Summer Reading at Shen: 12th grade

		Ahern, Cecilia If You Could See Me Now Living in an Irish village and raising her young nephew, Luke, isn't what interior designer Elizabeth Egan imagined, but she accepts her fate, until she meets Luke's not so imaginary friend, Ivan.
		Atwood, Margaret Handmaid’s Tale In the Republic of Gilead, formerly the United States, women are strictly controlled, unable to have jobs or money and assigned to various classes.
		Brashares, Anne Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood Brashares beloved sisterhood returns once again for a summer that will forever change the lives of Lena, Carmen, Bee, and Tibby, here and now, past and future, together and apart.
		Brown, Dan Angels and Demons Langdon’s first adventure begins with the discovery that the legendary secret society the Illuminati--dedicated since the time of Galileo to promoting the interests of science --is alive, well, and criminally active.
		Hamill, Peter Snow in August The the story of an unusual friendship between 11-year-old Michael Devlin, an Irish Catholic from Brooklyn, and Judah Hirsch, a rabbi and refugee from Prague, who find a common love in baseball.
		Harris, Joanne Five Quarters of the Orange Framboise Dartigen returns to the French village that she lived in as a youth during the Nazi occupation.
		Heinlein, Robert *Stranger in a Strange Land* The story of Valentine Michael Smith, born during, and the only survivor of, the first manned mission to Mars.
		Indridason, Arnaldur Jar City When a lonely old man is found dead in his Reykjavík flat, the only clues are a cryptic note left by the killer and a photograph of a young girl's grave.
		Llewelyn, Morgan *1916* The story of the Irish fight for independence played out in the streets of Dublin during World War I.
		Martin, George R.R. A Game of Thrones. In this fantasy tale, a time of conflict has arisen in the Stark family as they are pulled from the safety of their home into a whirlpool of tragedy, betrayal, assassination, plots and counterplots.
		Morrison, Toni Song of Solomon Macon (Milkman) Dead is faced with resolving the differing memories of his parents and his mysterious aunt as he tries to piece together his history.
		Myers, Walter Dean Scorpions The story of twelve-year-old Jamal, whose life changes drastically when he acquires a gun.
		O’Brien, Tim The Things They Carried A collection of interrelated short pieces which tell the story of Alpha Company as they battle the enemy and each other in Vietnam.
		Picoult, Jodi Plain Truth Defense lawyer Ellie Hathaway reluctantly takes the case of Katie Fisher, an 18-year-old unmarried Amish girl accused of smothering her newborn baby.
		Shreve, Anita Resistance American fighter Ted Brice's plane is downed near a small village in Belgium and he forms a relationship with the members of the local resistance movement who hide him.
		Tademy, Lalita Cane River A family saga that chronicles four generations of women born into slavery along the Cane River in Louisiana.
		Vonnegut, Kurt Cat’s Cradle An apocalyptic tale of the planet's ultimate fate, featuring a cast of unlikely heroes.

		Angelou, Maya I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings In this first of five volumes of autobiography, poet Maya Angelou recounts a youth filled with disappointment, frustration, tragedy, and finally hard-won independence.
		Crystal, Billy 700 Sundays One of America's most beloved entertainers takes us home. Billy Crystal opens the front door to a time in his life when he shared joy, love, music, and laughter with an eccentric family headed by the hardworking father who left them all too soon.
		Elliot, Jason An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan An account of a trip through war-torn and poverty-stricken Afghanistan.
		Gourevitch, Peter We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families A journalistic account of the April 1994 government sanctioned genocide of the Tutsi minority in Rwanda in which 800,000 people perished in a three month period.
		Spitz, Bob The Beatles: the Biography The product of almost a decade of research, hundreds of unprecedented interviews, and the discovery of scores of never-before-revealed documents, this biography brings a new focus to the Beatles legend.
		Malcolm X. The Autobiography of Malcolm X As told to Alex Haley, an account of the African American leader’s transformation from a petty criminal to an internationally known political activist.

Albee, Edward Three Tall Women
Drama of an old woman coming to grips with her life and approaching death.

Stoppard, Tom Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
The story of Hamlet seen through the eyes of two minor characters who cannot escape their fate.

Williams, Tennessee A Streetcar Named Desire
In this Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, Blanche seeks refuge from her tainted past with her sister Stella and finds herself in a bitter battle with her brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski.

* source material for some annotations drawn from Publisher's Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, Barnes and Noble.com, Amazon.com and publisher descriptions.