KS4 2019-20Recommended

Reading List

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This booklet recommends many great books that you might enjoy reading during KS4.The books are divided by genre to help you find something you might be interested in. If you find anything else noteworthy then please recommend it to your friends and teachers so that it can be added to our future lists.

------------------------------------------------------* indicates parental permission may be requested.

RECOMMENDED BY YOUR PEERS:Cecilia Ahern - Flawed

Kevin Brooks – The Bunker Diary

Cassandra Clare – Mortal Instruments (series)

Sarah Cohen-Scali – Max

Gail Honeyman – Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff - Illuminae

Angie Thomas – The Hate U Give

Nicola Yoon – Everything, Everything; The Sun Is Also A Star

YOUNG ADULT TITLES:Katherine Arden – The Bear and the Nightingale (Winternight Trilogy)

Jay Asher – Thirteen Reasons Why

Fredrik Backman – A Man Called Ove

Martyn Bedford – 20 Questions for Gloria

Melvyn Burgess - Junk

Meera Syal – Anita and Me

Will Hill – After The Fire

Alice Walker – The Colour Purple*

Nick Hornby – Fever Pitch

Non Pratt – Trouble*

LGBTQ:Becky Albertali – Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda

Alyssa Brugman – Alex As Well

Malorie Blackman – Boys Don’t Cry

Jenny Downham - Unbecoming

Lauren James – The Last Beginning

Judy Nelson – I’ll Give You The Sun

Patrick Ness – Release*

Robin Talley – Lies We Tell Ourselves; What We Left

Behind

Lisa Williamson – The Art Of Being Normal

Jeanette Winterson – Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

CHALLENGING MODERN CLASSICS:Monica Ali – Brick Lane

Paulo Coelho - The Alchemist

Michael Frain – Spies

Barry Hines – Kes

Khaled Hosseini - A Thousand Splendid Suns*

Susan Hill – The Woman in Black

Kazuo Ishiguro – Remains of the Day

Yann Martel - Life of Pi

Cormac McCarthy – The Road

Ian McEwan – Atonement

Toni Morrison – Beloved *

Alan Patton - Cry the Beloved Country

Arundhati Roy – The God of Small Things

Alice Sebold - Lovely Bones

Zadie Smith – White Teeth

John Steinbeck – Of Mice and Men

Kathyrn Stockett - The Help

Meera Syal - Anita and Me

20th Century Classic Fiction:Chinua Achebe – Things Fall Apart

Maya Angelou - I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Truman Capote – Breakfast at Tiffany’s; In Cold Blood

Paulo Coelho - The Alchemist

Joseph Conrad – Heart of Darkness

F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby

Ian Fleming – Casino Royale

E.M. Forster – Howard’s End

William Golding – Lord of the Flies

Barry Hines – Kes

Ernest Hemingway –The Old Man and the Sea

Harper Lee - To Kill a Mockingbird; Go Set a Watchman

Ian McEwan – Atonement

George Orwell - Animal Farm

Alan Patton - Cry the Beloved Country

J.D. Salinger – The Catcher in the Rye

HISTORICAL & OTHER

CULTURES:Chinua Achebe – Things Fall Apart

Maya Angelou - I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Tracey Chavalier – The Girl with the Pearl Earring

Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness

Siobhan Dowd – Bog Child

Phillippa Gregory – The Other Boleyn Girl

Tanya Landman – I am Apache

Hilary Mantel – Wolf Hall

Alan Paton – Cry, the Beloved Country

Doris Pilkington - Rabbit Proof Fence

Bali Rai – Rani and Sukh, (Un)arranged Marriage

John Steinbeck – Of Mice and Men;

The Grapes of Wrath

Pre-20th Century Classics:Jane Austen – Emma, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility

Charlotte Bronte – Jane Eyre

Emily Bronte – Wuthering Heights

Wilkie Collins – The Moonstone, The Woman in White

Charles Dickens - A Christmas Carol; Great Expectations; Oliver

Twist; David Copperfield

Elizabeth Gaskell – North and South

Charlotte Perkins Gilman – The Yellow Wallpaper

Thomas Hardy – Far from the Madding Crowd, Tess of the

D’Urbervilles, The Withered Arm and Other Wessex Tales

Edgar Allen Poe – Selected Short Stories

Jonathan Swift - Gulliver’s Travels

Oscar Wilde – The Picture of Dorian Grey

SUPERNATURAL SPINE-CHILLERS:Angela Carter - The Bloody Chamber

Susan Hill - The Woman in Black

Henry James - The Turn of the Screw

Stephen King - The Shining; IT *

Edgar Allen Poe - Selected Short Stories

Daphne Du Maurier - Rebecca

Edgar Allen Poe - The Pit and the Pendulum; The Tell Tale Heart

Carrie Ryan - Forest of Hands and Teeth (series)

Bram Stoker - Dracula

John Wyndham - Day of the Triffids

Carlos Ruiz Zafon - The Shadow of the Wind

DYSTOPIAN:Malorie Blackman - Noughts and Crosses (series)

JD Crockett - After the Snow

Philip K. Dick - The Man in the High Castle

Hugh Howey - Wool (series)

Aldous Huxley - Bave New World

Cormac McCarthy -The Road *

Gemma Malley - The Declaration (series)

George Orwell -1984 *

Karen W Thompson - The Age of Miracles

Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse-Five

WAR AND CONFLICT:J.G Ballard - Empire of the Sun

Pat Barker - Regeneration Trilogy (Regeneration; Eye in the Door; The Ghost Road)

Louis de Berniers – Captain Corelli’s Mandolin

John Boyne – The Absolutist

Vera Britton – A Testament of Youth

Charles Dickens – A Tale of Two Cities

Sebastian Faulks – Birdsong*; Charlotte Grey

Michael Frayn - Spies

Charles Frazier – Cold Mountain

Robert Harris – Enigma

Joseph Heller - Catch 22

Khaled Hosseini – The Kite Runner*

Tanya Landman – Buffalo Soldier

Anna Perera – Guantanamo Boy

Erich Maria Remarque - All Quiet on the Western Front

CRIME & MYSTERY:John La Carre – Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy

Raymond Chandler – The Big Sleep

Agatha Christie – The Body in the Library; And Then There Were None

Arthur Conan Doyle – Adventure of Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the

Baskervilles; The Sign of the Four

Frederick Forsyth – The Day of the Jackal

Graham Green – Brighton Rock

John Grisham – The Client, The Firm

Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

Dashiell Hammett – The Maltese Falcon

Guy de Maupassant - Short Stories

Daphne Du Maurier –Jamaica Inn

Robert Louis Stevenson - The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

SCIENCE FICTION:Isaac Asimov- I, Robot

Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Ian Bank – The Wasp Factory

Philip K Dick - Minority Report

Jack Finney – Invasion of the Body Snatchers

William Gibson – Pattern Recognition

Kazuo Ishiguro – Never Let Me Go

Audrey Niffenegger - The Time Traveler’s Wife

Mary Shelley – Frankenstein

Jules Verne – Journey to the Centre of the Earth

H.G. Wells - The Time Machine; The War of the Worlds

John Wyndham – The Midwich Cuckoos

CURTAIN CALL-PLAYS TO MAKE YOU

THINK:Alan Bennett – The History Boys

Dennis Kelly – DNA

Henrik Ibsen – The Doll’s House

Arthur Miller – The Crucible, A View from the Bridge

J.B Priestley – An Inspector Calls

Willy Russell - Blood Brothers; Educating Rita

Diane Samuels - Kindertransport

William Shakespeare – Hamlet; Macbeth; Romeo and Juliet;

Othello

R.C Sherriff – Journey’s End

NON-FICTION:Maya Angelou - I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Bill Bryson - Notes from a Small Island

Juan Chang – Wild Swans

Roddy Doyle - Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha

Ann Frank – The Diary of a Young Girl

Ernest Hemmingway – A Farewell to Arms

Nelson Mandela – A Long Walk to Freedom

Frank McCourt – Angela’s Ashes

Dave Pelzer – A Child Called It

Joe Simpson - Touching the Void

Adeline Yen Mah - Chinese Cinderella

POETRY

Try Googling the following poets and

reading a selection of their poetry.

The notable works you might enjoy

appear in brackets.

Modern Poets:John Agard (Flag, Put the Kettle On)

Simon Armitage (Kid, Clown Punk)

Gillian Clarke (Catrin, Cold Knap Lake)

Imtiaz Dharker (Blessing)

Carol Ann Duffy (Valentine, Before You Were Mine, Stealing,

War Photographer)

Seamus Heaney (Follower)

Ted Hughes (Bayonet Charge)

Tony Harrison (Long Distance II)

Grace Nichols (Hurricane Hits England)

Sylvia Plath (Ariel)

War Poets:Rupert Brooke (The Soldier)

Wilfred Owen (Futility, Anthem for Doomed

Youth, Dulce et Decorum Est)

Jessie Pope (The Call, Who’s for the Game?)

Isaac Rosenburg (In the Trenches)

Siegfried Sassoon (Suicide in the Trenches)

Literary Greats:William Blake (Tyger, Tyger; The Lamb; London)

Robert Browning (My Last Duchess; Porphyria’s Lover)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Rime of the Ancient Mariner)

Emily Dickinson (Sonnet 43)

Thomas Hardy (The Ruined Maid)

Rudyard Kipling (If)

Walter De La Mare (The Listeners)

Christina Rossetti (Cousin Kate)

William Shakespeare (Sonnet 116; Sonnet 130)

Percy Bysshe Shelley (Ozymandias)

Dylan Thomas (The Hunchback in the Park)

Alfred Tennyson (The Charge of the Light Brigade)

William Wordsworth (Daffodils; Upon Westminster Bridge)