Buying Books for Class

*The specific reading list fluctuates every year based on student interest, teacher interest, and availability of resources. Please consult with Mr. Chilton before purchasing to make sure you have the finalized reading schedule for the year.

Required Books

In this AP English Literature course, students should consider obtaining a personal copy of the various novels, plays, epics, poems, and short fiction used in the course. You may purchase copies from a local new (Barnes & Noble) or used bookstore (such as the wonderfully stocked and extremely affordable Book Hounds on Fruitvale Ave.), or from an online book source, such as Amazon.

All books are freely available to check out from the textbook counter, BUT having a personal copy that you can annotate, write notes in, highlight is highly recommended. There is a slue of data that shows that readers that annotate and write in their books will retain more information, be more analytical of what they read, and comprehend more of what they read. I think it's worth it.

Most of the works used can also be accessed free online via e-readers.

I provide links below to the Dover Thrift editions or the Wordsworth Classics which are the cheapest possible versions of the novels we’ll study. These are standard for college English classes. If you simply want a copy to write in and don’t care to keep it for a long time, buy these.

If you want to have a book you’ll keep forever, please buy the “Everyman’s Library edition” that are linked below. I cannot recommend these highly enough. For the money, these are literally the best books available. They are clothbound, durable, with acid-free paper (it won’t turn yellow and become brittle over time) and have excellent introductions and historical timelines. Sure, you can spend a few dollars less for a cheap and flimsy paperback, but the Everyman Library editions are very affordable and will last a lifetime. Mr. Chilton will be teaching from the Everyman Library edition. He collects these in his own personal library and owns 200+ of these beautiful and readable books.

For the technologically minded, all of the following texts (except for Invisible Man) are free to download on an e-reader as part of the public domain (however, there are numerous reasons not to use a digital text for novels, as illustrated in this research paper I wrote in graduate school).

LINKS TO BUY:

• • The Theban Plays by Sophocles or Everyman Library edition

  • Four Tragedies: King Lear, Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet by William Shakespeare or Everyman Library edition

  • Frankenstein by Mary Shelley or Everyman Library edition

  • Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë or Everyman Library edition

  • A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen

  • Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad or Everyman Library edition

  • A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams or New Directions Edition

  • Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf or the Everyman's Library edition

OR

(rotate annually)

• • A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man or by James Joyce or the Everyman Library Edition

  • Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison or Hardcover edition

As of 08/2015:

Total Calculated Cost of all books bought NEW via Amazon:

Dover Thrift Editions: $48

Everyman Library: $90 (some Everyman Library books cannot be bought "New," so the price fluctuates)

*If price is of utmost concern, you can certainly buy for much cheaper by scouring Amazon for the best USED price on these books or taking a trip down to Bookhounds to buy as many as you can find for a few dollars a piece.

And remember: all of these books are offered freely through Stockdale HS library or through Mr. Chilton directly free of charge. This is only a recommendation.