Recommended Reading for Pre-AP
* Bolded novels have appeared recently on the AP Literatureexam.
* Other selections rank on Modern Library Readers’Choice Top 100 Novels list.
A
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by MarkTwain
The Age of Innocence by EdithWharton
All the King's Men by Robert PennWarren
All the Pretty Horses by CormacMcCarthy
Anna Karenina by LeoTolstoy
Anthem by AynRand
As I Lay Dying by WilliamFaulkner
At the Mountains of Madness by H.P.Lovecraft
Atlas Shrugged by AynRand
The Awakening by KateChopin
Beloved by ToniMorrison
B
Bleak House by CharlesDickens
Bless Me, Ultimaby RudolfoAnaya
Blood Meridian by CormacMcCarthy
The Bluest Eye by ToniMorrison
The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan
BraveNew World by AldousHuxley
The Brothers Karamazov by FyodorDostoevski
C
The Call of the Wild by JackLondon
Catch-22 by JosephHeller
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D.Salinger
The Chosen by ChaimPotok
A Clockwork Orange by AnthonyBurgess
Cold Mountain by CharlesFrazier
The Color Purple by AliceWalker
Cry, The Beloved Country by AlanPaton
Crime and Punishment by FyodorDostoevski
D
David Copperfield by CharlesDickens
The Death of Ivan Ilyichby Leo Tolstoy
DeltaWedding by EudoraWelty
Dracula by BramStoker
Dune by FrankHerbert
E
East of Eden by JohnSteinbeck
Emma by JaneAusten
Ender's Game by Orson ScottCard
Ethan Fromeby EdithWharton
F
The Fallby AlbertCamus
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
ForWhom the Bell Tolls by ErnestHemingway
The Fountainhead by AynRand
Frankenstein by MaryShelley
G
Gone With the Wind by MargaretMitchell
The Good Soldier by Ford MaddoxFord
Gormenghastby MervynPeake
The Grapes of Wrath by JohnSteinbeck
Gravity’s Rainbow by ThomasPynchon
Great Expectations by CharlesDickens
The Great Gatsby by F. ScottFitzgerald
H
The Handmaid's Tale by MargaretAtwood
Hard Times by CharlesDickens
Heart of Darkness by JosephConrad
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by CarsonMcCullers
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy byDouglasAdams
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur ConanDoyle
The House of Seven Gables by NathanielHawthorne
The House on Mango Street by SandraCisneros
I
The Iliad byHomer
In the Lake of the Woods by TimO'Brien
In the Time of Butterflies by JuliaAlvarez
Invisible Man by RalphEllison
J
Jane Eyre by CharlotteBronte
Journey to the Center of the Earth by JulesVerne
The Joy Luck Club by AmyTan
Jude the Obscure by ThomasHardyThe Jungle by UptonSinclair
K
The Kite Runner by KhaledHosseinii
L
A Lesson before Dying by ErnestGainesLight in August by WilliamFaulkner
Little, Big by JohnCrowley
Little Women by Louisa MayAlcott
Lord Jim by JosephConrad
Lord of the Flies by WilliamGolding
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R.Tolkien
M
Main Street by SinclairLewis
Mansfield Park by JaneAusten
The Mayor of CasterbridgebyThomasHardy Metamorphosis by FranzKafka
Middlemarch by GeorgeEliot
The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
MobyDick by HermanMelville
Moll Flanders by DanielDefoe
Mrs. Dalloway by VirginiaWoolf
My Antonia by WillaCather
Mythago Wood by RobertHoldstock
N
1984 by GeorgeOrwell
Notes from the Underground by FyodorDostoevski
O
Of Mice and Men by JohnSteinbeck
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovichby AlexanderSolzhenitsyn
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel GarciaMarquez
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by KenKesey
O Pioneers! by WillaCather
Out of Africa by IsaakDinese
P
The Phantom of the Opera by GastonLeroux
The Picture of Dorian Gray by OscarWilde
The Plague by AlbertCamus
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by JamesJoyce
A Prayer for Owen Meany by JohnIrving
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin
R
Ragtime by E. L.Doctorow
A Raisin in the Sun by LorraineHansberry
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
TheReturnof the Native by Thomas Hardy
A River Runs ThroughItby Norman Maclean
A Room of One's Own byVirginiaWoolf
A Room with a View by E. M.Forster
S
The Scarlet Letter by NathanielHawthorne
A Separate Peace by JohnKnowles
The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
Silas Marnerby GeorgeEliot
Slaughterhouse Five by KurtVonnegut
Something Wicked This Way Comes by RayBradbury
Song of Solomon by ToniMorrison
Sons and Lovers by D. H.Lawrence
The Sound and the Fury by WilliamFaulkner
Starship Troopers by RobertHeinlein
The Stand by StephenKing
The Stranger by AlbertCamus
Stranger in a Strange Land by RobertHeinlein
The Sun Also Rises by ErnestHemingway
T
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Tess of the D'Urbervilles by ThomasHardy
Things Fall Apart by ChinuaAchebe
The Things They Carried by TimO'Brien
The Time Machine by H.G.Wells
To Kill a Mockingbird by HarperLee
Tom Jones by HenryFielding
The Trial by FranzKafka
The Turn of the Screw by HenryJames
Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
byJulesVerne
U
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet BeecherStowe
V
The Vicar of Wakefield by OliverGoldsmith
Victory by JosephConrad
W
The War of the Worlds by H.G.Wells
Watership Down by RichardAdams
We Were the Mulvaneysby Joyce CarolOatesWise Blood by Flannery O'Connor
WutheringHeights by EmilyBronte
Z
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle MaintenancebyRobertPirsig
Zoot Suit by LuisValdez