Classics

Things fall apart / Chinua Achebe.

Achebe, Chinua, author.

In the time of the butterflies / Julia Alvarez.

Alvarez, Julia, author.

I know why the caged bird sings / Maya Angelou.

Angelou, Maya, author.

Pride and prejudice / Jane Austen.

Austen, Jane, 1775-1817.

Tuck Everlasting / Natalie Babbitt.

Babbitt, Natalie, author.

Fahrenheit 451 / Ray Bradbury.

Bradbury, Ray, 1920-2012, author.

Wuthering Heights / Emily Bronte.

Brontë, Emily, 1818-1848, author.

The secret garden / Frances Hodgson.

Burnett, Frances Hodgson, 1849-1924.

The house on Mango Street / Sandra Cisneros.

Cisneros, Sandra.

The chocolate war / Robert Cormier.

Cormier, Robert.

The brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao / Junot Díaz.

Díaz, Junot, 1968- author.

Great Expectations / Charles Dickens.

Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870.

Oliver Twist / Charles Dickens.

Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870.

A tale of two cities / Charles Dickens.

Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870.

Arabian nights / the text revised and emendated throughout by H.W. Dulcken.

Dulcken, H. W. (Henry William), 1832-1894.

The three musketeers / Alexandre Dumas.

Dumas, Alexandre, 1802-1870.

The Great Gatsby / F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald, F. Scott (Francis Scott), 1896-1940.

Anne Frank : the diary of a young girl / Anne Frank.

Frank, Anne, 1929-1945, author.

One hundred years of solitude / Gabriel García Márquez.

García Márquez, Gabriel, 1927-2014, author.

Lord of the flies / William Golding.

Golding, William, 1911-1993.

The princess bride : S. Morgenstern’s classic tale of true love and high adventure / William Goldman.

Goldman, William, 1931-2018, author.

A raisin in the sun / Lorraine Hansberry.

Hansberry, Lorraine, 1930-1965, author.

The old man and the sea / Ernest Hemingway.

Hemingway, Ernest, 1899-1961, author.

The sun also rises / Ernest Hemingway.

Hemingway, Ernest, 1899-1961, author.

The kite runner / Khaled Hosseini.

Hosseini, Khaled, author.

Their eyes were watching God / Zora Neale Hurston.

Hurston, Zora Neale, author.

Brave new world / Aldous Huxley.

Huxley, Aldous, 1894-1963, author.

One flew over the cuckoo’s nest / Ken Kesey.

Kesey, Ken, author.

A separate peace / John Knowles.

Knowles, John, 1926-2001, author.

The call of the wild / Jack London.

London, Jack, 1876-1916, author.

Anne of Green Gables / L.M. Montgomery.

Montgomery, L. M. (Lucy Maud), 1874-1942.

The things they carried / Tim O’Brien.

O’Brien, Tim, 1946- author.

Jacob have I loved / Katherine Paterson.

Paterson, Katherine.

All quiet on the western front / Erich Maria Remarque.

Remarque, Erich Maria, 1898-1970, author.

The catcher in the rye / J. D. Salinger.

Salinger, J. D. (Jerome David), 1919-2010, author.

Frankenstein, or, The modern Prometheus / Mary Shelley.

Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, 1797-1851, author.

A tree grows in Brooklyn / Betty Smith.

Smith, Betty, 1896-1972, author.

The grapes of wrath / John Steinbeck.

Steinbeck, John, 1902-1968, author.

Of mice and men / John Steinbeck.

Steinbeck, John, 1902-1968, author.

Uncle Tom’s cabin / Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 1811-1896.

The adventures of Huckleberry Finn / Mark Twain.

Twain, Mark, 1835-1910.

The adventures of Tom Sawyer / Mark Twain.

Twain, Mark, 1835-1910, author.

The color purple / Alice Walker.

Walker, Alice, 1944- author.

The glass menagerie / Tennessee Williams.

Williams, Tennessee, 1911-1983.

Book List: Classics

Sachem Public Library

Things fall apart / Chinua Achebe.

Okonkwo is born into poverty, with a wastrel for a father. Driven by ambition, he works tirelessly to gain the prosperity of many fields, wives, and prestige in his village. But he is harsh as well as diligent. As he sees the traditions of his people eroded by white missionaries and government officials, he lashes out in anger.

In the time of the butterflies / Julia Alvarez.

On November 25, 1960, three sisters are found assassinated after visiting their husbands, jailed as suspected rebel leaders. The sisters became martyrs, known as "Las Mariposas." They had a fourth sister who lives, and this is the story of the sisters, framed by the surviving sister.

I know why the caged bird sings / Maya Angelou.

Angelou's autobiography is a coming-of-age story that illustrates how strength of character and a love of literature can help overcome racism and trauma.

Pride and prejudice / Jane Austen.

Elizabeth Bennett's early determination to dislike Mr. Darcy is a prejudice only matched by his arrogant pride.

Tuck Everlasting / Natalie Babbitt.

The Tuck family is confronted with an agonizing situation when they discover that a ten-year-old girl and a malicious stranger now share their secret about a spring whose water prevents one from ever growing old.

Fahrenheit 451 / Ray Bradbury.

In a future totalitarian state where books are banned and destroyed by the government, Guy Montag, a fireman in charge of burning books, meets a revolutionary schoolteacher who dares to read and a girl who tells him of a past when people did not live in fear.

Jane Eyre / Charlotte Brontë.

Jane Eyre, a penniless orphan, is engaged as governess at Thornfield Hall by the mysterious Mr. Rochester. Her integrity and independence are tested to the limit as their love for each other grows, and the secrets of Mr. Rochester's past are revealed.

Wuthering Heights / Emily Bronte.

In nineteenth-century Yorkshire, the passionate attachment between a headstrong young girl and a foundling boy brought up by her father, causes disaster for them and many others, even in the next generation.

The secret garden / Frances Hodgson.

A ten-year-old orphan comes to live in a lonely house on the Yorkshire moors where she discovers an invalid cousin and the mysteries of a locked garden.

My Ántonia / Willa Cather.

Jim comes to live with his grandparents on their farm. His loneliness eases when he meets Antonia, the high spirited daughter of neighboring immigrant farmers. Antonia's lust for life in her new country endears the young woman to Jim, but not his grandparents, who want bigger and better things for their grandson.

The house on Mango Street / Sandra Cisneros.

Esperanza Cordero's neighborhood is one of harsh realities and harsh beauty. Esperanza doesn't want to belong - not to her rundown neighborhood, and not to the low expectations the world has for her. Esperanza's story is that of a young girl coming into her power and inventing for herself what she will become.

The alchemist / Paulo Coelho.

This novel tells the magical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure as extravagant as any ever found.

The chocolate war / Robert Cormier.

A high-school freshman who refuses to participate in the annual fund-raising chocolate sale is forced to defend his convictions.

The brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao / Junot Díaz.

Oscar, an overweight Dominican from a New Jersey ghetto, dreams of becoming a writer and finding love, but a Fuku curse has haunted his family for generations, and may well prevent him from attaining his desires.

Great Expectations / Charles Dickens.

An unknown benefactor supplies an orphaned blacksmith's apprentice with the means to be educated in London as a gentleman of "great expectations". The orphan, Pip, and the convict, Magwitch, the beautiful Estella, and her guardian, the embittered and vengeful Miss Havisham, the ambitious lawyer, Mr. Jaggers -- all have a part to play in the mystery.

Oliver Twist / Charles Dickens.

Fleeing a life of workhouse servitude, Oliver arrives in London to seek his fortune. His journey leads the orphan to a crime school for boys, where the roguish Fagin teaches him to steal.

A tale of two cities / Charles Dickens.

This novel tells the story of a young Englishman who gives his life during the French Revolution to save the husband of the woman he loves.

Arabian nights / the text revised and emendated throughout by H.W. Dulcken.

A collection of tales told by Scheherazade to amuse the cruel sultan and stop him from executing her as he had his other daily wives.

The three musketeers / Alexandre Dumas.

A historical romance, it relates the adventures of four fictional swashbuckling heroes who lived under the French kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV, who reigned during the 17th and early 18th centuries.

The Great Gatsby / F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Jay Gatsby had once loved beautiful, spoiled Daisy Buchanan, then lost her to a rich boy. Now, mysteriously wealthy, he is ready to risk everything to woo her back.

Anne Frank : the diary of a young girl / Anne Frank.

A thirteen-year-old Dutch-Jewish girl records her impressions of the two years she and seven others spent hiding from the Nazis before they were discovered and taken to concentration camps.

One hundred years of solitude / Gabriel García Márquez.

This novel tells the story of the Buendia family, set against the background of the evolution and eventual decadence of a small South American town.

Lord of the flies / William Golding.

A group of boys are stranded on an uninhabited island when their plane crashes. Without adult control, the boys regress to savagery.

The princess bride : S. Morgenstern's classic tale of true love and high adventure / William Goldman.

This novel presents the timeless love story between a farm boy named Westley and the beautiful Princess Buttercup.

A raisin in the sun / Lorraine Hansberry.

An African-American family is united in love and pride as they struggle to overcome poverty and harsh living conditions, in the award-winning 1959 play about an embattled Chicago family.

Catch-22 / Joseph Heller.

A surreal novel about a group of American fliers in the Mediterrean area during World War II. One of the fliers tries to convince his comrades that he is insane so that he will be relieved of duty.

The old man and the sea / Ernest Hemingway.

This is the triumphant yet tragic story of an old Cuban fisherman and his relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream.

The sun also rises / Ernest Hemingway.

This novel about the post-World War I "lost generation" follows a group of American and English expatriates in Paris on a trip to Pamplona, Spain.

The outsiders / S. E. Hinton.

Ponyboy can count on his brothers and his friends, but not on much else besides trouble with the Socs, a vicious gang of rich kids whose idea of a good time is beating up on greasers like Ponyboy. At least he knows what to expect—until the night someone takes things too far.

The kite runner / Khaled Hosseini.

The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy Afghan youth and the son of his father's servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed.

Their eyes were watching God / Zora Neale Hurston.

The epic tale of Janie Crawford, whose quest for identity takes her on a journey during which she learns what love is, experiences life's joys and sorrows, and comes home to herself in peace.

Brave new world / Aldous Huxley.

Huxley's classic prophetic novel describes the socialized horrors of a futuristic utopia devoid of individual freedom.

One flew over the cuckoo's nest / Ken Kesey.

A mordant, wickedly subversive parable set in a mental ward, the novel chronicles the head-on collision between its rowdy, life-affirming hero Randle Patrick McMurphy and the totalitarian rule of Big Nurse.

A separate peace / John Knowles.

Set at a boys' boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II. What happens between two boys, Phineas and Gene, one summer, like the war itself, banishes the innocence of these boys and their world.

The call of the wild / Jack London.

The adventures of an unusual dog, part St. Bernard, part Scotch shepherd, that is forcibly taken to the Klondike gold fields where he eventually becomes the leader of a wolf pack.

White Fang / Jack London.

The adventures in the northern wilderness of a dog who is part wolf and how he comes to make his peace with man.

Anne of Green Gables / L.M. Montgomery.

Anne, an eleven-year-old orphan, is sent by mistake to live with a lonely, middle-aged brother and sister on a Prince Edward Island farm and proceeds to make an indelible impression on everyone around her.

The things they carried / Tim O'Brien.

This work depicts the heroic young men of Alpha Company as they carry the emotional weight of their lives to war in Vietnam in a patchwork account of a modern journey into the heart of darkness.

1984 / George Orwell.

Portrays life in a future time when a totalitarian government watches over all citizens and directs all activities.

Jacob have I loved / Katherine Paterson.

Feeling deprived all her life of schooling, friends, mother, and even her name by her twin sister, Louise finally begins to find her identity.

The bell jar / Sylvia Plath.

This extraordinary work--echoing Plath's own experiences as a rising writer/editor in the early 1950s--chronicles the nervous breakdown of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, successful, but slowly going under, and maybe for the last time.

All quiet on the western front / Erich Maria Remarque.

The horrors of war as told through the eyes of a young German soldier in World War I.

The catcher in the rye / J. D. Salinger.

This novel details two days in the life of 16-year-old Holden Caulfield after he has been expelled from prep school. Confused and disillusioned, Holden searches for truth and rails against the “phoniness” of the adult world.

Frankenstein, or, The modern Prometheus / Mary Shelley.

The story of Victor Frankenstein who, obsessed with creating life itself, plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, but whose botched creature sets out to destroy his maker.

A tree grows in Brooklyn / Betty Smith.

Young Francie Nolan, having inherited both her father's romantic and her mother's practical nature, struggles to survive and thrive growing up in the slums of Brooklyn in the early twentieth century.

The grapes of wrath / John Steinbeck.

Depicts the hardships and suffering endured by the Joads as they journey from Oklahoma to California during the Depression.

Of mice and men / John Steinbeck.

This novel depicts the tragic tale of a simpleminded man and the friend who loves and tries to protect him.

Uncle Tom's cabin / Harriet Beecher Stowe.

A slave, whose child is to be sold, escapes her beloved home on the Shelby plantation in Kentucky and heads north, eluding the hired slave catchers. Aided by the Underground Railroad, Quakers and others opposed to the Fugitive Slave Act, Eliza, her son and husband run towards Canada.

The Joy Luck Club / Amy Tan.

In 1949, four Chinese women, drawn together by the shadow of their past, begin meeting in San Francisco to play mah jong, invest in stocks and "say" stories. They call their gathering the Joy Luck Club--and forge a relationship that binds them for more than three decades.

The adventures of Huckleberry Finn / Mark Twain.

This novel recounts the adventures of a young boy and an escaped slave as they travel down the Mississippi River on a raft.

The adventures of Tom Sawyer / Mark Twain.

The adventures of a mischievous young boy and his friends growing up in a Mississippi River town in the nineteenth century.

The Ramayana / Valmiki.

This ancient Sanskrit epic follows Prince Rama's quest to rescue his beloved wife Sita from the clutches of Ravana with the help of an army of monkeys.

The color purple / Alice Walker.

The heart-wrenching story of a young Black girl in the early 20th century who's forced into a brutal marriage and separated from her sister.

Night / Elie Wiesel.

The narrative of a boy who lived through Auschwitz and Buchenwald provides a short and terrible indictment of modern humanity.

The glass menagerie / Tennessee Williams.

A capturing drama of characters struggling with the illusion of time. One is stuck in the past, one complacent in the present, and one is dreaming of a future.

Native son / Richard Wright.

This novel tells the story of a young Black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic.

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Classics

Book List: Classics

Sachem Public Library