Ms. Williams Recommendations for Summer Reading Choices by https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs These are books I have loved and books that students have loved; I have not read every book on this list, but every book comes highly recommended by either me or my students! en-us 2017-05-02 17:26:04 UTC 2017-05-05 17:42:29 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/icons/Planets.png ONE OF MS. WILLIAMS' OFFICIAL RECS: joan_williams1 https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169500121 A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving
Eleven-year-old Owen Meany, playing in a Little League baseball game in Gravesend, New Hampshire, hits a foul ball and kills his best friend's mother. Owen doesn't believe in accidents; he believes he is God's instrument. What happens to Owen after that 1953 foul is both extraordinary and terrifying. At moments a comic, self-deluded victim, but in the end the principal, tragic actor in a divine plan, Owen Meany is the most heartbreaking hero John Irving has yet created.]]> 2017-05-02 17:46:33 UTC https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169500121 ONE OF MS. WILLIAMS' OFFICIAL RECS: joan_williams1 https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169501082 And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
From the author of A Thousand Splendid Suns. In this tale revolving around not just parents and children but brothers and sisters, cousins and caretakers, Hosseini explores the many ways in which families nurture, wound, betray, honor, and sacrifice for one another; and how often we are surprised by the actions of those closest to us, at the times that matter most. 

Following its characters and the ramifications of their lives and choices and loves around the globe—from Kabul to Paris to San Francisco to the Greek island of Tinos—the story expands gradually outward, becoming more emotionally complex and powerful with each turning page.]]> 2017-05-02 17:49:29 UTC https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169501082 ONE OF MS. WILLIAMS' OFFICIAL RECS: joan_williams1 https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169501748 Red Rising, by Pierce Brown

Darrow is a Red, a member of the lowest caste in the color-coded society of the future. Like his fellow Reds, he works all day, believing that he and his people are making the surface of Mars livable for future generations.

Yet he spends his life willingly, knowing that his blood and sweat will one day result in a better world for his children.

But Darrow and his kind have been betrayed. Soon he discovers that humanity already reached the surface generations ago. Vast cities and sprawling parks spread across the planet. Darrow—and Reds like him—are nothing more than slaves to a decadent ruling class.

]]> 2017-05-02 17:51:35 UTC https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169501748 ONE OF MS. WILLIAMS' OFFICIAL RECS: joan_williams1 https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169501781 Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell

An American masterpiece. The story is set in Clayton County, Georgia, and Atlanta during the American Civil War and Reconstruction era. It depicts the struggles of young Scarlett O'Hara, the spoiled daughter of a well-to-do plantation owner, who must use every means at her disposal to claw her way out of the poverty she finds herself in after Sherman's March to the Sea.]]> 2017-05-02 17:51:41 UTC https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169501781 ONE OF MS. WILLIAMS' OFFICIAL RECS: joan_williams1 https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169501792 The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien

A genuine masterpiece. The most widely read and influential fantasy epic of all time, it is also quite simply one of the most memorable and beloved tales ever told. Through the urgings of the enigmatic wizard Gandalf, young hobbit Frodo Baggins embarks on an urgent, incredibly treacherous journey to destroy the One Ring. This ring -- created and then lost by the Dark Lord, Sauron, centuries earlier -- is a weapon of evil, one that Sauron desperately wants returned to him. With the power of the ring once again his own, the Dark Lord will unleash his wrath upon all of Middle-earth. The only way to prevent this horrible fate from becoming reality is to return the Ring to Mordor, the only place it can be destroyed. Unfortunately for our heroes, Mordor is also Sauron's lair. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is essential reading not only for fans of fantasy but for lovers of classic literature as well...]]> 2017-05-02 17:51:44 UTC https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169501792 ONE OF MS. WILLIAMS' OFFICIAL RECS: joan_williams1 https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169501814 The Golem and the Jinni, by Helene Wecker

Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay, brought to life by a disgraced rabbi who dabbles in dark Kabbalistic magic. When her master, the husband who commissioned her, dies at sea on the voyage from Poland, she is unmoored and adrift as the ship arrives in New York in 1899.
Ahmad is a jinni, a being of fire, born in the ancient Syrian desert. Trapped in an old copper flask by a Bedouin wizard centuries ago, he is released accidentally by a tinsmith in a Lower Manhattan shop. Though he is no longer imprisoned, Ahmad is not entirely free – an unbreakable band of iron binds him to the physical world.
The Golem and the Jinni is their magical, unforgettable story; unlikely friends whose tenuous attachment challenges their opposing natures – until the night a terrifying incident drives them back into their separate worlds. But a powerful threat will soon bring Chava and Ahmad together again, challenging their existence and forcing them to make a fateful choice.]]> 2017-05-02 17:51:45 UTC https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169501814 ONE OF MS. WILLIAMS' OFFICIAL RECS: joan_williams1 https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169501824 Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi

BOY Novak turns twenty and decides to try for a brand-new life. Flax Hill, Massachusetts, isn’t exactly a welcoming town, but it does have the virtue of being the last stop on the bus route she took from New York. Flax Hill is also the hometown of Arturo Whitman – craftsman, widower, and father of Snow. SNOW is mild-mannered, radiant and deeply cherished – exactly the sort of little girl Boy never was, and Boy is utterly beguiled by her. If Snow displays a certain inscrutability at times, that’s simply a characteristic she shares with her father, harmless until Boy gives birth to Snow’s sister, Bird. When BIRD is born Boy is forced to re-evaluate the image Arturo’s family have presented to her, and Boy, Snow and Bird are broken apart. Sparkling with wit and vibrancy, Boy, Snow, Bird is a deeply moving novel about three women and the strange connection between them. It confirms Helen Oyeyemi’s place as one of the most original and dynamic literary voices of her generation.]]> 2017-05-02 17:51:47 UTC https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169501824 ONE OF MS. WILLIAMS' OFFICIAL RECS: joan_williams1 https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169501835 The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it, no paper notices plastered on lampposts and billboards. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. 
Within these nocturnal black-and-white striped tents awaits an utterly unique, a feast for the senses, where one can get lost in a maze of clouds, meander through a lush garden made of ice, stare in wonderment as the tattooed contortionist folds herself into a small glass box, and become deliciously tipsy from the scents of caramel and cinnamon that waft through the air. 
Beyond the smoke and mirrors, however, a fierce competition is under way--a contest between two young illusionists, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood to compete in a "game" to which they have been irrevocably bound by their mercurial masters. Unbeknownst to the players, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. ]]> 2017-05-02 17:51:48 UTC https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169501835 ONE OF MS. WILLIAMS' OFFICIAL RECS: joan_williams1 https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169501839 The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead. Just won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction! Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hellish for all the slaves but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood - where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned and, though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.]]> 2017-05-02 17:51:49 UTC https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169501839 ONE OF MS. WILLIAMS' OFFICIAL RECS: joan_williams1 https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169501845 The Hot Zone, by Douglas Preston
The bestselling landmark account of the first emergence of the Ebola virus. A highly infectious, deadly virus from the central African rain forest suddenly appears in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. There is no cure. In a few days 90 percent of its victims are dead. A secret military SWAT team of soldiers and scientists is mobilized to stop the outbreak of this exotic "hot" virus. The Hot Zone tells this dramatic story, giving a hair-raising account of the appearance of rare and lethal viruses and their "crashes" into the human race. Shocking, frightening, and impossible to ignore, The Hot Zone proves that truth really is scarier than fiction.]]> 2017-05-02 17:51:50 UTC https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169501845 ONE OF MS. WILLIAMS' OFFICIAL RECS: joan_williams1 https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169501850 Missoula, by Jon Krakauer
Missoula, Montana is a typical college town, home to a highly regarded state university whose beloved football team inspires a passionately loyal fan base. Between January 2008 and May 2012, hundreds of students reported sexual assaults to the local police. Few of the cases were properly handled by either the university or local authorities. In this, Missoula is also typical.

In these pages, acclaimed journalist Jon Krakauer investigates a spate of campus rapes that occurred in Missoula over a four-year period. Taking the town as a case study for a crime that is sadly prevalent throughout the nation, Krakauer documents the experiences of five victims: their fear and self-doubt in the aftermath; the skepticism directed at them by police, prosecutors, and the public; their bravery in pushing forward and what it cost them. These stories cut through abstract ideological debate about acquaintance rape to demonstrate that it does not happen because women are sending mixed signals or seeking attention. They are victims of a terrible crime, deserving of fairness from our justice system. Rigorously researched, rendered in incisive prose, Missoula stands as an essential call to action.  

]]> 2017-05-02 17:51:51 UTC https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169501850 ONE OF MS. WILLIAMS' OFFICIAL RECS: joan_williams1 https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169501854 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon
Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow.

Although gifted with a superbly logical brain, for fifteen-year-old Christopher everyday interactions and admonishments have little meaning. He lives on patterns, rules, and a diagram kept in his pocket. Then one day, a neighbor's dog, Wellington, is killed and his carefully constructive universe is threatened. Christopher sets out to solve the murder in the style of his favourite (logical) detective, Sherlock Holmes. What follows makes for a novel that is funny, poignant and fascinating in its portrayal of a person whose curse and blessing are a mind that perceives the world entirely literally.]]> 2017-05-02 17:51:52 UTC https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169501854 ONE OF MS. WILLIAMS' OFFICIAL RECS: joan_williams1 https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169501861 Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel
One snowy night a famous Hollywood actor slumps over and dies onstage during a production of King Lear. Hours later, the world as we know it begins to dissolve. Moving back and forth in time—from the actor's early days as a film star to fifteen years in the future, when a theater troupe known as The Travelling Symphony roams the wasteland of what remains—this suspenseful, elegiac, spellbinding novel charts the strange twists of fate that connect five people: the actor, the man who tried to save him, the actor's first wife, his oldest friend, and a young actress with the Traveling Symphony, caught in the crosshairs of a dangerous self-proclaimed prophet. Sometimes terrifying, sometimes tender, Station Eleven tells a story about the relationships that sustain us, the ephemeral nature of fame, and the beauty of the world as we know it.]]> 2017-05-02 17:51:53 UTC https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169501861 ONE OF MS. WILLIAMS' OFFICIAL RECS: joan_williams1 https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169501867 The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
Bestselling author Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.

Heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which is based on the author's own experiences, coupled with poignant drawings by Ellen Forney that reflect the character's art, chronicles the contemporary adolescence of one Native American boy as he attempts to break away from the life he was destined to live.]]> 2017-05-02 17:51:54 UTC https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169501867 ONE OF MS. WILLIAMS' OFFICIAL RECS: joan_williams1 https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169501872 The Stand, by Stephen King
This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death.

And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides or are chosen. A world in which good rides on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother Abigail and the worst nightmares of evil are embodied in a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the dark man.]]> 2017-05-02 17:51:55 UTC https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169501872 HORROR RECS joan_williams1 https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169514934 Bazaar of Bad Dreams
Desperation
House of Leaves 
IT
Pet Sematary
The Long Walk
The Mist
The Road
The Shining]]> 2017-05-02 18:32:25 UTC https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169514934 ADULT FICTION RECS joan_williams1 https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169515126
All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr
A Little Life
All the Pretty Horses
Americanah
Barkskins
Before the Fall
Beloved
Daughter of Fortune
Life of Pi
Lonesome Dove
Milk & Honey 
Never Let Me Go
Reservation Blues
Snow Falling on Cedars
The Alchemist
The Book of Unknown Americans
The Book Thief
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
The Buried Giant
The Good Lord Bird
The Handmaid's Tale
The Hour I First Believed
The Joy Luck Club
The Kite Runner
The Librarian
The Moor's Account
The Poisonwood Bible
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
What Is Not Yours is Not Yours
White Teeth
Wolf Hall]]> 2017-05-02 18:33:05 UTC https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169515126 SCIFI RECS joan_williams1 https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169515517 All the Birds in the Sky
Cloud Atlas
Ready Player One
The Martian
Discworld
Snow Crash

]]> 2017-05-02 18:34:16 UTC https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169515517 NONFICTION RECS joan_williams1 https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169515771 A Long Way Gone
Bossypants
Death by Black Hole and Other Cosmic Quandaries
Even the Stars Look Lonesome
Five Days at Memorial
Freakonomics
Furiously Happy
Guns, Germs, and Steel
I am Malala
Into the Wild
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?
King Leopold’s Ghost
Lone Survivor
March
Maus I and II
On Writing
Persepolis
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
The Demon in the Freezer
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
The Glass Castle
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
The Year of Magical Thinking
Unbroken
Waiter to the Rich and Shameless: Confessions of a Five-Star Beverly Hills Server
Yes Please
]]> 2017-05-02 18:35:08 UTC https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169515771 FANTASY RECS joan_williams1 https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169521045 American Gods
Anansi Boys
Confessions of Max Tivoli
Good Omens
Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell
Oryx and Crake
Parable of the Sower
Shadow Show: All New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury
Stardust
The Dark Tower (series)
The Fifth Season
The Gunslinger
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galazy
The Name of the Wind
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
The Red Queen
Throne of the Crescent Moon
Wild Seed]]> 2017-05-02 18:54:11 UTC https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169521045 MYSTERY/CRIME RECS joan_williams1 https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169521076 A Time to Kill
A Study in Scarlet Women
Big Little Lies
Black Chalk
Girls
Gone Girl
Murder on the Orient Express
The Blondes
The Cuckoo's Calling
The Ghost Network
The Naturals
The Runaway Jury
The Shining Girls
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
Underground Airlines]]> 2017-05-02 18:54:18 UTC https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169521076 A NOTE BEFORE USING THIS PADLET joan_williams1 https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169529687 First and foremost: remember that your two choice summer reading novels can be ANY BOOKS from ANY GENRE that you pick! They don't have to come from my list or anyone else's. That being said, I have a ton of recommendations for books in genres that you might like, so use this (and Goodreads/Amazon) to see if any strike your fancy.
FINALLY: NPR has an absolutely AWESOME online tool called Book Concierge. It will give you people's favorite books of the last ten years in over 20 genres. Check it out!
http://apps.npr.org/best-books-2016/#/_]]> 2017-05-02 19:29:02 UTC https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169529687 Young Adult Fiction joan_williams1 https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169742043 A Wrinkle in Time
All the Bright Places
American Girls
And I Darken
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe 
Beast
Beauty Queens
Butter
Cage Fight
Chained
Cinder
Crank
Daughter of Smoke and Bone
Delirium
Eleanor and Park
Everything, Everything
Exit Pursued By a Bear
Fangirl
Girl in Pieces
Go Ask Alice
If I Stay
I'm Sorry, Leonard Peacock
It's Kind of a Funny Story
Legend
Lucy and Linh
Out of the Easy
Outrun the Moon
Salt to the Sea
Scythe
Six of Crows
Speak
Still Life With Tornado
The Diviners
The Girl From Everywhere
The Giver
The Hobbit
The House of the Scorpion
The Lie Tree
The Perks of Being aWallflower
The Raven Cycle
The Red Queen
The Selection
The Serpent King
The Star-Touched Queen
The Sun is Also a Star
The  Mystery of Hollow Places
Twisted
Uglies
Unbecoming
We Were Liars
Where Futures End
Will Grayson, Will Grayson
Wonder

]]> 2017-05-03 17:12:19 UTC https://padlet.com/joan_williams1/summerreadingrecs/wish/169742043