Woodberry Forest School Summer Reading Program 2017 We hope that all Woodberry students are already readers, already know the pleasures of sinking into a great book, and already have a stack of books waiting for this summer. To nudge those of you who haven’t quite made that discovery yet, we are asking you to read three books from the following list over the summer. One of those must be the book selected for an all- school reading assignment by the headmaster, described below. The other two will be your choice from this list we have provided. If you see that a faculty member has recommended a particular book, feel free to ask that faculty member for additional information. In the fall your English teacher will ask you to fill out a pledged questionnaire about your reading. You will receive full credit, partial credit, or no credit depending upon the amount of reading you do. Please understand that summer reading will be figured into your English grade for the fall trimester and that it will have a significant impact on your average. If you read more than the required three books, you will receive extra credit for other books you choose from this list or from a list that you and your English teacher generate (with mutually acceptable titles) before you leave for the summer. Please remember that this program requires reading, not listening to a recorded book instead. Headmaster’s selection for 2017: The Road to Character by David Brooks Your parents and teachers know David Brooks, the noted conservative observer of politics and society, as a New York Times columnist and a commentator on NPR and PBS. Now you will meet him as a fellow traveler on the road to character. This highly acclaimed work of nonfiction asks its readers to consider how each of us is capable of building a character based on “eulogy virtues”—that is, those qualities that people will remember after we die. Be sure to engage the author's thoughts in the last chapter on "The Big Me" - and consider the relevance of that idea in your life and our in common life together at Woodberry Forest. To complement the headmaster’s selection, students may choose any two books from the following choices to satisfy the three-book summer reading requirement: Mysteries and Thrillers His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet A brutal triple murder in a remote Scottish farming community in 1869 leads to the arrest of seventeen-year-old Roderick Macrae. There is no question that Macrae committed this terrible act. What would lead such a shy and intelligent boy down this bloody path? And will he hang for his crime? Graeme Macrae Burnet’s multilayered narrative—centered on an unreliable narrator—will keep the reader guessing to the very end. His Bloody Project is a deeply imagined crime novel that is both thrilling and luridly entertaining from an exceptional new voice. Recommended by Liz Lonergan Red Dragon by Thomas Harris First, please, look at Wiliam Blake's terrifying print The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun. Look carefully at the print and then read the novel and see how a retired FBI profiler has to determine exactly what's going on. This was the first novel to introduce the character of Hannibal Lector to the world. Recommended by John Reimers Before the Fall by Noah Hawley A private plane crashes in the ocean soon after take off from Martha’s Vineyard, and Scott Burroughs, a painter who has hitched a ride, manages to survive. He discovers that he is not alone, and he starts swimming with a four-year-old boy in tow. This novel is part survival story and part mystery. Was someone targeted on the plane? The background story of each person who died provides clues. Recommended by Karen Broaddus. 11/22/63 by Stephen King The most memorable event of my childhood, outside the boundaries of my own family life, occurred on November 22, 1963, with the tragic assassination of America's 35th president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy. The United States would never be quite the same following that day. Stephen King's mesmerizing time-travel fiction novel, 11/22/63, leads the reader on a suspenseful trip back to the early 1960's, tracing the path of Kennedy's alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, to the sixth floor shooter's nest of the Texas School Book Depository building in Dallas on that sun-splashed November afternoon. Join me on this fascinating and historically- based adventure to understand more fully the significance of the untimely death of one of our most charismatic and inspiring American leaders. Recommended by Steve Stancill End of Watch by Stephen King If you read Mr. Mercedes and Finders Keepers over the past couple of summers, then you’re ready for Part 3 of what has become known at the Bill Hodges Trilogy. Bill Hodges gets sick in this one; Brady Hartsfield gets well. Don’t expect to be able to put the book down. If you haven’t started this trilogy yet, read the first book in the series, Mr. Mercedes. We’ll count that and/or Finders Keepers if you read one or both this summer. Recommended by Ted Blain The Risen by Ron Rash Forty-six years after a teenage girl visiting from Florida disappears in a North Carolina town, her corpse appears in the bank of a creek wrapped in a blue tarp. Eugene recalls that summer when Ligeia would secretly meet him and his brother Bill by that creek while they were trout fishing. The mystery of her death and her relationship with the two brothers makes for suspenseful reading. Mature content. Recommended by Karen Broaddus. My Sunshine Away by M. O. Walsh In Baton Rouge in 1989, a fifteen-year-old girl is attacked and raped outside her home. The narrator of this mystery is a younger boy who loves Lindy from afar. In this poignant coming-of-age tale, Walsh explores the hidden relationships in suburbia. Recommended by Karen Broaddus. Nonfiction What a Fish Knows by Jonathan Balcombe Not a fishy tale; an adroitly written, non technical, tour through the joyful flights of the mobula rays to the friendliness of sharks(once they know you're not a threat) to the social hierarchies, to the creatures' understandings that ought to lead to our better understandings of their being sentient creatures. And such reminds us that we might recall our common descent since we do go through the gill stage. The fish are here for a larger purpose; we ought to protect them. Recommended by John Reimers Carnivore Minds by G.A. Bradshaw How can different grizzles walk through a herd of cows and calves and the bovines are undisturbed but when the rancher on horseback enters the area all the cattle get up and move? Our understandings of carnivores(sharks, orcas, crocodiles, etc.) are misconceptions and the ethologists and biologists have been correcting the portraits. Bradshaw has written a stylish book--based on much research(not loaded with technical terms)that corrects preconceived ideas. Learn and help. Recommended by John Reimers Science Is Not Enough by Vannevar Bush At amazon.com you'll find more than a dozen books with "Is Not Enough" in their titles. This book is the oldest among them. Bush headed the CIA and the World War II engineering and science offices, and he writes with clarity, purpose, and not a drop of the look-at-me splash so common in writers today. It's like science fiction in reverse: What was an imaginative engineer thinking fifty years ago? Reading it is like being stuck on an upriver barge with your maternal grandfather who's not interested in entertaining you; but you can tell from the dignified way he talks that he respects you; that you come from a line of people who dignify you; that he loves you; and that he cares as much about your future as you do. And at the end of the ride, you realize you have made a huge mistake in taking his generation for granted. Recommended by Paul Erb Quiet: the Power of Introverts in a World that Won't Stop Talking by Susan Cain At least one-third of the people we know are introverts. They are the ones who prefer listening to speaking; who innovate and create but dislike self-promotion; who favor working on their own over working in teams. It is to introverts—Rosa Parks, Chopin, Dr. Seuss, Steve Wozniak—that we owe many of the great contributions to society. In Quiet, Susan Cain argues that we dramatically undervalue introverts and shows how much we lose in doing so. Passionately argued, superbly researched, and filled with indelible stories of real people, Quiet has the power to permanently change how we see introverts and, equally important, how they see themselves. Recommended by Karen Bond Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work by Matthew B. Crawford This bestselling book of opinions and experience comes from the pen of a Ph.D. who decided to put his academic skills to use in a hands-on way. Without preaching, his clear and critical account of motorcycle mechanics balances real problems with useful ideas, resulting in some fresh thoughts about how to make the most of your schooling. If you like both thinking about stuff and building stuff, this book will not disappoint. And while you're reading it you'll think of good people you have known well and long ago.