Principal's Reading List
2012-2013
| August |
 A View From the Bridge Arthur Miller Drama |
Italian-American immigrant life in the 1950's
textures this searing drama of love and revenge.
Longshoreman Eddie Carbone is devoted to his
wife, Beatrice, and to his niece, Catherine.
When Beatrice's impoverished Sicilian cousins
enter the U.S. illegally in the hope of finding
work, Eddie gives them a helping hand. But when
Catherine and one of the cousins fall in love,
Eddie's affection for his niece turns into
obsession.
|
| September |
 The Importance of Being Earnest Oscar Wilde Comedy |
A hilarious and poignant satire of Victorian era
social hypocrisy. Witty and smartly plotted,
Earnest is filled with memorable characters; all
centered on Earnest, the fabricated brother of
Jack Worthing. Earnest's exploits set off a
series of unlikely events that has Jack and
others caught up in a web of misunderstandings
and mistaken identities all the way to the end.
|
| October |
 Steve Jobs Walter Isaacson Biography |
Based on more
than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two
years—as well as interviews with more than a hundred
family members, friends, adversaries, competitors,
and colleagues—Walter Isaacson has written a
riveting story of the roller-coaster life and
searingly intense personality of a creative
entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and
ferocious drive revolutionized six industries:
personal computers, animated movies, music, phones,
tablet computing, and digital publishing. |
| November |
 The Fault in Our Stars John Green Fiction |
Sixteen-year-old cancer patient, Hazel, is forced by
her parents to attend a support group, where she
meets and falls in love with the seventeen-year-old
Augustus, an ex-basketball player and amputee. The author has stated that "the title is inspired by a famous line from Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar (Act 1, scene 2). The nobleman Cassius says to Brutus, 'The fault, dear Brutus is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings.'" |
| December |
 True Grit Charles Portis Western |
Mattie Ross is just 14 years old when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shoots her father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, robbing him of his life, his horse, and $150 in cash. Accompained by the one-eyed Rooster Cogburn -- the meanest available US Marshall -- Mattie leaves home to avenge her father's death and to pursue his killer into Indian Territory. |
| January |
 Escape from Camp 14: One man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West Blaine Harden Memoir/Adventure |
Acclaimed journalist Blaine
Harden tells the story of Shin Dong-hyuk and through
the lens of Shin's life unlocks the secrets of the
world's most repressive totalitarian state. Shin
knew nothing of civilized existence-he saw his
mother as a competitor for food, guards raised him
to be a snitch, and he witnessed the execution of
his own family. Through Harden's harrowing narrative
of Shin's life and remarkable escape, he offers an
unequaled inside account of one of the world's
darkest nations and a riveting tale of endurance,
courage, and survival. |
| February |
 The Passage of Power Robert Caro Biography |
The Passage of Power follows Lyndon Johnson through
both the most frustrating and the most triumphant
periods of his career—1958 to1964. It is a time that
would see him trade the extraordinary power he had
created for himself as Senate Majority Leader for
what became the wretched powerlessness of a Vice
President in an administration that disdained and
distrusted him. Yet it was, as well, the time in
which the presidency, the goal he had always
pursued, would be thrust upon him in the moment it
took an assassin’s bullet to reach its mark. |
| March |
 Code Name Verity Elizabeth Wein Fiction |
Oct. 11th, 1943—A British spy plane crashes in
Nazi-occupied France. Its pilot and passenger are
best friends. One of the girls has a chance at
survival. The other has lost the game before it's
barely begun. When “Verity” is arrested by the
Gestapo, she's sure she doesn’t stand a chance. As a
secret agent captured in enemy territory, she’s
living a spy’s worst nightmare. Her Nazi
interrogators give her a simple choice: reveal her
mission or face a grisly execution. |
| April |
 The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future Chris Guillebeau Entrepreneurship |
In preparing to write this
book, the author identified 1,500 individuals
who have built businesses earning $50,000 or
more from a modest investment (in many cases,
$100 or less), and from that group he’s chosen
to focus on the 50 most intriguing case studies.
In nearly all cases, people with no special
skills discovered aspects of their personal
passions that could be monetized, and were able
to restructure their lives in ways that gave
them greater freedom and fulfillment. Here,
finally, distilled into one easy-to-use guide,
are the most valuable lessons from those who’ve
learned how to turn what they do into a gateway
to self-fulfillment.
|
| May |
Home |
Frank Money is an angry, self-loathing veteran of
the Korean War who, after traumatic experiences on
the front lines, finds himself back in racist
America with more than just physical scars. His home
may seem alien to him, but he is shocked out of his
crippling apathy by the need to rescue his medically
abused younger sister and take her back to the small
Georgia town they come from and that he’s hated all
his life. As Frank revisits his memories from
childhood and the war that have left him questioning
his sense of self, he discovers a profound courage
he had thought he could never possess again. |
| June |
|
A gritty, high-stakes adventure set in a futuristic
world where oil is scarce, but loyalty is scarcer.
In America's Gulf Coast region, grounded oil tankers
are being broken down for parts by crews of young
people. Nailer, a teenage boy, works the light crew,
scavenging for copper wiring just to make quota-and
hopefully live to see another day. But when, by luck
or by chance, he discovers an exquisite clipper ship
beached during a recent hurricane, Nailer faces the
most important decision of his life: Strip the ship
for all it's worth or rescue its lone survivor, a
beautiful and wealthy girl who could lead him to a
better life.... |
| July |
Engines of Change: A History of the American
Dream in Fifteen Cars by Paul Ingrassia |
From the assembly lines of Henry Ford to the open roads of Route 66, from the lore of Jack Kerouac to the sex appeal of the Hot Rod, America’s history is a vehicular history—an idea brought brilliantly to life in this major work by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Paul Ingrassia. Ingrassia offers a wondrous epic in fifteen automobiles, including the Corvette, the Beetle, and the Chevy Corvair, as well as the personalities and tales behind them: Robert McNamara’s unlikely role in Lee Iacocca’s Mustang, John Z. DeLorean’s Pontiac GTO , Henry Ford’s Model T, as well as Honda’s Accord, the BMW 3 Series, and the Jeep, among others. |
Previous Principal's Reading Lists:
2008-2009
2009-2010
2010-2011
2011-2012