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Oh no, did you wait too long to begin your foray into summer reading, and now a new school year is breathing its heated breath upon your neck as your breath is stuttered in terror? Or maybe you’re a parent of just such a shirker of literary responsibility and seek to help (we’ll help you help them but only if you swear you won’t write the report for them. Deal?).
Either way, we scoured actual summer reading lists from a few different schools and are happy to inform you that we’re a wealth of audible summer reading resources. Frankly, we don’t understand how you let it go this long, especially since summer reading lists have gotten a serious upgrade since we wandered high school hallways. As you listen to any of these- dare we say, thrilling- reading choices, remember us as we wasted precious summertime forcing our eyes upon the pages of As I Lay Dying and Middlemarch. Why are you like this? Your school’s lists are awesome.
The Crucible – Arthur Miller
This play has stood the test of time with its themes of hysteria, misogyny, and the othering of those we deem different. Does personal perception count as evidence? Is public opinion the compass of morality? Now more than ever, the questions elicited by this play, and the lessons it ultimately teaches are vital to ask and understand, hence why it’s on so many reading lists. Also, the Salem Witch Trials never disappoint when it comes to a fascinating (if horrific) historical chapter.
P.S. The most crucial lesson we learned from this play is: never turn your back on an angry teenage girl. Never.
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
While initially, this seems like the OG Survivor with some free- pubescent testosterone tossed in, this book is, again, a vital if scathing commentary on the true nature of humans. When a bunch of schoolboys finds themselves marooned on an island in a fight for survival, what they don’t count on is the fact that they might just be each other’s most dangerous adversary.
It (at times violently) illustrates the idea that it’s what we do when no one is looking that truly reflects who we are. Are we inherently good or evil, or do we fall somewhere in between? A heart warmer, this one is not, but it will get you thinking.
Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut
A nihilistic, pessimistic story of life after an apocalypse, but make it…funny? As with most things, even the darker ones, laughter often makes them more palatable. Vonnegut certainly knew this when he penned this perplexing yet hilarious romp through a dismal fictional future. A brief tale, each chapter is more of an anthology with everything as a whole coming together to analyze man’s relationship to science, progress, and himself. We’ve also got another man vs wild scenario on an island so, ya know, continuity.
