All the books listed can be found in libraries, so there is no need to purchase them if you do not want to. You can check out physical books from the City Colleges of Chicago Library and the Chicago Public Library. Don't want to leave the house? You can also check out digital e-books to read and audiobooks to listen to. Can't find the book you're looking for? Want to learn how to request an Interlibrary Loan? Stop by the Virtual Writing & Reading Center on Zoom by clicking the button at the top of the page. We are happy to help.
The numbers are called Lexile measures and they tell you how a difficult a book is. For example, a 120L book could be good for someone who has just learned the alphabet. A college textbook could have a level of 1440L. Knowing your Lexile level can help you find a book that is not too hard but not too easy. If you are reading for enjoyment, you may choose books below your Lexile level so that you can read quickly and comfortably. For a challenge, read a book at a higher level. To find the Lexile measure of a book, visit this page. Please note that books that are not well-known or have a high Lexile measure might not be included in the database.
Click on an underlined book title to read a mini-review of the book written by Writing & Reading Center staff!
The Witch Boy (490L) and The Hidden Witch (340L) by Molly Knoxx-Ostertag - This graphic novel follows the story of a young boy who is training to become a shape-shifter. There is only one problem: he knows deep inside he is not a shape-shifter, he is a witch. In his family only women can be witches. This story follows the young boy’s journey through realizing who he really is and family acceptance.
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein (530L) - Every day the boy would come to the tree to eat her apples, swing from her branches, or slide down her trunk...and the tree was happy. But as the boy grew older he began to want more from the tree, and the tree gave and gave and gave.
One of Us is Lying by Karen McManus (730L)
Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (780L) - This modern classic is the story of intransigent young architect Howard Roark, whose integrity was as unyielding as granite...of Dominique Francon, the exquisitely beautiful woman who loved Roark passionately, but married his worst enemy...and of the fanatic denunciation unleashed by an enraged society against a great creator. As fresh today as it was then, Rand’s provocative novel presents one of the most challenging ideas in all of fiction—that man’s ego is the fountainhead of human progress...
The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger (790L) - The hero-narrator of this book is a wise child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caulfield. Because of things that adults wouldn't understand, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days.
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros (870L)
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1010L) - The story of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long Island at a time when The New York Times noted “gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession,” it is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy (1060L) - This novel began as a magazine serial in December 1894 and was first published in book form in 1895. It is Hardy's last completed novel. Its protagonist, Jude Fawley, is a working-class young man, a stonemason, who dreams of becoming a scholar. The other main character is his cousin, Sue Bridehead, who is also his central love interest. The novel is concerned in particular with issues of class, education, religion, morality and marriage.
1984 by George Orwell (1090L)
Beach Music by Pat Conroy - A Southerner living abroad, Jack McCall is scarred by tragedy and betrayal. His desperate desire to find peace after his wife’s suicide draws him into a painful, intimate search for the one haunting secret in his family’s past that can heal his anguished heart. Spanning three generations and two continents, from the contemporary ruins of the American South to the ancient ruins of Rome, from the unutterable horrors of the Holocaust to the lingering trauma of Vietnam, Beach Music sings with life’s pain and glory.
Behind Closed Doors by B. A. Paris
Libra by Don DeLillo - In this powerful, eerily convincing fictional speculation on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Don DeLillo chronicles Lee Harvey Oswald's odyssey from troubled teenager to a man of precarious stability who imagines himself an agent of history. When "history" presents itself in the form of two disgruntled CIA operatives who decide that an unsuccessful attempt on the life of the president will galvanize the nation against communism, the scales are irrevocably tipped.
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
The Chain by Adrian McKinty
The Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine
The Humans by Matt Haig - When an extra-terrestrial visitor arrives on Earth, his first impressions of the human species are less than positive. Taking the form of Professor Andrew Martin, a prominent mathematician at Cambridge University, the visitor is eager to complete the gruesome task assigned him and hurry home to his own utopian planet, where everyone is omniscient and immortal.
The Man Who Spoke Snakish by Andrus Kivarahk
Persepolis (I & II) by Marjane Satrapi (380 & 500L) - This graphic novel series illustrates the difficulties and beauties of life in Iran. It explores the role of women, religion, and the government in societies. It discusses the pros and cons of immigration.
Maus (I & II) by Art Spiegelman - This graphic novel series illustrates some of the events of the Holocaust through the eyes of specific characters.
Footnotes in Gaza by Joe Sacco - A graphic novel explaining the conflict between Israel and Palestine, told through the eyes of a journalist who meets many different characters along the road. This book takes you through war zones and trauma.
Wild Game: My Mother, Her Secret, and Me by Adrienne Brodeur
Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen
Lives on the Boundary by Mike Rose
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien (880L)
Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline (890L)
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass (1040L)
Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War by Tony Horwitz (1200L)