There can be no definitive reading list, but here is a selection based on recommended titles by senior schools, pupils’ suggestions and recognition of the ever increasing number of modern talented authors, especially those writing for teenagers and young adults. This list can be used as a ‘tick list’, where other titles by the same author would be acceptable (though reading an abridged version, watching the film version or listening to an audio adaptation would not!). It is important to read widely to experience different authors and genres. This is the expectation of the senior schools and Sandroyd.

Classic Novels

Robert Louis Stevenson

Treasure Island

Robert Louis Stevenson

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Daniel Defoe

Robinson Crusoe

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Hound of the Baskervilles

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Lost World

Mary Shelley

Frankenstein

H Rider Haggard

King Solomon’s Mines

Sir Walter Scott

Ivanhoe

Jules Verne

Journey to the Centre of the Earth

Charles Dickens

Nicholas Nickleby

Charles Dickens

A Christmas Carol

H G Wells

The Time Machine

Thomas Hardy

Far from the Madding Crowd

Edgar Allan Poe

Tales of Mystery and Imagination

Jack London

Sea Wolf

John Buchan

The Thirty-Nine Steps

Samuel Pepys

Diary

Wilkie Collins

The Moonstone

Alexandre Dumas

The Count of Monte Cristo

E M Forster

A Passage to India

Erich Maria von Remarque

All Quiet on the Western Front

Charlotte Brontë

Jane Eyre

Emily Brontë

Wuthering Heights

Jane Austen

Northanger Abbey

Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice

20^th Century Classic Novels

J R R Tolkien

The Hobbit & Lord of the Rings

Evelyn Waugh

Decline and Fall

Daphne du Maurier

Rebecca & Frenchman’s Creek

John Steinbeck

Of Mice and Men

Ernest Hemingway

The Old Man and the Sea

Paul Gallico

The Snow Goose/The Small Miracle

Siegfried Sassoon

Memoirs of an Infantry Officer

C S Forester

Mr Midshipman Hornblower

Nevil Shute

On the Beach

Agatha Christie

Murder on the Orient Express

P G Wodehouse

The Inimitable Jeeves

Kingsley Amis

Lucky Jim

Graham Greene

Brighton Rock

Joseph Heller

Catch 22

Robert Graves

Goodbye to All That & I, Claudius

George Orwell

Animal Farm

Laurie Lee

Cider with Rosie

Anne Frank

Diary

Aldous Huxley

Brave New World

H E Bates

Fair Stood the Wind for France

Barry Hines

A Kestrel for a Knave (Kes)

John Wyndham

The Midwich Cuckoos

John Wyndham

The Day of the Triffids

Alistair MacLean

The Guns of Navarone

Compton MacKenzie

Whisky Galore

Noel Streatfield

Ballet Shoes

Science Fiction and Fantasy

Eoin Colfer

Artemis Fowl

Susan Cooper

The Dark Is Rising (quintology)

Alan Garner

The Owl Service

Philip Pullman

His Dark Materials (trilogy)

David Almond

Skellig

Terry Pratchett

The Discworld novels

Frank Herbert

Dune (extended trilogy)

Philip Reeves

Mortal Engines (quadrilogy)

Marcus Sedgwick

The Book of Dead Days

Marcus Sedgwick

The Foreshadowing

William Nicholson

The Windsinger (trilogy)

Isaac Asimov

I, Robot

Ray Bradbury

Fahrenheit 451

Robert Westall

The Wind Eye

Stephanie Meyer

The Twilight Saga

Garth Nix

Sabriel (trilogy+)

Catherine Storr

Marianne Dreams

Madeleine de l’Engle

A Wrinkle in Time

Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell

Beyond the Deep Woods (series)

Stephen Donaldson

Lord Foul’s Bane

Terry Brooks

The Sword of Shannara (series)

Christopher Paolini

Eragon (quadrilogy)

Michelle Paver

The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness

Michelle Paver

Dark Matter

Rick Riordan

Percy Jackson series

Teenage Fiction

Malorie Blackman

Noughts and Crosses (quadrilogy)

Robert Swindells

Brother in the Land

Mark Haddon

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night

Louis Sachar

Holes

Jamila Gavin

Coram Boy

Julia Golding

A Diamond in Drury Lane (trilogy)

Sally Prue

Ice Maiden

S C Ransom

Small Blue Thing

Jennifer Donnelly

The Gathering Light

Anne Fine

Madame Doubtfire

Anthony Horowitz

Ravensgate (The Power of Five series)

Geraldine McCaughrean

The Death Defying Pepper Roux

Pat Walsh

The Crowfield Curse

Chris Priestley

Dead of Winter

Sally Gardner

The Silver Blade

Charlie Higson

The Enemy

Non-Fiction

Chris Bonnington

Everest the Hard Way

Sir Ranulph Fiennes

Mind Over Matter

Pat Reid

The Colditz Story

Kate Adie

The Kindness of Strangers

Peter Ustinov

Dear Me

Ffyona Campbell

On Foot through Africa

Thor Heyerdahl

The Kon-Tiki Expedition

Paul Brickhill

The Great Escape

Ellen MacArthur

Taking on the World

Eric Williams

The Wooden Horse

Bill Bryson

Notes from a Small Island

Griff Rhys Jones

To the Baltic with Bob

David Attenborough

Life on Earth

Gerald Durrell

My Family and Other Animals

James Herriott

All Creatures Great and Small

Modern Fiction

Michael Crichton

Jurassic Park

J G Ballard

Empire of the Sun

Jeffrey Archer

Not a Penny more, not a Penny less

Wilbur Smith

The Seventh Scroll

Dan Brown

The Da Vinci Code

Mary Renault

The Bull from the Sea

Josephine Tey

Daughter of Time

Roald Dahl

Going Solo

Sue Townsend

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13

Bernard Cornwell

Sharpe’s Rifles (series)

Robert C O’Brien

Z for Zachariah

Frederick Forsyth

The Day of the Jackal

Jack Higgins

The Eagle Has Landed

Dick Francis

Bonecrack

P D James

An Unsuitable Job for a Woman

Patrick O’Brian

Master and Commander (series)

John Grisham

The Client

Ellis Peters

One Corpse Too Many (series)

Harlan Coben

Tell No One

Tom Clancy

The Hunt for Red October (series)