SAT Book List

SAT Book List

I'm a college-bound almost-senior, so my next and final SAT on October 4th is weighing heavily on my mind. For all you other 2400 hopefuls out there, here is a list of good books to read in preparation. Of course as I read them they will appear on this blog with a review and a yay/nay for enjoyment/helpfulness. In the meantime, enjoy.

Analyses
A Brief History of Time -- Stephen Hawking
QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter -- Richard P. Feynman
The Mismeasure of Man -- Stephen Jay Gould
The Lives of a Cell -- Lewis Thomas
The Republic -- Plato
Democracy in America -- Alexis DeTocqueville
Civilization and Its Discontents -- Sigmond Freud
The Language Instinct -- Steven Pinker
How the Mind Works -- Steven Pinker
(Seen in a review from Amazon.com: "If How the Mind Works were a rock show, tickets would be scalped for $100.")
A People's History of the US -- Howard Zinn
Freakonomics -- Stephen Levitt & Steven Dubner

Narratives
Crime and Punishment -- Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Metamorphosis & Other Stories -- Franz Kafka
Narratives of the Life of Frederick Douglas
Life of Pi -- Yann Martel
The Color Purple -- Alice Walker
Atlas Shrugged -- Ayn Rand
Frankenstein -- Mary Shelley
Pride and Prejudice -- Jane Austen
Baby, It's Cold Inside -- S. J. Perelman
Best American Short Stories of the Century -- John Updike
Growing Up -- Russell Baker
The Wall -- John Hersey
Candide -- Voltaire
Macbeth -- William Shakespeare
The Painted Bird -- Jerzy Kosinski
One Hundred Years of Solitude -- Gabriel García Márquez

Arguments
The Chomsky Reader -- Chomsky
The World is Flat -- Friedman
Drift and Mastery -- Lippmann
The Best American Essays -- Atwan
Walden -- Thoreau
Lanterns & Lances -- Thurber
> plus other media:
The Op-Ed pages of the New York Times
The Nation
Scientific American
Essays in Harper's, Atlantic Monthly, and the New Yorker
Sunday Magazine

More ways to prepare:
Talk to smart adults and friends with good vocabularies
Read college-level books
Watch documentaries
Listen to National Public Radio
~ try out new words on your own
~ get a dictionary with pronunciation and etymology

And lastly, don't forget to practice writing essays. You only have 25 minutes to 'present and support a point of view on a specific issue' as well as you can.

Go to the College Board site for even more info:
http://www.collegeboard.com/