Requirements
AP Language students must choose at least one nonfiction book. The other choice may be fiction or nonfiction.
Recommended Reading
While you may choose to read whatever you would like, we thought some of you might like to see a list of recommended books. The list for each grade level/class has been compiled from awards lists, teacher recommendations, and even student recommendations!
Nonfiction
Fiction
Challenge List*
*Please note: The Challenge List includes titles that deal with issues/themes which have historically been of great interest to high school seniors. Many of these titles, however, were originally intended for adult audiences and some include more mature content. They were included here because they will help challenge students who plan to attend college next year. None of these texts are required, and students should select summer reading that best fits their interests and goals.
AP Language students must choose at least one nonfiction book. The other choice may be fiction or nonfiction.
Recommended Reading
While you may choose to read whatever you would like, we thought some of you might like to see a list of recommended books. The list for each grade level/class has been compiled from awards lists, teacher recommendations, and even student recommendations!
Nonfiction
- Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
- Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
- The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
- Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain
- Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
- Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
- Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
- This House of Sky by Ivan Doig
- Friday Night Lights by Buzz Bissinger
- The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson
Fiction
- The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
- Animal Farm by George Orwell
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
- Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
- The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
- The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
- Oedipus Rex by Sophocles
Challenge List*
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
- White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson
- My Bloody Life: The Making of a Latin King by Reymundo Sanchez
*Please note: The Challenge List includes titles that deal with issues/themes which have historically been of great interest to high school seniors. Many of these titles, however, were originally intended for adult audiences and some include more mature content. They were included here because they will help challenge students who plan to attend college next year. None of these texts are required, and students should select summer reading that best fits their interests and goals.