Essay Writing Reading List
Recommended for Ages 16 - 18 High School level course: Grades 10 - 12 (The Write Foundation Writing Curriculum)
Why read quality literature? It matters what you read.
- The best readers are the best writers.
- What you read is a major factor determining who you will become.
- Quality literature encourages reading, because it is hard to put a good book down.
- Reading is not just for fun. Reading plays a major role in brain development.
Do you want to raise your students’ reading level? Read out loud to them.
Do you want to improve your students’ listening skills? Read out loud to them. Even older students benefit from and enjoy listening to books.
Reading Guidelines:
- Read books to students. The more you read to them, the higher their level of reading and comprehension climbs. Read books out loud to them that they would not find easy to read on their own, but also read easier books out loud for sheer enjoyment.
- Listen to audio books. When you are going places in the car or just relaxing at home, listening to a good book captivates and entertains.
- Encourage students to select books to read independently. Have them read books on their own that are on their easy-to-read level and that interest them.
- Discuss what is read. Instead of book reports, talk to them about what they are reading. As they enjoy books, they will want to talk about them. Who? What? When? Where? How? Why?
Book List Organization and Point System:
- The point groups are determined by length and reading level.
- Books are mostly listed in alphabetical order by title.
- If several books are by one author or a series by various authors, then they are included in the alphabetical order by the author’s name, series title or a group title such as historical fiction.
- Books are not listed in a particular reading order.
Easy-to-Read? Abridged? Translated?
- Avoid “easy-to-read” versions of any of the books, such as those by Great Illustrated Classics.
- Abridged means a book has been condensed or shortened. For a few extremely difficult books there are some abridged versions which may be preferable.
- A few of the classics were originally written in another language. Some translations are much better than others.
Read reviews about different versions if questioning different abridged versions or translations.
- Many of these books can probably be found at your public library. A good librarian can be a wonderful resource.
- Amazon is a convenient way to find out more about these books through their descriptions and reviews.
The goal is to encourage the reading of quality books that all will approve of and enjoy. Investigating these books that range from modern to classical to forgotten works of art will hopefully be an enjoyable adventure.
The Write Foundation – Essay Writing Reading List
12 Point Books
Animal Farm – George Orwell
Answers for Difficult Days: Surviving the Storm of Secularism - David Quine
Assumptions that Affect Our Lives – Christian Overman
Jane Austen
Persuasion
Sense and Sensibility
Northanger Abbey
Book of Greek Myths – Ingri and Edgar Parin d'Aulaire
Bruscho – Bruce Olsen
The Cross and the Switchblade – David Wilkerson
John Eldredge
Fathered by God
Killing Lions
The Exchange of Truth – David Shormann
Eyes Wide Open – Brienne Murk
Facing Your Giants, Teen Edition – Max Lucado & Monica Hall
Frankenstein – Mary Shelley
Future Men – Douglas Wilson
For Young Women Only – Shaunti Feldhahn & Lisa A. Rice
Give Me This Mountain – Helen Roseveare
He Gave Us a Valley (sequel)
Digging Ditches (sequel)
Living Holiness
God’s Smuggler – Brother Andrew
A Life Well Lived: A Study of the Book of Ecclesiastes – Tommy Nelson
Paul Little
Know What You Believe
Know Why You Believe
Pilgrim’s Progress – John Bunyan
Pilgrim’s Progress Today – Lael Arrington
Max Lucado
It’s Not About Me
When God Whispers Your Name
The Applause of Heaven
Traveling Light – Psalm 23
Other Lucado books are fine.
John Maxwell
Failing Forward
Winning With People
Developing the Leader Within
Becoming a Person of Influence
The Winning Attitude
Never Before in History: America's Inspired Birth - Gary Amos and Richard Gardiner
Of Pandas and People – Percival Davis & Dean Keynyon
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich – Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Passion and Purity – Elizabeth Elliot
Frank E. Peretti
This Present Darkness
Piercing the Darkness
Prophet
The Space Trilogy – C. S. Lewis
Out of the Silent Planet
Perelandra
That Hideous Strength
William Shakespeare / Alan Durband
Hamlet
Julius Caesar
Macbeth
Romeo and Juliet
The Taming of the Shrew
Other books in this series are fine.
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson
Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson
Mark Twain
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Prince and The Pauper
Jules Verne
Around the World in Eighty Days
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Master of the World
Journey to the Center of the Earth
The Mysterious Island
From the Earth to the Moon / Around the Moon
H.G. Wells
The Invisible Man
The Time Machine
18 Point Books
Alas, Babylon – Pat Frank
Affliction: A Compassionate Look at the Reality of Suffering and Pain – Edith Schaeffer
Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery – Eric Metaxas
Anna and the King of Siam – Margaret Landon
Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice
Emma
Born Again – Charles Colson
Buffalo Coat – Carol Ryrie Brink
Captivating – John & Stasi Eldredge
The Circle Maker – Mark Batterson
Agatha Christie
Murder on the Orient Express
And Then There Were None
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Other books in Hercule Poirot mysteries are fine.
Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court – Mark Twain
The Cost of Discipleship – Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The Deadliest Monster – Jeff Baldwin
The Diary of Anne Frank – Anne Frank
Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage – Alfred Lansing
Father Brown – G. K. Chesterton
Father Brown: The Essential Tales
The Best of Father Brown
The Favorite Uncle Remus – Joel Chandler Harris
The Gift of Music: Great Composers and Their Influence – Jane Stuart Smith & Betty Carlson
The Hiding Place – Corrie Ten Boom
The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
How to Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie
In the Presence of My Enemies – G. Burnham
Johnny Tremain – Esther Forbes
Kidnapped – Robert Louis Stevenson
Kon-Tiki – Thor Heyerdahl
C.S. Lewis
The Abolition of Man
The Great Divorce
Mere Christianity
The Problem of Pain
The Screwtape Letters
Catherine Marshall
Julie
A Man Called Peter: The Story of Peter Marshall
Flannery O’Connor
Everything that Rises Must Converge
The Violent Must Bear It Away
Wise Blood
Gene Stratton Porter
Girl of the Limberlost (Sequel to Freckles)
The Harvester
Dorothy L. Sayers (Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries 200-400 pgs.)
Clouds of Witnesses
The Five Red Herrings
Murder Must Advertise
Strong Poison
Other books this length are fine.
North and South – Elizabeth Gaskill
The Phantom of the Opera – Gaston Leroux
Purpose Driven Life – Rick Warren
The Ramsay Scallop – Frances Temple
Rich Dad Poor Dad – Robert T. Kiyosaki
Rifles for Watie – Harold Keith
Robinson Crusoe – Daniel DeFoe
Robin Hood – Roger Green
Run Baby Run – Nicky Cruz
Sea of Glory – Ken Wales & David Poling
The Scarlet Pimpernel – Baroness Orczy
The Scarlet Pimpernel
The Elusive Pimpernel
The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel
Sir Percy Leads the Band
Other books in this series are fine.
The Story of King Arthur and His Knights – Howard Pyle
The Story of the Trapp Family Singers – Maria Augusta Trapp (Sound of Music)
Jessie Stuart Stories
Daughter of the Legend
Hie to The Hunters
The Thread That Runs So True
Swiss Family Robinson – Johann D. Wyss
Tales From Shakespeare – Charles and Mary Lamb
To Kill a Mocking Bird – Harper Lee
The Universe Next Door - James Sire
A Walk Across America – Peter Jenkins
The Walk West (sequel)
Wild at Heart – John Eldredge
24 Point Books
Ben Hur – Lew Wallace
Christy – Catherine Marshall
Charles Dickens
Great Expectations
Oliver Twist
A Tale of Two Cities
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
Keeper of the Bees – Gene Stratton Porter
James Herriot
All Creatures Great and Small
All Things Bright and Beautiful
All Things Wise and Wonderful
The Lord God Made Them All
Flannery O’Connor
Three
The Complete Stories
The Robe – Lloyd C. Douglas
Dorothy L. Sayers (Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries 400-600 pgs.)
Busman's Honeymoon
Gaudy Night
Have His Carcase
The Nine Tailors
Other books this length are fine.
Francis A. Schaeffer
How Should We Then Live?
Trilogy (The God Who Is There, Escape from Reason, He is There and He is Not Silent)
Irving Stone
The President’s Lady: Rachel and Andrew Jackson
Love is Eternal: Mary Todd and Abraham Lincoln
The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien
The Fellowship of the Ring
The Two Towers
The Return of the King
The Zion Chronicles – Brock & Bodie Thoene
The Gates of Zion
A Daughter of Zion
The Return to Zion
The Key to Zion
A Light in Zion
The Zion Covenant – Brock & Bodie Thoene
Vienna Prelude
Prague Counterpoint
Munich Signature
Jerusalem Interlude
Danzig Passage
Other books in this series are fine.
The Zion Legacy – Brock & Bodie Thoene
Jerusalem Vigil
Thunder from Jerusalem
Jerusalem’s Heart
The Jerusalem Scroll
Stones of Jerusalem
Jerusalem’s Hope
Other books in this series are fine.
32 Point Books
Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy – Eric Metaxas
Civil War Trilogy– Jeff M. Shaara
The Killer Angels
Gods and Generals
The Last Full Measure
Alexandre Dumas
The Count of Monte Cristo (Lowell Bair)
The Three Musketeers (Lowell Bair)
Twenty Years Later
Ten Years Later
The Man in the Iron Mask
Greek Mythology (Translated by Robert Fagles)
The Aeneid – Virgil
The Iliad – Homer
The Odyssey – Homer
How Now Should We Live? – Charles Colson
A Lineage of Grace: Five Stories of Unlikely Women Who Changed Eternity – Francine Rivers
Lorna Doone – R. D. Blackwell
Irving Stone
Men to Match My Mountains
Those Who Love: John and Abigail Adams
48 Point Books
Hans Christian Andersen: The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories
Hans Christian Andersen (original author) Erik Christian Haugaard
The City of God - St. Augustine
The Complete Tales of Uncle Remus – Joel Chandler Harris
Charles Dickens
Bleak House
David Copperfield
Little Dorit
Nicholas Nickleby
Our Mutual Friend
The Pickwick Papers
Les Miserable – Victor Hugo
The Scottish Chiefs: A Romance (Volumes 1 & 2) (William Wallace) – Jane Porter
(2 Volume Set: 1 volume = 24 points)
The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Short Stories – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
(2 Volume Set: 1 volume = 24 points)
Irving Stone - The Agony and Ecstasy (Michelangelo / Renaissance)
Wives and Daughters – Elizabeth Gaskill
Understanding the Times – Dr. Jeff Meyers and David A. Noebel