2015 Summer Reading Book List
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr Faculty Sponsor: Mrs. Conner
Description: Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When Marie-Laure is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris, and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie- Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel. In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.
American Sniper by Chris Kyle Faculty Sponsor: Mr. Martin
Description: From 1999 to 2009, U.S. Navy Seal Chris Kyle recorded the most career sniper kills in United States military history. His fellow American warriors, whom he protected with deadly precision from rooftops and stealth positions during the Iraq War, called him “The Legend”; meanwhile, the enemy feared him so much they named him al-Shaitan (“the devil”) and placed a bounty on his head. Kyle, who was tragically killed in 2013, writes honestly aboutBook is full for Sign the pain of war—including the deaths of two close SEAL teammates—and in -movingups first-person passages throughout, his wife, Taya, speaks openly about the strains of war on their family, as well as on Chris. Gripping and unforgettable, Kyle’s masterful account of his extraordinary battlefield experiences ranks as one of the great war memoirs of all time.
And No Birds Sang by Farley Mowat Faculty Sponsor: Mr. Kaneft
Description: Description: In July 1942, Farley Mowat was an eager young infantryman bound for Europe and impatient for combat. This powerful, true account of the action he saw, fighting desperately to push the Nazis out of Italy, evokes the terrible reality of war with an honesty and clarity fiction can only imitate. In scene after unforgettable scene, he describes the agony and antic humor of the soldier's existence: the tedium of camp life, the savagery of the front, and the camaraderie shared by those who have been bloodied in battle.
Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden Faculty Sponsor: Mrs. Stokes
Description: Already a classic of war reporting and now reissued as a Grove Press paperback, Black Hawk Down is Mark Bowden’s brilliant account of the longest sustained firefight involving American troops since the Vietnam War. On October 3, 1993, about a hundred elite U.S. soldiers were dropped by helicopter into the teeming market in the heart of Mogadishu, Somalia. Their mission was to abduct two top lieutenants of a Somali warlord and return to base. It was supposed to take an hour. Instead, they found themselves pinned down through a long and terrible nightBook is full for Sign fighting against thousands of heavily armed Somalis. The following morning, eighteen-ups Americans were dead and more than seventy had been badly wounded. Drawing on interviews from both sides, army records, audiotapes, and videos (some of the material is still classified), Bowden’s minute-by-minute narrative is one of the most exciting accounts of modern combat ever written—a riveting story that captures the heroism, courage, and brutality of battle.
2015 Summer Reading Book List
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller Faculty Sponsor: Mr. Amato
Description: Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. But his real problem is not the enemy—it is his own army, which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempt to excuse himself from the perilous missions he’s assigned, he’ll be in violation of Catch-22, a hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes a formal request to be removed from duty, he is proven sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.
City of Thieves by David Benioff Faculty Sponsor: Mrs. Pulsifer
Description: Here's how New York Times book reviewer Boris Fishman summarizes this tale in a 2008 review: "Lev, an intelligent, awkward, eternally self-doubting Jewish teenager, and Kolya, a Slavic Adonis, have been imprisoned after wartime infractions. Awaiting execution, they’re summoned by the secret police: Colonel Grechko’s daughter is getting married, and eggs are needed for the cake. It would be easier to find snow in Saudi Arabia, but if Lev and Kolya can locate a dozen they’ll get back their ration cards — and their lives. Very soon, the odd couple are dodging a husband-and-wife team of cannibals and seducing their way — well, Kolya is, at least — through the starving city." Is this book brutal, crude, and exhausting? Yes. Is it hilarious and heart-warming? Totally. Read it; you'll love it and we'll have lots to talk about.
David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell Faculty Sponsor: Mr. Miles
Description: Malcolm Gladwell, a best seller author shows how, time and again, players labeled “underdog” use that status to their advantage and prevail through the elements of cunning and surprise. He also shows how certain academic “advantages,” such as getting into an Ivy League school, have downsides, in that being a “big fish in a small pond” at a less prestigious school can lead to greater confidence and a better chance of success in later life. Gladwell even promotes the idea of a “desirable difficulty,” such as dyslexia, a learning disability that causes much frustration for reading students but, at the same time, may force them to develop better listening and creative problem-solving skills.
Dead Wake by Erik Larson Faculty Sponsor: Mr. Blackard
Description: On May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the Lusitania was one of the era’s great transatlantic “Greyhounds”—the fastest liner then in service—and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack. Germany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game, and Walther Schwieger, the captain of Unterseeboot-20, was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, an ultra-secret British intelligence unit tracked Schwieger’s U- boat, but told no one. As U-20 and the Lusitania made their way toward Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and achingly small—hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded secret, and more—all converged to produce one of the great disasters of history.
2015 Summer Reading Book List
Devil of a Whipping : The Battle of Cowpens by Lawrence Babits Faculty Sponsor: Mr. Stevenson
Description: The battle of Cowpens was a crucial turning point in the Revolutionary War in the South and stands as perhaps the finest American tactical demonstration of the entire war. On 17 January 1781, Daniel Morgan's force of Continental troops and militia routed British regulars and Loyalists under the command of Banastre Tarleton. The victory at Cowpens helped put the British army on the road to the Yorktown surrender and, ultimately, cleared the way for American independence. Here, Lawrence Babits provides a brand-new interpretation of this pivotal South Carolina battle. Whereas previous accounts relied on often inaccurate histories and a small sampling of participant narratives, Babits uses veterans' sworn pension statements, long-forgotten published accounts, and a thorough knowledge of weaponry, tactics, and the art of moving men across the landscape. He identifies where individuals were on the battlefield, when they were there, and what they saw--creating an absorbing common soldier's version of the conflict. His minute-by-minute account of the fighting explains what happened and why and, in the process, refutes much of the mythology that has clouded our picture of the battle.
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk Faculty Sponsor: Mr. Dalton
Description: The first rule about fight club is you don't talk about fight club. In his debut novel, Chuck Palahniuk showed himself to be his generation's most visionary satirist. Fight Club's estrangedBook is full for Sign narrator leaves his lackluster job when he comes under the thrall of Tyler- Durden,ups an enigmatic young man who holds secret boxing matches in the basement of bars. There two men fight "as long as they have to." A gloriously original work that exposes what is at the core of our modern world.
Fools Rush In: A True Story of War and Redemption by Bill Carter Faculty Sponsor: Mrs. Dillon
Description: Offering an in-depth personal account of the Bosnian and Herzegovinian war, this autobiography follows the author as he departed for conflict-ridden Eastern Europe in the early 1990s. Demonstrating how the protagonist discovered his own love of humanity, this narrative documents his career as an aid-worker, toiling amidst a motley crew of expatriate punk rockers and thrill junkies who dressed as clowns to deliver food to bombed- out orphanages. This chronicle also relates how the author convinced the rock group U2 to help bring the siege of Sarajevo to the planet via satellite broadcasts beamed out during their PopMart world tour. A forthright and powerful memoir, this searing reconstruction depicts an innocent city under attack as well as indelible portraits of the people of Sarajevo, who continued to live their lives with hope, humor, and passion.
Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson Faculty Sponsor: Mr. Chisholm
Description: After trying to help Benjamin Pearl, an undernourished, nearly feral eleven-year-old boy living in the Montana wilderness, social worker Pete Snow comes face to face with the boy's profoundly disturbed father, Jeremiah. With courage and caution, Pete slowly earns a measure of trust from this paranoid survivalist itching for a final conflict that will signal the coming End Times. But as Pete's own family spins out of control, Pearl's activities spark the full-blown interest of the F.B.I., putting Pete at the center of a massive manhunt from which no one will emerge unscathed.
2015 Summer Reading Book List
Generation Kill by Evan Wright Faculty Sponsor: Mr. Thompson
Description: This is an account of the assault on Baghdad from the point of view of Rolling Stone reporter Evan Wright. Wright was embedded with a unit of reconnaissance Marines as they were the front line personnel in Iraq. The book focuses on the impact of the war on terrorism, how this war differs from all previous conflicts, and the new type of young, swift American fighter and its effectiveness in combat.
Geronimo: Leadership Strategies of an American Warrior by Mike Leach Faculty Sponsor: Mr. McMurry
Description: “In the hands of Mike Leach and Buddy Levy, the story of this brilliant Apache leader comes into sharp focus, both in their narrative of his life and in spirited commentaries on its meaning” (S.C. Gwynne, author of Pulitzer Prize finalist Empire of the Summer Moon). Playing cowboys and Indians as a boy, legendary college football coach Mike Leach always chose to be the Indian— the underdog whose success turned on being a tough, resourceful, ingenious fighter. And the greatest Indian military leader of all was Geronimo, the Apache warrior whose name is so symbolic of courage that World War II paratroopers shouted it as they leaped from airplanes into battle.
Gods and Generals by Jeff Shaara Faculty Sponsor: Mr. Auch
Description: In a prequel of sorts to his father Michael Shaara's 1974 epic novel The Killer Angels, Jeff Shaara explores the lives of Generals Lee, Hancock, Jackson and Chamberlain as the pivotal Battle of Gettysburg approaches. Shaara captures the disillusionment of both Lee and Hancock early in their careers, Lee's conflict with loyalty, Jackson's overwhelming Christian ethic and Chamberlain's total lack of experience, while illustrating how each compensated for shortcomings and failures when put to the test. The perspectives of the four men, particularly concerning the battles at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, make vivid the realities of war.
Horse Soldiers by Doug Stanton Faculty Sponsor: Mr. Harris
Description: The Taliban have just taken down the Twin Towers in New York (9/11). The country is up in arms and Americans want retaliation and they want it now! The then President- GW Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell are being pressured to do something…anything to show that the United States of America cannot be invaded and stepped on like this. As an answer, we secretly sent in several teams of Special Forces (Green Berets) and CIA Paramilitary officers into Afghanistan to hook up with the Afghan rebels that are already fighting the Taliban in their own country. This book is the story of how they literally rode into battle along with the Afghan rebel forces and what their presence did to change the tide of the Taliban taking over the country.
In the Sea There are Crocodiles by Fabio Geda Faculty Sponsor: Fr. Brown
Description: The true story of the plight of a young political refugee from Afghanistan, Enaiatollah Akbari, who makes his way eventually to Italy. The story is told in a way that puts the reader in a young boy’s shoes as he endures terrifying adventures. Given the recent experience some of us had working with political refugees in Rome, and given the news lately of catastrophes at sea, this is a timely book. I hope you’ll join me in reading it.
2015 Summer Reading Book List
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer Faculty Sponsor: Mr. Hyche
Description: “A bank of clouds was assembling on the not-so-distant horizon, but journalist-mountaineer Jon Krakauer, standing on the summit of Mt. Everest, saw nothing that "suggested that a murderous storm was bearing down."Book is full for Sign He was wrong. The storm, which claimed five lives and left countless more--including-ups Krakauer's --in guilt- ridden disarray, would also provide the impetus for Into Thin Air, Krakauer's epic account of the May 1996 disaster.”
It Happened on the Way to War: A Marine's Path to Peace by Rye Barcott Faculty Sponsor: Mr. Ramsey
Description: In 2000, Rye Barcott was a student on an ROTC scholarship when he first visited the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya. He wanted to understand the ethnic violence he expected to face in uniform. Once there, Barcott befriended a widowed nurse and a community organizer, and together they built Carolina for Kibera (CFK), an NGO that breaks cycles of violence and develops young leaders in one of Africa's largest slums. Barcott continued his work with CFK while leading Marines in Iraq, Bosnia, and the Horn of Africa. He waged peace while fighting war, and struggled to compartmentalize the experiences and resist darker forces. It Happened on the Way to War is a true story about the powerful melding of military and humanitarian service. It's a story of what America's role in the world could be.
It Worked for Me In Life and Leadership by Colin Powell Faculty Sponsor: Mrs. Sparacino
Description: Colin Powell, one of America’s most admired public figures, reveals the principles that have shaped his life and career in this inspiring and engrossing memoir. A beautiful companion to his previous memoir, the #1 New York Times bestseller My American Journey, Powell’s It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership is a trove of wisdom for anyone hoping to achieve their goals and turn their dreams into reality. A message of strength and endurance from a man who has dedicated his life to public service, It Worked for Me is a book with the power to show readers everywhere how to achieve a more fulfilling life and career.
Killer Angels by Michael Shaara Faculty Sponsor: Mr. Williams
Description: In the four most bloody and courageous days of our nation's history, two armies fought for two dreams. One dreamed of freedom, the other of a way of life. Far more than rifles and bullets were carried into battle. There were memories. There were promises. There was love. And far more than men fell on those Pennsylvania fields. Shattered futures, forgotten innocence, and crippled beauty were also the casualties of war. The Killer Angels is unique, sweeping, unforgettable—a dramatic re-creation of the battleground for America's destiny.
2015 Summer Reading Book List
Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard. Faculty Sponsor: Mrs. Powers
Description: In the midst of the patriotic celebrations in Washington D.C., John Wilkes Booth--charismatic ladies' man and impenitent racist--murders Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre. A furious manhunt ensues and Booth immediately becomes the country's most wanted fugitive. Lafayette C. Baker, a smart but shifty New York detective and former Union spy, unravels the string of clues leading to Booth, while federal forces track his accomplices. The thrilling chase ends in a fiery shootout and a series of court-ordered executions--including that of the first woman ever executed by the U.S. government, Mary Surratt. Featuring some of history's most remarkable figures, vivid detail, and page-turning action, Killing Lincoln is history that reads like a thriller.
Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard. Faculty Sponsor: Mr. James
Description: General George S. Patton, Jr. died under mysterious circumstances in the months following the end of World War II. For almost seventy years, there has been suspicion that his death was not an accident--and may very well have been an act of assassination. Killing Patton takes readers inside the final year of the war and recounts the events surrounding Patton’s tragic demise, naming names of the many powerful individuals who wanted him silenced.
Marine Sniper by Charles Henderson Faculty Sponsor: Mr. Luhm
Description: He's silent, invisible. He lies in one position for days, barely twitching a muscle, able to control his heartbeat and breathing. As an expert marksman, Marine Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock is a legend of Marine lore.Book is full for Sign He stalked the Viet Cong behind enemy lines. His record has never been matched:-ups 93 confirmed kills. This is his story. Powerful, chilling and all true.
Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes Faculty Sponsor: Mr. Dowling
Description: Intense, powerful, and compelling, Matterhorn is an epic war novel in the tradition of Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead and James Jones's The Thin Red Line. It is the timeless story of a young Marine lieutenant, Waino Mellas, and his comrades in Bravo Company, who are dropped into the mountain jungle of Vietnam as boys and forced to fight their way into manhood. Standing in their way are not merely the North Vietnamese but also monsoon rain and mud, leeches and tigers, disease and malnutrition. Almost as daunting, it turns out, are the obstacles they discover between each other: racial tension, competing ambitions, and duplicitous superior officers. But when the company finds itself surrounded and outnumbered by a massive enemy regiment, the Marines are thrust into the raw and all-consuming terror of combat. The experience will change them forever.
2015 Summer Reading Book List
Of Dice and Men: The Story of Dungeons and Dragons by David Ewalt Faculty Sponsor: Mr. Martin
Description: In Of Dice and Men, David Ewalt recounts the development of Dungeons & Dragons from the game’s roots on the battlefields of ancient Europe, through the hysteria that linked it to satanic rituals and teen suicides, to its apotheosis as father of the modern video-game industry. As he chronicles the surprising history of the game’s origins (a history largely unknown even to hardcore players) and examines D&D’s profound impact, Ewalt weaves laser-sharp subculture analysis with his own present-day gaming experiences. An enticing blend of history, journalism, narrative, and memoir, Of Dice and Men sheds light on America’s most popular (and widely misunderstood) form of collaborative entertainment.
Outlaw Platoon by Sean Parnell Faculty Sponsor: Mr. Conner
Description: A riveting story of American fighting men, Outlaw Platoon is Lieutenant Sean Parnell’s stunning personal account of the legendary U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division’s heroic stand in the mountains of Afghanistan. Acclaimed for its vivid, poignant, and honest recreation of sixteen brutal months of nearly continuous battle in the deadly Hindu Kesh, Outlaw Platoon is a Band of Brothers or We Were Soldiers Once and Young for the early 21st century—an action-packed, highly emotional true story of enormous sacrifice and bravery. A magnificent account of heroes, renegades, infidels, and brothers, it stands with Sebastian Junger’s War as one of the most important books to yet emerge from the heat, smoke, and fire of America’s War in Afghanistan.
Redeployment by Phil Klay Faculty Sponsor: Mrs. Hubbard
Description: Phil Klay's Redeployment takes readers to the frontlines of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, asking us to understand what happened there, and what happened to the soldiers who returned. Interwoven with themes of brutality and faith, guilt and fear, helplessness and survival, the characters in these stories struggle to make meaning out of chaos
Run Silent, Run Deep by Edward Beach Faculty Sponsor: Mr. Mouer
Description: “Set in the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the tension-filled story focuses on an American submarine captain given orders to destroy Japanese shipping in the Pacific. At first his missions go well, but when he takes on an infamous Japanese destroyer, nicknamed Bungo Pete, a terrifying game of cat and mouse begins. From the training of the crew right through to the breathtaking climax, this tale is absolutely riveting.”-
The Art of War by Sun Tzu Faculty Sponsor: Ms. MacDonald
Description: The Art of War (Chinese: 孫子兵法; pinyin: S nz b ngfǎ) is an ancient Chinese military treatise attributed to Sun Tzu, a high-ranking military general, strategist and tactician. The text is composed of 13 chapters, each of which is devoted to one aspect of warfare. It is commonly known to be the definitive work on military strategyBook is full for Sign and tactics of its time. It has been the most famous and influential of China's -Sevenups Military Classics, and "for the last two thousand years it remained the most important military treatise in Asia, where even the common people knew it by name."[1] It has had an influence on Eastern and Western military thinking, business tactics, legal strategy and beyond.
2015 Summer Reading Book List
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak Faculty Sponsor: Ms. Giuliani
Description: 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier. SOME IMPORTANT INFORMATION - THIS NOVEL IS NARRATED BY DEATH It's a small story, about: a girl an accordionist some fanatical Germans a Jewish fist fighter and quite a lot of thievery. ANOTHER THING YOU SHOULD KNOW - DEATH WILL VISIT THE BOOK THIEF THREE TIMES
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne Faculty Sponsor: Mr. Baltazar
Description: When Bruno returns home from school one day, he discovers that his belongings are being packed in crates. His father has received a promotion and the family must move from their home to a new house far far away, where there is no one to play with and nothing to do. A tall fence running alongside stretches as far as the eye can see and cuts him off from the strange people he can see in the distance. But BrunoBook is full for Sign longs to be an explorer and decides that there must be more to this desolate -newups place than meets the eye. While exploring his new environment, he meets another boy whose life and circumstances are very different to his own, and their meeting results in a friendship that has devastating consequences.
The Forgotten 500: The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked All for the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War II by Gregory Freeman Faculty Sponsor: Mrs. Mahoney
Description:Book is full for Sign An amazing Rescue of US servicemen. Mrs. Mahoney’s dad was involved.- ups In 1944 the OSS set out to recover more than 500 downed airmen trapped behind enemy lines in Yugoslavia. Classified for over half a century for political reasons, the full account of this unforgettable story of loyalty, self- sacrifice, and bravery is now being told for the first time.
The Glorious Cause (The American Revolutionary War) by Jeff Shaara Faculty Sponsor: Mr. Parham
Description: It was never a war in which the outcome was obvious. Despite their spirit and stamina, the colonists were outmanned and outfought by the brazen British army. General George Washington found his troops trounced in the battles of Brooklyn and Manhattan and retreated toward Pennsylvania. With the future of the colonies at its lowest ebb, Washington made his most fateful decision: to cross the Delaware River and attack the enemy. The stunning victory at Trenton began a saga of victory and defeat that concluded with the British surrender at Yorktown, a moment that changed the history of the world.
2015 Summer Reading Book List
The Good Soldiers by David Finkel Faculty Sponsor: Mr. Stump
Description: Provides a very real, very human image of latter stages of the war. The key is the almost first person perspective of life on a Forward Operating Base, with all its dangers real and trivial. Amazon description follows. It was the last-chance moment of the war. In January 2007, President George W. Bush announced a new strategy for Iraq. He called it the surge. "Many listening tonight will ask why this effort will succeed when previous operations to secure Baghdad did not. Well, here are the differences," he told a skeptical nation. Among those listening were the young, optimistic army infantry soldiers of the 2-16, the battalion nicknamed the Rangers. About to head to a vicious area of Baghdad, they decided the difference would be them. Fifteen months later, the soldiers returned home forever changed. Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter David Finkel was with them in Bagdad, and almost every grueling step of the way. What was the true story of the surge? And was it really a success? Those are the questions he grapples with in his remarkable report from the front lines. Combining the action of Mark Bowden's Black Hawk Down with the literary brio of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, The Good Soldiers is an unforgettable work of reportage. And in telling the story of these good soldiers, the heroes and the ruined, David Finkel has also produced an eternal tale-- not just of the Iraq War, but of all wars, for all time.
The Monuments Men by Robert Edsel Faculty Sponsor: Mr. Duhaime
Description: At the same time Adolf Hitler was attempting to take over the western world, his armies were methodically seeking and hoarding the finest art treasures in Europe. The Fuehrer had begun cataloguing the art he planned to collect as well as the art he would destroy: "degenerate" works he despised. In a race against time, behind enemy lines, often unarmed, a special force of American and British museum directors, curators, art historians, and others, called the Monuments Men, risked their lives scouring Europe to prevent the destruction of thousands of years of culture. Focusing on the eleven-month period between D-Day and V-E Day, this fascinating account follows six Monuments Men and their impossible mission to save the world's great art from the Nazis.
The Natural by Bernard Malamud Faculty Sponsor: Mr. Rankin
Description: The Natural, Bernard Malamud’s first novel, published in 1952, is also the first—and some would say still the best—novel ever written about baseball. In it Malamud, usually appreciated for his unerring portrayals of postwar Jewish life, took on very different material—the story of a superbly gifted “natural” at play in the fields of the old daylight baseball era—and invested it with the hardscrabble poetry, at once grand and altogether believable, that runs through all his best work. Four decades later, Alfred Kazin’s comment still holds true: “Malamud has done something which—now that he has done it!—looks as if we have been waiting for it all our lives. He has really raised the whole passion and craziness and fanaticism of baseball as a popular spectacle to its ordained place in mythology.”
2015 Summer Reading Book List
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane Faculty Sponsor: Mrs. Morrison
Description: First published in 1895, this small masterpiece set the pattern for the treatment of war in modern fiction. The novel is told through the eyes of Henry Fleming, a young soldier caught up in an unnamed Civil War battle who is motivated not by the unselfish heroism of conventional war stories, but by fear, cowardice, and finally, egotism. However, in his struggle to find reality amid the nightmarish chaos of war, the young soldier also discovers courage, humility, and perhaps, wisdom. Although Crane had never been in battle before writing The Red Badge of Courage, the book was widely praised by experienced soldiers for its uncanny re-creation of the sights, sounds, and sense of actual combat. Its publication brought Crane immediate international fame and established him as a major American writer. Today, nearly a century later, the book ranks as an enduring landmark of American fiction.
The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut Faculty Sponsor: Mr. Loan
Description: The Sirens of Titan is an outrageous romp through space, time, and morality. The richest, most depraved man on Earth, Malachi Constant, is offered a chance to take a space journey to distant worlds with a beautiful woman at his side. Of course there's a catch to the invitation—and a prophetic vision about the purpose of human life that only Vonnegut has the courage to tell
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien Faculty Sponsor: Mr. Kiser
Description: They carried malaria tablets, love letters, 28-pound mine detectors, dope, illustrated bibles, each other. And if they made it home alive, they carried unrelenting images of a nightmarish war that history is only beginning to absorb. Since its first publication, The Things They Carried has become an unparalleled Vietnam testament, a classic work of American literature, and a profound study of men at war that illuminates the capacity, and the limits, of the human heart and soul.
The Work: My Search for A Life That Matters by Wes Moore Faculty Sponsor: Mr. Uhler
Description: The Work is the story of how one young man traced a path through the world to find his life’s purpose. Wes Moore graduated from a difficult childhood in the Bronx and Baltimore to an adult life that would find him at some of the most critical moments in our recent history: as a combat officer in Afghanistan; a White House fellow in a time of wars abroad and disasters at home; and a Wall Street banker during the financial crisis. In this insightful book, Moore shares the lessons he learned from people he met along the way—from the brave Afghan translator who taught him to find his fight, to the resilient young students in Katrina-ravaged Mississippi who showed him the true meaning of grit, to his late grandfather, who taught him to find grace in service.
The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers Faculty Sponsor: Mr. Blunt
Description: A novel written by a veteran of the war in Iraq, The Yellow Birds is the harrowing story of two young soldiers trying to stay alive. "The war tried to kill us in the spring." So begins this powerful account of friendship and loss. In Al Tafar, Iraq, twenty-one-year old Private Bartle and eighteen-year-old Private Murphy cling to life as their platoon launches a bloodyBook is full for Sign battle for the city. Bound together since basic training when Bartle makes a promise-ups to bring Murphy safely home, the two have been dropped into a war neither is prepared for.”
2015 Summer Reading Book List
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand Faculty Sponsor: Mr. Moroz
Description: On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared.Book is full for Sign It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling-ups to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War.
WAR by Sebastian Junger Faculty Sponsor: Mr. Thorp
Description: “In his breakout bestseller, The Perfect Storm, Sebastian Junger created "a wild ride that brilliantly captures the awesome power of the raging sea and the often futile attempts of humans to withstand it". Now, he turns his brilliant and empathetic eye to the reality of combat—the fear, the honor and the trust among men in an extremeBook is full for Sign situation whose survival depends on their absolute commitment to one another.-ups His on-the-ground account follows a single platoon through a 15 month tour of duty in the most dangerous outpost in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley.”