AP Language Summer Reading 2010

Assignment

Read two of the following works of non-fiction thoroughly. When you return to school in the fall, you should be able to write intelligently about the ideas, arguments, concepts, and writing style of each work. Pay particular attention to the central argument(s) of each work, and how the author connects with her audience. Some of these works are very challenging; make sure to read carefully and consider finding a partner to read and discuss the text with you. Download the complete list of books here. I have one copy of each book available for checkout. Once you've decided on a book, feel free to come check it out.

Also, please select one of the blogs listed here  or an editorial columnist and follow his/her work during the summer.

A final suggestion would be to read as many articles from quality magazines like The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and/or Harper’s Magazine during the summer.

Environment 

• Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
• Walden by Henry David Thoreau
• My First Summer in the Sierras by John Muir
• Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey
• Wilderness in the American Imagination by Roderick Nash
• A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold
• Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
• Collapse by Jared Diamond

Education

• The End of Education by Neil Postman
• The Death and Life of the Great American School System by Diane Ravitch
• Weapons of Mass Instruction by John Taylor Gatto
• The Shallows by Nicholas Carr
• Shop class as Soulcraft by Matthew Crawford

Culture

• Shadow and Act by Ralph Ellison
• Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman
• Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
• The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
• The Western Canon by Harold Bloom
• The Art of Choosing by Sheena Iyengar
• The Anti-Intellectual Presidency: The Decline of Presidential Rhetoric by Elvin Lim
• The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean
• The Night My Mother Met Bruce Lee by Paisely Rekdal
• Men at Work by George Will
• Black Boy by Richard Wright
• The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
• The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard
• Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

Politics

• Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
• The Autobiography Of Malcolm X by Alex Haley and Malcolm X
• The American Political Tradition by Richard Hofstader
• The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
• The Conservative Soul by Andrew Sullivan
• One Man's America: The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation by George Will
• When Everything Changed by Gail Collins
• Intellectuals and Society by Thomas Sowell
• The Conscience of a Liberal by Thomas Krugman

Economics/Current Events

• Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
• The Road to Serfdom by Frederick Hayek
• The Healing of America by T.R. Reid
• The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood by David Simon
• Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
• Columbine by Dave Cullen

General Interest

• What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell
• The New Kings of Nonfiction by Ira Glass
• Zeitoun by Dave Eggers

Science

• The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould
• A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
• The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond

History/Philosophy

• A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
• Nixonland: The Rise of a President by Rick Perlstein
• The Radicalism of the American Revolution by Gordon Wood
• The Living and the Dead: Robert McNamara and Five Lives of a Lost War by Paul Hendrickson
• A Terrible Love of War by James Hillman
• An Intimate History of Killing by Joanna Bourke
• The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order by Samuel P. Huntington
• The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama

Media/Propaganda

• What Orwell Didn't Know by Andras Szanto
• Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky
• Media Unlimited by Todd Gitlin

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