“Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.” - Margaret Fuller.
She is right, the best readers have the most power. In a time when Netflix is the new relaxation activity nd every single book is being made into an even better movie, reading books seem to be becoming less and less more popular by the decade. Everyone is connected to the internet and it seems that no one wants to unplug for a second and pick up a good, dusty book. However, reading is more important than you may think. Reading can prevent Alzheimer's and people who read tend to be more cultured. A person who is read to as a child tends to be better at school and develops faster. Reading enhances your memory, it expands your vocabulary, and research suggests that regular reading is associated with a 35% reduction in the risk of dementia, and it can reduce stress levels by 68%!
If that makes you want to go to your nearest bookstore or library, then, here is a comprehensive book list of a mixture of old and new books to read before you're done with the summer. Don't spend your summer sitting watching old Friends episodes, read about a new imaginary world or learn something new about history! Here are 25 books that you must read, if not by the end of the summer, by the end of college.
- 1. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
- 2. The Pearl That Broke Its Shell: A Novel by Nadia Hashimi
- 3. The Dream of a Common Language by Adrienne Rich
- 4. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- 5. The Lord of the Rings by J.R. Tolkien
- 6. Uglies, Pretties, Specials, Extras by Scott Westerfeld
- 7. All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doer
- 8. Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges
- 9. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
- 10. Merle's Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog
- 11. 1984 by George Orwell
- 12. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- 13. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemmingway
- 14. The Running Man by Stephen King
- 15. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
- 16. Touch by Claire North
- 17. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
- 18. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
- 19. The Swallows of Kabul by Yashina Khadra
- 20. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
- 21. Bone by Fae Myenne Ng
- 22. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
- 23.The Lost Boys of Sudan: An American Story of the Refugee Experience by Mark Bixler
- 24. War Horse by Michael Morpurgo
- 25. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
