Friday, August 14, 2009

Summer Reading

By way of introduction, please share some brief thoughts about what you read this summer. Include not only the "literary" novel you read for class, but also any other less formal reading you might have done, both literary and "commercial," both print and electronic. Any recommendations? Feel free also to comment on your classmates' postings as the blog is an excellent forum for discussion!

I don't know if I need to remind my A.P. scholars of this, but your blogs should also be professional and carefully proofread.

Please post your writing under "Comments" by class time on Friday, August 21.

25 comments:

  1. Hello, I hope I'm not the only one who ends up doing this, as I'm not sure it's an actual assignment. Anyways, my reading choice for class was _The Road_ by Cormac McCarthy. I pretty much loved it, and I can't wait to go and see the film, which is out sometime this October with Viggo Mortensen. I can clearly see why it was a Pulitzer Prize winner, the powerful imagery and storytelling are phenomenal.
    I also read, and am still reading _Diplomacy_ by Henry Kissinger. It's pretty incredible, I think, the progression that modern interaction stems from people like Henry of Orange and Cardinal Richelieu.
    I also read _2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl_. I thought it would be about really cool stuff, but it turned out to be a book about drug experimentation more than anything.
    I read TIME magazine and Rolling Stone religiously, but other than that, I can't really remember anything outstanding.

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  2. Hello!

    This summer I read Atonement by Ian McEwan and I loved it! I could relate really well at the beginning to Briony, one of the main and most influential characters in the novel. She has a great imagination and is always thinking. McEwan goes into great detail about every event and for major events he takes each chapter to tell the event from a different perspective. Therefore, the novel did not move quickly, but it was still very intersting and fun to read.

    This summer I also read the newspaper and escpecially The New York Times. I started reading the nonfiction book that is now a movie, The Soloist. I love it but haven't had the time to finish it yet.

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  3. This summer I read Plainsong and absolutely and completely fell in love with it (so much so that I actually couldn't even put it down when I was in Hawaii)! At first it was really strange to get used to Hauf's writing style because he doesn't use quotation marks, but I got used to it. The simplicity and honesty of the characters delighted my heart and it was so great to see the different generations experience all the emotions. The movie was good but definitely did not capture the essence of the incredible and straight-forward book.

    I also read "Made in the USA" by Billie Lettes this summer and enjoyed it but for the first 3/4 of the book were a little like trudging though mud. Not as good as her previous book "Where the Heart Is" which I love!

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  4. This summer I read Atonement by Ian McEwan also. I enjoyed this book a lot although I wouldn’t call it one of my favorites. It was so intriuging and creative how he wrote much of the novel from different characters’ perspectives. It caused you to be more involed with the characters and didn’t allow for there to be good guys or bad guys. Rather at times you would fall in love with one character and completely agree with them and then at other times your opinion would change to folllow another character. This continuous change modeled real life situations and the lack of black and white opinions in relationships. I felt that he spent too much time with description to where it became overwhelming and long. Instead of having a clear and intense plot, he filled it with description . Although it was a little long at parts I would recommend this novel with its complex characters and creative style using perspective.
    This summer I also read Kite Runner, The Count of Monte Cristo, Red and White and Adam by Ted Dekker, and am reading Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. I loved the Count of Monte Cristo, it is definitelly moving to the top of my favorites list. I really enjoyed all of the others that I read this summer too and would recommend all of them to anyone!

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  5. For my summer reading, I read Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare. I had an edition that had the original on the left pages and a more modern version on the right pages. I read the original first and then a week later went back and read the more modern version. Reading both really helped me understand the play better. I really enjoyed it and to me it seemed more of a casual reading then an assignment.
    Unfortunately, I was extremely busy this summer and did not get an opportunity to read anything else. I like everyone's suggestions and will try to pick up some of them to start reading!

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  6. This summer I read East of Eden by John Steinbeck. It was absolutely one of the most amazing books I've ever read. At first I was unsure about the length and the plot, but after the first couple of chapters it got really interesting. Steinbeck's writing and style is very personable but intoxicating. I was constantly questioning. This book makes you think about morality and forces you to introspect yourself.

    I also read My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picolt. It was a great plot line and definately was controversial, but lacked any literary value.

    Also, I read The Kite Runner for the second time. I love that book and I'm sure many of you have read it. I can't wait to read One Thousand Splendid Suns!

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  7. This summer, for class, I read One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and I can easily say that I loved it. Though it is a bit lengthy, and doesn’t have a single major plot line, I found the story quite entertaining; the novel follows the development of a mythical village and its founding family. Each character/family member’s personal story and history is elaborated upon and I am sure anybody could find at least one of the characters to relate to. The book covered several simultaneous plots and contained elements of almost every type of genre. The only part that became confusing was that all of the family members had very similar names. But the book contains a family tree, which made keeping track of who was who much easier, for me. Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s writing style reminds me of how a grandparent might tell a story to his or her grandchild; he incorporates magical elements right alongside everyday details in a way that makes the ordinary seem magical and the magical seem feasible. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone, and I loved it so much I picked up another one of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novels over the summer, Love in the Time of Cholera, and am about 1/4 of the way through it.

    During the summer I also read On the Road by Jack Kerouac and a book of William Blake’s poetry. I also read various pieces by Edgar Allan Poe.

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  8. Over the summer, I read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. Chabon's writing style gave me adequate details that kept me interested in the book throughout the duration of reading it. Though it's quite a lengthy book, the pages are easy to get through because of the concise nature of the paragraphs. I never found myself having to reread any pages because Chabon kept my attention with the characters he created.

    Other reading I did over the summer consisted of delving into a number of columns written about Michael Vick. The story still kind of fascinates me because the differing opinions on his reinstatement will not change. His situation will be debated for a long time and it was interesting to see each side of the argument. I also read The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe which is a nonfiction book that chronicles the time Tom Wolfe spent with Ken Kesey (author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) and the Merry Pranksters. It was an extremely interesting read and I highly recommend it.

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  9. This summer I read The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. I enjoyed the book for its unique perception and insight into the 1920s. The characters were complex in their mannerisms yet simplistic in their overall motives. I deeply enjoyed the portrayal of the Lost Generation’s moral dilemmas and the social realization of the degraded nature of post-World War One.

    I also read Killer Angels by Michael Shaara. This is an amazing historical fiction work that focuses on the Battle of Gettysburg. This book has changed my perception regarding the American Civil War.

    I read A Million Little Pieces by James Frey. I personally don’t care if the book is fact or fiction; it is a great novel that has a powerful message to deliver.

    I am currently reading Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott. This book is one of my personal favorites.

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  10. This summer I read The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I agree completely with Alex, it was one on the best books I have ever read. I love McCarthy's writing style, and the plot of The Road made it hard to stop reading. I have also read No Country For Old Men by McCarthy, and I really liked that one as well. No Country was really intense and it was a great read. I would definitely recommend both of these books to the guys of the class, and I am sure that a lot of the girls would like them as well!

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  11. This summer I read Plainsong by Kent Haruf and absolutely loved it!! I would definitely recommend it to anyone-probably more to the girls than boys but I loved Haruf's writing style. When I first started reading it I was a little unsure because I couldn't tell where the story was going and it was very straight forward but I think in the end this is what made the book so enjoyable. Once I got started, the book moved very fast and was a fairly easy read. Haruf wrote this book with so much detail and dialogue that the characters really came alive which is what made it so good.

    In my free time, I also read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer this summer. This book was a little tougher to get through for me because it is hard to follow the book and characters since it jumps around so much but I really loved the story line of it! I would definitely recommend this one as well!

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  12. Hello!

    This summer, I read Cold Mountain. It was a hard read at first, but after I really got into it, I fell in love with it. It had many fun characters and was stuffed with symbolism. Not only was this an amazing story of love and faith, but it was also full of inspiration and passion. And being who I am, I love to be inspired. I highly recommend it! (Plus, after I read it, I watched the movie, and ended up crying like a baby).

    Also this summer, I read My Sister's Keeper (favorite!!), Ender's Game (another great one!), and Revolutionary Road. They were all wonderful and come highly recommended by me.

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  13. Well, this summer I read William Shakespeare’s, The Tempest. I actually really enjoyed reading it. Compared to reading Romeo and Juliet freshman year and reading Hamlet last year, I thought it was a much more entertaining story. It just had a different feel to it. Instead of a serious love story it had magic and twists that I felt were more of a piece of escape literature rather than interpretive literature. Hahaha. No but I thought it was one of the better plays I have read. I was pleasantly surprised with the story. I’m sad to say that that is the only reading I did this past summer however, if you have to read Shakespeare, I highly suggest the tempest.

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  14. This summer I read The Tempest by William Shakespeare. I disliked the play, especially compared to his other plays. The Tempest involves a much more mythological aspect than his other works. However, the piece has great literary value, I just did not enjoy the story. I also read some Twilight books this summer which was nice to finally read something for fun. I definitely read them as an "escape." Even though I didn't read them this summer, The Count of Monte Cristo and East of Eden--both books people have read this summer--are two of my favorites!!! I would highly recommend both of them.

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  15. I read East of Eden over my summer. As a few other people have mentioned, I thought it was absolutely amazing as well. I loved every single one of the 601 pages! It was a long read, but I found myself enitrely immersed in the story. I read Of Mice and Men, also by Steinbeck, last year ago, and I must say that I though East of Eden was by far the better book. Even though it was pretty long, I felt that the way Steinbeck develops his characters and keeps them interesting throughtout the novel was phenomenal. I also found the if you have some background knowledge about Genesis, it makes the read that much more enjoably since you can truly appreciate the parallels Steinbeck makes with his novel. I must say though that I was expecting a very different ending; but it was brilliant none the less. I would highly, highly recommend this book to anyone.

    I also read Beneath a Marble Sky by John Shors and Angels and Demons. Beneath a Marble Sky an incredible book essentially about the back story of why the Taj Mahal was built. Angels and Demons was a fun page-turner, and was much better than the movie. :)

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  16. Over the summer I read East of Eden by John Steinbeck. It was a long read, and I felt that at times scenes were dragged on or rather boring.However, I was excited reading this book, it was one that I couldn't put down for too long. I was captivated by the characters, their stories, and how each of them played into the plot. There is probably a character from the story that almost anyone could relate to.
    I also read My Sister's Keeper, and The Shack. They were both great books that opened my mind to a much larger and more complex world than I could ever experience.

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  17. This summer I read Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare. Like Endsley, I also had a book where there was modern test on the right and original text on the left. I read the modern text first to really understand what the story was about. Then I later read the original version so I already knew what was going on but I could also appreciate Shakespeare's motifs and symbols. By doing this, I didn't have to spend hours trying to understand what I was reading and I could enjoy the book. It was a good book, but not my favorite by Shakespeare.

    I also read The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. It was by far better than the movie and I had a hard time putting it down. It was a great mix of history, fiction, adventure, and mystery. I recommend it if you haven't already read it!

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  18. I read Twelfth Night by good old William Shakespeare, and absolutely loved it! I originially chose the play because the movie "She's the Man," which happens to be fantastic, is based upon it. The play is probably twenty times better than the movie could ever be. It was witty and charming, and not too difficult to understand. I really loved most of the characters, and got a real kick out of the plot. I think this is such a classic story, and everyone should be reading it. It's pretty short, and just a pleasure to read; as my new favorite Shakespeare play, I definitely suggest it to anyone!

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  19. Over the summer I read The Tempest by William Shakespeare. I really enjoyed reading this play partially because I love Shakespeare and it was is relatively short. If your a person who enjoys a quick read but isn't afraid the language he uses then I would highly recommend it as an independent study or just some good escape reading.

    This summer I also read A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson for AP Biology. It was very interesting and made you think a lot but I wouldn't recommend it if your not into science.

    Along with these books I read a lot of articles in The Wall Street Journal. I started reading it to stay current with worldly events for AP Gov but then found myself just reading it fun. I found it is an excellent news paper and quite entertaining.

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  20. Hey guys!

    Over the summer I read The Outlander by Gil Adamson. I must say that it might be one of my favorite books of all time. It was not on the Ap list but it has been compared to Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain or early Cormac McCarthy.
    I fell in love with the Gil's command of language and her ability to suck the reader into her main characters life.
    The story made me think of troubles in my own life and what realy matters the most to me.
    It was both an escape and interpretation piece that streched my mind and spirit.

    I also read Hearts and Horses, The Man who Talks to Horses, A Short History of Nearly Everything, The Tempest, Cold Mountain, The Secret Sharer, 1984 (for the sixth time), and an odd assortment of vet books.

    Besides books i also read the paper everyday and I love TIME magazine. I kind of have a love afair with current events.

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  21. I read an incredible book this summer called "Redeeming Love" by Francine Rivers. Girls--this is a must-read :)

    Rivers takes the eloquent Bible story of Hosea and modernizes the story, creating characters that become so real and cause one to self-reflect. In a completely un-cheesy way, Rivers dives deep into the meaning of love...and how that applies each human being, regardless of their past.

    I also read "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle," which is one of those books whose plot you can't really explain, but written so brilliantly that you become lost in the beautiful language.

    Looking forward to many more phenomenal books! Thanks for your suggestions!

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  22. This summer I read Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare. I think just about everyone who read this did what I did, which was had the original text next to a modern version. I found this to be extremely helpful and it made the play so much more enjoyable actually understanding everything along the way. However, this isn't my favorite of Shakespeare's plays. I found the story repetitive and not very eventful.
    I also read Breathing Underwater by Alex Flinn this summer. This book is fabulous!! It's a hard topic to read about, but it's a real page turner from the second you open the book. It's not incredibly challenging, but I really enjoyed it and highly recommend it.

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  23. I also read Atonement by Ian McEwan and Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare. I did like Atonement and appreciated its literary value, how ever I sometimes felt overwhelmed with McEwans descriptions. Though vivid, they were close to overbearing. As for Shakespeare, like Endsley, I, too had the edition with Shakespeare's original on the left and a more modern text on the right. I found it much easier to understand the playwright by reading both so it was comprehensible and able to appreciate the eloquency of Shakespeare.

    I also read Angels and Demons, The DaVinci Code, and Deception Point by Dan Brown. They definitely are page turners and full of suspense, cryptic clues, and twists that ultimately lead to a great ending. I loved them and would highly recommend all of these!

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