Faculty, Staff, and Upper School

Recommended Summer Reading List

2014

Created by Olivia Geaghan

All descriptions are taken from the publisher.

Fiction

Deep River by Shusaku Endo

In this moving novel, a group of Japanese tourists, each of whom is wrestling with his or her own demons, travels to the River Ganges on a pilgrimage of grace.

Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt

In this striking literary debut, Carol Rifka Brunt unfolds a moving story of love, grief, and renewal as two lonely people become the unlikeliest of friends and find that sometimes you don’t know

you’ve lost someone until you’ve found them.

Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi

Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi is kind of like a modern day Snow White, but with lots of alterations. The story is told mainly by Boy, who is actually a girl, who escapes from an abusive

father and makes a new life in a small town in Massachusetts. Boy marries and inherits a stepdaughter, Snow, who is pretty much the most perfect person ever. But when Boy and her

husband have a child of their own, a family secret is revealed that causes many of the family relationships to be strained.

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

A beautiful and distinguished family. A private island.

A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy. A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.

A revolution. An accident. A secret. Lies upon lies.

True love. The truth.

We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from National Book Award finalist and

Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart.

Read it. And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.

Wash by Margaret Wrinkle

When the pressures of early 1800s westward expansion and debt threaten to destroy everything he's built, a troubled Revolutionary War veteran embarks on an audacious plan

involving setting one of his male slaves as his breeding sire.

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

A young boy in New York City, Theo Decker, miraculously survives an accident that takes the life of his mother. Alone and abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by a friend's family and

struggles to make sense of his new life. In the years that follow, he becomes entranced by one of the few things that reminds him of his mother; a small, mysteriously captivating painting that

ultimately draws Theo into the art underworld.

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton

Foolish love appears to be the Roux family birthright, an ominous forecast for its most recent progeny, Ava Lavender. Ava—in all other ways a normal girl—is born with the wings of a bird.

The Dinner by Herman Koch

An internationally bestselling phenomenon: the darkly suspenseful, highly controversial tale of two families struggling to make the hardest decision of their lives—all over the course of one

meal.

*Faculty recommendation - by Deborah Gressel

The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg

With pitch-perfect prose, huge compassion, and sly humor, Jami Attenberg has given us an epic story of marriage, family, and obsession. The Middlesteins explores the hopes and heartbreaks of

new and old love, the yearnings of Midwestern America, and our devastating, fascinating preoccupation with food.

*Faculty recommendation by Stephanie Hiedemann

The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison

Jonathan Evison has crafted a novel of the heart, a novel of unlikely heroes traveling through a grand American landscape, and most of all, a story that offers a profound look into what it takes

to truly care for another person. Bursting with energy and filled with moments of absolute beauty, this bighearted and inspired novel ponders life’s terrible surprises as well as its

immeasurable rewards.

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

A story of love and race centered around a young man and woman from Nigeria who face difficult choices and challenges in the countries they come to call home.

Rivers: A Novel by Michael Ferris Smith

Eerily prophetic in its depiction of a southern landscape ravaged by extreme weather, Rivers is a masterful tale of survival and redemption in a world where the next devastating storm is never

far behind.

Non Fiction

The Pink Sari Revolution by Amana Fontanella-Khan

When Sheelu was arrested for stealing from a powerful politician in the notoriously crooked region of Uttar Pradesh, she was sure that she would be forced to accept a prison sentence, not least because she had alleged that she had been assaulted by a man in the politician's household.

But then Sampat Pal heard word of the charges, and the formidable commander of the pink-sari-wearing, pink-baton-wielding, 20,000-strong 'Pink Gang' decided to shake things up.

Narrating the story of Sampat Pal and the Pink Gang's fight for Sheelu, as well as for others facing injustice and oppression, journalist Amana Fontanella-Khan delivers a riveting portrait of women

grabbing fate with their own hands - and winning back their lives.

Thrive by Arianna Huffington

In Thrive, Arianna Huffington makes an impassioned and compelling case for the need to redefine what it means to be successful in today's world.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is the moving memoir of a college senior who, in the space of five weeks, loses both of his parents to cancer and inherits his eight-year-old brother. Here is an exhilarating debut that manages to be simultaneously hilarious and wildly inventive as

well as a deeply heartfelt story of the love that holds a family together.

However Long the Night: Molly Melching's Journey to Help Millions of African Women and Girls Triumph

by Molly Melching

In However Long the Night, Aimee Molloy tells the unlikely and inspiring story of Molly Melching, an American woman whose experience as an exchange student in Senegal led her to found

Tostan and dedicate almost four decades of her life to the girls and women of Africa.

This moving biography details Melching's beginnings at the University of Dakar and follows her journey of 40 years in Africa, where she became a social entrepreneur and one of humanity's

strongest voices for the rights of girls and women.

My Boyfriend Barfed in My Handbag and Other Things You Can’t Ask Martha

by Jolie Kerr

The author of the hit column “Ask a Clean Person” offers a hilarious and practical guide to cleaning up life’s little emergencies

Life is filled with spills, odors, and those oh-so embarrassing stains you just can’t tell your parents about. And let’s be honest: no one is going to ask Martha Stewart what to do when your

boyfriend barfs in your handbag.

Thankfully, Jolie Kerr has both staggering cleaning knowledge and a sense of humor. With signature sass and straight talk, Jolie takes on questions ranging from the basic—how do I use a mop? —to the esoteric—what should I do when bottles of homebrewed ginger beer explode in

my kitchen? My Boyfriend Barfed in My Handbag proves that even the most nightmarish cleaning conundrums can be solved with a smile, the right supplies, and a little music.

The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future

by Joseph E. Stiglitz

A forceful argument against America's vicious circle of growing inequality by the Nobel

Prize–winning economist.

America currently has the most inequality, and the least equality of opportunity, among the advanced countries. While market forces play a role in this stark picture, politics has shaped

those market forces. In this best-selling book, Nobel Prize–winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz exposes the efforts of well-heeled interests to compound their wealth in ways that have stifled

true, dynamic capitalism. Along the way he examines the effect of inequality on our economy, our democracy, and our system of justice. Stiglitz explains how inequality affects and is affected by every aspect of national policy, and with characteristic insight he offers a vision for a more just

and prosperous future, supported by a concrete program to achieve that vision.

Looking Ahead

The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness

Just finished the galley of this book. I’ve kept her previous two books on the list for the past few summers. It took me a while to remember all of the characters, connections, and what happened in the whirlwind novel Shadow of Night. I will say - this book lives up to the promises - if you can be patient enough to put the pieces back together. Series books can be difficult - especially to

impatient and dedicated readers!

After traveling through time in Shadow of Night, the second book in Deborah Harkness’s enchanting series, historian and witch Diana Bishop and vampire scientist Matthew Clairmont

return to the present to face new crises and old enemies. At Matthew’s ancestral home at Sept-Tours, they reunite with the cast of characters from A Discovery of Witches—with one

significant exception. But the real threat to their future has yet to be revealed, and when it is, the search for Ashmole 782 and its missing pages takes on even more urgency. In the trilogy’s final

volume, Harkness deepens her themes of power and passion, family and caring, past deeds and their present consequences. In ancestral homes and university laboratories, using ancient

knowledge and modern science, from the hills of the Auvergne to the palaces of Venice and beyond, the couple at last learn what the witches discovered so many centuries ago.