Suggested High School Reading List - Must Read High School Books

Posted in Reading Lists and Book Lists on December 10, 2016 - by

Best Books for Your High School Reading List

This page is our regularly curated list of books that every student should read during high school. This list covers a wide range of reading material to prepare your student to think critically, read widely, and lay the groundwork for higher education.

As always, many books are out of copyright and are available for free (digitally/ebook format). You may be interested in reading this guide that explains how to check if a book is available for free: How To Find Free eBooks.

With no further adieu, please enjoy these books for high schoolers.

  1. The Republic by Plato
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  2. 1984 by George Orwell
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  3. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
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  4. Dune by Frank Herbert
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  5. Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut
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  6. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
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  7. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
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  8. Odyssey by Homer
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  9. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
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  10. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger.
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  11. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard P. Feynman
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  12. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
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  13. Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
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  14. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
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  15. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
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  16. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
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  17. Tao Te Ching by Lao Tse
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  18. House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielwelski
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  19. The Giver by Lois Lowry
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  20. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
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  21. Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen
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  22. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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  23. Animal Farm by George Orwell
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  24. A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
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  25. Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
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  26. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
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  27. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
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  28. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
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  29. The Stranger by Albert Camus
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  30. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
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  31. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
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  32. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
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  33. A Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
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  34. The Art of War by Sun Tzu
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  35. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
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  36. Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
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  37. The Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons
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  38. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
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  39. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
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  40. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
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  41. Ringworld by Larry Niven
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  42. Freakonomics by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt
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  43. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein
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  44. The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
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  45. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
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  46. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
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  47. The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X with Alex Haley
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  48. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
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  49. The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
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  50. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
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  51. The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
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  52. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
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  53. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
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  54. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
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  55. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
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  56. Collapse by Jared Diamond
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  57. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallave
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  58. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
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  59. Chaos by James Gleick
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  60. American Gods by Neil Gaiman
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  61. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
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  62. Candide by Voltaire.
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Why are high school reading lists important?

Reading good books and classical literature is an important aspect of college preparation, expanding one's knowledge, and improving critical thinking. Quality is key. Some colleges, like Patrick Henry College, claim that it is better to read a few works of acclaimed literature from authors like Plato, Homer, Shakespeare, and Dickens, than 100 works of present-day fiction.

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