Darien Public Schools Summer Reading Assignments 2023

Author

Notes

Rising eleventh graders enrolled in English 11 300 must read a work of American historical fiction. Teachers of English 11 recommend this title, but students may choose any title that fits the assignment.

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

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"Newlyweds Celestial and Roy, the living embodiment of the New South, are settling into the routine of their life together when Roy is sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit. An insightful look into the lives of people who are bound and separated by forces beyond their control"--

22) 11/22/63

Author

King, Stephen

Notes

Rising eleventh graders enrolled in English 11 300 must read a work of American historical fiction. Teachers of English 11 recommend this title, but students may choose any title that fits the assignment.

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, Large Print

Description

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On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back? In this brilliantly conceived tour de force, Stephen King-who has absorbed the social, political, and popular culture of his generation more imaginatively and thoroughly than any other writer-takes listeners on an incredible journey into the past and the possibility of altering it. It begins with Jake Epping, a thirty-five-year-old...

23) The summer wives

Author

Williams, Beatriz

Notes

Rising eleventh graders enrolled in English 11 300 must read a work of American historical fiction. Teachers of English 11 recommend this title, but students may choose any title that fits the assignment.

Formats:

Book, Audiobook CD, eAudiobook, eBook

Description

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"The Summer Wives is an exquisitely rendered novel that tackles two of my favorite topics: love and money. The glorious setting and drama are enriched by Williams's signature vintage touch. It's at the top of my picks for the beach this summer." -Elin Hilderbrand, author of The Perfect Couple New York Times bestselling author Beatriz Williams brings us the blockbuster novel of the season-an electrifying postwar fable of love, class, power, and...

24) The plot against America

Author

Roth, Philip

Notes

Rising eleventh graders enrolled in English 11 300 must read a work of American historical fiction. Teachers of English 11 recommend this title, but students may choose any title that fits the assignment.

Formats:

Book, eBook

Description

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Philip Roth's bestselling alternate history-the chilling story of what happens to one family when America elects a charismatic, isolationist president-is soon to be an HBO limited series. In an extraordinary feat of narrative invention, Philip Roth imagines an alternate history where Franklin D. Roosevelt loses the 1940 presidential election to heroic aviator and rabid isolationist Charles A. Lindbergh. Shortly thereafter, Lindbergh negotiates a...

25) citizens creek

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26) Rules of civility

Author

Towles, Amor

Notes

Rising eleventh graders enrolled in English 11 300 must read a work of American historical fiction. Teachers of English 11 recommend this title, but students may choose any title that fits the assignment.

Formats:

Book, Audiobook CD, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle, Large Print

Description

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A chance encounter with a handsome banker in a jazz bar on New Year's Eve 1938 catapults Wall Street secretary Katey Kontent into the upper echelons of New York society, where she befriends a shy multi-millionaire, an Upper East Side ne'er-do-well, and asingle-minded widow.

27) Excellent sheep: the miseducation of the American elite and the way to a meaningful life

Author

Deresiewicz, William

Notes

If you are a rising senior enrolled in a 300-level English course, this summer you are expected to read one book that has as its subject “college” or “careers.” (Fiction, memoir, biography, nonfiction … you choose.) This title is recommended by teachers of Grade 12, but you may read any book that fits the asssignment.

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook

Description

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"A groundbreaking manifesto for people searching for the kind of insight on leading, thinking, and living that elite schools should be--but aren't--providing"-- Deresiewicz takes a sharp look at the high-pressure conveyor belt that begins with demands for perfect grades and culminates in the skewed applications received by college admissions committees. Students are losing the ability to think independently. College is supposed to be a time for self-discovery--...

28) A Jane Austen education: how six novels taught me about love, friendship, and the things that really matter

Author

Deresiewicz, William

Notes

If you are a rising senior enrolled in a 300-level English course, this summer you are expected to read one book that has as its subject “college” or “careers.” (Fiction, memoir, biography, nonfiction … you choose.) This title is recommended by teachers of Grade 12, but you may read any book that fits the asssignment.

29) Legacy: 15 lessons in leadership : what the All Blacks can teach us about the business of life

Author

Kerr, James

Notes

If you are a rising senior enrolled in a 300-level English course, this summer you are expected to read one book that has as its subject “college” or “careers.” (Fiction, memoir, biography, nonfiction … you choose.) This title is recommended by teachers of Grade 12, but you may read any book that fits the assignment.

Description

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The All Blacks are the world's most successful sporting outfit, undefeated in over 75 per cent of their international matches over the last 100 years. So, what is the secret of their success? And what can we - as individuals, companies and teams - learn from them? Whatever field we are in, how can we play like All Blacks? Revealing proven secrets of sustained success, Legacy is a unique, inspiring handbook for leaders in all fields, and asks: How...

30) The marriage plot

Author

Eugenides, Jeffrey

Notes

If you are a rising senior enrolled in a 300-level English course, this summer you are expected to read one book that has as its subject “college” or “careers.” (Fiction, memoir, biography, nonfiction … you choose.) This title is recommended by teachers of Grade 12, but you may read any book that fits the assignment.

Formats:

Book, Large Print

Description

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Madeleine Hanna breaks out of her straight-and-narrow mold when she falls in love with charismatic loner Leonard Bankhead, while at the same time an old friend of hers resurfaces, obsessed with the idea that Madeleine is his destiny.

31) This side of paradise

Author

Fitzgerald, F. Scott

Notes

If you are a rising senior enrolled in a 300-level English course, this summer you are expected to read one book that has as its subject “college” or “careers.” (Fiction, memoir, biography, nonfiction … you choose.) This title is recommended by teachers of Grade 12, but you may read any book that fits the assignment.

Formats:

Book, Audiobook CD, eAudiobook, eBook, Large Print

Description

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The exciting story of the excellent youth of a young man named Amory Blain.

32) The Circle: a novel

Author

Eggers, Dave

Notes

If you are a rising senior enrolled in a 300-level English course, this summer you are expected to read one book that has as its subject “college” or “careers.” (Fiction, memoir, biography, nonfiction … you choose.) This title is recommended by teachers of Grade 12, but you may read any book that fits the assignment.

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

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"The Circle is the exhilarating new novel from Dave Eggers, best-selling author of A Hologram for the King, a finalist for the National Book Award. When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world's most powerful internet company, she feels she's been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users' personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating...

33) The man in the gray flannel suit

Author

Wilson, Sloan

Notes

If you are a rising senior enrolled in a 300-level English course, this summer you are expected to read one book that has as its subject “college” or “careers.” (Fiction, memoir, biography, nonfiction … you choose.) This title is recommended by teachers of Grade 12, but you may read any book that fits the assignment.

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, Large Print

Description

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Universally acclaimed when first published in 1955, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit captured the mood of a generation. It was a national bestseller that was made into an award-winning film, it was translated into twenty-six languages, and its title has become a permanent part of our cultural vocabulary. Today, it is more relevant than ever. Here is the story of Tom and Betsy Rath, a young couple with everything going for them: three healthy children,...

34) Lean in: women, work, and the will to lead

Author

Sandberg, Sheryl

Notes

If you are a rising senior enrolled in a 300-level English course, this summer you are expected to read one book that has as its subject “college” or “careers.” (Fiction, memoir, biography, nonfiction … you choose.) This title is recommended by teachers of Grade 12, but you may read any book that fits the assignment.

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

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The Facebook CEO and "Fortune" top-ranked businesswoman shares provocative, anecdotal advice for women that urges them to take risks and seek new challenges in order to find work that they can love and engage in passionately.

35) #Girlboss

Author

Amoruso, Sophia

Notes

If you are a rising senior enrolled in a 300-level English course, this summer you are expected to read one book that has as its subject “college” or “careers.” (Fiction, memoir, biography, nonfiction … you choose.) This title is recommended by teachers of Grade 12, but you may read any book that fits the assignment.

Description

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""A #GIRLBOSS is in charge of her own life. She gets what she wants because she works for it." The first thing Sophia Amoruso sold online wasn't fashion-it was a stolen book. She spent her teens hitchhiking, committing petty theft, and dumpster diving. By twenty-two, she had resigned herself to employment, but was still broke, directionless, and working a mediocre day job she'd taken for the health insurance. It was there that Sophia decided to start...

36) Grit: the power of passion and perseverance

Author

Duckworth, Angela

Notes

If you are a rising senior enrolled in a 300-level English course, this summer you are expected to read one book that has as its subject “college” or “careers.” (Fiction, memoir, biography, nonfiction … you choose.) This title is recommended by teachers of Grade 12, but you may read any book that fits the assignment.

Formats:

Book, Audiobook CD, eAudiobook

Description

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"In this must-read book for anyone striving to succeed, pioneering psychologist Angela Duckworth shows parents, educators, athletes, students, and business people--both seasoned and new--that the secret to outstanding achievement is not talent but a focused persistence called "grit." Why do some people succeed and others fail? Sharing new insights from her landmark research on grit, MacArthur "genius" Angela Duckworth explains why talent is hardly...

37) All the light we cannot see

Author

Doerr, Anthony

Notes

English 9 Accelerated Assigned Reading

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle, Large Print

Description

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"From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, a stunningly ambitious and beautiful novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Marie Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of the locks (there are thousands of locks in the museum). When she is six,...

38) Things we lost to the water: a novel

Author

Nguyen, Eric

Notes

English 10 Honors Assigned Reading

Formats:

Book, eBook, Kindle

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"When Huong arrives in New Orleans with her two young sons, she is jobless, homeless, and worried about her husband, Cong, who remains in Vietnam. As she and her boys begin to settle into life in America, she continues to send letters and tapes back to Cong, hopeful that they will be reunited and her children will grow up with a father. Over time, Huong realizes she will never see Cong again. While she copes with this loss, her sons, Tuan and Binh,...

39) Zeitoun

Author

Eggers, Dave

Notes

AP Lang 12 Assigned Reading

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

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NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author of The Circle • The true story of one family, caught between America’s two biggest policy disasters: the war on terror and the response to Hurricane Katrina.
"Eggers’ tone is pitch-perfect—suspense blended with just enough information to stoke reader outrage and what is likely to be a typical response: How could this happen in America? ... It’s the...

40) Thank you for arguing: what Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson can teach us about the art of persuasion

Author

Heinrichs, Jay

Notes

AP Lang 12 Assigned Reading

Description

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The time-tested secrets taught in this book include Cicero's three-step strategy for moving an audience to action and Honest Abe's shameless trick for lowering an audience's expectations. It's also replete with contemporary techniques such as politicians' use of code language to appeal to specific groups and an eye-opening assortment of persuasive tricks, including the Eddie Haskell Ploy, the Belushi Paradigm, Stalin's Timing Secret, and the Yoda...