps. A pleasant read for a sunny day. WILBURN WILLIAMS
Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi (USA/UK, 2013). This astonishing new writer burst upon the scene in 2011 with plaudits from Toni Morrison and Salman Rushdie. "The Sex Lives of African Girls," Selasi's first short story, was selected for The Best American Short Stories 2012. Ghana Must Go, Selasi's internationally acclaimed debut novel, has already been translated into a dozen languageshttp://www.foyles.co.uk/Public/Biblio/Detail.aspx?blogId=1170 It won her a coveted place alongside Zadie Smith on Granta magazine's list of "The Best Young British Novelists," a list compiled only once every ten years. Selasi also happens to be my daughter, and parts of her novel were written here in Lawrenceville. The music of Ghana Must Go enchants the ear long before the eye of the mind brings its meaning into focus. Selasi's quicksilver, mesmerizing voice is by turns lyrical and intimate, epic and imposing. This cerebral novel spans three continents, painting the portrait of a modern immigrant family brought together by hope, torn apart by misfortune, and reunited in love by tragedy. Ghana Must Go is a soul-searing novel of great emotional force, a testament to the transformative power of love and Selasi's brilliant imagination.
White Teeth by Zadie Smith (UK, 2000). The funniest novel I've read in the last ten years. Set in contemporary England, this novel explores the entangled lives of three families: the Joneses, a working-class Englishman, his Jamaican wife (a devout Jehovah’s Witness), and their bookish daughter; the Iqbals, an immigrant couple from Bangladesh, one of whose sons is drifting from a life of drinking and womanizing to Islamic fundamentalism; and the Chalfens, a Jewish-Catholic family of Oxbridge intellectuals. Smith brings this improbable collection of disparate social types together with a gusto that is breathtaking. Her latest collection of essays, Changing My Mind (2009) shows that she also is a first-rate critic, with essays on Franz Kafka, E.M. Forster, Eminem (that’s no typo), Graham Greene and Barack Obama that bristle with intelligence. She’s so smart my head hurts just thinking about it.
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (Nigeria, 1958). Fifty years on, it is still one of the best books I have ever read. Camara Laye in The Radiance of the King(Republic of Guinea, English translation 1956) presents a richer, more complex Africa in many obvious ways, but Achebe is the master who forever changed, and decisively for the better, the world's perception of Africa.
I find myself reading more nonfiction these days, and three books that I've read over the last decade stand out for me: Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (USA, 1997) ranges over 13,000 years of world history and explains, among other things, why Spain conquered Mexico and not Mexico Spain. Diamond's argument is repetitive, but once you're past the introductory material, individual chapters are self-contained. Don't let the book's size put you off. After its first five chapters, Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate : The Modern Denial of Human Nature (USA, 2002) is another big book that comes in self-contained chapters that can be read out of order. Pinker writes with wit and verve to explain the biological roots of human behavior--the nature of human nature.
Charles Mann's 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus(USA, 2005) made me throw out the window much of what I'd been taught--and many are still taught--about what the New World was like before Columbus' arrival in 1492. You will learn why the domestication of corn must rank as one of the greatest feats of ingenuity in history, and you will marvel at provocative questions like this: Did the Amazon rainforest just grow, or was it planted ?
HISTORY DEPARTMENT RECOMMENDATIONS FOR SUMMER READING
Interesting books and articles related to our “Forces” course from members of the faculty:
SUGGESTED, BUT NOT REQUIRED
1. Nightmare Along the River Nile - by Suzanna Nelson, recommended by Mr. Hanewald. This is a historical fiction book which focuses on the story of a Ugandan boy who gets captured by rebels in Northern Uganda in the late 1990’s and is sold into slavery in Sudan. Although fiction, the setting and the reality of modern slavery is unfortunately true.
2. King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild , recommended by Mr. Hanewald and most likely most of the department as the book to read to get the best insight into the process of late 19th century imperialism in Africa.
3. All Quiet on the Western Front , by Erich Maria Remarque, recommended by Ms. Easterling and probably most of the department too, as THE novel of WWI. This was written by a German and published in 1929, at the height of anti-war sentiment in Europe. The picture it paints of senseless slaughter and the horrors of trench warfare are unforgettable.
4. The Sandcastle Girls , by Chris Bohjalian, recommended by Cara Hyson. An outstanding work of historical fiction that takes on a harrowing period of history brilliantly. “It takes a talented novelist to combine fully ripened characters, an engrossing storyline, exquisite prose and set it against a horrific historical backdrop—in this case, the Armenian Genocide—and completely enchant readers. The prolific and captivating Chris Bohjalian has done it all with The Sandcastle Girls .” —Associated Press.
5. Regeneration, by Pat Barker, recommended by Cara Hyson. Another look at World War I from the side of those who questioned the brutality of the war, highlighting the stories of two courageous soldiers who were also two of the greatest WWI poets. “ In 1917 Siegfried Sassoon, noted poet and decorated war hero, publicly refused to continue serving as a British officer in World War I. His reason: the war was a senseless slaughter. He was officially classified "mentally unsound" and sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital. There a brilliant psychiatrist, Dr. William Rivers, set about restoring Sassoon's "sanity" and sending him back to the trenches. This novel tells what happened as only a novel can. It is a war saga in which not a shot is fired. It is a story of a battle for a man's mind in which only the reader can decide who is the victor, who the vanquished, and who the victim”- Amazon.com. http://www.lawrenceville.org/bunn-library/summer-reading/index.aspx