AP ENGLISH LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION SUMMER READING ASSIGNMENT 2023-2024 PDF Free Download
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AP ENGLISH LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION
SUMMER READING ASSIGNMENT 2023-2024
Welcome to AP English Literature & Composition. In order to get ready for the new
school year, you will be reading two great pieces of literature.
You must select TWO (2) of the following novels to read (and enjoy!). Annotate and
highlight as needed for character, plot, theme, any notable narrative style, etc. Within
the first two weeks of school, you will have two graded assignments: essay and round
table discussion. (All book descriptions provided by Amazon.com.)
The Samurai’s Garden by Gail Tsukiyama
The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle
Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
*Passing by Nella Larsen
*Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
*Emma by Jane Austen
THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD BY ZORA NEALE HURSTON
One of the most important and enduring books of the twentieth century,
Their Eyes
Were Watching God
brings to life a Southern love story with the wit and pathos found
only in the writing of Zora Neale Hurston. Out of print for almost thirty years—due
largely to initial audiences’ rejection of its strong black female protagonist—Hurston’s
classic has since its 1978 reissue become perhaps the most widely read and highly
acclaimed novel in the canon of African-American literature
THE SAMURAI’S GARDEN BY GAIL TSUKIYAMA
The daughter of a Chinese mother and a Japanese father, Tsukiyama uses the
Japanese invasion of China during the late 1930s as a somber backdrop for her unusual
story about a 20-year-old Chinese painter named Stephen who is sent to his family's
summer home in a Japanese coastal village to recover from a bout with tuberculosis.
Here he is cared for by Matsu, a reticent housekeeper and a master gardener. Over the
course of a remarkable year, Stephen learns Matsu's secret and gains not only physical
strength, but also profound spiritual insight.
THE TORTILLA CURTAIN BY T.C. BOYLE
Topanga Canyon is home to two couples on a collision course. Los Angeles liberals
Delaney and Kyra Mossbacher lead an ordered sushi-and-recycling existence in a
newly gated hilltop community: he a sensitive nature writer, she an obsessive realtor.
Mexican illegals Candido and America Rincon desperately cling to their vision of the
American Dream as they fight off starvation in a makeshift camp deep in the ravine. And
from the moment a freak accident brings Candido and Delaney into intimate contact,
these four and their opposing worlds gradually intersect in what becomes a
tragicomedy of error and misunderstanding.
KITE RUNNER BY KHALED HOSSEINI
The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy
and the son of his father's servant,
The Kite Runner
is a beautifully crafted novel set in a
country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the
price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption; and an exploration of the power of
fathers over sons—their love, their sacrifices, their lies.
A sweeping story of family, love, and friendship told against the devastating backdrop
of the history of Afghanistan over the last thirty years,
The Kite Runner
is an unusual
and powerful novel that has become a beloved, one-of-a-kind classic
A FAREWELL TO ARMS BY ERNEST HEMINGWAY
The classic novel of love during wartime. Written when Ernest Hemingway was thirty
years old and lauded as the best American novel to emerge from World War I,
A
Farewell to Arms
is the unforgettable story of an American ambulance driver on the
Italian front and his passion for a beautiful English nurse. Set against the looming
horrors of the battlefield—weary, demoralized men marching in the rain during the
German attack on Caporetto; the profound struggle between loyalty and desertion—this
gripping, semiautobiographical work captures the harsh realities of war and the pain of
lovers caught in its inexorable sweep.
THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY BY OSCAR WILDE
Oscar Wilde’s only full-length novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray” was first published in
1890 and is the classic tale of the moral decline of its title character, Dorian Gray. While
Dorian has his portrait painted by Basil Hallward he is lectured to by Lord Henry
Wotton, who espouses a hedonistic world view. Dorian is drawn to Wotton’s belief that
beauty and sensuality are the only things in life worth pursuing and wishes that he
would stay young while his portrait changes instead.
THE BOOK THIEF BY MARCUS ZUSAK
When Death has a story to tell, you listen. It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is
holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still. Liesel
Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager
existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist -
books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and
shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the
Jewish man hidden in her basement.
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* PASSING BY NELLA LARSON
Irene Redfield is a Black woman living an affluent, comfortable life with her husband
and children in the thriving neighborhood of Harlem in the 1920s. When she reconnects
with her childhood friend Clare Kendry, who is similarly light-skinned, Irene discovers
that Clare has been passing for a white woman after severing ties to her past—even
hiding the truth from her racist husband.
Clare finds herself drawn to Irene’s sense of ease and security with her Black identity
and longs for the community (and, increasingly, the woman) she lost. Irene is both
riveted and repulsed by Clare and her dangerous secret, as Clare begins to insert
herself—and her deception—into every part of Irene’s stable existence. First published
in 1929, Larsen’s brilliant examination of the various ways in which we all seek to
“pass,” is as timely as ever.
* EMMA BY JANE AUSTEN
Jane Austen teased readers with the idea of a 'heroine whom no one but myself will
much like', but Emma is irresistible. 'Handsome, clever, and rich', Emma is also an
'imaginist', 'on fire with speculation and foresight'. She sees the signs of romance all
around her, but thinks she will never be married. Her matchmaking maps out
relationships that Jane Austen ironically tweaks into a clearer perspective. Judgement
and imagination are matched in games the reader too can enjoy, and the end is a
triumph of understanding.
* CLOUD CUCKOO LAND BY ANTHONY DOERR
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of All the Light We Cannot See, comes the
instant New York Times bestseller that is a “wildly inventive, a humane and uplifting
book for adults that’s infused with the magic of childhood reading experiences”
(The New York Times Book Review).
Among the most celebrated and beloved novels of 2021, Anthony Doerr’s gorgeous
third novel is a triumph of imagination and compassion, a soaring story about children
on the cusp of adulthood in worlds in peril, who find resilience, hope—and a book.
In Cloud Cuckoo Land, Doerr has created a magnificent tapestry of times and places
that reflects our vast interconnectedness—with other species, with each other, with
those who lived before us, and with those who will be here after we’re gone.
* These three novels are pending board approval.
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