Outside Reading

It's that time of the year again! You need to find a book that you will enjoy, have it approved by me, and read it by early April. Make sure to take the time to find a book that intrigues YOU; as cheesy as it sounds, there is a book out there waiting for you that could change your life. Use this post to: a) share recommended book titles and authors with your peers b) declare the book title and author you have chosen.

Here's a short list of my personal favorites; feel free to ask me about any of them:

Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux
Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse by Jared Diamond
A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson
Made in America by Bill Bryson
Fast Food Nation (or anything) by Eric Schlosser
Man and his Symbols by Carl Jung
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Captain’s Daughter by Alexander Pushkin
The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan
1984 by George Orwell
The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff
Water for Elephants by Sarah Gruen
The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
What is the What by Dave Eggers
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
A Primer of Jungian Psychology
Anything by: Gogol, Chekhov, Bunin, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Bulgakov
The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah

Honors Seniors: Nikolai Gogol's "The Nose"

1. Did you enjoy this short story? Why or why not?
2. Can you identify characteristics of this short story which reflect what you know about Russia and/or Russian history?
3. The story's title in Russian (Nos) is the reverse of the Russian word for "dream" (Son). Why does this make sense in regard to this tale?
4. Compare Gogol's story with the work of another writer, artist or director.

Seniors: Research Paper Topics

Per your syllabus, please post your research topic and primary source book here.