AP English Literature and Composition 

AP English Literature and Composition  

Summer Reading Assignments 

AP Literature Teacher: Ms. Emily Fancy emily.fancy@capefearacademy.org.

AP Literature students will read two books this summer and complete a written assignment.  In summary, everyone should do the following:  1) read selections from The Things They Carried; 2) read and carefully annotate one book from the Literary Fiction Choice Book List (annotations will be graded); and 3) write your AP Lit Profile.  All summer reading assignments for AP English Lit are due Mon., August 18 at the beginning of class.

Read on for more instructions about each step.

READING : AP English Literature students will read two books this summer.  

Everyone reads selections from the short story collection, The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien and also chooses one book from the choice literary fiction list below.

Whole-Class Summer Reading: The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

Background of The Things They Carried (1990): a collection of linked short stories by American novelist Tim O'Brien, about a platoon of American soldiers fighting on the ground in the Vietnam War. His third book about Vietnam, it is based upon his experiences as a soldier in the 23rd Infantry Division. While The Things They Carried is a short-story collection about the Vietnam War, it represents so much more. It is a work of fiction that reads like a memoir, likely because it’s a fictionalized version of O’Brien’s experiences, challenging our ideas about truth and fiction. The collection of stories is an example of “meta-fiction” and speaks to the role storytelling plays in our lives. The stories are connected in surprising ways such that multiple, close readings only enhance this literary experience. 

Take a look at this resource to help with this reading experience: Background to the Vietnam War 

We are not reading every story in the collection (although you are welcome to if you're so inclined).

 Here are the stories from The Things They Carried that you should read:

“The Things They Carried” 

“Spin”

“How to Tell a True War Story” 

“Love” 

“On a Rainy River” 

“The Man I Killed”

“Ambush” 

“Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” 

“Speaking of Courage”

“Notes” 

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Choice Book Summer Reading: Select a novel from the Literary Fiction Choice Book List below to read and annotate according to these instructions.

Literary Fiction Choice Book List

1. Life of Pi by Yann Martel (ISBN: 978-1786891686)

The son of a zookeeper, Pi Patel has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior and a fervent love of stories. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes. The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days while lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again. The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional--but is it more true?  Winner of the Man Booker Prize, the Hugh MacLennon Prize for Fiction, the Governor General's Award for Fiction, and the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature.

2. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (ISBN: 979-8745274824)

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. First published in 1925, this quintessential novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long Island is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s. Named by Time Magazine as one of the best novels ever written.

3. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (ISBN: 978-1101971062)

In Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi crafts an extraordinary multi-generational saga that follows two half-sisters, Effia and Esi, whose lives diverge dramatically in 18th-century Ghana—one marrying a British slave trader and remaining in Africa, the other brutally sold into slavery and shipped to America. Through fourteen powerful chapters, each focusing on a different descendant, the novel traces two family lines across 300 years, revealing how the devastating legacy of slavery and colonialism ripples through generations. Gyasi's beautiful storytelling shows how historical trauma shapes individual lives, while simultaneously celebrating the resilience of family connections that persist across time, continents, and seemingly insurmountable obstacles. The book confronts difficult histories of racism, oppression, and cultural displacement, but does so with remarkable compassion and literary grace—exploring how people maintain identity, hope, and human dignity even when systemic forces seek to destroy them. Winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award and a National Book Critics Circle Award, Homegoing is not just a historical novel, but a profound meditation on how the past lives within us, how family bonds transcend geographic and temporal boundaries, and how understanding our complex histories can ultimately lead to healing and connection.

4. Less by Andrew Sean Greer  (ISBN: 978-0316316132) 

A failed novelist, Arthur Less goes on a wild, hilarious adventure in response to the news that his boyfriend of several years is getting married to someone else. Arthur will almost fall in love in Paris, almost fall to his death in Berlin, barely escape to a Moroccan ski chalet from a Saharan sandstorm, accidentally book himself as the (only) writer-in-residence at a retreat center in Southern India, and encounter, on a desert island in the Arabian Sea, the last person on Earth he wants to face. Somewhere in there: he will turn fifty. Through it all, there is his first love. And there is his last. Because, despite all these mishaps, missteps, misunderstandings and mistakes, Less is, above all, a love story. A scintillating satire of the American abroad, a rumination on time and the human heart, a bittersweet romance of chances lost, by an author The New York Times has hailed as "inspired, lyrical," "elegiac," and "ingenious," Less shows a writer at the peak of his talents raising the curtain on our shared human comedy. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and named a top book of the year.

5. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (ISBN: 978-1668017340) 

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist, the beloved instant New York Times bestseller and New York Times Book Review Top 10 Book about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris, and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.

In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the Resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge. 

6. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen  (ISBN: 978-0141439518) 

Pride and Prejudice is story of the Bennet family, a family of five daughters whose parents are desperate for at least one of them to make a wealthy match and save the next generation from destitution. Austen's story engages with the tension between marrying for love, rather than wealth or social prestige, and the pressure to assure financial security. Moreover, it features some of her most enduring characters -- the Bennet family, including the parents Mr. and Mrs. Bennet and the five Bennet Sisters (Jane Bennet, Lizzy Bennet, Kitty Bennet, Mary Bennet, and Lydia Bennet), the handsome Charles Bingley, the vain Caroline Bingley, the evil George Wickham, Mr. Collins, and of course the unforgettable Mr. Darcy. Originally published in 1813, Pride and Prejudice is one of the best-loved and best-selling novels in English literature of all time. 

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WRITING: Write your AP Lit Profile.

Construct Your AP Lit Profile: Craft a well written profile of yourself as a reader, writer, and thinker. What are your strengths and weaknesses in reading, writing, and thinking about literature? What purposes do reading and writing serve for you? What is one of your favorite books (it could be something you read for school or outside of school), and why? What are your passions and pet peeves when it comes to being a critical reader and fluent writer? Be as honest and forthcoming as you possibly can. This profile should be approximately 300-400 words, double-spaced.

Enjoy your reading and writing! See you in the fall!