英国高中生必读书目

This list is of books you will find lively and interesting. All of them have been published this century; many of them in the last few years. Do take a chance to enjoy the variety of authors, subjects, settings and styles; try to broaden your literary horizons by reading authors who are new to you. All of these titles are readily available in paperback.

Isabel Allende The House of the Spirits

Kate Atkinson Behind the Scenes at the Museum, Human Croquet

Pat Barker Regeneration, The Eye in the Door, The Ghost Road

Louis de Bernieres Captain Corelli’s Mandolin

J. L. Carr A Month in the Country

Jung Chang Wild Swans

Sebastian Faulkes Birdsong, Charlotte Grey

Jane Gardam Bilgewater, A Long Way to Verona

Alex Garland The Beach

L. P. Hartley The Go-Between

Susan Hill I’m the King of the Castle, Strange Meeting

Nick Hornby High Fidelity, Fever Pitch, About a Boy

Kazuo Ishiguro The Remains of the Day

Frank McCourt Angela’s Ashes

Ian McEwan Enduring Love

Ann Michaels Fugitive Pieces

Toni Morrison Beloved

E. Annie Proulx The Shipping News

Arundhati Roy The God of Small Things

Carol Shields Larry’s Party, The Stone Diaries

Zadie Smith White Teeth

Donna Tart The Secret History

Sarah Waters Affinity

This list is of “classics”. Don’t be put off by names of writers or works that you’ve heard and assume to be boring! Give them a try. All should be available in bookshops, and many can be found in the school library.

Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey, Emma

Charlotte Bronte Jane Eyre

Emily Bronte Wuthering Heights

Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness

Charles Dickens Great Expectations, David Copperfield, Bleak House

George Eliot The Mill on the Floss, Middlemarch, Adam Bede

E. M. Forster Howard’s End, A Room with a View

Thomas Hardy The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the d’Urbervilles Henry James The Turn of the Screw, The Portrait of a Lady

James Joyce A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Dubliners D. H. Lawrence Sons and Lovers

George Orwell Animal Farm, 1984

Mary Shelley Frankenstein

Virginia Woolf To the Lighthouse