Upper School Library: Summer Reading Groups

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Summer Reading 2023
Please read this information carefully. It will answer many of your common questions about Summer Reading.

These are the Fall, 2023 selections for Summer Reading.  Students proposed books, and voted on their top choices.  The Summer Reading Committee green lit selections based on the guidelines.  Let's get started!

FIND YOUR C&C GROUP BELOW
Once you locate your C&C, read more about the book, and click on the links to find a copy of the physical book, or an ebook or audiobook.  Enjoy reading it over the summer, and in the early fall, you'll meet with your C&C during an assembly time to have a lively conversation about the book.  Your C&C advisor will help students in the C&C coordinate the discussion in the fall.
NOTE:  Students new to the Upper School will find out the names of their advisors during the Summer. Then they're able to locate their Summer Reading book by C&C. 

Not interested in your C&C's selection? Don't see your C&C listed here? Anxious to start now, but don't know who your C&C advisor is?
Notify your advisor/s by email as soon as you decide which book you want to read, and reach out to the C&C advisor/s who are reading the book you'd like to read. Ask if you may join them for their fall discussion. Read your selected book over the summer. That's it!  

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Aline & Kathryn's C&C:  Meets in Math building: The Pitt
Shoe Dog by Phil Knight  

Nike mogul Knight charts the rise of his business empire, a world leader in athletic wear. The title of the memoir is apt, for much of it is a rather dogged struggle through the minutiae of shoe distributorship and manufacture, with all the deals and lawsuits that entails. Knight began that journey more than half a century ago, when, as a young entrepreneur-in-training, it occurred to him that there might be room in the American marketplace for Japanese running shoes... - Kirkus 

CGS Library ; Multnomah County Library ; Washington County Library ; Reading Group Guide

 

Bob / Melissa / Derek's C&C:  Meets in ML3
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now? Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.

Multnomah County Library ; Washington County Library ; Reading Group Guide

 

Kathy & Alexis's C&C:  Meets in Math 3: The Black Pearl
Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey

“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze” -- Kirkus

Multnomah County Library ; Washington County Library ; Reading Group Guide

 

Andrew / Blythe's C&C: Meets in Science: Curie
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. 

Sparks fly when Hazel Grace Lancaster spies Augustus “Gus” Waters checking her out across the room in a group-therapy session for teens living with cancer. He’s a gorgeous, confident, intelligent amputee who always loses video games because he tries to save everyone. She’s smart, snarky and 16; she goes to community college and jokingly calls Peter Van Houten, the author of her favorite book, An Imperial Affliction, her only friend besides her parents. -- Kirkus Content Note: Cancer

CGS Library ; Multnomah County Library ; Washington County Library ; Reading Group Guide

 

Dan / Ginia's C&C:  Meets in Library 5
Apocalypse Redux (Book One) by Jakob Greif

Isaac Thoma lived to see the last handful of survivors defeat the demonic champion. He is now alone, his past in ashes, the last and most powerful human on a blighted Earth. But what if he could go back?
Hurled back in time, Isaac has one chance to change it all. A chance to warn humanity of their impending doom. A chance to stop the [System] before shortsightedness and lust for power can render humanity extinct. Facing malign deities, demonic hordes, and the unstoppable march of human greed, Isaac will give his all to prevent the end that has already happened on the day the world became quantified.  -Amazon.com
(No local library copies)  Powells.com ; Amazon.com ; 

Dave / Megan's C&C: Meets in Dant 10
The Martian by Andy Weir

One minute, astronaut Mark Watney was with his crew, struggling to make it out of a deadly Martian dust storm and back to the ship, currently in orbit over Mars. The next minute, he was gone, blown away, with an antenna sticking out of his side. The crew knew he'd lost pressure in his suit, and they'd seen his biosigns go flat. In grave danger themselves, they made an agonizing but logical decision: Figuring Mark was dead, they took off and headed back to Earth. -- Kirkus

CGS Library ; Multnomah County Library ; Washington County Library ; Reading Group Guide

 

Becky & Brooke's C&C: meets in Science: Mendeleev
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

In this exquisitely crafted tale, two special agents from competing factions forge an unexpected relationship through messages left behind as they wage a secret war across space and time. Red, who represents a society dominated by technology and artificial intelligences, and Blue, the product of a biological mass consciousness, must never—can never—meet, even as they work to secure the future for their masters. -- Pub Weekly

Multnomah County Library ; Washington County Library ; Reading Group Guide

 

Brett & Ms. Rose's C&C:  Meets in CAC 110
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

Stevenson began law school at Harvard knowing only that the life path he would follow would have something to do with [improving] the lives of the poor.” An internship at the Atlanta-based Southern Prisoners Defense Committee in 1983 not only put him into contact with death row prisoners, but also defined his professional trajectory. In 1989, the author opened a nonprofit legal center, the Equal Justice Initiative, in Alabama, a state with some of the harshest, most rigid capital punishment laws in the country. -- Kirkus Content Note: racial tension, death row, violence, language

CGS Library ; Multnomah County Library ; Washington County Library ; Reading Group Guide

Bianca / Peter's C&C:  Meets in Science: Newton
How To by Randall Munroe

Former NASA robotics scientist Munroe, the genius behind the xkcd stick-figure webcomic, considers unlikely solutions to common problems. Munroe’s madness has its method: His solutions tend to the daft and are definitely outside the box, but figuring out for yourself how to get something done, whether changing a light bulb or powering a house, “can be fun and informative and sometimes leads you to surprising places.” -- Kirkus

Multnomah County Library ; Washington County Library ; 

Elizabeth & Marguerite's C&C:  Meets in Science: Carson
Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Being the most feared assassin in Adarlan is a notoriety 17-year-old Celaena considers an honor, even though it has landed her in a slave-labor prison no one has ever survived. A year into her sentence, the Crown Prince offers to sponsor Celaena in a competition with 23 other criminals and murderers that, should she win, will result in her freedom. The only catch? She’ll become the king’s personal assassin for four years, the same dark-hearted king who sentenced her to imprisonment. -- Kirkus Content Note: violence

CGS Library ; Multnomah County Library ; Washington County Library ; Reading Group Guide

 

Derek Kanarek & Rick's C&C:  Meets in Library 4
All Systems Red by Martha Wells

In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern. On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid — a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is. But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth. -- Tor

Multnomah County Library ; Washington County Library ; Reading Group Guide

Chris & Bailey's C&C: Meets in CAC 210
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury  

Fahrenheit 451 describes a country caught in the grip of both an external war with another power, presumably the Soviet Union, and a civil war between city dwellers and ragtag anarchists of the woods and byways. The former live in a carefully controlled world of mood-altering pills and big-screen televisions, free of challenging ideas, since challenging ideas make people unhappy. The children of the cities are murderous, life is dangerous, art is abstract and history has been rewritten to provide evidence that the job of firemen—there are no women firefighters in the imagination of 1953—has always involved setting fire to books, rather than putting out fires. -- Kirkus

CGS Library ; Multnomah County Library ; Washington County Library ; Reading Group Guide

John & Andy's C&C:  Meets in Vollum 2
The Coddling of the American Mind by Haidt/Lukianoff

Noting a rise of anxiety and depression among teenagers and threats to free speech on many college campuses, Lukianoff , an attorney and president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, and social psychologist Haidt offer an incisive analysis of the causes of these problems and a measured prescription for change. The authors assert that many parents, teachers, professors, and university administrators have been teaching young people to see themselves as fragile and in need of protection: “to exaggerate danger” (even from words), “amplify their first emotional responses,” and see the world as a battle between good and evil. -- Kirkus

CGS Library ; Multnomah County Library ; Washington County Library ; Reading Group Guide

Sue & Amanda's C&C:  Meets in US Library (upstairs)
The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

In a world very much like our own, except that a certain percentage of humanity is born with magical powers, six extraordinarily gifted people in their 20s are invited to train for membership in the Alexandrian Society, which has carefully and somewhat surreptitiously preserved centuries of priceless knowledge since the (apparent) burning of the Library of Alexandria. At the end of one year, five of the six will be initiated into the Society, and [...] the sixth person isn’t allowed to quietly return home. -- Kirkus

Multnomah County Library ; Washington County Library ; Reading Group Guide

 

Helena & Jeffrey's C&C:  Meets in ML1
The Hobbit, or, There and Back Again by J. R. R. Tolkien

“A glorious account of a magnificent adventure, filled with suspense and seasoned with a quiet humor that is irresistible... All those, young or old, who love a fine adventurous tale, beautifully told, will take The Hobbit to their hearts.” --The New York Times Book Review

CGS Library ; Multnomah County Library ; Washington County Library ; Reading Group Guide

 

 

Enrique & Joanna's C&C:  Meets in ML4
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Eleven years before the end of the world foretold by accurate but obscure Agnes Nutter's prophecies, Sister Mary Loquacious—the Satanist charged with switching the infant Antichrist with another infant—flubs the job when a third infant is introduced into the scenario, and the Lord of Darkness gets shunted aside in favor of Adam Young, who grows into boyhood with an uncomfortable sense of mission. -- Kirkus

Multnomah County Library ; Washington County Library ; Reading Group Guide

Mr. D / Matt's C&C:  Meets in Vollum 5
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

Just after midnight, a snowdrift stops the Orient Express in its tracks. The luxurious train is surprisingly full for the time of the year, but by the morning it is one passenger fewer. An American tycoon lies dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside. Isolated and with a killer in their midst, detective Hercule Poirot must identify the murderer – in case he or she decides to strike again. -- agathachristie.com

CGS Library ; Multnomah County Library ; Washington County Library ; Reading Group Guide

Joey & Kym's C&C:  Meets in Science: Pauling
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks

A neurologist who writes with wit and zest, he will fascinate you with stories of patients like the man in the title—a professor who couldn't recognize faces and who patted the tops of fire hydrants believing them to be children. Nietschze asked whether we could do without disease in our lives and the author explores this interesting concept with a rare and invigorating philosophic sense. Sacks is no ordinary practitioner; his patients suffer from rare complaints like Korshakov's syndrome, Tourette's and other afflictions, some of which make the patient unsure of the reality of his own body. -- Kirkus

CGS Library ; Multnomah County Library ; Washington County Library ; Reading Group Guide

Maureen & Tyler's C&C: Meets in Math: Heine-Borel
Defending Jacob by William Landay

Andy Barber has been an assistant district attorney in his suburban Massachusetts county for more than twenty years. He is respected in his community, tenacious in the courtroom, and happy at home with his wife, Laurie, and son, Jacob. But when a shocking crime shatters their New England town, Andy is blindsided by what happens next: His fourteen-year-old son is charged with the murder of a fellow student. Every parental instinct Andy has rallies to protect his boy. Jacob insists that he is innocent, and Andy believes him. Andy must. He is his father. But as damning facts and shocking revelations surface, as a marriage threatens to crumble and the trial intensifies, as the crisis reveals how little a father knows about his son, Andy will face a trial of his own. Content Note: Murder

CGS Library ; Multnomah County Library ; Washington County Library ; Reading Group Guide