8 books that most prestigious US private schools recommend for summer reading

The works spanned centuries, genres, and continents, to appeal to a wide array of students' personal reading tastes.

However, of the hundreds of books we pored through, eight works kept showing up on multiple schools' lists.

"Catch-22," by Joseph Heller — 1961

Recommended at The College Preparatory School, Trinity School, and Choate Rosemary Hall

From the book cover:

Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. But his real problem is not the enemy — it is his own army, which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service.

Yet if Yossarian makes any attempt to excuse himself from the perilous missions he’s assigned, he’ll be in violation of Catch-22, a hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes a formal request to be removed from duty, he is proven sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.

"The Catcher in the Rye," by J. D. Salinger — 1951

Recommended at The Harker School and The Lawrenceville School

Ever since it was first published in 1951, this novel has been the coming-of-age story against which all others are judged. Read and cherished by generations, the story of Holden Caulfield is truly one of America's literary treasures.
 

"Cutting for Stone," Abraham Verghese — 2009

Recommended at The Lawrenceville School and Deerfield Academy

Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon. Orphaned by their mother’s death and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution.

Moving from Addis Ababa to New York City and back again, "Cutting for Stone" is an unforgettable story of love and betrayal, medicine and ordinary miracles--and two brothers whose fates are forever intertwined.
 

"Invisible Man," by Ralph Ellison — 1952

Recommended at The Harker School and Deerfield Academy

From the book cover:

"Invisible Man" is a milestone in American literature, a book that has continued to engage readers since its appearance in 1952. A first novel by an unknown writer, it remained on the bestseller list for sixteen weeks, won the National Book Award for fiction, and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the century.

The nameless narrator of the novel describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of "the Brotherhood", and retreating amid violence and confusion to the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be. The book is a passionate and witty tour de force of style, strongly influenced by T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land," Joyce, and Dostoevsky.
 

"The Lord of the Flies," by William Golding — 1954

Recommended at The Harker School and Trinity School

From the book cover:

At the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an uncharted island, stranding a group of schoolboys. At first, with no adult supervision, their freedom is something to celebrate. This far from civilization they can do anything they want. Anything.

But as order collapses, as strange howls echo in the night, as terror begins its reign, the hope of adventure seems as far removed from reality as the hope of being rescued ...
 

"The Martian," by Andy Weir — 2011

Recommended at The College Preparatory School and Lakeside School

From the bookcover:

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there.

After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.

Chances are, though, he won't have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old "human error" are much more likely to kill him first.

But Mark isn't ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills—and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?
 

 

"Never Let me Go," by Kazuo Ishiguro — 2005

Recommended at Lakeside School and Choate Rosemary Hall

From Amazon:

As children Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules where teachers were constantly reminding their charges of how special they were.

Now, years later, Kathy is a young woman. Ruth and Tommy have reentered her life. And for the first time she is beginning to look back at their shared past and understand just what it is that makes them special–and how that gift will shape the rest of their time together.

"The Things They Carried," by Tim O'Brien — 1990

Recommended at The Hotchkiss School and Choate Rosemary Hall

From the book cover:

A classic work of American literature that has not stopped changing minds and lives since it burst onto the literary scene, "The Things They Carried" is a ground-breaking meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling.