Summer Reading List

[Jude]

Once again it is almost time for me to make the summer reading list for my high school. Every year I put the books that administration wants on it, then add one or two books that will positively influence the students. Basically propaganda. Last year it was Johnny Got His Gun, by Dalton Trumbo. Any suggestions for this year? I am looking for anything pacifistic, anti-discriminatory, or anti-capitalist. Thanks :D

[Pawn Power]

Just fiction? ... Catch-22 and The Jungle are both great choices.

[Marsella]

John Pilger has some good (non-fiction) stuff.

As long as its not Animal Farm. :\

[Random Precision]

Hmmm. A couple come to mind, unfortunately all from male authors :(

Some of these will probably already be on there as well.

Pacifist:

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
The Things they Carried by Tim O'Brien
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
Jarhead by Anthony Swofford

Anti-Capitalist:

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Oil! by Upton Sinclair
Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Anti-Discriminatory

The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
The City and the Pillar by Gore Vidal

[Mujer Libre]

Fiction hey?
The Dispossessed by Ursula le Guin

and

Iron Council by China Mieville

are both anti-capitalist.


A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen is a good early feminist play and I just recently read Brick Lane by Monica Ali, which describes the life of a Bangladeshi woman who immigrated to the UK and how she struggles with racism and her burden of a husband. It's actually quite a lot like A Dolls House.

[Jude]

Wow, thanks everyone:)

Although "The Jungle" is too long and complicated for any of those lazy asses to even consider:p

Random Precision gave me many great ideas. I'll have to get to the library, though, as I have to read them beforehand.

And ML, although I highly doubt any of these kids (it's an all-boys private school) will want to read any feminist books, I think that the few who do will greatly benefit from them, so I will absolutely look into those.

Again, thanks :thumbup:

[Random Precision]

^^^ I'm happy my knowledge of literature is useful to someone, even if it isn't to me. ;)

Also, you might want to check out Germinal by Émile Zola under the "anti-capitalism" section. Or not, because I doubt if your students consider the Jungle too involved, I doubt they would be able to handle Germinal either.

Oh, and you should also add Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut under the category of "pacifism".

[quevivafidel]

Dickens is probably a good bet.

I actually just finished reading a Doll's House for my Lit class. I'm getting sick of it with all the notes + the paper we have to do with it...I'm doing a Marxist study on it for my essay because my teacher said, "You must do a Marxist study!" knowing I'm a Marxist.

[Mujer Libre]

^ I have a soft spot for A Doll's House because it introduced me to Emma Goldman after I read one of her critiques of it. :) I still loved it, even after studying it, but I did it in this advanced English class where you get to do more independent work and are allowed to (shock! Horror!) think for yourself. It makes a big difference. Plus we saw a brilliant production of it- with Miranda Otto, of all people, playing Nora.

[Bastable]

when i first saw A Dolls House (a couple years back) i thought Nora was a cow and that Torvald was quite a good husband.

i was so young and naive...

[Sugar Hill Kevis]

Just fiction? ... Catch-22 and The Jungle are both great choices.

I love Catch-22. I bought the Jungle last summer but it's still sitting on my reading pile (it's moved up to the top now though) - I remember when I was working at an amusement park last summer there was an ageing Marxist woman who worked in the kitchen who recommended "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists" by Robert Tressell, she basically put it forward as the British equivilent. RTP was fantastic, not sure how it fares to the Jungle in terms of which is better?

Also, how about something such as Zinn's autobiography "You Can't Be Neutral On A Moving Train"? I'm reading it at the moment, it's quite a nice personal history of activism in the 20th century.