Summer Reading List

On my bookshelf for the summer:

Swimming in the Monsoon Sea by Shyam Selvadurai: My 9th graders really liked this during lit circles, but I unfortunately only skimmed it. Also need to re-read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (Hadden), which is summer reading.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker and The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger: Choosing one of them for the 9th grade curriculum 'classic' novel, so re-reading both of them with teacher eyes.

Beethoven Was One-Sixteenth Black by Nadine Gordimer: The search for a readable Gordimer continues. I didn't like July's People at all. But she's a woman on the IB list, so she's golden. This book is short (I need to find two short books) and has a cool title. I'm also going to pick up My Son's Story by her.

Wicked by Gregory Maguire: This is my NY read. I'm seeing the musical with my mom.

Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison: Have always wanted to read it. Ditto The God of Small Things.

Mother to Mother by Sindiwe Magona, Real World or Out by Natsuo Kirino, Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid, Ways of Dying by Zakes Mda: Each of the above are kind of the same ilk -- short international novels that look high-interest and possibly teachable someday.

Wild Swans by Jung Chang: Summer Reading for my seniors. Writing a quiz as I go.

How to Read Literature Like a Professor: Ditto.

Tim Winton, Cloudstreet: Ont he IB List, and I'm into this book so far. A woman at NCTE recommended it.

I'm also seeking two novels from the IB List that I can teach. Preferably at least one of them should be a female writer. The list--all writers who write in English--is below. Anyone who has any great suggestions, let me know! Specifically looking for shorter works, and already doing Margaret Atwood (Oryx and Crake). Don't quite have a theme yet, but it's going to be something about The Evil in Humanity (would be great if I added Lessin's The Fifth Child, which I'm considering, meaning I just need one more from the list below) or about Class Struggle. (The White Tiger is the other text I've chosen, so I have two more.)

Africa: Ama Ata Aidoo, Cyprian Ekwensi, Bessie Head, Chenjerai Hove, Kojo Laing, Dominic Mulaisho, Charles Mungoshi, Isidore Okpewho, Ben Okri, Chinua Achebe, Ayi Kwei Armah, Andrew Brink, Buchi Emecheta, Nadine Gordimer, Ngugi wa Thiong'o.

Asia: Amitav Ghosh, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Arundhati Roy, Vikram Seth, Mulk Raj Anand, Anita Desai, R.K. Narayan, Salman Rushdie.

Caribbean: George Lamming, Richard Lovelace, V.S. Naipaul, Ama Brodber, David Dabydeen, Caryl Phillips, Jean Rhys.

Europe: Auste, Bronte (both), Conrad, Defoe, Dickens, Eliot, Fielding, Forster, Hardy, Joyce, Lawrence, William Trevor, Woolf, Kingsley Amis, Iain Banks, Julian Barnes, A.S. Byatt, Angela Carter, Roddy Doyle, Margaret Drabble, Graham Green, Ishiguro Kazuo, Kipling, Lessing, Murdoch, Orwell, V.S. Pritchett, Evelyn Waugh.

North America: Atwood, Auster, Bellow, Davies, Faulkner, Findley, Fitzgerald, Hawthorne, Hemingway, James, Margaret Laurence, Anne Michaels, Morrison, Munro, Poe, Steinbeck, Twain, Wharton, Wright, Carver, Cisneros, Chopin, Erdrich, Hurston, Kinkaid, Alistair Macleod, Melville, Rohinton Mistry, Flanner O'Connor, Carol Sheilds, Silko, Twain, Alice Walker, James Welch, Eudora Welty.

Oceania: Janet Frame, David Malouf, Christina Stead, Patrick White, Tim Winton, Peter Carey, Janette Hospial, Henry Lawson, Katherine Mansfield, Olga Masters, Randolph Stow, Albert Wendt.