By Isabelle Lounsberry
With academics, extracurriculars, jobs, etc., sometimes it’s hard to make time to read for pleasure. Heck, sometimes we forget that reading can be a pleasure. Below, AHS teachers and students share recommendations of some of their favorite books to help you get back in the reading game.
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
This story focuses on police brutality against people of color, where Khalil, unarmed, was murdered by a white police officer. The only person to witness it was Starr, who has to deal with the aftermath: her “ghetto” neighborhood revolting and having to keep the fact that she was there from her friends at the white school she goes to. When false assumptions of Khalil’s character are made, she has to learn how to be brave and speak up for Khalil, telling the public the details of what actually happened that night. I like that it gives insight into the environment of living where gangs are active and shootings are a common occurrence. As a white person living in a relatively suburban neighborhood, it is very enlightening. This book was published in 2017 as Angie Thomas’s debut novel, and it has gained extreme recognition and there are rumors of a movie coming out in 2018.
-Lenaia Powell, sophomore
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
My favorite book, it is a mostly true book about the murder of Grace Brown (who was pregnant) by Chester Gillette (the father of the child) in the early 1900’s. The character’s names are changed in the book to Roberta Alden and Clyde Griffiths, but the story is based on transcripts from Gillette’s actual trial. I found this book as a teenager in my college-age brother’s room, and it was my first journey into the True Crime genre, something that still fascinates me. Dreiser’s exploration of the desperation of both Robert and Clyde is incredibly insightful, and the window into the culture of the Industrial Period is nothing short of amazing. I actually reread this book every couple of years, and I always find something new to pique my interest. Even though the views on pregnancy outside of marriage are far more progressive now, the extreme reluctance of Clyde to become a father and Roberta’s terror at facing the pregnancy alone still resonates today.
-Cathy Lynn Brown, AP English Language and Composition, Debate I, II, III, & IV, Debate Coach/FFL Treasurer
The Gene by Siddartha Mukherjee.
The protagonist is the author. He is a medical doctor who is reflecting on his family’s frequency of inherited schizophrenia. Dr. Mukherjee explores what we have learned about genetics and disease over the past 60 years and looks to possibilities and ethical concerns of future human genetics-based medicine that is at our doorstep, with the backdrop of relating what has been learned to his family’s disease history. My favorite aspect is that it is easy to understand for non-scientists. This book is a very thorough look back into the past and into the future of human genetics and medicine.
-Megan Jandy, AP Biology; Medical Interventions
A Theory of Everything by Ken Wilber
The Protagonist is YOU! A Theory of Everything provides (or more accurately, offers) a comprehensive framework on viewing and wading through this chaotic world, touching on topics ranging from personal identity, politics, society, spirituality, and more. Far from being forceful or condescending, the author simply extends his perspectives on life and existence by making them relatable, clear, and simply logical. It is the kind of brand new ideas that just ‘make sense’.
-Evan Chabot, Digital Photography
It’s So Easy (and other lies) by Duff McKagan.
Duff McKagan is a flawed character redeemed by his wit and his sincere path towards self-improvement. Duff McKagan tells his own story as the founding bassist of Guns and Roses and recovering addict. His “voice” is strong, at the same time uniquely his and yet familiar. The book reads like a conversation with a close friend. Also, party “like a rock-star” doesn’t mean what you think it does.
-David Cintron, ESOL
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
A young man named Kvothe, both mysterious and powerful, tells his story to a wandering biographer. A boy in a traveling performing troupe has to survive and discover his way in the world after his parents and every person he loves is murdered for writing the wrong sort of song. The language is beautiful, and the story can be sorrowful. I own five copies of this book to always lend out to friends.
-Daniel Trompeter, English 2 and AP Literature
The Noticer by Andy Andrews
Jones: an “old” man who shows people that all they need is a little perspective. People go through life with ups and downs. Not everyone easily moves from the downs back to the ups. This mysterious man shows people how perspective on life matters and helps them change their lives. Even though it is a short (156 pages) fiction, all aspects of this book can be applied to life and change the way you think. Even students of mine that don’t open their eyes in the class asked to borrow this book after reading the first couple of chapters.
-Jason Wagner, English 3
The Traveler’s Gift by Andy Andrews
David Ponder is a proud businessman. Well, he was a proud businessman. Now that he has lost his job he doesn’t know who he is anymore. David Ponder begins to lose his grip on life when he is fired from his job and doesn’t know his place in the world, but before he can put his life back together he must go on a journey to discover who he really is and what matters most. I discovered this book when I was at a very pivotal point in my life. After a series of both positive and negative events, the world as I knew it was gone. While reading, I was able to identify and relate to “The Seven Decisions for Success” on a deep, personal level. This helped to provide me not only a better outlook but also a clearer direction for how I needed to start the next chapter of my life. Don’t let all of the reviews and talk about this being a business book fool you. The lessons learned in this book can be applied to almost any aspect of your life.
-April Willard, Digital Media Specialist
Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas
The protagonist is Celaena Sardothien, a renowned and headstrong 18-year-old assassin. After being betrayed by her master and subsequently imprisoned, Celaena must compete in a royal competition in order to regain her freedom; or at least, the illusion of freedom. Throughout the competition, she forms bonds with the king’s son and the captain of the guard and uncovers potentially deadly secrets about the kingdom. What’s not to love about a strong female lead that beats everyone else in armed combat, unarmed combat, and mental tests? I can’t think of anything I didn’t like about this novel. The main series has five books with a sixth coming out soon, as well as a prequel novel and a spin-off novel that takes place before and during the fifth book.
-Madison Jones, senior
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
Chick, what is more important, family or acceptance? Geek Love is the story of the Binewskis, a carny family whose mater and paterfamilias set out–with the help of amphetamine, arsenic, and radioisotopes–to breed their own exhibit of human oddities. There’s Arturo, the Aqua Boy, who has flippers for limbs and a megalomaniac ambition worthy of Genghis Khan, Iphy, and Elly, the lissome Siamese twins, the albino hunchback Oly, and the outwardly normal Chick, whose mysterious gifts make him the family’s most precious– and dangerous– asset.
As the Binewskis take their act across the backwaters of the U.S., inspiring fanatical devotion and murderous revulsion; as its members conduct their own Machiavellian version of sibling rivalry, Geek Love throws its sulfurous light on our notions of the freakish and the normal, the beautiful and the ugly, the holy and the obscene. Family values will never be the same. I read this book many many years ago, and I still think about and remember it. That, to me, is a powerful book. It went out of print for several years and I would give my copy to friends to read. My poor paperback copy is worn and loved, but I still have it. The book has touched everyone who has read it. They either love or hate it–, there is no middle ground. Another sign of a great book– it makes you feel.
-Erin Miner, Theatre
The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789 by Joseph J. Ellis
The unexpected story of why the thirteen colonies, having just fought off the imposition of a distant centralized governing power, would decide to subordinate themselves anew. (stolen this from the book cover). The best part, in my opinion, is James Madison and his tactical style of winning the debate, a true politician.I enjoyed the entire book, cover to cover. Some other books by the same author:
1. Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence (Might want to read this before The Quartet)
2. Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation
-Tom Whitcomb, Liberal Arts Math 2
Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS by Jobi Warrick
The people who are tirelessly striving for peace in a troubled place and time. Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction, this book traces how the strain of militant Islam behind ISIS first arose in a remote Jordanian prison and spread with the unwitting aid of two American presidents. Drawing on unique high-level access to CIA and Jordanian sources, Warrick weaves gripping, moment-by-moment operational details with the perspectives of dip, omats and spies, generals and heads of state, many of whom foresaw a menace worse than al Qaeda and tried desperately to stop it. Thrilling nonfiction, quick paced and told like a story unfolding. I do wish that the sources were cited within the text and not just in the back, but perhaps that would ruin the “fiction-like” feel of the book.
-Michele Van Benthuysen, AP Psych & US History
Medicus: A Novel of the Roman Empire by Ruth Downie
Gaius Petreius Russo is an army doctor in Ancient Rome who is down on his luck. Russo finds himself with the army in Britannia where through a series of events comes upon an unfortunate slave woman (Tilla) who is injured. He saves her and decides to help her by fixing her badly broken arm. She is not all that she seems, though! I love the relationship that develops between Russo and and Tilla. This is a work of historical fiction. The setting is done very well and this story (and all the others in the series) has been beautifully researched and presented.
-Jodi Katz, Latin 1 and Latin 2
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
The protagonists are Axl and Beatrice, an elderly couple looking for their estranged son for reasons they can’t quite remember coherently (until the end of the novel that is…no spoilers). The novel is a fantasy set in Arthurian Britain, with certain characters from that particular mythos (Merlin and Sir Gawain) finding their way into a story about an otherwise seemingly ordinary couple. In the Arthurian setting of the novel, Anglo-Saxons and Britons live alongside one another in peace. This is due to a mist that lays over the nation forcing people to be extremely forgetful. While making a journey to find their estranged son in a nearby town, Axl and Beatrice (who don’t really remember much about the life they had with their son) discover that the mist is emanating from the breath of a dragon named Querig, and they end up joining various other characters in a quest to slay him and restore their normal memories. Slaying the dragon and removing the mist, however, risks reawakening the violent conflicts between the Saxons and the Britons, who will remember the atrocities they committed against each other before the mist appeared. The philosophical conflicts of the quest are elaborated on in great depth throughout the novel. It’s not every day that you can come across a work of art that has both an emotional and an intellectual effect on you all at once. This is exactly what Ishiguro managed to do for me with this novel. It has haunted me to this day.
-Dylan Kelly, English II
The Stranger by Albert Camus
Meursault is a young Algerian with a strange problem: he doesn’t care about anything. Death, life, and love are only words to him. Though handsome and intelligent, Meursault’s greatest drive in the story is to understand why he seems immune to feeling emotion, and why others place so much emphasis on their feelings. Meursault’s story begins with him struggling to remember when his mother died; he cannot remember the day the death happened, not that he cares either way. In the days that follow he meets a violent neighbor, a beautiful young woman, an old man whose only companion in life is a small, scabrous dog, and other lively characters. Each character, in their own way, tries to understand Meursault and befriend him. When his violent neighbor gets into some trouble with a group of Arabs, Meursault finds himself thrust into the spotlight and on trial, where his lack of emotion towards anything in particular is placed on full display. How will he be judged in the court of law? Read the book! My favorite aspect of the book is the author’s characterization of Meursault. You’d think a book about an emotionless character would be the most boring thing ever written, but Camus manages not only to make Meursault a tragic figure but also to make him feel human – more human, one could argue, than the characters around him. My least favorite aspect of the book is the cliffhanger ending. I hate those! There’s some adult themes explored here, if that’s a dealbreaker for you.
-Tyler Beusse, 12th grade English
Red Rising by Pierce Brown
Darrow–a young man who works in the mines. He learns some terrible secrets and we follow him as his life is transformed. Colonists on Mars find that life is not what it seems and a revolution takes place. This is an extremely well-done series, with great intrigue, cliffhangers and characterization. It paints vivid pictures of the characters and scenes in an otherworldly adventure. Right up there with the best of the best– Harry Potter and the Hunger Games series. Mr. Russell would love its pro-worker message.
-Matt Houvouras, AP Art History