The Story of Success, a Non-Fiction, Self-Help Book, Malcolm Gladwell Discusses What An

Book List:

Outliers 1B

The Story of Success, a non-fiction, self-help book, Malcolm Gladwell discusses what an outlier is and how they are more successful in life compared to normal, everyday people. He discusses what it takes to be an outlier- whether you must be born to be successful or if you are able to earn the ability to be successful. The author defines what an outlier is and how they have more opportunities in life to accomplish their goals. Throughout the chapters, he talks about different outliers and how they have made it through life successfully, focusing on intelligence or ambition of the individual. This book is an enjoyable, interesting read that can teach the reader a lot about how to be successful in life.

“This book will make you look at and think about society in a different way.” –Mikaela Canedo

“Outliers is the type of book to get the reader thinking about things they have never thought about before.” –Jessica Spindler

“Outliers really made me think about success in the world and how I can become successful in life.” - Abby Hall

“Not your typical story…engaging and interesting.” –Jenna Vintz

As I Lay Dying 1B

In this riveting story, you follow a southern family on their emotional journey to bury Addie Bundren; a mother and a wife. Each member of the family- Cash, Dewey Dell, Jewel, Darl, Vardaman, (the children from oldest to youngest) and Anse –their father –all struggle to accept and understand their mother’s death in different ways. The family embarks on a long journey to Addie Bundren’s hometown, Jefferson, in order to bury her as she had wished and their father’s controversial choices keep the audience engaged and at the edge of their seats throughout the entire story. Along the way, they face multiple earth shattering trials and tribulations that change their lives forever.

“Well, there were moments reading this book when, if I were a cartoon character, my mouth would make a big “O” and my jaw would fall to the floor with a crash.”- RandomAnthony,

“The Bundrens are a muddled mass of secrets, lies, confusions, poor choices, selfishness, insanity, and grief.” –Joel,

“…the family’s odyssey takes a series of calamitous, even absurd, turns…”- Joseph Entin

“William Faulkner's novel from 1930 is known for its diverse narrators and numerous interior monologues, which results in one of the best novels of the 20th century feeling like this never ending stream of consciousness told from several different perspectives.” –

“James Franco’s adaptation of William Faulkner'sAs I Lay Dyingemploys split-screen heavily to approximate the effect of the novel’s 15-odd contradicting, stylistically varying points of view.”- Justin Stewart

“…Faulkner’s pointed but deeply buried observations of the human condition.” – Elizabeth Weitzman

“For range of effect, philosophical weight, originality of style, variety of characterization, humor, and tragic intensity are without equal in our time and country.” – Robert Penn Warren

“Faulkner…belongs to the full-dressed post-Flaubert group of Conrad, Joyce, and Proust.” – Edmund Wilson

“For all his concern with the South, Faulkner was actually seeking out the nature of man.”- Ralph Emerson

“[Faulkner] shows us a veritable kaleidoscope of deep-seated responses to a defining moment; a host of lessons can be learned…” – antalpolony.com

Their Eyes Were Watching God 4B

“‘Their Eyes Were Watching God’ is a stunning and lyrically beautiful novel that will have you hanging onto every word.” – Abby Rose

“A simple and unpretentious story, but there is nothing else quite like it.” – George Stevens, The Saturday Review of Literature

“Indeed, from first to last this is a well nigh perfect story--a little sententious at the start, but the rest is simple and beautiful and shining with humor.” – Lucille Tompkins, New York Times Book Review

“There is no book more important to me than this one. It speaks to me as no novel, past or present, has ever done.” – Alice Walker

“This book became extraordinarily interesting as it went through. Formatting of the language and the spiritualistic relations showed the essence of what Ms. Hurston was trying to display in her character Janie. The ending had me wanting every last word and completely blew my mind!” -Sara Lynch

“Her writing is of the essence of poetry, deeply communicative, possessed of a primitive rhythm that speaks truly to the consciousness even before thought can form. This new novel is one of warmth and humor and rich, transcendent beauty.”

[Unsigned publisher's foreword, first edition of Their Eyes Were Watching God (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1937):]

“It is about Negroes, and a good deal of it is written in dialect, but really it is about every one, or least every one who isn't so civilized that he has lost the capacity for glory.”

[Review by Lucille Tompkins, New York Times Book Review, 26 September 1937:]

“Janie's grandmother, remembering how in slavery she was used "for a work-ox and a brood sow," and remembering her daughter's shame, seeks Janie's security above all else…better than her grandmother's security, she had found out about living for herself.”

[Review by Sterling Brown, The Nation, 16 October 1937:]

“This novel told a fascinating tale about Janie and her journey to find herself.” – Rachel Nissel

"One of the most important works of twentieth-century American literature..."

Booklist, October 15, 1937, p. 71. "The life of a Negro village and of workers in the Everglades are a natural part of the warm, human story."

" Hurston effectively uses symbols throughout her story to illustrate Janie’s self-development"

“Janie is a confident woman who proves that you don’t need a man in your life to make you happy. Janie had three husbands and none of them treated her the way she deserved to be treated. Her parents abandoned her after she was born and grew up with her grandmother. All her nanny wanted for her was to have a man that would treat her well, and she seemed to get the opposite.” – Megan Maurantonio

Unsigned publisher's foreword, first edition of Their Eyes Were Watching God (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1937)

“Her writing is of the essence of poetry, deeply communicative, possessed of a primitive rhythm that speaks truly to the consciousness even before thought can form. This new novel is one of warmth and humor and rich, transcendent beauty.”

Review by Lucille Tompkins, New York Times Book Review, 26 September 1937 “from first to last this is a well nigh perfect story--a little sententious at the start, but the rest is simple and beautiful and shining with humor.”

Review by Sheila Hibben, The New York Herald Tribune Weekly Book Review, 26 September 1937:] “Here is an author who writes with her head as well as with her heart, and at a time when there seems to be some principle of physics set dead against the appearance of novelists who give out a cheerful warmth and at the same time write with intelligence.”

Outliers 1A

Outliers is a story of success, but Gladwell reveals a different view on what can make an individual successful. The author takes the reader through the stories of successful people and how they made their way to the top. These people were given special opportunities to succeed and they seized those opportunities. Some were born at the right time, others were born in the right place. That is the premise for the book, some individuals may have the talent to succeed, but may never reach their full potential because they are not given the opportunity to do so. It is important to understand that your cultural legacy will affect your abilities in certain fields as well. Gladwell makes the argument that we cannot ignore these factors when judging how someone has obtained success. We must understand that where we come from, what opportunities we are given, and when we are born, are all important pieces to the formula for success.

Jane Eyre 4B

Some consider Jane Eyre a romance, however some consider it a horror mystery- but overall Jane Eyre is a moving story of a girl’s journey of self-discovery. Jane Eyre is a fictional novel loosely based of the author, Jane Eyre’s real life. At the beginning of the book Jane is ten years old. She lives with her aunt and cousins because she has no family left. While living there, Jane is treated poorly and eventually she is sent to a strict girls institution. At the institution, Jane is humiliated but persists in her journey for freedom and independence. When she is about 19 years old she continues her journey as a governess for a man named Rochester and his daughter. Against her better judgment, Jane starts to fall for Rochester but his dark secret keeps them apart. Conscientious of loosing her independence, Jane seeks refuge with a religious St. John and his family. There, Jane is given the time to think about her priorities and what defines her as a person. Reader, you will not suspect what happens to Jane next and how her identity is severely threatened.

“Charlotte Brontë's erotic, gothic masterpiece became the sensation of Victorian England. Its great breakthrough was its intimate dialogue with the reader”- Robert McCrum

“I have never red a book quite like Jane Eyre. The way that Charlotte Bronte has written a book to cross so many genres, from romance to mystery to self-discovery, and the development of Jane’s character and how she becomes defined as a person is quite exceptional.” –Courtney Williams

“Governments and fashions come and go but Jane Eyre is for all time.”Jasper Fforde

"Jane Eyre was a well written novel that had a few twists which made it an intriguing novel to read."

"Jane Eyre is a classic of Gothic and Victorian Literature." -Holand Bloom

"It is a proto-feminist text that deals with the problems faced by unattached women compelled to earn a living in a hostile world."-Marital Dutta

"Jane Eyre is an inspiring book of how to overcome the battles in your life and how to make the best of them."-Shannon Lilly

The Great Gatsby 1B

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is a realistic fiction drama set in the 1920s. It is a historical and timeless novel that portrays the extravagance as well as the decaying morals of the roaring twenties. This story follows the journey and struggles of a man named Nick Carraway as he travels to New York City and learns the secrets of the high society through his mysterious neighbor Mr. Jay Gatsby.

“The Great Gatsby is a fascinating novel that made me feel as though I was experiencing the roaring twenties through the watchful eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg”

–Shannon Bull

"The Great Gatsby is a fantastic novel that transports you back to the 1920s"

-Jennifer Nesbit

“I was captivated by The Great Gatsby just like Jay and the green light.”

-Megan Clowes

“The Great Gatsby is a remarkable book that not only succeeds in traveling the reader back in time, but exploring human nature during one of America’s most immoral eras.”

-Abby Simon

“It is the American masterwork, the finest work of fiction by any of this country’s writer’s.”

- Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post

“Both boisterous and tragic, it animates this new novel by Mr. Fitzgerald with whimsical magic and simple pathos that is realized with economy and restraint.”

– Edwin Clark, The New York Times

“It takes a deeper cut at life than hitherto has been enjoyed by Mr. Fitzgerald. He writes well-he always has-for he writes naturally, and his sense of form is becoming perfected.”

– Edwin Clark, The New York Times

“A curious book, a mystical, glamorous story of today”

-Edwin Clark, The New York Times

“A revelation of life”

-Lillian C Ford, The Los Angeles Times

“His fairly scintillates, and with genuine brilliance, he writes surely and soundly.”

-New York Post

“The Great Gatsby is an amazing book that highlights class issues exceptionally well, showing the strange way they evolve and lag, and the way opinions are formed of the rich and poor.”

-The Guardian
“There's much to be learned from the author's fiction, too, especially his most famous novel, The Great Gatsby."

-Huffington Post

“Culture lagged, and youth wore its money on its sleeve. It was Fitzgerald's genius to make this predicament into a subject of art.”

-The New York Times

“The strong, delicate, poetically resonant text has become a kind of national scripture, recited happily or mournfully, as the occasion requires.”

-David Denby, The New Yorker

“With the skill of a reporter and ability of an artist he captured the essence of… the symbols of the carefree madness of an age.”

-The New York Times

“The Great Gatsby has united generations of American readers with its crash-and-burn tale of empty elegance and impossible love”

-The New York Times

Brave New World 1B

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is a classic science fiction novel published in 1932 that still manages to hold contemporary value. This is both a utopian and dystopian world in which everyone is content and able to be instantly satisfied, entertained, or pleasured, however there is no free will. People are made in factories around the world and then conditioned to be happy in their predetermined lives. While the Director of the Hatchery and Conditioning factory was giving a tour to students, he described the level of control that is placed upon every single human. “They’ll grow up with what the psychologists used to call an ‘instinctive’ hatred of books and flowers. Reflexes unalterably conditioned.” When Huxley introduces characters that don’t fit into this society as designed, the reader gets to see how the pressures of society and culture affect the individuals. Brave New World is a truly a frightening place that seems to be increasingly relevant to today’s world. Huxley was able to convey many complex themes clearly and simply through masterful character manipulation and development. As you put this novel down, you won’t forget the deep messages Huxley had for you.

“Mr. Aldous Huxley has shown his usual masterly skill in Brave New World”

—Bertrand Russell

“its prophetic voice has remained surprisingly contemporary,”

—Martin Green

“It has remained for Aldous Huxley to build the Utopia to end Utopias”

—John Chamberlain (NY Times)

“Like 1984, but with sex instead of oppression.”

—Zachary Bartholet

“Provoking, stimulating, shocking and dazzling.”
—Observer

“Not a work for people with tender minds and weak stomachs.”
—J.B. Priestly

“Mr. Huxley is eloquent in his declaration of an artist's faith in man, and it is his eloquence, bitter in attack, noble in defense, that, when one has closed the book, one remembers.”

—Saturday Review

“Huxley uses his erudite knowledge of human relations to compare our actual world with his prophetic fantasy of 1931. It is a frightening experience, indeed, to discover how much of his satirical prediction of a distant future became reality in so short a time.”

—New York Times

“Increasingly relevant and thought provoking since the original publication, Brave New World is a masterpiece worth reading more than once for all that it has to offer.”

—Sam White

Unbroken 1A

Unbroken, by Lauren Hillenbrand, is a non-fiction biography that demonstrates the power of human will and perseverance. This book follows an Olympic runner named Louie Zamperini on his journey from being a small-town rebel to an international track star, before the onset of World War II. Suddenly, when war is declared, Louie becomes a member of a close-knit plane crew that appears to have unbelievable luck in battle, until one unfortunate day when a plane crash changes Louie’s life forever…

The Scarlet Letter 4B

Hester Prynne, a young married woman, is forced to move to Boston by her husband in England to establish a home for them. Though her husband has been gone for quite a long time, so she finds other ways to occupy herself…which leads to her having to endure the shame of wearing the scarlet letter and bear another large burden. So buckle your seatbelts for this thrill ride through a story of star crossed lovers, a revengeful husband, and a deranged young child.

“Nathaniel Hawthorne’s astounding book is full of intense symbolism and as haunting as anything by Edgar Allan Poe.” –Robert McCrum

“Nathaniel Hawthorne: A genius of dark necessity.” –Alfred Kazin

“A mind boggling epic love story filled with humor and crazy relations between a mother, daughter, and an unknown man.” –Maddie Titus

“Was alive with the miraculous vitality of genius.” –Julian Hawthorne, 1886

“The Scarlet Letter is a must read for anyone.” –Teen Ink Book Review

“A twisted love story that will keep you guessing.” –Mollie Wedekind