Mt. Greylock Library

Classic Fiction	Top of Page
A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man James Joyce	A vivid, eccentric picture of 1920’s Dublin and a young man’s struggle with Catholicism.
A River Runs Through It Norman Maclean	A story of family and fly fishing in the American West of the 1920’s.
Angle of Repose Wallace Stegner	Lyman Ward, a noted historian, relates a fictional biography of his pioneering family at a time when he has become estranged from his own family. Set in the West, this novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1971.
Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy	Sensual, rebellious Anna renounces a respectable marriage and a fine social position for a passionate and destructive romance.
As I Lay Dying William Faulkner	The novel explores the harrowing account of a family’s struggle to get their mother properly buried.
The Awakening Kate Chopin	An unhappy wife and mother, discovers new qualities in herself when she visits Grand Isle, a resort for the Creole elite of New Orleans. A groundbreaking short piece of feminist fiction.
Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh	The story of the difficult loves of insular Englishman Charles Ryder and his peculiarly intense relationship with the wealthy but dysfunctional family. This is set in England in the years after World War II.
Catch 22 Joseph Heller	A savagely funny war novel about the military madness and civilian insanity in World War II.
Cat’s Cradle Kurt Vonnegut	The tale of an eccentric inventor of an atom bomb and a crystal called ice-nine which freezes everything.
A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess	A savage satire, this is nightmare vision of the future, where criminals take over after dark
The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas	Unjustly sentenced to life imprisonment, Edmund Dantes escapes, determined to exact revenge from his enemies.
Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoyevksky	The tale of a sensitive intellectual driven by poverty to believe himself exempt from moral law.
East of Eden John Steinbeck	This sprawling and often brutal novel, set in the rich farmlands of California’s Salinas Valley, follows the intertwined destinies of two families.
Emma Jane Austen	A self-assured young lady’s capricious behavior is dictated by romantic fancy.
The Fountainhead Ayn Rand	A rebellious architect refuses to lower his standards in work or in love.
For Whom the Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway	An epic story of Robert Jordan, who fought, loved and died with the anti-Fascist guerillas of the Spanish Civil War.
The Good Soldier Ford Maddox	A passionate tale that relates the complex social and sexual relationships between two Edwardian couples, one English, one American.
Gulliver’s Travels Jonathan Swift	This satire reveals human foibles through Gulliver’s adventures in fantastic lands where he meets the Lilliputians, the Brobdingnags, the Yahoos and many other strange creatures.
The Heart of the Matter Graham Greene	Set in wartime West Africa, a police officer is scrupulously honest and immune to bribery. But then he falls in love, and in doing so is forced to betray everything he believes in, with tragic consequences.
Invisible Man Ralph Ellison	As a black man struggles from the South to the North, he encounters other people’s preconceived notions about him. The protagonist is visible as an African-American man but invisible as a man.
Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy	The tragic tale of a young man whose dreams are thwarted because of his social class.
Member of the Wedding Carson McCullers	A young Southern tomboy is determined to be the third party her elder brother’s honeymoon despite all advice.
Middlemarch George Eliot	Readers follow Dorothea Brooke, a young woman of impeccable character, through a maze of nineteenth-century morals and conventions.
My Antonia Willa Cather	The story of immigrants and Nebraska pioneers and their attachment to the land.
Native Son Richard Wright	Caught up by the forces of racism he cannot understand, Bigger Thomas turns to violence.
On the Road Jack Kerouac	Dean Moriarty and Sal Paradise search to find excitement and the meaning of life on the open roads of postwar America.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Ken Kesey	The unforgettable story of a mental ward and its inhabitants, especially the tyrannical Big Nurse Ratchet and Randall Patrick McMurphy, the brawling, fun-loving new inmate who resolves to oppose her.
The Optimist’s Daughter Eudora Welty	A young woman struggles with remembering and reinterpreting her parents’ marriage.
Our Mutual Friend Charles Dickens	Dickens’s darkest and most complex novel of an inheritance up for grabs, a murder, a rocky romance or two, plenty of skullduggery, and a host of unforgettable secondary characters.
The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde	An outwardly innocent but inwardly corrupt gentleman draws those around him into a life of wanton sexuality.
The Plague Albert Camus	The bubonic plague ravages the Algerian port of Oran in this symbolically rich diagnosis of spiritual and political disease.
Siddhartha Herman Hesse	The story of Siddhartha who transcends earthly pleasures to a state of peace and mystic holiness.
This Side of Paradise F. Scott Fitzgerald	An autobiographical novel about a writer’s intellectual and moral development, from pampered childhood, through prep schools and Princeton, love affairs and WWI, to maturing self-acceptance.
Vanity Fair William Thackeray	The novel relates the epic adventure of Becky Sharp, a witty, clever, and accomplished young woman who is determined to break into society at any cost.
Watership Down Richard Adams	A picturesque saga of a maverick band of rabbits, which, against all odds, seeks a new home and a better society.
The Woman in White Wilkie Collins	This Victorian best-seller has all the ingredients of a suspenseful mystery: a fragile heroine, an insane asylum, and Count Fosco, the villain you love to hate.

Contemporary Fiction	Top of Page
A Lesson Before Dying Ernest Gaines	Set in the 1940’s, this is a heartbreaking story of friendship between two black men - one wrongly condemned to die and one who sent into the penitentiary to help the slow learner gain a sense of dignity and self-esteem before his execution. (National Critics Circle Award)
A Prayer for Owen Meany John Irving	Owen Meany, seen through the eyes of his best friend, consistently challenges the traditional New England community in which he grows up, creating hilarious adventures and heartwarming moments.
A Thief of Time Tony Hillerman	The Navajo Tribal track down a killer and along the way travel throughout the vast Navajo nation.
A Time for Dancing Davida Hurwin	Seventeen-year-old best friends Juliana and Samantha share a passion for dance, for life, and for each other. Then Jules is diagnosed with cancer and must travel a path Sam cannot follow.
A Thousand Acres Jane Smiley	Shakespeare’s King Lear set in Iowa farm country. (1991 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction)
After the First Death Robert Cormier	When a terrorist hijacks a camp bus full of kids, everyone involved becomes a victim. (ALA Best Book)
Ahab’s Wife Sena Jeter Naslund	Inspired by a brief passage in Melville’s Moby Dick where Captain Ahab speaks passionately of his young wife on Nantucket.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Michael Chabon	His chronicles the adventures of two boys who write comic books during what was known as the Golden Age of comic books in the 1930’s. (Pulitzer Prize)
Annie on my Mind Nancy Garden	Liza puts aside her feelings for Annie after a disaster at school, but eventually she allows love to triumph over the ignorance of others.
Beauty Robin McKinley	Love is the only key to unlocking a curse and transforming the beast into a man. This easy to read story is a new take on an old fairy tale.
Beloved Toni Morrison	In post-Civil War Ohio, the past continues to haunt the ex-slave Sethe and the surviving members of her family. (ALA Notable)
Bone People Keri Hulme	A woman artist of New Zealand wins the lottery and a shipwrecked boy and a Maori man come into her life. The mysteries of love, relationships, Maori tradition, cancer, and lost pasts engross the reader as the writer accompanies the three protagonists on their personal journeys.
Briar Rose Jane Yolen	Disturbed by her grandmother’s unique version of Sleeping Beauty, Rebecca seeks the truth behind the fairy tale.
Cat’s Eye Margaret Atwood	Elaine Risley, a controversial painter, returns to Toronto, the city of her youth for a retrospective of her art. Engulfed by vivid images of the past, she reminisces about a trio of girls who initiated her into the fierce politics of childhood and its secret world of friendship, longing and betrayal.
Cider House Rules John Irving	Set in rural Maine in the first half of the 1900’s, this is the story of Dr. Wilbur Larch - obstetrician, director of St. Cloud’s orphanage, ether addict, and abortionist - and his favorite orphan, Homer Wells.
Cold Mountain Charles Frazier	In the final weeks of the Civil War, Inman, a wounded Confederate soldier, decides to return home to Ada, the woman he loves. There are parallels to The Odyssey as Inman has his share of hostile encounters with strangers intent on disrupting his journey
The Commitments Roddy Doyle	This unpretentious first novel traces the short, funny, and furious career of a group of working-class Irish kids who form a band, The Commitments
Disgrace J.M. Coetzee	This novel of a white South African professor addresses Llife in post-apartheid South Africa. (Booker Prize winner)
Drown Junot Diaz	These ten gritty and subtly humorous stories move from the barrios of the Dominican Republic to the struggling urban communities of New Jersey.
The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm Nancy Farmer	In the year 2194, General Matsika‚s children disappear and their parents call in Africa‚s most unusual detectives: the Ear, the Eye and the Arm, who have powers beyond other human beings. (Newberry Honor)
Ender’s Game Orson Scott Card	In a world decimated by alien attacks, the government trains young geniuses like Ender Wiggin in military strategy with increasingly complex computer games to combat the evil forces.
The English Patient Michael Ondaatje	A burn patient is cared for in a ruined Italian villa after the retreat of the Germans by a young nurse, a former spy and thief, and a Sikh who clears the area of mines. Their various lives, past and current, entwine in a mystical novel full of vivid images. (Booker Prize winner)
Fallen Angels Walter Dean Myers	Seventeen-year-old Richie Perry‚s stint in Vietnam brings home to him the agony and futility of war as he learns to kill and watches his comrades die.
The Friends Rosa Guy	Rejected by her classmates because she "talks funny," Phyllisia Cathy, a young West Indian girl, is forced to become friends with poor, frazzled Edith, the only one who will accept her.
Go Tell it on the Mountain James Baldwin	An autobiographical novel of a family in Harlem composed of an angry father, a stoic mother, a rebellious older son, and a sensitive younger one.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams	Seconds before the earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend, Ford Prefect.
House of Spirits Isabel Allende	Set in remote Chile, this novel explores the lives of the magical, deeply human members of the Trueba family as they survive rebellion, love, hate and revolution for three generations.
I Had Seen Castles Cynthia Rylant	The reflections of a retired professor of his youth as a soldier in WWII on war, love and life.
In the Lake of the Woods Tim O’Brien	A gripping tale of America’s attachment to grief and violence. (James Fennimore Cooper Prize for Historical Fiction winner)
In the Time of Butterflies Julia Alvarez	Four Dominican sisters, symbols of defiant hope in a country shadowed by dictatorship and despair, tell their stories.
Interpreter of Maladies Jhumpa Lahiri	Nine stories of South Asian women finding their place and their identities in America.
Jack A. M. Holmes	Fifteen-year-old Jack’s confused feelings for his father, who left him and his mother four years earlier, are further complicated when he finds that his father is gay.
The Joy Luck Club Amy Tan	A chronicle of the lives of four Chinese women, their forty-year friendship and how the death of one member brings her daughter into the group, creating a new understanding for each. (ALA Best Book)
July’s People Nadine Gordimer	Liberal South African whites see power shift in the apartheid state when the blacks stage a full-scale revolution.
Killer Angels Michael Shaara	Officers and foot soldiers from both the Union and Confederacy steel themselves for the bloody battle of Gettysburg. (Pulitzer Prize)
Like Water for Chocolate Laura Esquivel	As the youngest of three daughters of a turn-of-the-century Mexican family, Tita may not marry but must remain at home to care for her mother.
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven Sherman Alexie Stark	compelling stories of the lives of contemporary Native Americans.
Memoirs of a Geisha Arthur Golden	Chiyo, who is sold to a geisha house at nine, resists her oppression, yet studies the arts of the geisha, reaching for success in the only subculture in prewar Japan in which women rule and gain great strength.
Misery Stephen King	After an automobile accident, novelist Paul Sheldon meets his biggest fan. She is his nurse-and his captor.
Mona in the Promised Land Gish Jen	A humorous novels that addresses the quirks of growing up in a Chinese-American household.
Poisonwood Bible Barbara Kingsolver	This is told by the wife and four daughters of a missionary who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo; it is a suspenseful epic of one family‚s undoing and remarkable reconstruction in post colonial Africa.
The Red Tent Anita Diamant	The story of Dinah whose life is barely acknowledged in the Book of Genesis, this story conveys the trial of ancient womanhood.
Ruby in the Smoke Philip Pullman	A suspenseful tale written in Dickensian style filled with despicable hags, forthright heroes, and children living on the underbelly of 19^th-century London
Shades of Simon Gray Joyce McDonald	A complex thought-provoking tale of a contemporary computer hacking group who breach the security of a high school computer system and become entangled with a 200 year old crime
The Shipping News E. Annie Proulx	After the death of his two-timing wife, Quoyle, a third-rate newspaperman, retreats with his two daughters to the wild and starkly beautiful shores of Newfoundland in order to confront his heritage and reclaim his life. (Pulitzer Prize)
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Ann Brashares	Four friends find a pair of jeans that magically fits each one perfectly. Better yet, the jeans lead them fabulous journeys that produce the most memorable summer of their lives.
Snow Falling on Cedars David Guterson	In 1954, a Japanese American is charged with the murder of a fisherman; over the course of trial, its discovered that much more is at stake than one man’s guilt.
So Far From God Ana Castillo	This wacky, wild, funny novel, set in New Mexico, engages the reader in the lives of a Chicano mother and her four daughters, their loves and struggles, their gossip, recipes, miracles and community activism.
The Sparrow Mary Doria Russell	Science fiction that shifts between the years 2016 and 2060 as it recounts a scientific mission to a newly discovered extraterrestrial culture.
The Stories of Eva Luna Isabel Allende	Eva Luna recounts the adventurous life of a poor young Latin American woman who finds friendship, love, and some measure of worldly success through her powers as a storyteller.
Timeline Michael Crichton	A puzzling adventure that considers the field of the emerging field of quantum technology - with the complex realities of the medieval past. When any moment in history can be actualized, a group of historians can enter, literally, life in the fourteenth-century feudal France.
The Westing Game Ellen Raskin	This is a wonderfully clever mystery in which only the reader has all the clues. (Newbery Award)
Whale Talk Chris Crutcher	A mixed-race, larger-than-life, hero puts together a swim team of misfits as he tries to upset the balance of power at his central Washington high school, where jocks and the narrow-minded rule.
A Yellow Raft in Blue Water Michael Dorris	Starting in the present and moving backwards in time, this is the tale of three Native American.

Nonfiction	Top of Page
A Beautiful Mind Sylvia Nasar	John Nash, the mathematical genius who was a legend by age thirty slips into madness and after decades, emerges from a ghostlike existence to win a Nobel Prize and world acclaim.
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius Dave Eggers	A memoir of a college senior who, in the space of five weeks, loses both of his parents to cancer and inherits his seven-year-old brother. This is a simultaneously hilarious and wildly inventive redefining of the idea of family.
A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Annie Dillard	A series of essays that combines scientific observation, philosophy, daily thoughts, and deeper introspection as Annie Dillard conveys her amazement with all things natural.
A Walk in the Woods Bill Bryson	Bryson reacquaints himself with Ameirca by walking the 2,100 mile Appalachian Trail, which stretches from Georgia to Maine. It is a humorous, moving account of a journey fraught with difficulty.
Adrift Steven Callahan	Callahan recounts his 76 day battle for survival on a rubber raft.
Angela’s Ashes Frank McCourt	McCourt tells the story of his poverty-stricken childhood years after his family returned to the slums of Limerick, Ireland. (Pulitzer Prize winner)
Autobiography of Malcolm X Malcolm X w/ Alex Haley	An absorbing, personal story of Malcolm X’s rise from hoodlum, dope peddler and pimp to dynamic leader of black nationalism.
Black Ice Lorene Carey	An autobiographical account of the author’s struggle as a young black girl who tries to maintain her identity in a traditional, largely white prep school.
Caucasia Danzy Senna	This startling narrative about biracial girlhood among black militants and white suburbanites explores the complicated legacies of race.
Cosmos Carl Sagan	This is a provocative overview of the past, present, and future of science. It traces today’s knowledge and scientific methods to their historical roots, blending science and philosophy in a wholly energetic and irresistible way.
The Doctor Stories William Carlos Williams	These short stories by the great American poet are a series of clinical vignettes from his medical practice in the early part of the 19^th century.
Friday Night Lights H.G. Bissinger	This stories chronicles the impact of local high school football in a East Texas town. (Pulitzer Prize winner)
In Cold Blood Truman Capote	This story about the brutal slaying of a Kansas family by two would-be robbers will continue to resonate in its readers’ minds long after it is finished.
Into Thin Air Jon Krakauer	The tragedy that took the lives of experienced mountain guides and novice climbers in a raging blizzard atop Mt. Everest in 1996 is told with clarity, poignancy and brutal honesty.
Life and Death in Shanghai Nien Cheng	This is an inspiring biography of a Chinese woman of intellect and privilege who survived imprisonment during the Cultural Revolution.
The Man Who Mistook his Wife for his Hat Oliver Sachs	A series of vignettes based on case histories of patients lost in the bizarre, apparently inescapable world of neurological disorders.
Me Talk Pretty One Day David Sedaris	A wildly entertaining, humorous look at the life of a boy’s life with language from 5^th grade Speech Therapy to French lessons in Paris.
Out of Africa Isak Dinesen	The experiences of Karen von Blixen as she managed coffee plantation close to the Ngong Hills near Nairobi.
The Perfect Storm Sebastian Junger	This true story of fishermen lost off the coast of Gloucester, MA during a raging hurricane.
The Road from Coorain Jill Ker Conway	A masterpiece of autobiography tells of a journey from girlhood on a sheep farm in Australia to Conway’s departure for America.
Roots Alex Haley	This family narrative spans seven generations of African-Americans from the 1700‚s to the mid-20^th century.
The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness Simon Wiesenthal	A collection of fifty-three distinguished commentators responding to questions about justice, compassion, forgiveness, and human responsibility.
Tao Te Ching Lao Tzu	Written in the sixth century BC, this collection reflects upon human nature and existence.
The Woman Warrior Maxine Hong Kingston	A pungent, bitter, but beautifully written memoir of growing up as a Chinese American in California.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Robert Pirsig	Wonderful descriptions of nature are presented along with the difficulties of living in a technological society - as well as everything you need to know about motorcycles.

The Library at Mt. Greylock Regional High School	Library Hours Mon-Thurs: 7:45-4:00 Fri: 7:45-2:30

	Grades 11-12
Classic Fiction	Contemporary Fiction	Nonfiction