Skip to Main Content

Prep School Library: Faculty Favorites

This guide contains resources for PS students including database links, tutorials, book recommendations and more!

Ms. B. Allen

  • Chodron, Pema.  Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living.

  • Nhat Hahn, Thich.  Be Free Where You Are. 

  • Ryan, Tim.  A Mindful Nation: How a Simple Practice Can Help Us Reduce Stress, Improve Performance, and Recapture the American Spirit.

  • Siegel, Daniel  J. Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain.

Ms. Bowers

  • Ramper sand Arnold, editor. The Oxford Anthology of African American Poetry

  • Verghese, Abraham. Cutting for Stone

  • Lamb, Wally. I Know This Much Is True

  • Hossein, Khaled.  The Kite Runner

  • Picoult, Jodi. Small Great Things

Ms. Caris

  • Cook, Diane. The New Wilderness.

  • Xie, Jenny. Eye Level.

  • Kaminsky, Ilya. Dancing in Odessa.

  • Grattan, Thomas. The Recent East.

  • Ferrante, Elena. My Brilliant Friend.

  • Smith, Paitti. Just Kids.

  • Didion, Joan. A Year of Magical Thinking.

Mr. Cramer

  • Mitchell, David.  Black Swan Green.

  • Eco, Umberto.  The Name of the Rose.

  • Hammett, Dashiell.  Red Harvest; The Glass Key.

  • Robinson, Marilynne.  Housekeeping.

  • Penn Warren, Robert.  All the King’s Men.

  • Carver, Raymond.  Where I'm Calling From.

  • Adams, Richard.  Watership Down.

  • Chesterton, G.K.  The Man Who Was Thursday.

  • Cather, Willa.  Lucy Gayheart.

  • Westover, Tara. Educated.

  • Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Americanah.

  • Kingsolver, Barbara. Flight Behavior.

  • Powers, Richard. The Overstory.

Ms. Cuisick

  • Ibsen, Henrik.  A Doll’s House.

  • Gionfriddo, Gina.  Rapture Blister Burn.

  • Ruhl, Sarah.  100 Essays I don’t Have Time to Write: On Umbrellas and Sword Fights, Parades and Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children and Theater.

  • Boo, Katherine. Behind the Beautiful Forevers.

  • Eliot, T.S.  The Waste Land and Four Quartets.

  • Diaz, Junot.  This Is How You Lose Her.

Ms. Cuppet

  • Solnitt, Rebecca. Men Explain Things to Me

  • Sedaris, David. Me Talk Pretty One Day

Ms. Denbow

  • Kang, Han.  Human Acts.

  • Steinbeck, John.  The Grapes of Wrath.

  • Smith, Zadie.  White Teeth.

  • Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi.  Americanah.

  • Atwood, Margaret.  The Handmaid’s Tale.

  • Wright, Richard.  Native Son.

  • Ehrenreich, Barbara.  Nickel and Dimed.

Ms. Glaser

  • Sacks, Oliver. Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain.

  • Moore, Kate. The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women.

  • Bryson, Bill.  A Short History of Nearly Everything.

  • Diamond, Jared. The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal.

  • Kean, Sam. The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements.

  • Weiner, Jonathan.  The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time.

  • Roach, Mary. Gulp: Adventures along the Alimentary Canal.

  • McPhee, John. Oranges.

  • Heinrich, Bernd.  Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival.

Mr. Gogolin

  • Huxley, Aldous.  Brave New World.

  • Carr, Nicholas. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.

  • Hari, Johann. Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention—and How to Think Deeply Again.

  • Hickel, Jason. Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World.

  • Powers, Richard. The Overstory.

  • Ende, Michael.  Momo.

  • Ende, Michael.  The Neverending Story.

Mr. Gerson

  • Stephenson, Neal. Cryptonomicon.

  • Stoll, Clifford.  The Cuckoo’s Egg.

Ms. Leader

  • Egan, Jennifer. A Visit from the Goon Squad and The Candy House.

  • Betts, Reginald Dwayne. A Question of Freedom.

  • Tolentino, Jia. Trick Mirror.

  • Wilson, Kevin. Nothing to See Here.

  • Jamison, Leslie. The Empathy Exams.

  • Mitford, Nancy. The Pursuit of Love.

  • Forster, E. M. A Room with a View

  • Evans, Danielle. Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self. 

Nurse Luciano

  • Alvarez, Julia. Afterlife. 

  • Acevedo, Elizabeth. Clap when you land.

  • Acevedo, Elizabeth. The Poet X.

  • Callender, Kacen. Felix Every After.

  • Cepeda, Raquel. Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina.

  • Coster, Naima. Halsey Street. 

  • Herrera, Adriana. American Dreamer.

  • Washington, Bryan. Memorial

  • Wucker, Michelle. Why the Cocks Fight: Dominicans, Haitians and the Struggle for Hispaniola.

Mr. Maracani

  • Ibsen, Henrik. Enemy of the People

  • Pomerance, Bernard. The Elephant Man

  • Hesse, Hermann.  Siddhartha

  • Sacks, Oliver. Island of the Colorblind

  • Ginsberg, Allen. Howl

  • Elliot, T.S. The Waste Land and Four Other Quartets

Mr. Nalipinski

  • Chiang, Ted.  Stories of Your Life.

  • Weinberger, Eliot. The Ghosts of Birds.

  • Wallace, David Foster. Girl with Curious Hair.

  • Singer, Peter. Practical Ethics.

Mr. Pankow

  • Amis, Martin. Time's Arrow.

  • Chabon, Michael. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.

  • Coates, Ta-Nehisi. Between the World and Me.

  • Dias, Hernan. In the Distance.

  • Enger, Leif. Virgil Wander.

  • Hersey, John. Hiroshima.

  • Matthiessen, Peter. The Snow Leopard.

  • Saunders, George. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain.

  • Obama, Barack. Dreams from My Father.

  • Wolfe, Tom. The Right Stuff.

Ms. O'Keefe

  • Jin, Ha.  Waiting.

  • Uris, Leon.  Exodus.

  • Smith, Betty.  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

  • Hosseini, Khald.  A Thousand Splendid Suns.

Ms. Rebadavia

  • Desmond, Matthew.  Evicted.

  • Kozol, Jonathan.  Savage Inequalities

  • Steinbeck, John.  The Grapes of Wrath.

  • McBride, James. The Color of Water.

  • Westover, Tara. Educated.

  • Ng, Celeste. Everything I Never Told You. 

  • Feynman, Richard P. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!

  • Lewis, C.S. Til We Have Faces

Ms. Schackman

  • Robinson, Marilynne.  Housekeeping.

  • Harbach, Chad.  The Art of Fielding.

  • Morrison, Toni.  Beloved.

  • Sittenfeld, Curtis. American Wife.

  • Chabon, Michael. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.

  • Wilkerson, Charmaine. Black Cake.

  • Zevin, Gabrielle. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.

Schott

  • Pratchett, Terry. Small Gods.

  • Asimov, Isaac. Foundation. 

  • Miller Jr, Walter. A Canticle for Leibowitz.

  • Gaiman, Neil. Neverwhere. 

  • Simmons, Dan. Hyperion.

  • Herman, Edward S. and Chomsky, Noam. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media.

  • Dahl, Robert A. How Democratic is the American Constitution?

Ms. Seewald

  • Benioff, David. City of Thieves.

  • Wiggins, Marianne.  Evidence of Things Unseen.

  • Lahiri, Jhumpa.  Unaccustomed Earth.

  • Nemirovsky, Irene. Suite Francaise.

  • Russo, Richard.  Straight Man.

  • Ford, Richard. The Sportswriter.

  • Millard, Candice. The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey.

Mr. Shoshani

  • Balzac, Honoré de.  Lost Illusions. 

  • Wouk, Herman.  Marjorie Morningstar.

  • Bellow, Saul.  Herzog.

  • Heller, Joseph.  Catch-22.

  • Russo, Richard.  Straight Man.

Dr. Wilson

  • Stephenson, Neal.  Snow Crash.

  • Robertson, James.  The Testament of Gideon Mack.

  • Smith, Zadie.  On Beauty.

  • Dubus, Andre.  Separate Flights.

  • Josopovici, Gabriel.  In a Hotel Garden.

  • Heaney, Seamus (trans.) Beowulf.

  • Tartt, Donna. The Secret History.

  • Whitehead, Colson. The Nickel Boys; The Underground Railroad.

  • Erdrich, Louise. Future Home of the Living God.

  • Finn, A.J. The Woman in the Window.

  • Eggers, Dave.  A Hologram for the King.

  • Shusterman, Neal. Scythe Trilogy: Scythe; Thunderhead; The Toll.

Mr. Warshawski

  • Klosterman, Chuck.  Downtown Owl.

  • Schechter, Harold.  Nevermore.

  • Green, Bob.  Late Edition: A Love Story.

  • Capote, Truman.  Other Voices, Other Rooms.

  • Dewitt, Patrick. The Sisters Brothers.

  • Van Tilburg Clark, Walter. The Ox-Bow Incident

  • Klosterman, Chuck. Fargo Rock City.

  • Hornby, Nick. High Fidelity.

Mr. Blockus

  • Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

  • Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel.

  • Graeber, David. Debt: the First 5,000 Years.

  • Jacobsen, Annie. The Pentagon’s Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America’s Top-Secret Military Research Agency.

  • Klein, Naomi. The Shock Doctrine.

Steinbeck, John. The Pearl.

Dr. Conrad

  • Albee, Edward. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

  • Batuman, Elif. The Idiot

  • DeLillo, Don. White Noise

  • Diaz, Hernan. In the Distance

  • Nunez, Sigrid. The Friend

  • Smith, Tracy K. Life on Mars

  • Young, Dean. Bender

  • Zambra, Alejandro. My Documents

  • Schweblin, Samanta. Seven Empty Houses

  • Groff, Lauren. Matrix

  • Fernández, Nona. Voyager

Dr. Cunard

  • Austen, Jane. Persuasion. 

  • Chambers, Becky. A Long Way to A Small, Angry Planet; Record of a Spaceborn Few; A Psalm for the Wild-Built.

  • Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants.

  • LeGuin, Ursula K. The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed. 

  • Mendelsund, Peter. What We See When We Read.

Mr. Davis

  • Rand, Ayn.  The Fountainhead.

  • Caro, Robert A.  The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York.

  • Lukas, Anthony. On Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families.

  • Carroll, John.  Basketball Diaries

Ms. Depero

  • Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things.

  • Haley, Alex. The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

  • Kidder, Tracy.  Mountains Beyond Mountains.

  • Noah, Trevor. Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood.
  • Kidd, Sue Monk. The Secret Life of Bees
  • Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Americanah.

Mr. Duke

  • Allyn, John.  47 Ronin.

  • Soseki, Natsume. Kokoro (Translated by Edwin McClellan)

Ms. Friedlander

  • Brönte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre.

  • Fujimoto, Tatsuki. Look Back.

  • Caddow, Kenneth M. Gather.

  • Jackson, Holly. A Good Girl's Guide to Murder.

  • Lee, Mackenzie. A Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue.

  • Lockheart, E. Again, Again.

  • Oyeyemi, Helen. Mr. Fox.

  • Rogers, Andrea. Man Made Monsters.

  • Wein, Elizabeth. Code Name Verity.

Dr. Haddad

  • Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre.

  • Chapin, Ted. Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical Follies.

  • King, Stephen. The Dark Tower (series).

  • Racculia, Kate. Bellweather Rhapsody.

  • Scott, A.O. Better Living Through Criticism.

  • Liu, Cixin. The Three-Body Problem.

  • McDonagh, Martin. The Pillowman.

  • Shakespeare, William. Twelfth Night.

  • Wallace, David Foster.  A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again.

  • Westover, Tara.  Educated.

  • Clarke, Susanna. Piranesi

Mr. Kehs

  • Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy

  • In Cold Blood - Truman Capote

  • Carrie - Stephen King

  • The Passage - Justin Cronin

Ms. Kraus

  • Paley, Grace. The Little Disturbances of Man; Enormous Changes at the Last Minute.

  • Updike, John. Rabbit Run; Rabbit Redux, etc.

  • Nabokov, Vladimir. Lolita.

  • Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway.

  • Don DeLillo, White Noise

  • Thurber, James. My Life and Hard Times

  • Tartt, Donna. The Goldfinch

  • Paley, Grace. The Little Disturbances of Man; Enormous Changes at the Last Minute.

  • Nguyen, Viet Thanh. The Sympathizer

Ms. Liesman

  • Doerr, Anthony. All the Light We Cannot See. 

  • Millard, Candace. Destiny of the Republic.

  • Snyder, Timothy. Bloodlands.

  • Fitzharris, Lindsay. The Facemaker.

  • van der Kolk, Bessel. The Body Keeps the Score.

  • Bryson, Bill. The Body. 

Ms. Margetis

  • Steinbeck, John.  East of Eden.

  • Guzeman, Tracy.  The Gravity of Birds.

  • Brkic, Angela Courtney.  The First Rule of Swimming.

  • White, Kate.  Hush.

  • Barnes, Kim.  In the Kingdom of Men.

  • Picoult, Jodi.  The Storyteller, Lone Wolf, and House Rules.

  • Hoffman, Alice.  The Drowning Season and The Story Sisters.

  • Flynn, Gillian.  Gone Girl.

  • Gruen, Sara.  Water for Elephants.

  • Schlink, Bernard.  The Reader.

  • Allen, Sarah Addison.  The Peach Keeper.

  • Walls, Jeannette.  The Glass Castle.

  • Byran, Helen.  The Sisterhood.

Mr. Martinez

  • Lozano, Rosina. An American Language: The History of Spanish in the United States 

  • Fernández, Lilia. Brown in the Windy City: Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in Post-War Chicago

  • Reynolds, Jason. Stamped

  • Kendi, Ibram X. and Keisha N. Blain. Four Hundred Souls

  • Noah, Trevor. Born a Crime

  • Morris, Heather. The Tattooist of Auschwitz

  • Allende, Isabel. Paula

  • Diaz, Junot. The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

  • Miller, Madeline. The Song of Achilles

Ms. Mehan

  • Ward, Jesmyn. Salvage the Bones.

  • Menakem, Resmaa. My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies

  • Gibron, Kahlil. The Prophet.

  • Cage, John. Silence: Lectures and Writings.

  • Yamada, Kobi. What Do You Do With an Idea? 

  • Zauner, Michelle. Crying in H Mart

  • Krauss, Nicole. The History of Love: A Novel.

  • Cameron, Julia. The Artist's Way.

  • Kaur, Rupi. Home Body.

  • Acevedo, Elizabeth. The Poet X.

Ms. Nemeroff

  • Dumas, Alexandre. The Count of Monte Cristo.

  • Steinbeck, John. East of Eden.

  • McDermott, Alice. Someone; Charming Billy.

  • Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things.

  • Lahiri, Jhumpa. Interpreter of Maladies.

  • Robinson, Marilynne. Gilead.

  • Eliot, George. Middlemarch.

  • Enger, Leif. Peace Like A River.

Mr. Pennington

  • Cheever, John. The Stories of John Cheever.

  • Wright, Richard. Native Son.

  • Torres, Justin. We the Animals.

  • Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-Five.

  • Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol.

  • Wolff, Tobias. In Pharaoh's Army.

  • Carver, Raymond. Where I'm Calling From: Selected Stories.

  • O'Connor, Flannery. A Good Man is Hard to Find.

Ms. Royster

  • Marra, Anthony. A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, The Tzar of Love and Techno.

  • Ghosh, Amitav. Sea of Poppies.

  • Lee, Min Jin.  Pachinko.

  • Hamid, Mohsin.  Exit West.

Mr. Puccio

  • Rand, Ayn. The Fountainhead.

  • Atwood, Margaret.  The Blind Assassin.

  • Gardner, John.  Freddy’s Book.

  • Henriquez, Christina.  The Book of Unknown Americans

  • Dostoevsky, Fyodor.  The Brothers Karamazov

  • Gaiman, Neil.  The Norse Myths.

  • Gaiman, Neil.  The Graveyard Book

  • Chandler, Raymond.  Lady in the Lake.

  • Lalami, Laila.  The Other Americans

Ms. Schulte

  • Alvarez, Julia.  How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents; In the Time of the Butterflies.

  • Atwood, Margaret.  Cat's Eye; Alias Grace.

  • Hurston, Zora Neale.  Their Eyes Were Watching God.

  • Kingsolver, Barbara.  The Bean Trees; The Poisonwood Bible.

  • Steinbeck, John.  Travels with Charley; Cannery Row.

  • McEwen, Ian.  Atonement.

  • Lahiri, Jhumpa.  Interpreter of Maladies, The Namesake, Unaccustomed Earth.

Ms. Seitz

  • Verghese, Abraham. Cutting for Stone.

  • Hannah, Kristen. The Nightingale.

  • Egan, Jennifer. A Visit from the Goon Squad.

  • de Rosnay, Tatiana. Sarah's Key.

  • du Maurier, Daphne.  Rebecca.

  • Gyasi, Yaa. Homegoing.

  • Russo, Richard. Empire Falls.

Ms. Waltman

  • Gsaii, Yaa. Homegoing.

  • Henríquez, Cristina. The Book of Unknown Americans. 

  • Kiely, Brendan and Jason Reynolds. All American Boys.

  • Noah, Trevor. Born a Crime.

  • Orange, Tommy. There, There.

  • Saén, Benjamin Alire. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe.

  • Van Pelt, Shelby. Remarkably Bright Creatures.

  • Wilkerson, Isabel. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents: Adapted for Young Adults; The Warmth of Other Suns

  • Zevin, Gabrielle. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.

  • Zinn, Howard. You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times. 

Mr. Yashin

  • Loory, Ben. Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day.

  • de Saint-Exupéry, Antoine. The Little Prince. 

  • Márquez, Gabriel García. The Autumn of the Patriarch. 

  • Zamyatin, Yevgeny. We.

  • Carver, Raymond. Where I'm Calling From.

  • Bradbury, Ray. The Martian Chronicles.

  • Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. 

  • O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried.

  • Ferguson, Kitty. Measuring the Universe.

  • Feynman, Richard. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!

  • Levenson, Thomas. The Hunt for Vulcan. 

  • Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel. 

  • Frankl, Victor. Man's Search for Meaning. 

  • Tyson, Neil deGrasse. Death by Black Hole. 

  • Cole, K.C. First You Build a Cloud.

  • Goldacre, Ben. Bad Science.

  • Natarajan, Priyamvada. Mapping the Heavens.

  • Brown, Michael. How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming

  • Johnson, George. Strange Beauty. 

  • Okasha, Samir. Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction.