• Abby Jackson and Peter Jacobs

• Jul. 25, 2015High-school classic “Lord of the Flies.”Amazon

For many people, the summer months symbolize pleasure reading at its best.

It’s a time to indulge in the texts that are most appealing, without scrutiny: an easy beach read, a guilty pleasure, or that book you’ve always meant to start.

But students at America’s most prestigious private schools must still endure the rigors of homework during their summer vacations with a little reading — some required, some merely recommended. The topics of the titles cover issues such as war, sexuality, and racial history.

Check out the reading lists of rising seniors at reputable private schools across the US:

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The Hotchkiss School — Lakeville, Connecticut

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Students must read three books of their choosing plus the required items below:

Read (novel) — “The Things They Carried,” by Tim O’Brien

Watch — “The Hunger Games” (2012)

Read (poem) — “A Work of Artifice,” by Marge Piercy

The College Preparatory School — Oakland, California

Via The College Preparatory School

Students can choose to read one or more of the books on the list below and then participate in informal discussion groups in the fall:

“Alice in Wonderland,” by Lewis Carroll

“All the Light We Cannot See,” by Anthony Doerr

“The Boys in the Boat,” by Daniel James Brown

“Catch-22,” by Joseph Heller

“Closely Watched Trains,” by Bohumil Hrabal

“Color of Magic,” by Terry Pratchett

“Crime and Punishment,” by Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Deep,” by James Nestor

“The Martian,” by Andy Weir

“The Old Man and the Sea,” Ernest Hemingway

“The Wind in the Willows,” Kenneth Grahame

Trinity School — New York, New York

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Students must read four books of their choosing plus one of the required items below:

“Kokoro,” by Natsume Soseki

“Edgar Huntly,” by Charles Brockden Brown

“Four Tragedies and Octavia,” by Seneca

“Catch-22,” by Joseph Heller

“Making Your Own Days,” by Kenneth Koch

“The Lord of the Flies,” by William Golding

“The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” by Malcolm X (with Alex Haley)

Deerfield Academy — Deerfield, Massachusetts

Deerfield Academy/Facebook

Students must read four books that they choose from a list of over 50. Titles on the list include:

“Half of a Yellow Sun,” by Chimamanda Adichie

“The Circle,” by Dave Eggers

“A Clockwork Orange,” by Anthony Burgess

“The Universe and The Teacup: The Mathematics of Truth and Beauty,” by K.C. Cole

“Invisible Man,” by Ralph Ellison

“Madame Bovary,” by Gustave Flaubert

“To The Lighthouse,” by Virginia Woolf

The Harker School — San Jose, California

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English teachers at the school put together the following list of recommended summer reading:

“Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” by Joan Didion

“Emma,” by Jane Austen

“Native Son,” by Richard Wright

“Interpreter of Maladies,” by Jhumpa Lahiri

“The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” by Michael Pollan

Ransom Everglades School — Miami, Florida

Via Wikimedia Commons

Students must read:

“Song of Solomon,” by Toni Morrison

Horace Mann School — New York, New York

AP Photo/Mark Lennihan

The school’s librarians have put together a recommended summer-reading list that includes:

“I am J,” by Cris Beam

“Necessary Lies,” by Diane Chamberlain

“The Crazy Horse Electric Game,” by Chris Crutcher

“The Radleys,” by Matt Haig

Lakeside School — Seattle, Washington

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Faculty and staff members put together a list of suggested books for summer reading that includes:

“Never Let Me Go,” by Kazuo Ishiguro

“The Silmarillion,” by J.R.R. Tolkien

“The Golem and the Jinni,” by Helene Wecker

“The Warmth of Other Suns,” by Isabel Wilkerson

“The Boy Kings of Texas,” by Domingo Martinez

Choate Rosemary Hall — Wallingford, Connecticut

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Students must read “Station Eleven,” by Emily St. John Mandel plus two books they choose from a list of over 100. Works include:

“Andy Warhol Diaries,” by Andy Warhol

“Why Sinatra Matters,” by Pete Hamill

“Americanah,” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“Welcome to the Monkey House,” by Kurt Vonnegut

“Pride and Prejudice,” by Jane Austen

“Love in the Time of Cholera,” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Lawrenceville School — Lawrenceville, New Jersey

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Students must read “Fahrenheit 451,” by Ray Bradbury plus one book they choose from a list of over 50. Works include:

“A Very Long Engagement,” by Sebastien Japrisot

“Cities of the Plain,” by Cormac McCarthy

“Dune” by Frank Herbert

“Franny and Zooey,” by J.D. Salinger

“The Beautiful Struggle,” by Ta-Nehisi Coates

“Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies,” by Jared Diamond

“Lolita,” by Vladimir Nabokov

Palo Alto High schoolReading List

Grade 9: English 9 & English 9 accelerated (year-long course)

Core Reading

• Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare .
• Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck

Optional Reading

• The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger
• The Bean Trees, Kingsolver
• Julius Caesar, Shakespeare
• The Count of Monte Cristo, Dumas
• Eighth Moon, Lord
• Oliver Twist, Dickens
• Greek Myths and Legends, traditional
• The Little Prince, Saint-Exupery
• The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway
• The Last Unicorn, Beagle
• The White Deer, Thurber
• When the Legends Die, Borland
• Kindred, Butler
• In Country, Mason
• Having Our Say, Delany
• Animal Farm, Orwell
• A Lesson Before Dying, Gaines
• Assignment Rescue, Fry
• A Thousand Pieces of Gold, McCunn
• Pigman, Zindell
• Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury
• Responding to Literature, McDougall, Littell
• Dove, Graham
• The Crystal Cave, Lord

Grade 10: English 10 & English 10 accelerated (year-long course)

Core Reading

• To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee
• Macbeth, Shakespeare

Optional Reading

• Lord of the Flies, Golding
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou
• Night, Wiesel
• China Boy, Gus Lee
• Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston
• A Separate Peace, Knowles
• The Chosen, Potok
• Brave New World, Huxley
• Cannery Row, Steinbeck
• Cry the Beloved Country, Paton
• Black Boy, Wright
• Les Miserables, Hugo
• A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens
• Dandelion Wine, Bradbury
• Hiroshima, Hersey
• Inherit the Wind, Lawrence and Lee
• Walkabout, Marshall
• Stories, Jennings and Calitri
• Responding to Literature, McDougall, Littell

Grade 11: American Literature 11 & American Literature 11 Honors (semester)

Core Reading

• The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald

Optional Reading

• The Glass Menagerie, Willians
• Death of a Salesman, Miller
• Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry
• The Woman Warrior, Kingston
• My Antonia, Cather
• Song of Solomon, Morrison
• Slaughter House Five, Vonnegut
• Farewell to Manzanar, Houston
• The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck
• The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne
• The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway
• A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey
• Cat’s Cradle, Vonnegut
• Catch 22, Heller
• All the King’s Men, Penn Warren
• Animal Dreams, Kingsolver
• Snow Falling on Cedars, Gutheson
• Eight Men, Wright
• East of Eden, Steinbeck
• Moby Dick, Melville
• Ethan Frome, Wharton
• Walden, Thoreau
• Billy Budd, Melville
• Roughing It, Twain
• The Crucible, Miller
• Native Son, Wright
• Go Tell It On the Mountain, Baldwin
• Nine Stories, Salinger
• Franny and Zooey, Salinger
• Huck Finn, Twain
• The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, McCullers
• The Bell Jar, Plath
• Adventures in American Literature, Hodkins and Silverman
• Eight Great American Short Stories: Hawthorne, Melville, Bierce, Hemingway, Steinbeck, O’Connor
• Responding to Literature, McDougall, Littell

Grade 12: World Literature 12 & World Lit. 12 accelerated (semester) 

Core Reading

• Hamlet, Shakespeare

Optional Reading

• Cyrano de Bergerac, Rostand
• Oedipus the King, Sophocles
• The Stranger, Camus
• Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky
• Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Hardy
• Pride and Prejudice, Austen
• Things Fall Apart, Achebe
• Twelfth Night, Shakespeare
• Master Harold and the Boys, Fugard
• Ibsen Plays (Hedda, A Doll’s House)
• The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer
• Lord Jim, Conrad
• The Horses Mouth, Cary
• Candide, Voltaire
• The Admirable Crichton, Barrie
• Luther, Osborne
• The Baghavad Gita, Traditional
• Barrabas, Lagerkvist
• Literature of Religions, Houston
• Nectar in a Seive, Markandaya
• Moll Flanders, Defoe
• The Power of One, Courtenay
• In the Penal Colony, Kafka
• A Doll’s House, Ibsen
• Responding to Literature, McDougall, Littell

Electives:

College English A.P. (Grade 12-year-long course)

• Interpreter of Maladies, Lahiri
• The Awakening, Chopin
• Heart of Darkness, Conrad
• Hard Times, Dickens
• House of the Spirits, Allende
• The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer
• King Lear, Shakespeare
• A Thousand Acres, Smiley
• Frankenstein, Shelley
• Things Fall Apart, Achebe
• Beloved, Morrison
• Antigone, Sophocles
• Invisible Man, Ellison
• Candide, Voltaire
• The Poetics, Aristotle
• Ibsen Plays
• Othello, Shakespeare
• Pride and Prejudice, Austen
• Wuthering Heights, Bronte
• Return of the Native, Hardy

Humanities(Grades 11 and 12–semester)

• Life of Pi, Martel
• Sophie’s World, Gaarder
• The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde
• Death of Ivan Ilych, Tolstoy
• Â “Art and the Intellect”, Taylor
• “The Courage to Create,” May
• “Quality and Non Quality,” Tuchman
• “The Allegory of the Den,” Plato
• “The Apology,” Plato
• “The Bear,” Faulkner
• “The Franklin’s Tale,” Chaucer
• Galileo, Brecht
• A Man for All Seasons, Bolt
• Siddhartha, Hesse
• The Great Divorce, Lewis
• The Tempest, Shakespeare
• The Baghavad Gita, Traditional
• Philosophy and Literature, Thompson
• Sound and Sense, Perrine
• Civilization, Clark
• Responding to Literature, McDougall, Littell

Film Composition and Literature (Grades 11 and 12–semester)

• Flashback, A Brief History of Film, Giannetti and Eyman
• A Critical Eye, Kasdan, Saxton & Tavernetti
• Ordinary People, Guest
• In the Heat of the Night, Bal
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey
• Adaptations

Escape Literature (Grade 11 and 12–semester)

• Dune, Herbert
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Blade Runner), Philip K. Dick
• The Handsmaid’s Tale, Atwood

The Literature of Sport(Grades 11 and 12–semester)

• Seabiscuit, Hillenbrand
• The Blind Side, Lewis
• Friday Night Lights, Bassinger
• The Natural, Malamud
• The Jackie Robinson Reader, Kahn
• A Kind of Grace, Joyner-Kerse
• A Treasury of Sportwriting by Women
• Motion: American Sports Poems, Wideman
• Boys of Summer, Kahn
• The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Sillitoe
• 1947: When All Hell Broke Loose in Baseball, Barber
• Eight men Out, Asinof
• 24 Seconds to Shoot, Koppett
• The City Game, Axthelm
• A League of their Own, Gilbert
• Endzone, Delillo
• Babe: The Legend Comes to Life, Creamer
• Fathers Playing Catch With Sons, Hall
• For Love of the Game, Shaara
• Heaven is a Playground, Telander
• In These Girls Hope is a Muscle, Blais
• King of the World: Muhammad Ali & the Rise of an American Hero, Remnick
• A Whole Other Ballgame: Women’s Literature on Women’s Sport, Sandoz

Analysis of the Writer’s Craft (Grades 11 and 12–semester)

• Short Shorts, Howe and Howe
• Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Albee
• Writing Down the Bones, Goldberg
• The Bell Jar, Plath
• Growing Up, Baker
• A Moveable Feast, Hemingway
• This Boy’s Life, Wolff
• This House of Sky, Doig
• The Triggering Town, Hugo
• The Art of Writing, Ferrera
• A Pocketful of Poems, Madden
• A Pocketbook of Modern American Short Stories, Stern
• Welcome to the Monkey-House, Vonnegut
• Sudden Fiction, Shapiro and Thomas
• “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and Other Stories, O’Conner
• Micro Fiction, Stern

Shakespeare and Chaucer (Grades 11 and 12–semester)

• Â “Prologue” to Canterbury Tales
• “The Wife of Bath” Tale
• “The Nun’s Priest” Tale
• Anthony and Cleopatra
• King Lear
• Much Ado About Nothing
• Henry IV, Part I
• As You Like It
• The Merry Wives of Windsor
• The Taming of the Shrew
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream
• Othello
• All’s Well That Ends Well
• Henry IV, Part II
• Measure for Measure
• Richard the Third
• Sonnets

Women Writers (Grades 11 and 12–semester)

• The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood
• The Awakening, Chopin
• Sula, Morrison
• Herland, Perkins Gilman
• “Blood Child”, Butler
• Women and Economics, Gilman
• “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Gilman
• “Mama”, Dorothy Allison
• The Beauty Myth, Wolf
• The Feminine Mystique, Freidan

American Writers of Color (Grades 11 and 12–semester)

• The Woman Warrior, Kingston
• Ceremony, Silko
• And the Earth Did Not Devour Him, Rivera
• Quicksand/Passing, Larsen
• A Lesson Before Dying, Gaines
• Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston
• Black Boy, Wright
• Bless Me, Ultima, Anaya
• Invisible Man, Ellison
• House Made of Dawn, Momaday
• So Far from God, Castillo
• Go Tell It On the Mountain, Baldwin
• Native Son, Wright
• The Autobiography of Malcolm X
• The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist fight in Heaven, Alexie