Reading
List for Pre-AP/Alpha Honors World Geography, in no particular
order
Must
read AT LEAST
one non-fiction; second book can be either fiction or
non-fiction. No more than 1 from the US. Project
directions follow the list. These should be available either
through the school library or the public library. Please visit with a HHS librarian if
you need help locating a book.
Non-fiction
A
Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail Bill
Bryson (attempts the AT, with humor and stories)
Storyville, USA Dale
Peterson (journey across America’s small towns)
Himalaya
Michael
Palin (Monty Python in the Himalayas)
The
First Emperor of China: The Greatest Archeological Find of Our Time Arthur
Cotterell (early China through
archaeology)
From
the Field Charles
McCarry (Editor) (NGS articles)
Great
Journeys Tom
Owen Edmunds, Philip
Jones Griffiths ( PBS series companion)
Don't
Know Much About Geography: by
Kenneth C. Davis (geography for dummies)
Child
Of The Dark: The Diary Of Carolina Maria De Jesus Carolina
Maria de Jesus (life for the poor in Brazil’s favelas)
The
Fifth Chinese Daughter
Jade Snow
Wong (Chinese migrate to America)
Chain
of Fire
Beverley Naidoo (resisting apartheid in
South Africa)
Balkan
Ghosts: A Journey Through History Robert
D. Kaplan (political travelogue)
The
Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah
Equiano, or Gustavus
Vassa, the African.
Written by Himself by a
slave, available on-line at http://www.gutenberg.org/
Zen
And the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Robert
M. Pirsig (father and son journey from
prairies to Pacific)
A
Journey Through Texas: Or A Saddle-Trip On The Southwestern Frontier Frederick
Law Olmsted (Texas in 1856, by the man who designed Central Park)
The
California and Oregon Trail: Being Sketches of Prairie and Rocky
Mountain Life Francis
Parkman (1846 journey through the Western US)
Reading
Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
Azar Nafisi (1980s Iran)
Great
Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906: How San Francisco Nearly Destroyed
Itself
Philip
L. Fradkin (San Francisco earthquake)
Sagebrush
Country: Land and the American West Philip
L. Fradkin (land preservation in the
American West)
Cadillac
Desert : the
American West and Its Disappearing Water, Marc Reisner (water and the west)
The
Land That Never Was: Sir
Gregor MacGregor
and the Most Audacious Fraud in History David Sinclair
(true story of a 19th-century scam)
Zarafa A
Giraffe's True Story from Deep in Africa to the Heart of Paris Michael
Allin (a gift for King Charles in 1826)
The
Basque History of the World Mark
Kurlansky (between Spain & France)
Brunelleschi's
Dome How
a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture Ross
King (15th-century Florence)
A Cow's
Life The
Surprising History of Cattle and How the Black Angus Came to Be Home on
the Range
M. R. Montgomery (history of men and cows)
Diamond A
Journey to the Heart of an Obsession Matthew
Hart (diamonds and history)
[Diamond: The History of a Cold-Blooded Love Affair (alternate title)]
The
Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas The Greek Barry
Cunliffe
(330 BC Greek travels around Europe)
Measuring
America How an Untamed Wilderness Shaped the United States and
Fulfilled the Promise of Democracy Andro Linklater (how we got our
inches and feet to measure the land)
The
Shaman's Coat A Native History of Siberia Anna Reid (Siberian
history and travelogue)
The
World of Gerard Mercator The Mapmaker Who Revolutionized Geography
Andrew Taylor
A
Short Walk in the Hindu Kush Eric Newby (Englishman in the
mountains)
The
Ends of the Earth: From Togo to Turkmenistan, from Iran to
Cambodia, a Journey to the Frontiers of Anarchy Robert Kaplan
(political travelogue)
Dave
Barry Does Japan Dave Barry (ok, he’s a humor columnist, but its
funny)
When
China Ruled the Seas Louise Levathes (treasure fleet of the
1400s)
The
Travels of Marco Polo Marco Polo (the original European
travelogue)
The
Travels of Ibn Battuta: in the Near East, Asia and Africa,
1325-1354 Ibn Battuta (an early Moslem travelogue)
First
Crossing: Stories About Teen Immigrants Donald R. Gallo (10
first-person stories)
Tales
of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World Rita Golden
Gelman (an old lady leaves home to travel the world)
The
City: A Global History Joel Kotkin (the evolution of urban life)
How
to Lie with Maps Mark Monmonier (how people manipulate maps
to sell their version of the truth)
An
American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever
Epidemic of 1793 Jim Murphy (Newbery Honor Book)
Postville:
A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America Stephen Bloom (Orthodox
Jews move to rural Postville and open a Kosher slaughterhouse)
Silent
Spring Rachel Carson (classic about environmental issues)
Wild
Swans-Three Daughters of China J. Chang (3 generations in 20th
century China)
Kon-Tiki:
Across the Pacific by Raft Thor Heyerdahl (classic: modern voyage
traces Polynesians to South America)
A
Weekend in September John Edward Weems (Galveston hurricane in 1900)
Hot
Zone Richard Preston (ebola in the US)
Endurance:
Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage Alfred Lansing (to the South
Pole, almost, in 1914)
The
Lexus and the Olive Tree Thomas Friedman (globalization)
We
Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families
Philip Gourevitch (true stories from Rwandan genocide)
Killer
Angels Michael Scharra (Pulitzer Prize-winning book about
Battle of Gettysburg in the US Civil War)
An
Amateur's Guide to the Planet: Twelve Adventure Journeys and
Lessons for the Contemporary United States Jeannette Belliveau
Fast
Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal Eric
Schlosser
Annapurna
Maurice Herzog (mountain climbing in the Himalayas, 1950)
Narrative
of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave: Written by
Himself Frederick Douglass
The
Longitude Prize Joan Dash (race to help ships navigate, and
win $1 million)
Confucius Lives Next Door Tom Reid
The
Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that
Changed America Erik Larson (murder and the building of the 1893
Worlds Fair in Chicago)
The
Places in Between Rory Stewart (Afghanistan after the Taliban)
Revenge
of the Whale: The True Story of the Whaleship Essex Nathaniel
Philbrick (whale attacks ship, survivors almost perish)
The
Race to Save the Lord God Bird Phillip Hoose (Ivory-billed
woodpecker on the verge of extinction)
Hitler
Youth: Growing Up in Hitler’s Shadow Susan Campbell Bartoletti
(impact of Nazi ideology)
The
Power of One: Daisy Bates and the Little Rock Nine Dennis Brindell
Fradin, Judith Bloom Fradin (integration in Arkansas, 1957)
Getting
Away with Murder Chris Crowe (Emmet Till case galvanizes the
Civil Rights movement)
Black
Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine, 1845-1850
Susan Campbell Bartoletti
The Endless Steppe:
Growing Up in Siberia Esther Hautzig (Soviets send family to
Siberia)
So
Far from the Bamboo Grove Yoko Kawashawa Watkins (Japanese
girl flees North Korea after WWII)
The
Great Train Robbery Michael Crichton (train robber in
Victorian England -'The Crime of the Century')
A
Nation of Counterfeiters: Capitalists, Con Men, and the Making of the
United States by Stephen Mihm (the rise of capitalists and the
freewheeling era prior to the Civil War)
The
White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have
Done So Much Ill and So Little Good by William Easterly (failed policy
for LDCs)
Pathologies
of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor by Paul
Farmer (how we fail the LDCs)
Virus
Hunter: Thirty Years of Battling Hot Viruses Around the World by
C.J. Peters (first hand account of an ex-army colonel)
Biohazard:
The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons
Program in the World--Told from Inside by the Man Who Ran It by Ken
Alibek (Soviet defector tells all)
The
Autobiography of Malcolm X : As Told to Alex Haley by Attallah
Shabazz
Fiction
The Alchemist
Paul Coelho (young boy’s journey from Spain to Egypt)
Democracy:
An American Novel Henry Adams (1880 Washington, DC)
Shogun
James Clavell (medieval Japan)
Johnny
Tremain Esther Forbes ( the US Revolutionary War)
Life
Along the Silk Road Susan Whitfield (pre-Islamic central Asia)
Things
Fall Apart Chinua Achebe (effects of the white man on African
life)
Chu Ju's House Gloria
Whelan (one girl too many for a Chinese family))
The
Truth About Sparrows Marian Hale (Great Depression and a girl)
anything by James
A. Michener
The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini
(2 boys in Afghanistan)
The City of Joy
Dominique LaPierre (struggle for survival in the slums of Calcutta)
The
Life of Pi Yann Martel (Indian boy is shipwrecked with tiger)
Mountain
Man: A Novel of Male and Female in the Early American West Vardis
Fisher (trapper in American west)
The
Blood Stone Jamila Gavin (Italian boy travels to Hindu Kush in
1600s)
Pagan’s
Crusade Catherine Jinks (orphan in Jerusalem during the Crusades)
The
Mark of the Horse Lord Rosemary Sutcliff (slave boy in 1st
century Britain becomes gladiator)
Animal
Farm by George Orwell
Fahrenheit
451 by Ray Bradbury
Their
Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (black woman in
Florida, 1930s)
Siddhartha
by Hermann Hesse
In the Time of Butterflies by
Julia Alvarez - about
three sisters who were involved in the revolution in the Dominican
Republic. Wonderful, but sad.
Poisonwood Bible by Barbara
Kingsolver - about a family of Christian missionaries caught up in
the Congo Uprising.
Anhil's Ghost by Michael
Ondaatje - About revolution in Sri Lanka
Fall
book
report, to include the following in a clear plastic report binder:
· Title page, with your name, period, date, book title and
author, with date of first publication [10 points]
· A vocabulary list with at least 10 new words (and
their definitions) you learned while reading the book [20 points]
· Annotated timeline of the book showing important
events, with at least 3 pictures, etc. (15 events minimum) [15
points] The pictures may be hand-drawn.
· Annotated map of places in the book (10 places minimum) [15
points] I have blank maps available
· ESPN sheet with bullets - pick one chapter for
this [15 points]
· A brief paper (2 pages typed, double-spaced, MLA
style) with your opinion of the book, backed up with reasoned arguments
and evidence from the book. Be sure to follow the guidelines for
essays we discussed in class – use third person, etc. [25 points]
Style guidelines may be found in the links on my website and
here. A bibliography should not be necessary.
There
will be another outside independent reading for the spring
semester. The student must read AT LEAST one non-fiction
book; the second book can be either fiction or non-fiction. No
more than 1 about the US, although both may be about foreign
lands. The books should be available either through the
school library or the public library.
Spring
report,
to include the following in a clear plastic report binder:
· To be announced- check back!