I. The summer reading program for this coming summer will look just like last summer's. We are asking students to choose one book from the list below (Summer Reading I), a list put together by the faculty members of Sandy Spring Friends School. Then - read that book! On the first day of school in September, after lunch, we will break into book discussion groups where students and teachers will together discuss the book they read chosen from the list below. No tests, no quizzes, just, we hope, an enjoyable time talking about the reading we did over the summer. While it probably does not need to be said, we will say it anyway - some of these were offered as options previously; please choose a new book, one you have not yet read.

II. Rising 9th graders and rising 10th graders have been assigned a second book; your selection has been made for you. Both are books that will play a part in your classes next year. Sorry, but we can't make any promises about tests or quizzes on those. Feel free, however, to choose another book from the Summer Reading II list to read on your own - we do promise no quizzes on that one.

III. For rising 11th and 12th graders, there is a second list of titles (titled, surprisingly enough, Summer Reading II), attached to this one. This is a list put together by members of the English Department. Please choose a book from that list, too, as a part of your summer reading. Again, there will be no tests, no quizzes, nobody checking that you did the reading. But each book on the list is a guaranteed "good read." Pick a book and enjoy.

Please fill out your Summer Reading Book Choice Form with your discussion group selection and return it to your advisor. If you are making your choice after school has let out, please send or e-mail your choice to David Hickson, Head of Upper School (David.Hickson@ssfs.org)

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver
Barbara Kingsolver and her family take the reader on a journey away from industrialized food to a rural life in which they vow to eat only food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves ,or learn to live without it.

The Best Women's Travel Writing 2009, Lucy McCauley (editor)
Canoeing up the Amazon without a paddle, stalking lions on foot in Botswana, meeting Romeo in Napoli...35 intrepid women travelers tell their tales of adventure and self discovery.

Catch-22, Joseph Heller
Simply put, the most hilarious wartime novel ever. Through the narrator Yossarian, we explore the absurdity of military hierarchy, on-base life, battle strategy, and the entire World War II effort. Find out the true meaning of the term "catch-22," which author Joseph Heller coined with this book. This wry, dark satire is a classic of twentieth-century American culture and continues to be poignant today.

Dracula, Bram Stroker
For those interested in the Twilight series, you may want to read one of the original vampire stories. It is a quintessential tale of suspense and horror, boasting one of the most terrifying characters ever born in literature: Count Dracula, a tragic, night-dwelling specter who feeds upon the blood of the living, and whose diabolical passions prey upon the innocent, the helpless, and the beautiful.

Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert
Set against the backdrop of three different cultures, Elizabeth Gilbert explores pleasure in Italy, devotion in India, and seeks balance between worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence on the Indonesian island of Bali. This New York Times Bestseller is warm, funny, and immensely readable.

Fermat's Enigma: The Epic Quest to Solve the World's Greatest Mathematical Problem, Simon Singh
In 1637, mathematician Pierre de Fermat, next to what became known as Fermat's Last Theorem, famously wrote "I have discovered a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition, which this margin is too narrow to contain.'' For more than 350 years, no one was able to complete a proof of the theorem until a quiet British mathematician astonished the world. This is the story of the attempts to solve this puzzle, covering much of the history of mathematics and entertainingly telling the stories of eccentric geniuses who worked on it.

The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman
Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy. He would be completely normal if he didn't live in a sprawling graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor of the dead. There are dangers and adventures in the graveyard for a boy-an ancient Indigo Man beneath the hill, a gateway to a desert leading to an abandoned city of ghouls, the strange and terrible menace of the Sleer. But if Bod leaves the graveyard, then he will come under attack from the man Jack-who has already killed Bod's family....

The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Is it really a devil-beast that's haunting the lonely moors? Enter Sherlock Holmes to find the answer. Read a Sherlock Holmes classic before watching Robert Downy Jr. play the classic detective/hero on the big screen this fall.

The Life and Death of A Druid Prince, Anne Ross & Don Robins
About discovery of a 2000-year-old man's body in a peat bog in Lindow Moss, near Manchester, England on August 1, 1984. An engrossing archaeological study which unfolds like a well-told detective story. With clarity and scientific skill, the authors reconstruct the ritual sacrifice of this 30-year-old man they deduce to have been a Celtic aristocrat. Probably a Druid priest, the man was sacrificed to the gods in A.D. 60 in the wake of a series of disasters, including the advance of Roman armies bent on crushing the Druids. The appendixes provide an overview of the Druids--their institutions, beliefs, and archaeological remains. An engrossing work for laypersons and specialists alike.

Loving Frank, Nancy Horan
A novel based on the true story of the love affair between Frank Lloyd Wright and a woman named Mamah Cheney; both of them left their family to be together, creating a Chicago scandal that eventually ended in violence.

Mountains Beyond Mountains, Tracy Kidder
A vivid biography by one of the world's best non-fiction writers. The book is about Paul Farmer, doctor, Harvard professor, renowned infectious-disease specialist, anthropologist, the recipient of a MacArthur "genius" grant, world-class Robin Hood, who was brought up in a bus and on a boat, and in medical school found his life's calling: to diagnose and cure infectious diseases and to bring the lifesaving tools of modern medicine to those who need them most. Farmer-brilliant, charismatic, charming, both a leader in international health and a doctor who finds time to make house calls in Boston and the mountains of Haiti-blasts through convention to get results.

The Naked Sun, Isaac Asimov
A millennium into the future, two advancements have altered the course of human history: the colonization of the Galaxy and the creation of the positronic brain. On the beautiful Outer World planet of Solaria, a handful of human colonists lead a hermit-like existence, their every need attended to by their faithful robot servants. To this strange and provocative planet comes Detective Elijah Baley, sent from the streets of New York with his positronic partner, the robot R. Daneel Olivaw, to solve an incredible murder that has rocked Solaria to its foundations.

Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell
A study of the best and brightest, the most famous and successful, raises the question: what makes high-achievers different? With too much attention placed on what successful people are like rather than where they came from (e.g. their culture, family, generation, and idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing), Gladwell delves into the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles arguably the greatest rock band of all time.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Jane Austen & Seth Grahame-Smith
A mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryten - and the dead are returning to life. Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but soon she is distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. Things then go horribly wrong!

The Road, Cormac McCarthy
A father and son roam a post-apocalyptic, burned-out world looking for the last remnants of humanity and civilization. Threatened by hunger, hopelessness and marauding bands of cannibals, they struggle to survive for another day.

Running the Table: The Legend of Kid Delicious, The Last Great American Pool Hustler, L. Jon Wertheim
The modern day tale of Kid Delicious and his unlikely sidekick, Bristol Bob. . . .from the book jacket: "Their four-year odyssey takes them from podunk pool halls to urban billiard rooms across the country, as they manage to take in as much as $30,000 in one night, and the next night end up with just enough gas money to get home. With every stop the action gets hotter, the calls get closer, and Delicious' prowess with a cue stick becomes more widely known.

The Stranger, Albert Camus
One of the classic novels of the 20th century, The Stranger has had a profound impact on millions of readers world wide. In it, Camus explores what he called 'the nakedness of man faced with the absurd.' What could be a better topic of conversation than that?

Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin
Dangerously ill when he finished his K2 climb in 1993, Mortenson was sheltered for seven weeks by the small Pakistani village of Korphe; in return, he promised to build the impoverished town's first school, a project that grew into the Central Asia Institute, which has since constructed more than 50 schools across rural Pakistan and Afghanistan. Relin recounts Mortenson's efforts in fascinating detail, presenting compelling portraits of the village elders, con artists, philanthropists, mujahideen, Taliban officials, ambitious school girls and upright Muslims Mortenson met along the way. Captivating and suspenseful, with engrossing accounts of both hostilities and unlikely friendships, this book will win many readers' hearts.

The Thunderbolt Kid, Bill Bryson
The Thunderbolt Kid was born in the 1950s when six-year-old Bryson found a mysterious, scratchy green sweater with a satiny thunderbolt across the chest. The jersey bestowed magic powers on the wearer-X-ray vision and the power to zap teachers and babysitters and deflect unwanted kisses from old people. These are the memoirs of that Kid, whose earthly parents were not really half bad-a loving mother who didn't cook and was pathologically forgetful, but shared her love of movies with her youngest child, and a dad who was the greatest baseball writer that ever lived.

The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University, Kevin Roose
No drinking. No smoking. No cursing. No dancing. No R-rated movies. Kevin Roose wasn't used to rules like these. As a sophomore at Brown University, he spent his days drinking fair-trade coffee, singing in an a cappella group, and generally fitting right in with Brown's free-spirited, ultra-liberal student body. But when Roose leaves his Ivy League confines to spend a semester at Liberty University, a conservative Baptist school in Lynchburg, Virginia, obedience is no longer optional.

A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson
Back in America after twenty years in Britain, Bill Bryson decides to reacquaint himself with his native country by walking the 2,100-mile Appalachian Trail, which stretches from Georgia to Maine. The AT offers an astonishing landscape of silent forests and sparkling lakes--and to a writer with the comic genius of Bill Bryson, it also provides endless opportunities to witness the majestic silliness of his fellow human beings. A very funny book.

When Smoke Ran Like Water, Devra Lee Davis
Davis, one of the world's leading epidemiologists and researchers on environmentally linked illness, writes about her lifelong battle against environmental pollution in strong prose, underlined with some horrifying stories. With a special emphasis on air pollution and its long-term effects, Davis anecdotally talks about some of the most infamous smogs and fogs of all time...

Wild Thoughts from Wild Places, David Quammen
In this story, award-winning journalist David Quammen reminds us why he has become one of our most beloved science and nature writers. This is an anthology of essays on science and nature originally published in Outdoor magazine.

Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea, Charles Seife
The seemingly impossible Zen task--writing a book about nothing--has a loophole: people have been chatting, learning, and even fighting about nothing for millennia. The book starts with the story of a modern battleship stopped dead in the water by a loose zero, then rewinds back to several hundred years BCE. Some empty-headed genius improved the traditional Eastern counting methods immeasurably by adding zero as a placeholder, which allowed the genesis of our still-used decimal system. Seife is enthusiastic about his subject; his synthesis of math, history, and anthropology seduces the reader into a new fascination with the most troubling number.

Listed below are a number of books, each one a gem. We are asking all high school students who will be in grades 11 or 12 next year to choose one and read it. (Or you can read a second book from the Part I list.) You need not write anything about your second book; you will not be quizzed on it when you return in fall. Just read and - we hope - enjoy. You might ask a parent or friend to read the same book and maybe talk about it over the summer; you decide. All you have to do is choose a book and read it.

Rising ninth graders should read The Life of Pi, by Yann Martell. This book will be a part of the ninth grade curriculum in the fall.

Rising tenth graders should read The King Must Die, by Mary Renault. This book will be a part of the Western Civilization course required of all 10th graders.

Enjoy!

A Farewell to Arms, Earnest Hemingway

All Quiet on the Western Front, Erik Marie Remarque

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Mark Twain

Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins

An American Childhood, Anne Dillard

The Color Purple, Alice Walker

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontė

Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton

On the Road, Jack Kerouac

The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde

Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings, Jorge Luis Borges

A Lesson Before Dying, Earnest J. Gaines