Twelfth Grade Regents

Summer 2009 Required Reading

Each 12R student is required to read one book from the fiction list and one from the non-fiction list. Students are required to keep a Reading Log which will be used and collected as part of the summer reading assessment in September. The Reading Log should include quotes, notes, interpretations, and student responses.

FICTION

	Albom, Mitch - The Five People You Meet in Heaven Eddie dies and awakes in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a destination. It's a place where your life is explained to you by five people, some of whom you knew, others who may have been strangers.
	Brashares, Ann - The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Four best girlfriends spend the biggest summer of their lives enchanted and connected by a magical pair of pants.
	Chopin, Kate - The Awakening Edna Pontellier, a young wife and mother, experiences the first pangs of passion and desire--an awakening so intense that Edna compromises herself--changing her life forever.
	Dostoevsky, Fyodor - Crime and Punishment A poverty-stricken young man is faced with an opportunity to solve his financial problems with one simple but horrifying act.
	Evanovich, Janet - One for the Money Bail-bonds apprehension agent Stephanie Plum--a New Jersey bounty hunter with an attitude--pursues a former vice cop with whom she shares a sordid history and a powerful chemistry.
	Hesse, Herman - Siddhartha Siddhartha, a young man, leaves his family for a contemplative life, then, restless, discards it for one of the flesh. He conceives a son, but bored and sickened by lust and greed, moves on again. Near despair, Siddhartha comes to a river where he hears a unique sound. This sound signals the true beginning of his life.
	Kinsella, Sophie - Confessions of a Shopaholic Becky Bloomwood is bored to death writing for Successful Saving. So, with a handsome credit line from her bank, she liberates herself the best way she knows how -- by shopping! Think of it as an investment, she tells herself. But, soon she is buried in bank notices and cursed VISA bills.
	Morrison, Toni - Paradise In 1976, in rural Oklahoma, nine men from the nearby town of Ruby attack a former convent now occupied by women fleeing from abusive husbands or lovers, or otherwise unhappy pasts--"women who chose themselves for company,'' whose solidarity and solitude rebuke the male-dominated culture that now exacts its revenge.
	Rand, Ayn - The Fountainhead The story of a inflexible young architect, his violent battle against conventional standards, and his explosive love affair with a beautiful woman who struggles to defeat him.
	Schlink, Bernhard - The Reader A fifteen-year-old boy, Michael Berg becomes embroiled in a passionate, clandestine love affair with an older woman, an event that has a profound impact on his life, especially years later, when he, now a law student, encounters her as a criminal on trial.
	Shakespeare, William - The Taming of the Shrew This play deals with love and marriage. Lucentio cannot marry the pleasant Bianca until her sister Kate - the shrew - is married. Petruchio agrees to court Kate, for a handsome dowry. So Petruchio begins the process of taming Kate.
	Shakespeare, William - The Tempest Exiled by his evil brother, Prospero (the rightful Duke of Milan) seeks to regain his title. Using his magic powers, he creates the "tempest" and draws the ship bearing King Alonso and Duke Antonio to his enchanted island.
	Silva, Daniel - The Mark of the Assassin Set in London, Cairo, Amsterdam, and Washington, the story line follows CIA case agent Michael Osbourne as he attempts to locate the terrorists who shot down an airliner off the coast of Long Island.
	Tan, Amy - The Kitchen God's Wife A Chinese emigre mother tells her American-born daughter the story of her old life in the war-torn China of the 1940's.
	Vonnegut, Kurt - Cat's Cradle Filled with humor and unforgettable characters, this apocalyptic story tells of Earth's ultimate end, and presents a vision of the future that is both darkly fantastic and funny, as Vonnegut weaves a satirical commentary on modern man and his madness.
	Yolen, Jane & Coville, Bruce - Armageddon Summer Fourteen-year-old Marina and sixteen-year-old Jed accompany their parents' religious cult, the Believers, to await the end of the world atop a remote mountain, where they try to decide what they themselves believe.

NON-FICTION

	Albom, Mitch - Tuesdays With Morrie A Detroit sportswriter conveys the wisdom and life lessons of his late mentor, professor Morrie Schwartz, recounting their weekly conversations as Schwartz lay dying.
	Ashe, Arthur - Days of Grace The late tennis champion, activist, and AIDS victim remembers his experiences in the segregated South of his youth, his triumphs on the court, his family and religious life, and his struggle with his disease.
	Brokaw, Tom - The Greatest Generation One of NBC's most famous anchormen celebrates the greatest generation in history--Americans born in the 1920s who came of age during the Great Depression, fought in World War II, and went on to build America.
	Brown, Dee - Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee Fully documented account of the systematic destruction of the American Indian during the second half of the 19th century.
	Campbell, Joseph - The Power of Myth This book, written in question-and-answer format, touches on subjects from modern marriage to virgin births, from Jesus to John Lennon, translating events into
	Gates, Bill with Collins Hemingway - Business @ the Speed Of Thought Bill Gates discusses how technology can help run businesses better today and how it will transform the nature of business in the near future. Gates stresses the need for managers to view technology not as overhead but as a strategic asset, and offers detailed examples from Microsoft, GM, Dell, and many other successful companies.
	Goleman, Daniel - Emotional Intelligence Based on the most recent studies in psychology and neuroscience, a report on the rational and emotional properties of the human mind explains how they shape everything from personal success to physical well being.
	Hawking, Stephen - A Brief History of Time Among the topics covered in this book are gravity, black holes, the Big Bang, the nature of time, and physicists' search for a grand unifying theory.
	Hillenbrand, Laura - Seabiscuit: An American Legend The story of one horse's journey from also-ran to national luminary. Seabiscuit: an American legend is an inspiring tale of unlikely heroes, a classic story of three embattled individuals overcoming the odds in the Great Depression.
	Junger, Sebastian - The Perfect Storm Meteorologists called the storm that hit North America's eastern seaboard in October 1991 a "perfect storm" because of the rare combination of factors that created it. For everyone else, it was perfect hell.
	King, Jr., Dr. Martin Luther - Stride Toward Freedom Chronicles the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott sparked by Mrs. Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her seat to a white male, describing the plans and problems of a nonviolent campaign, reprisals by the white community, and the eventual attainment of desegrated city bus service.
	McCourt, Frank - Angela's Ashes The autobiography discusses how a Brooklyn boy returns to the slums of Limerick, Ireland with his immigrant parents.
	McCourt, Frank - 'Tis: A Memoir In the sequel to Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt shares his story as an impoverished immigrant to his career as a teacher.
	Nien, Cheng - Life and Death in Shanghai Cheng, now a U. S. resident, tells of her persecution and imprisonment during China's "Cultural Revolution" under Chairman Mao.
	Noble, Christina - Bridge Across My Sorrows Noble's tale of her own broken childhood and her chosen mission to help street children and orphans in Vietnam.
	Pelzer, Dave - A Child Called "It" This book is a brief, biographical account of one child's courage to survive the bizarre tortures a mother inflicted on her son, told from the point of view of the author as a young boy.
	Scheindlin, Judy - Beauty Fades, Dumb is Forever Author, "Judge Judy" draws liberally upon her own experiences as both a family court judge and television judge to illustrate her basic point that women must have their own dreams and not lose themselves in relationships that strip them of their individuality.
	Stanley, Thomas, J. - The Millionaire Next Door This expose of America's rich and how they achieved their wealth and status exposes the myth of inherited wealth and instead reveals that hard work, living below one's means, and diligent savings are more often the creators of true wealth.
	Steinbeck, John - Travels With Charley With his dog Charley, John Steinbeck set out in his truck to explore and experience America in the 1960s.
	Turow, Scott - One L Memoirs adapted from the author's diary chronicle his emotionally and intellectually challenging first year in law school and records the fierce and sometimes hysterical competition that is faced by Harvard Law School students .