Advanced Placement Book List

(Alphabetized by Author)
The following books and plays have appeared as possible selections on the open-ended
question of the AP English Literature and Composition test over the past twenty years.
The number in parentheses indicates the number of times the work has appeared as a
selection.
Things Fall Apart (4)Chinua Achebe
The EumenidesAeschylus
The OresteiaAeschylus
Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (6)Edward Albee
The Zoo Story (3)Edward Albee
Reservation Blues (2)Sherman Alexie
Bless Me, Ultima (3)Rudolfo Anaya
LysistrataAristophanes
The DollmakerHarriette S. Arnow
The Blind AssassinMargaret Atwood
Alias Grace (3)Margaret Atwood
Cats Eye (2)Margaret Atwood
The Handmaids TaleMargaret Atwood
SurfacingMargaret Atwood
Emma (2)Jane Austen
Mansfield ParkJane Austen
Persuasion (3)Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice (5)Jane Austen
Another CountryJames Baldwin
Go Tell It on the Mountain (3)James Baldwin
Pere GoriotHonore de Balzac
Waiting for Godot (7)Samuel Beckett
Mother Courage and Her Children (2)Bertolt Brecht
Jane Eyre (10)Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights (14)Emily Bronte
America Is in the HeartCarlos Bulosan
The FallAlbert Camus
The Plague (2)Albert Camus
The Stranger (2)Albert Camus
Monkey Bridge (2)Lan Cao
Don Quixote (5)Miguel Cervantes
The Cherry Orchard (2)Anton Chekhov
The Awakening (10)Kate Chopin
Heart of Darkness (11)Joseph Conrad
Lord Jim (6)Joseph Conrad
VictoryJoseph Conrad

Fifth Business (3)Robertson Davies

Moll Flanders (3)Daniel Defoe
Bleak House (4)Charles Dickens
David CopperfieldCharles Dickens
Great Expectations (13)Charles Dickens
Hard TimesCharles Dickens
Our Mutual FriendCharles Dickens
A Tale of Two Cities (4)Charles Dickens
Ragtime (2)E. L. Doctorow
The Brothers Karamazov (2)Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Crime and Punishment (12)Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Notes from the UndergroundFyodor Dostoyevky
An American Tragedy (3)Theodore Dreiser
Sister Carrie (3)Theodore Dreiser
The Memory Keepers DaughterKim Edwards
Middlemarch (4)George Eliot
The Mill on the Floss (2)George Eliot
Silas MarnerGeorge Eliot
The Love Song of J. Alfred PrufrockT. S. Eliot
Murder in the Cathedral (3)T. S. Eliot
The WastelandT. S. Eliot
Invisible Man (18)Ralph Ellison
Love MedicineLouise Erdrich
Medea (4)Euripides
Absalom, Absalom (3)William Faulkner
As I Lay Dying (6)William Faulkner
The BearWilliam Faulkner
Light in August (7)William Faulkner
The Sound and the Fury (6)William Faulkner
Joseph AndrewsHenry Fielding
Tom Jones (4)Henry Fielding
The Great Gatsby (1)F. Scott Fitzgerald
Madame Bovary (3)Gustave Flaubert
The Good Soldier (2)Ford Madox Ford
A Passage to India (4)E. M. Forster
Cold MountainCharles Frazier
Dancing at Lughnasa (2)Brian Friel
The Shipping NewsAnnie Froulx
A Gathering of Old Men (2)Ernest J. Gaines
A Lesson Before DyingErnest J. Gaines
Trifles (2)Susan Glaspell
Faust (2)Johan Wolfgang von Goethe

Lord of the Flies (2)William G. Golding

The Power and the GloryGraham Greene
Snow Falling on Cedars (2)David Guterson
A Raisin in the Sun (8)Lorraine Hansberry
Jude the Obscure (5)Thomas Hardy
The Mayor of Casterbridge (5)Thomas Hardy
Tess of the DUrbervilles (4)Thomas Hardy
The House of Seven GablesNathaniel Hawthorne
The Scarlet Letter (7)Nathaniel Hawthorne
Catch-22 (9)Joseph Heller
The Little Foxes (2)Lillian Hellman
Watch on the RhineLillian Hellman
A Farewell to Arms (3)Ernest Hemingway
For Whom the Bell TollsErnest Hemingway
The Sun Also Rises (5)Ernest Hemingway
The OdysseyHomer
The Kite Runner (3)Khaled Hosseini
Their Eyes are Watching God (8)Zora Nell Hurston
Brave New World (3)Aldous Huxley
M. ButterflyDavid Henry Hwang
A Dolls House (6)Henrik Ibsen
An Enemy of the People (5)Henrik Ibsen
Ghosts (2)Henrik Ibsen
Hedda Gabler (5)Henrik Ibsen
A Prayer for Owen MeanyJohn Irving
The Remains of the Day (2)Kazuo Ishiguro
The AmericanHenry James
Daisy MillerHenry James
The Golden BowlHenry James
The Portrait of a Lady (4)Henry James
The Turn of the Screw (6)Henry James
Washington SquareHenry James
Typical American (2)Gish Jen
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored ManJames Weldon Johnson
VolponeBen Jonson
The DeadJames Joyce
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (8)James Joyce
The MetamorphosisFranz Kafka
The Trail (2)Franz Kafka
One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest (2)Ken Kesey
The Woman WarriorMaxine Hong Kingston
A Separate Peace (2)John Knowles

Obasan (5)Joy Kogawa

The NamesakeJhumpa Lahiri
The DivinersMargaret Laurence
The Stone AngelMargaret Laurence
Sons and LoversD. H. Lawrence
A Gesture LifeChang-Rae Lee
Native Speaker (2)Chang-Rae Lee
Main Street (2)Sinclair Lewis
The CrossingCormac McCarthy
J.B. (2)Archibald MacLeish
The Watch That Ends the NightHugh MacLennan
The FixerBernard Malamud
Doctor Faustus (5)Christopher Marlowe
One Hundred Years of SolitudeGabriel Garcia Marquez
Praisesong for the WindowPaule Marshall
All the Pretty Horses (2)Cormac McCarthy
The Member of the WeddingCarson McCullers
AtonementIan McEwan
Benito CerenoHerman Melville
Billy Budd (8)Herman Melville
Moby-Dick (9)Herman Melville
RedburnHerman Melville
All My Sons (2)Arthur Miller
The Crucible (4)Arthur Miller
Death of a Salesman (7)Arthur Miller
Paradise Lost (2)John Milton
The Misanthrope (2)Jean Baptist Moliere
TartuffeJean Baptiste Moliere
House Made of DawnN. Scott Momaday
Beloved (7)Toni Morrison
The Bluest EyeTony Morrison
Song of Solomon (4)Tony Morrison
Sula (5)Toni Morrison
JasmineBharati Mukherjee
PninVladimir Nabokov
The Women of Brewster PlaceGloria Naylor
Going After Cacciato (2)Tim OBrien
In the Lake of the WoodsTim OBrien
Wise Blood (4)Flannery OConnor
No-No BoyJohn Okada
Coming Through Slaughter (2)Michael Ondaatje
Desire Under the ElmsEugene ONeill

The Hairy Ape (2)--Eugene ONeill

Long Days Journey into Night (2)Eugene ONeill
1984 (3)George Orwell
SnowOrhan Panuk
Cry, the Beloved Country (6)Alan Paton
Agnes of God (2)John Pielmeier
The Birthday Party (2)Harold Pinter
The HomecomingHarold Pinter
The Rape of the LockAlexander Pope
PhaedreJean Baptiste Racine
Wide Sargasso Sea (2)Jean Rhys
PamelaSamuel Richardson
The Apprenticeship of Duddy KravitzMordecai Richler
The Moors Last SighSalman Rushdie
The Catcher in the Rye (2)J. D. Salinger
No ExitJean-Paul Sartre
Equus (8)Peter Shaffer
Anthony and CleopatraWilliam Shakespeare
As You Like It (2)William Shakespeare
Hamlet (7)William Shakespeare
Henry IV (2)William Shakespeare
Henry IVWilliam Shakespeare
Julius Caesar (2)William Shakespeare
King Lear (11)William Shakespeare
Macbeth (4)William Shakespeare
The Merchant of Venice (4)William Shakespeare
A Midsummer Nights DreamWilliam Shakespeare
Much Ado About NothingWilliam Shakespeare
Othello (4)William Shakespeare
Romeo and Juliet (3)William Shakespeare
The Tempest (2)William Shakespeare
Twelfth Night (3)William Shakespeare
The Winters Tale (2)William Shakespeare
Major BarbaraGeorge Bernard Shaw
Man and SupermanGeorge Bernard Shaw
Mrs. Warrens Profession (4)George Bernard Shaw
Pygmalion (2)George Bernard Shaw
Saint JoanGeorge Bernard Shaw
Frankenstein (5)Mary Shelley
Ceremony (6)Leslie Marmon Silko
The CaretakerThomas William Simpson
The JungleUptown Sinclair
One Day in the Life of Ivan DenisovichAlexander Solzhenitsyn

Antigone (4)Sophocles
Oedipus Rex (6)Sophocles
The Prime of Miss Jean BrodieMuriel Spark
Grapes of Wrath (5)John Steinbeck
Of Mice and Men (2)John Steinbeck
Tristam ShadyLaurence Sterne
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (6)Tom Stoppard
Uncle Toms CabinHarriet Beecher Stowe
The FatherAugust Strindberg
Gullivers Travels (5) Jonathan Swift
The Bonesetters DaughterAmy Tan
The Joy Luck ClubAmy Tan
Anna Karenina (5)Leo Tolstoy
The Death of Ivan IlychLeo Tolstoy
The WardenAnthony Trollope
Fathers and SonsIvan Turgenev
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (10)Mark Twain
Dinner at the Homesick RestaurantAnne Tyler
The CentaurJohn Updike
Zoot SuitLuis Valdez
Pale Fire (2)Vladimir Vladimirovich
Candide (5)Francois Voltaire
Slaughterhouse FiveKurt Vonnegut
The Color Purple (8)Alice Walker
All the Kings Men (5)Robert Penn Warren
The Loved OneEvelyn Waugh
Winter in the BloodJames Welch
Delta WeddingEudora Welty
The Optimists DaughterEudora Welty
Miss LonelyheartsNathaniel West
The Age of Innocence (4)Edith Wharton
Ethan Frome (4)Edith Wharton
The House of MirthEdith Wharton
Sent for You YesterdayJohn Edgar Wideman
Lady Windermeres FanOscar Wilde
The Picture of Dorian GrayOscar Wilde
Our Town (3)Thornton Wilder
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (2)Tennessee Williams
The Glass Menagerie (7)Tennessee Williams
A Streetcar Named Desire (7)Tennessee Williams
Fences (2)August Wilson
Joe Turners Come and Gone (3)August Wilson

The Piano Lesson (4)August Wilson

Mrs. Dalloway (4)Virginia Woolf
OrlandoVirginia Woolf
To the Lighthouse (2)Virginia Woolf
Native Son (6)Richard A. Wright