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Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
1951 classic novel follows 2 days in the life of 16-year-old Holden Caulfield after he has been expelled from prep school. Confused and disillusioned, Holden searches for truth and rails against the “phoniness” of the adult world.
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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow. This improbable story of Christopher’s quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog.
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Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Talented tomboy and author-to-be Jo, tragically frail Beth, beautiful Meg, and romantic, spoiled Amy, are united in their devotion to each other and their struggles to survive in New England during the Civil War.
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Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
A novel in free verse that tells the story of an African American teen boy at a crossroads. Determined to avenge his 19-year-old brother's death, Will, age 15, takes his brother's gun out of their shared bedroom to kill the person he's certain is the murderer, but it's a long way down in the elevator.
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The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat
The "dew breaker" is a quiet man, a good father and husband. As the book switches between Haiti in the 1960s and New York City present day, the reader learns that the dew breaker has kept a vital, dangerous secret.
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In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
Set during the waning days of the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic in 1960, this novel tells the story of the Mirabal sisters, 3 young wives and mothers who are assassinated after visiting their jailed husbands.
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Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
A novel in free verse that tells the story of an African American teen boy at a crossroads. Determined to avenge his 19-year-old brother's death, Will, age 15, takes his brother's gun out of their shared bedroom to kill the person he's certain is the murderer, but it's a long way down in the elevator.
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Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
On his journey to seek spiritual fulfillment and wisdom, Siddhartha experiences life’s vital passages–love, work, friendship, and fatherhood-- and discovers that true knowledge is guided from within.
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Black Boy by Richard Wright
Richard Wright's powerful account of his journey from innocence to experience in the Jim Crow South.
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Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks
Bethia is a restless and curious young woman growing up in Martha’s vineyard in the 1660s when she meets Caleb, the young son of a chieftain. The two forge a secret bond that draws each into the alien world of the other.
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I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez.
Part mystery, part love story, part inner quest. In I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, the vibrant teen protagonist struggles to prove who she is not, and in that journey, discovers who she is: stronger, braver, more worthy of loving and living than she ever imagined.
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Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
A novel in free verse that tells the story of an African American teen boy at a crossroads. Determined to avenge his 19-year-old brother's death, Will, age 15, takes his brother's gun out of their shared bedroom to kill the person he's certain is the murderer, but it's a long way down in the elevator.
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Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
A letter to the author's teenage son about the feelings, symbolism, and realities associated with being Black in the United States.
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Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
An unforgettable account of an idealistic, gifted young lawyer’s coming of age, a moving window into the lives of those he has defended, and an inspiring argument for compassion in the pursuit of true justice.
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My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor
The first Hispanic and third woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor recounts her life from a Bronx housing project to the federal bench, a journey that offers an inspiring testament to her own extraordinary determination and the power of believing in oneself.
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Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania by Frank Bruni
An inspiring manifesto about everything wrong with today's frenzied college admissions process and how to make the most of your college years
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Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
"A young woman from Nigeria leaves behind her home and her first love to start a new life in America, only to find her dreams are not all she expected
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Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
Memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants and raised in the slums of Limerick, Ireland. Frank's mother, Angela, has no money to feed the children since Frank's father, Malachy, rarely works, and when he does he drinks his wages.
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Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
Author Jacqueline Woodson, tells the story of her childhood in mesmerizing verse. Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement.
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Sooley by John Grisham
After seventeen-year-old Samuel "Sooley" Sooleymon receives a college scholarship to play basketball for North Carolina Central, he moves to Durham from his native, war-torn South Sudan, enrolls in classes, joins the team, and prepares to sit out his freshman season, but Sooley has a fierce determination to succeed so he can bring his family to America, working tirelessly on his game until he dominates everyone in practice, and when Sooley is called off the bench, the legend begins.
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All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
A blind French girl and a German boy paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.
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Beloved by Toni Morrison
After Paul D. finds his old slave friend Sethe in Ohio and moves in with her and her daughter Denver, a strange girl comes along by the name of "Beloved." Sethe and Denver take her in and then strange things begin to happen. Set in rural Ohio several years after the Civil War, Beloved is a profoundly affecting chronicle of slavery and its aftermath.
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Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
With wit and dark humor, Atwood projects a conceivable future of the world, an outlandish yet wholly believable place left devastated in the wake of ecological and scientific disaster
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Lord of the Flies by William Golding
At the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an uncharted island, stranding a group of boys. At first, their freedom is something to celebrate. But as order collapses, as strange howls echo in the night, as terror begins its reign, the hope of adventure seems as far removed from reality as the hope of being rescued
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Bruneschelli’s Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture by Ross King
Even today, in an age of skyscrapers, the cathedral dome of Santa Maria del Fiore is an engineering puzzle of the Renaissance and one of the world's architectural marvels.
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The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History by Robert Darnton
The landmark history of France and French culture in the eighteenth-century answers questions like: Why did the wolf eat the child at the end in the 18th century version of Little Red Riding Hood?
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Guns, Germs and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
A world history that really is a history of all the world's peoples. This book dismantles racially based theories of human history by revealing the environmental factors responsible for history's broadest patterns spanning 13,000 years of human history.
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Heretics and Heroes: How Renaissance Artists and Reformation Priests Created our World byThomas Cahill
Popular history focusing on the Renaissance and Reformation and how this innovative period changed the Western world.
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Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling by Ross King
From Michelangelo's art experiments to his competition with the painter Raphael, Ross King presents a magnificent tapestry of day-to-day life on the ingenious Sistine scaffolding and outside in the upheaval of early-sixteenth-century Rome.
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The Boy Who Couldn’t Stop Washing by Judith L. Rapoport
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) afflicts up to 6 million Americans. Now a distinguished psychiatrist and expert on OCD reveals exciting breakthroughs in diagnosis, successful new behaviorist therapies and drug treatments, as well as lists of resources and references.
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The New Jim Crow : Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
Despite the triumphant dismantling of the Jim Crow Laws, the system that once forced African Americans into a segregated second-class citizenship still haunts America, the US criminal justice system still unfairly targets black men and an entire segment of the population is deprived of their basic rights. Outside of prisons, a web of laws and regulations discriminates against these wrongly convicted ex-offenders in voting, housing, employment and education. Alexander here offers an urgent call for justice.
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La Casa de Bernarda Alba by Federico García Lorca
Completed only two months before the playwright's murder in 1936, this play was first performed in 1945. It focuses on a household in Andalusia in a period of mourning. The title character, Bernarda Alba, is in control of both the household and her five daughters.
