Anthem – Ayn Rand
This book can be read in under an hour and makes for great body paragraphs in SAT essays.  This book made me happy and that alone will put a book in my top ten list.  It’s an objectivist novel, showing the virtues of selfishness.  This book reminds many students of the collectivist society in 1984, another popular classic, and unlike 1984, our protagonist is somewhat successful.

Lords of Discipline – by Pat Conroy
A story of dudes at military school and a secret society.  Makes you happy, makes you sad, makes your adrenaline rush, leaves you satisfied.  Almost certainly a guy’s kinda book.

The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
A novel good for teens.  I don’t know why.  It’s about Holden Caulfield who is cynical about the world and thinks lots of people and things are phony.  After I read this book, I started saying that too.  And then some kid called me out on it: “Why are you talking like that, did you just read Catcher in the Rye?”  And since he was correct, I just bowed my head in shame and stopped.  Yes, at one point I was a tool.  Key word is “was.”

As I said earlier, you generally want to stick to the classics.  Anything that has Sparknotes written for it is a classic.  But there are a few contemporary books and authors which would qualify as good literature.  John Irving is my favorite contemporary author.  He has written the books The World According to Garp, A Prayer for Owen Meany, and The Cider House Rules.  All of them are fun to read.  You do want to stay away from stuff like Stephen King and Dan Brown in your essays (although you could still read them for pleasure).

Other books I enjoyed but don’t have a paragraph to write about:
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
Animal Farm – George Orwell
The Mayor of Casterbridge – Thomas Hardy
The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini – another contemporary book with merit
Black Boy – Richard Wright
Catch 22 – Joseph Heller

Other relatively short books for those who hate to read:
Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
The Pearl – John Steinbeck
Common Sense – Thomas Paine
Winesburg, Ohio – Sherman Anderson
Dandelion Wine – Ray Bradbury
Farenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
Candide - Voltaire
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
Shakespeare’s plays
Sophocles’ plays – Oedipus Rex and such
Homer’s plays – The Iliad, and The Odyssey

Continue on to part 3 of Anish's Reading List