Recommended Reading PDF

Recommended Reading Lists

English and Library Departments

This is the time to let your imagination run wild! Don’t be afraid to try something new and read outside your comfort zone. Reading widely will broaden your horizons and show you other ways of thinking.

Below are just some suggestions of books you might like to read, so pick one that catches your eye, find a quiet place and give your book a chance. We hope you will be surprised, inspired, and ready for more.

If you’re looking for further recommendations, you can use resources such as The Ultimate Teen Book Guide and What Writers Read for suggestions, get recommendations from each other, or come and find Miss Pearce in the LRC!

Recommended Reading for the Thirds

25 Must-reads

1. A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson-Burnett

2. Where the River Runs Gold by Sita Brahmachari

3. All Fall Down by Sally Nicholls

4. CHERUB series by Robert Muchamore

5. Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah

6. Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

7. Framed by Frank Cottrell Boyce

8. Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian

9. Holes by Louis Sachar

10. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

11. Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibbotson

12. Look Both Ways by Jason Reynolds

13. My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell

14. Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman

15. October, October by Katya Balen

16. Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan

17. Skellig and My Name Is Mina by David Almond

18. The Last Paper Crane by Kerry Drewery

19. The Girl of Ink and Stars by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

20. The Ingo Chronicles by Helen Dunmore

21. The Midnight Fox by Betsy Byars

22. Cinderella is dead by Kalynn Bayron

23. Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce

24. War Horse by Michael Morpurgo

25. Wonder by R. J. Palacio

Further Recommendations:

A few classics

1. The Machine Gunners by Robert Westall

2. When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr

3. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

4. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

5. The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier

6. The Borrowers by Mary Norton

7. Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White

8. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

9. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

10. Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransom

11. Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery

12. Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield

Non-fiction

1. Unlocking the Universe by Stephen & Lucy Hawking

2. Greek Myths: Meet the Heroes, Gods, and Monsters of Ancient Greece by Jean Menzies

3. Becoming (adapted for younger readers) by Michelle Obama

4. Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls: 100 Immigrant Women who Changed the World by Elena Favilli

5. You Are A Champion: How To Be The Best You Can Be by Marcus Rashford

6. Good Girls Don’t Make History by Elizabeth Kiehner, Kara Coyle, and Keith Olwell

7. You Don't Know What War Is by Yeva Skalietska

Mystery/thriller

1. Murder Most Unladylike by Robin Stevens

2. The Lost Twin by Sophie Cleverly

3. High-Rise Mystery by Sharna Jackson

4. The Laura Marlin Mysteries by Lauren St John

5. Liar and Spy by Rebecca Stead

Dystopian

1. WildSpark by Vashti Hardy

2. The Last Wild by Piers Torday

3. The Territory by Sarah Govett

4. The Dog Runner by Bren MacDibble

Fantasy and Science Fiction

1. Show Us Who You Are by Elle McNicoll

2. Asha & the Spirit Bird by Jasbinder Bilan

3. Wonderscape by Jennifer Bell

4. Coraline by Neil Gaiman

5. Amari and the Night Brothers by BB Alston

6. Nevermoor series by Jessica Townsend

7. Rebel Skies by Ann Sei Lin

Adventure

1. The Explorer by Katherine Rundell

2. The Girl Who Speaks Bear by Sophie Anderson

3. The Island at the End of Everything by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

4. Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver

5. Lionboy by Zizou Corder

6. Time Travelling With A Hamster by Ross Welford

Historical

1. Star by Star by Sheena Wilkinson

2. Windrush Child by Benjamin Zephaniah

3. Freedom (1783) by Catherine Johnson

4. The Skylarks’ War by Hilary McKay

5. Five Children on the Western Front by Kate Saunders

6. I, Coriander by Sally Gardner

Contemporary

1. Can You See Me? by Libby Scott and Rebecca Westcott

2. Jemima Small versus the Universe by Tamsin Winter

3. No Ballet Shoes in Syria by Catherine Bruton

4. The Boy Who Lied by Kim Slater

5. Vote for Effie by Laura Wood

6. Some Places More Than Others by Renée Watson

And finally, some lighter reading – there is always a place for relaxation and pleasure!

1. The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot

2. The Chocolate Box Girls series by Cathy Cassidy

3. Geek Girl by Holly Smale

4. Ally’s World by Karen McCrombie

5. Who Let the Gods Out? by Maz Evans

6. Amber undercover by Em Norry

Recommended Reading for L4 and U4

25 Must-reads

1. Chaos Walking trilogy by Patrick Ness

2. Coram Boy by Jamila Gavin

3. Dawn by Octavia E. Butler

4. Fallen Grace by Mary Hooper

5. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell

6. Looking for JJ by Anne Cassidy

7. My Sister Lives on the Mantlepiece by Annabel Pitcher

8. Northern Lights trilogy by Philip Pullman

9. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

10. Refugee Boy by Benjamin Zephaniah

11. Tamar by Mal Peet

12. The Bone Sparrow by Zana Fraillon

13. The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak

14. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

15. The Crossing by Manjeet Mann

16. The Declaration series by Gemma Malley

17. The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank

18. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

19. The Hobbit by J.R. R. Tolkien

20. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

21. The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins

22. The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

23. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

24. The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean

25. Witch Child by Celia Rees

Light(-ish) Reads

1. Eragon by Christopher Paolini

2. Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer

3. Roxy’s Baby by Catherine MacPhail

4. House of Night series by P. C. Cast

5. Confessions of Georgia Nicholson by Louise Rennison

6. The Medusa Project series by Sophie McKenzie

7. The Gallagher Girls series by Ally Carter

8. One of Us is Lying series by Karen M. McManus

9. The Inheritance Games trilogy by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

10. Shatter Me series by Tahereh Mafi

11. School of Good and Evil series by Soman Chainani

12. Shadow and Bone trilogy by Leigh Bardugo

13. All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

14. Nick and Charlie by Alice Oseman

15. Medusa: The Girl Behind the Myth by Jessie Burton

16. A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series by Holly Jackson

17. Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas

18. Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron

19. The Song of Achilles and Circe by Madeleine Miller

Classics

1. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

2. Animal Farm by George Orwell

3. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

4. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

5. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

6. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

7. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

8. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

9. Silas Marner by George Eliot

10. Lord of the Flies by William Golding

11. Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier

12. A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines

13. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

14. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

15. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

16. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

Happy reading!

Recommended Reading for L5 and U5

25 Must-reads

1. Atonement by Ian McEwan

2. Black Rabbit Summer by Kevin Brooks

3. Empire of the Sun by J. G. Ballard

4. Exposure by Mal Peet

5. Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender

6. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

7. Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

8. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

9. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

10.Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

11.Scoop by Evelyn Waugh

12.The Awakening by Kate Chopin

13.The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak

14.The Chaos Walking trilogy by Patrick Ness

15.The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

16.The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

17.The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

18.The Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley

19.The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

20.The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

21.The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

22.The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

23.The Song of Achilles by Madeleine Miller

24.The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

25.To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Classics

1. Emma by Jane Austen

2. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

3. Nicholas Nickelby by Charles Dickens

4. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

5. Middlemarch by George Eliot

6. A Room with a View by E. M. Forster

7. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

8. Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

9. Vanity Fair by William Thackeray

10.Alice Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

11.The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

12.Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

13.The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov

14.Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges

15.Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain

16.The Outsider by Albert Camus

17.The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

18.Howards End by E. M. Forster

19.Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

20.The Sun also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

21.A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

22.The Trial by Franz Kafka

23.Beloved by Toni Morrison

24.The Raj Quartet by Paul Scott

25.Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

26.Dracula by Bram Stoker

27.Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut

28.A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

29.The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

30.Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Light(-ish) reading

1. The Inheritance Games trilogy by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

2. One of Us is Lying series by Karen M. McManus

3. Grown by Tiffany D. Jackson

4. Run, Rebel by Manjeet Mann

5. Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon

6. Looking for Alaska by John Green

7. Fire Keeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley

8. A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series by Holly Jackson

9. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

10.Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

11.Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid

12.His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie

13.The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

14.Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

15.The Appeal by Janice Hallett

16.The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

17.The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell

18.The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak

19.Man and Boy by Tony Parsons

20.Room by Emma Donoghue

21.The Cicero trilogy by Robert Harris

Non-Fiction:

1. What If? and How To? by Randall Munroe

2. Black Tudors by Miranda Kaufmann

3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

4. Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall

5. Stasiland by Anna Funder

6. Pandora’s Jar by Natalie Haynes

7. Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig

8. A History of Histories by John Burrow

9. Black and British: A short, essential history by David Olusoga

10.The Story of Art Without Men by Katy Hessel

11.It’s Not About the Burqa edited by Mariam Khan

12.Mythos and Heroes by Stephen Fry