11th+grade+SUMMER+READING+NOVELS

Richard Dawkins is not a shy man, Edward Larson's research shows that most scientists today are not formally religious, but Dawkins is an in-your-face atheist in the witty British style:
 * __The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design__ by Richard Dawkins**
 * NON-FICTION (Biology, Evolution)**

I want to persuade the reader, not just that the Darwinian world-view happens to be true, but that it is the only known theory that could, in principle, solve the mystery of our existence. The title of this 1986 work, Dawkins's second book, refers to the Rev. William Paley's 1802 work, //[|Natural Theology]//, which argued that just as finding a watch would lead you to conclude that a watchmaker must exist, the complexity of living organisms proves that a Creator exists. Not so, says Dawkins: "All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the blind forces of physics, albeit deployed in a very special way... it is the //blind// watchmaker." Dawkins is a hard-core scientist: he doesn't just tell you what is so, he shows you how to find out for yourself. For this book, he wrote //Biomorph//, one of the first artificial life programs. You can check Dawkins's results on your own Mac or PC. This novel reveals more about the Battle of Gettysburg than any piece of learned nonfiction on the same subject. Michael Shaara's account of the three most important days of the Civil War features deft characterizations of all of the main actors, including Lee, Longstreet, Pickett, Buford, and Hancock. The most inspiring figure in the book, however, is Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, whose 20th Maine regiment of volunteers held the Union's left flank on the second day of the battle. This unit's bravery at Little Round Top helped turned the tide of the war against the rebels. There are also plenty of maps, which convey a complete sense of what happened July 1-3, 1863. Reading about the past is rarely so much fun as on these pages. A brief, easy-to-read autobiography of a black man who is one of today's leading neurosurgeons. While pursuing his career, Carson encountered prejudice, negative peer pressure, and politics in getting a job. His sense of humor, faith in God, patience, and his belief in the work ethic come through without preaching. In the last chapter, Carson gives recommendations to students on ways to live and to achieve. //The Jungle//, by **Upton Sinclair**, is part of the //Barnes & Noble Classics// series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of //Barnes & Noble Classics//: New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars Biographies of the authors Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events Footnotes and endnotes Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work Comments by other famous authors Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations Bibliographies for further reading Indices & Glossaries, when appropriateAll editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. //Barnes & Noble Classics// pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works. **Upton Sinclair**’s muckraking masterpiece //The Jungle// centers on Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant working in Chicago’s infamous Packingtown. Instead of finding the American Dream, Rudkus and his family inhabit a brutal, soul-crushing urban jungle dominated by greedy bosses, pitiless con-men, and corrupt politicians. While Sinclair’s main target was the industry’s appalling labor conditions, the reading public was most outraged by the disgusting filth and contamination in American food that his novel exposed. As a result, President Theodore Roosevelt demanded an official investigation, which quickly led to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug laws. For a work of fiction to have such an impact outside its literary context is extremely rare. (At the time of //The Jungle//’s publication in 1906, the only novel to have led to social change on a similar scale in America was //Uncle Tom’s Cabin//.)
 * __The Killer Angels__ by Michael Shaara**
 * HISTORICAL FICTION**
 * Reading Level: 9 Interest Level: 9**
 * __Gifted Hands__ by Dr. Ben Carson**
 * AUTOBIOGRAPHY**
 * Reading Level: 8.5 Interest Level: 7- Adult**
 * __The Jungle__ by Upton Sinclair**
 * FICTION**
 * Reading Level: 8 Interest Level: 9+**

Today, //The Jungle// remains a relevant portrait of capitalism at its worst and an impassioned account of the human spirit facing nearly insurmountable challenges. First published in 1970, this extraordinary book changed the way Americans think about the original inhabitants of their country. Beginning with the Long Walk of the Navajos in 1860 and ending 30 years later with the massacre of Sioux men, women, and children at Wounded Knee in South Dakota, it tells how the American Indians lost their land and lives to a dynamically expanding white society. During these three decades, America's population doubled from 31 million to 62 million. Again and again, promises made to the Indians fell victim to the ruthlessness and greed of settlers pushing westward to make new lives. The Indians were herded off their ancestral lands into ever-shrinking reservations, and were starved and killed if they resisted. It is a truism that "history is written by the victors"; for the first time, this book described the opening of the West from the Indians' viewpoint. Accustomed to stereotypes of Indians as red savages, white Americans were shocked to read the reasoned eloquence of Indian leaders and learn of the bravery with which they and their peoples endured suffering. With meticulous research and in measured language overlaying brutal narrative, [|Dee Brown] focused attention on a national disgrace. Still controversial but with many of its premises now accepted, //Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee// has sold 5 million copies around the world. Thirty years after it first broke onto the national conscience, it has lost none of its importance or emotional impact. __Panda's Thumb__ is the second volume in a series of essay collections culled primarily from Gould's column "This View of Life" that was published for nearly thirty years in __Natural History__ magazine, the official popular journal of the American Museum of Natural History. Once more readers are treated to elegantly writtten, insightful pieces on issues ranging from racial attitudes affecting 19th-century science to evolutionary dilemmas such as the origins of the Pand's thumb (not really a dilemma, though "scientific" creationists might argue otherwise; instead Gould offers an elegant description of how evolution via natural selection works) and the evoltuionary consequences of variations in size and shape among organisms. Kurt Vonnegut's absurdist classic //Slaughterhouse-Five// introduces us to Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes unstuck in time after he is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim simultaneously through all phases of his life, concentrating on his (and Vonnegut's) shattering experience as an American prisoner of war who witnesses the firebombing of Dresden. Don't let the ease of reading fool you--Vonnegut's isn't a conventional, or simple, novel. He writes, "There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick, and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters..." //Slaughterhouse-Five// (taken from the name of the building where the POWs were held) is not only Vonnegut's most powerful book, it is as important as any written since 1945. Like [|//Catch- 22//], it fashions the author's experiences in the Second World War into an eloquent and deeply funny plea against butchery in the service of authority. //Slaughterhouse-Five// boasts the same imagination, humanity, and gleeful appreciation of the absurd found in Vonnegut's other works, but the book's basis in rock-hard, tragic fact gives it a unique poignancy--and humor. __The Far Pavilions__ is the story of the love of a British officer for the sister of an Indian Rajah, set against the backdrop of turbulent times: the 1858 Sepoy Rebellion, during which Indian soldiers mutinied against their British officers. Strife spread to the peasant populations before order could be restored later that same year. In the aftermath, India reverted from the status of a commercial protectorate of the British East India Company to a Royal Crown Colony of Great Britain amidintense racial prejudices and ethnic rivalries. But this is much more than a love story or a history lesson; it is a cultural expose, a glimpse of high caste Hindu practices. Some biologists speculate that if we ever make contact with extraterrestrials, those life forms are likely to be--like most life on earth--one-celled or smaller creatures, more comparable to bacteria than little green men. And even though such organisms would not likely be able to harm humans, the possibility exists that first contact might be our last. That's the scientific supposition that Michael Crichton formulates and follows out to its conclusion in his excellent debut novel, //The Andromeda Strain//. A Nobel-Prize-winning bacteriologist, Jeremy Stone, urges the president to approve an extraterrestrial decontamination facility to sterilize returning astronauts, satellites, and spacecraft that might carry an "unknown biologic agent." The government agrees, almost too quickly, to build the top-secret Wildfire Lab in the desert of Nevada. Shortly thereafter, unbeknownst to Stone, the U.S. Army initiates the "Scoop" satellite program, an attempt to actively collect space pathogens for use in biological warfare. When Scoop VII crashes a couple years later in the isolated Arizona town of Piedmont, the Army ends up getting more than it asked for. //The Andromeda Strain// follows Stone and rest of the scientific team mobilized to react to the Scoop crash as they scramble to understand and contain a strange and deadly outbreak. Crichton's first book may well be his best; it has an earnestness that is missing from his later, more calculated thrillers. A proven bestseller time and time again, //Robert Frost's Poems// contains all of Robert Frost's best-known poems and dozens more, in a portable anthology. Here are "Birches," "Meding Wall," "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," "Two Tramps at Mudtime," "Choose Something Like a Star," and "The Gift Outright," which Frost read at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy. An essential addition to eveyr home library, //Robert Frost's Poems// is a celebration of the New England countryside, Frost's appreciation of common folk, and his wonderful understanding of the human condition. These classic versus touch our hearts and leave behind a lasting impression.
 * __Bury My Hurt at Wounded Knee__ by Dee Brown**
 * NON-FICTION (American History)**
 * Reading Level: 7.9 Interest Level: 7+**
 * __The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History__ by Stephen Gould**
 * NON-FICTION (Essays, Biology)**
 * __Slaughter-House Five__ or __The Children's Crusade__ by Kurt Vonnegut**
 * FICTION**
 * Reading Level: 6 Interest Level: 7-12**
 * __The Far Pavilions__ by M.M. Kaye**
 * Reading Level: Adult Interest Level: Adult**
 * __Andromeda Strain__ by Michael Crichton**
 * FICTION**
 * Reading Level: 9 Interest Level 9-12**
 * __Robert Frost's Poems__ by Robert Frost**
 * POETRY**