Interesting list Kristin. I've read about half of them. Also interesting that two of the non-fiction authors have had some press for being less than non-fictional, and Eggers also played with the line between fiction and non-fiction. You know, I always read Sedaris as fictional, even though I know it's mostly non-fiction.

The word fiction has lost all meaning.

I may tried to read Confederacy of Dunces this summer. I have not been reading much at all lately, and I've been feeling a bit illiterate.

The Passion is my favorite of her books, or was when I went through my huge Jeanette Winterson phase -- which, actually, was in high school, now that I think about it -- but I'm pretty sure it has a fair amount of explicit sex. I'd have to reread it to be sure I'm remembering it correctly, though.

I mean, obviously I think there's nothing wrong with high school students being exposed to books with some sexual content, but it still surprises me to see a school recommending the book, as opposed to a teenager just picking it up on their own at the library.

Well we teach our seniors Angels in America, and that's pretty darned explicit, too. One of the benefits of a liberal LA independent girls school, I guess. I haven't read The Passion, so thanks for the warning.

I will be revising the list before the next school year regardless. And this is just summer reading--I've barely started to design the actual curriculum for the school year yet. I'm pretty excited since this is a singleton class. I have complete freedom and can move at any pace without having to worry about staying in sync with other classes. I haven't had that luxury in years.

So far I think I'm going to be teaching Hamlet, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Angels in America, and possibly Kindred and Death of a Salesman. I have a lot of other ideas, but that's where I'm starting.

In high school, I don't think we were allowed to talk about sex OR god, so it made literature fairly boring!

Their Eyes Were Watching God

I was just thinking about this the other day. I loved it when I read it, all of 18 years old, but I haven't read it in so long that I wonder if it's as good as I remember.

It really, really is. The juxtaposition of Hurston's poetic narrative voice and the lyrical dialects of her characters is magic.

I *loved* that book when I read it for high school, and Kindred is another favorite. Great choices, Kristin!

I bought a hardback copy used last year. It's just sitting on a shelf now, but I'm going to cycle it into the reading list.

When I was a sophomore in high school, my English teacher passed around a list of books that some expert group had decided Every High School Student Should Read. (Of course, the list was 3 pages long, which meant no high school student would read them all.) The assignment was to read one book from the list and be prepared to discuss it in a small group setting.

I picked Brave New World, which was a bit daring for a town that held a referendum that year on an anti-obscenity referendum that would have defined the term so broadly that most fiction best-sellers would have been banned. (Okay, this was the heyday of Harold Robbins, but still....) The teacher had a problem in organizing the small groups because she didn't want any group to contain more than one person who'd picked Catcher in the Rye.

The most erotic scene in the Passion (as I recall it) is really all about kissing.

Our AP English teacher wanted to assign us The Frogs in our ancient Greeks unit, but the only way it was published in a way that the school could buy a bunch of copies was in the same volume that that play that I forgot the name of, the one where the women refuse the sleep with the men until they end a war. The compromised reached was that we could read The Frogs as long as, when he handed out the books, he told us we were NOT supposed to read that other play. The teacher smirked throughout telling us this story, and explained just why the school board didn't approve of the other play. Of course, just about all of us went and read it.