Books You Should Have Read By The End Of High School

Something fun for a Sunday...


This is TES' top 99 books to read before you leave secondary school, as voted by teachers. How many have you read?


1. 1984 by George Orwell

2. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

3. Animal Farm by George Orwell

4. Lord of the Flies by William Golding

5. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

6. The Harry Potter Series by JK Rowling

7. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

8. The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger

9. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

10. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

11. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

12. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne

13. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

14. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

15. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

16. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

17. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

18. A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines

19. The Lord of the Rings trilogy by JRR Tolkien

20. Danny, Champion of the World by Roald Dahl

21. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald

22. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

23. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

24. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

25. A Passage to India by EM Forster

26. Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo

27. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien

28. A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

29. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

30. Holes by Louis Sachar

31. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

32. The Noughts and Crosses trilogy by Malorie Blackman

33. Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

34. War Horse by Michael Morpurgo

35. Atonement by Ian McEwan

36. The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins

37. His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

38. Dracula by Bram Stoker

39. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

40. A Room With a View by EM Forster

40. Beloved by Toni Morrison

42. Wonder by RJ Palacio

43. Emma by Jane Austen

44. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

45. Half a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngoxi Adichie

45. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

47. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

48. The Sherlock Holmes series by Arthur Conan Doyle

49. Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee

50. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

51. Anita and Me by Meera Syal

52. The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett

53. Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne

54. Skellig by David Almond

55. Life of Pi by Yann Martel

56. Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

57. The Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer

58. A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift

59. My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell

60. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

61. Brighton Rock by Graham Greene

62. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

63. The Fault In Our Stars by John Green

64. Dubliners by James Joyce

65. Face by Benjamin Zephaniah

66. When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr

67. White Teeth by Zadie Smith

68. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

69. Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton

69. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

71. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K Dick

71. I am David by Anne Holm

73. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

73. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

73. V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd

76. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

77. A Song of Ice and Fire series by George RR Martin

78. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

79. Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison

79. Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard

79. On the Road by Jack Kerouac

82. The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

83. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

83. Billy Liar by Keith Waterhouse

83. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

86. A Gathering Light by Jennifer Donnelly

86. Heroes by Robert Cormier

88. Refugee Boy by Benjamin Zephaniah

89. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

89. Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally

91. Forever by Judy Blume

92. Coram Boy by Jamila Gavin

92. Stone Cold by Robert Swindells

94. A Time to Dance by Bernard MacLaverty

95. Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood

95. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

97. The War of the Worlds by HG Wells

97. The Tracy Beaker series by Jacqueline Wilson

99. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

99. Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

99. The Time Machine by HG Wells

If You Aren't Having Fun, Then Publishing May Not Be For You

I want you to think back to the days you first started writing. The odds are, you were like a lot of other authors out there. Your mind raced as you created wonderful creations, fantastic characters and so forth. The odds are, your mind moved faster then your fingers could across that keyboard, or in that spiral notebook you kept hidden from the teacher in math class. You had a joy for writing! That was passion.

But then something happened.

I am reminded of the concept behind the story of Peter Pan. Why does Peter not want to leave Neverland? He doesn't want to grow up. There is something about growing up that might not be what we want. We believe we have to give up "having fun" and looking at everything as "work."

But that doesn't have to be the case. In publishing, like any other job, this should not be the case.

I was just reading an article by Jayson DeMers looking at just this topic. Now, while he was focusing heavily on the general workforce market, I think there are a lot of things that translate perfectly to the world of professional publishing.

DeMers list some of the top reasons for people being unhappy at their jobs.

• Pay - You are working harder than you are getting paid for
• Stability - Things are not always predictable
• Future - OK with where you are at now but not much room for advancement
• Other People - You don't like the people you have to associate with
• Demands - High pressure environment
• Flexibility - Your job life conflict with family life
• The Industry - You don't like the way things are going.  

I want you to note several things here. You knew, when you wanted to move into professional writing that all of this was going to happen. You chose to enter into a career that is often categorized as being a "starving artist." Let's revisit this list...

• Pay - It takes a lot to make money in this business. There are a few out there who can really make a living at writing, but these are the anomalies. These are the exceptions. Remember this, how many times have you heard the phrase, "Don't quit your day job." This is not a fall back position, this is where the money is going to come from.
• Stability - Again, remember that you are in a business that is reliant on a ton of others around you. Bookstores, readers, the economy. These are all things that can never be predicted. Here are a couple of examples: When Barnes and Noble closed those stores, writers saw a huge decline in sales. Ouch! When lines collapse such as Superromance at Harlequin, all of those authors who were under contract had to go somewhere else. Schedules shifted quickly.
• Future - Your future is really about horizontal moves. You can go from one line to the next. You can write more books. You might get an increase in advances, but in terms of truly advancing, it isn't going o happen.
• Other people - This is a public business. You will have to work with other people. You may find your editor leaves and you are assigned a new editor that you just don't connect with like you did with the first one. Bummer. Deal with it. You will have reviewers who hate your book. Deal with it.
• Demands - You have deadlines now. The days of hobby writing and just pulling out that notebook whenever you wanted to are gone. 
• Flexibility - I always say, this is a second job. If  you have a family, a house, another job, pets... the list is endless, you have to find a way to make it all work. 
• The Industry - Yes, this business, like a lot of things out there change. There will be times when it is not what you like. Bummer.

DeMers goes on to make some suggestions on things to do if you are feeling this way. I do want to note, before I go into his list, that the things I just mentioned are things you need to consider BEFORE you start sending out those queries. Is this really where you want to go, or are you happy with your writing as a hobby? It is OK to say the hobby route is the better option. Now back with DeMers…

• Pay attention if you are just having moments of unhappiness with your career and this is not something bigger. We all are going to have some bad days. We are all going to have some good days. 
• Making positive changes can also help. No this does not mean you go out and start "blowing sunshine around." Small little things such as a change in when you write, a change in your voice. It doesn't have to be big. Just look for some small things to be happy about.
• Check your happiness level. No job is perfect. Don't compare it to something that is unchangeable or something in a different job. I would also recommend that you don't spend your time comparing what you are doing with other people. They had a different course. They likely had a different set of variables to work with.

And here is the big one...

• Find a new job. I know this is tough, but please remember writing is for everyone but not everyone is for writing. I have worked with a lot of great writers who realized that their path was not one in publishing. They had the ability, but their mind was simply not in publishing. That's OK. I see them now on social media, or at other public venues and they are happier now because the job they thought they wanted, that of writing, was not sucking their life dry.

So, before you start writing today, check your happiness index. Are you where you need to be?

If You Get A Request, SUBMIT

It always amazes me how many people will attend conferences, arrange for a pitch session, get a request and never submit the project. Time and time again, I see the same thing. It really doesn't matter how I get the initial query either. I can get snail mail queries, e-queries, I have done Twitter pitches, and writing groups have done online 1 day pitches through their websites. And yet, after the requests, I still find a ton of people who don't submit.

I have a real hard time with this, for several reasons.

The first is that at many conferences, those coveted pitch appointments are hard to get. You kick, bite and scratch your way to those appointments. There are a lot of people who never get the chance, only to have the appointment taken away by someone who is throwing away their chance to submit.

The second is that there are many people who simply have no business pitching. Why? They are not ready to submit. They have projects that are not finished, or mentally/emotionally, are not ready to move into writing professionally. That's fine. Be ready, AND THEN sign up for pitches.

Over the years, I have heard a lot of other reasons why people don't submit their projects.

One that really irritates me is that authors have said that after they pitched, the did some research into the editor or agent are really thought this person was not right for them or their projects. First of all, this is true, not every author and editor/agent relationship is a perfect match. BUT, and this is a big one...If you are doing your research after you had the appointment, you have wasted a lot of time for everyone. You as an author could have met with someone who would have been a better fit, and that editor or agent could have met with someone else.

I have also heard some authors state that the pitch session was a great way to practice. Um, no! You don't apply for a job, go to the interview and do this "just for practice." If you want to practice, do this on your own time.

There are also a small few that will pitch to multiple people and get requests from all of them. However, one of those individuals was the author's favorite so the other editors/agents get ditched and there is no response. This, I am sorry to say, is a lack of professionalism. If you decide after the fact that you are not interested, then have the decency to send a quick email and state that you have decided to go a different direction. This is not going to hurt our feelings and you will not have burnt any bridges.

Understand this. Those editors and agents are giving up their time to meet with you. If it is a conference, they are giving up their weekends away from their family to sit for hours at a table in some conference room, drinking that great hotel coffee to listen to you. If it is online, they are taking that time they would be spending with their clients to sit online and listen to your pitches. If they request, submit the darn thing.

Don't get me wrong, here. I am not saying that we don't want to listen to your pitches. We are out to find some great new authors and new projects. We are willing to drink that bad coffee and sit online. But you also have to be ready to follow though.

Questions To Be Prepared For In A Pitch Session

I want to take some more time talking today about conferences and certainly pitching to those editors and agents.

Most authors (and yes, this happens too with job interviews) spend their entire time thinking about the "me" in the conversation. For authors, it is all about the book. You have taken an amazing amount of time drafting the perfect face to face pitch and the elevator pitch. You and your critique partners have practiced hours on that pitch. You have it memorized. You have it nailed. You have the inflections in the right spot.

While having this information so perfect, most authors have completely forgotten that the person sitting on the other side of that table is a human. And...do you want to know something? That person may ask a question.

Are you prepared?

Probably not.

As someone who has listened to countless pitches, I want to take the time to tell you my approach to these and how I conduct a pitch session. I'll also throw out a couple of questions you might want to be prepared for.

First of all, when someone sits down at my table, and I see the author immediately pulling out their note cards or prepared speech, I immediately push it aside. I do not want someone to read their pitch to me. The reason for this is simple. I want to really hear what the story is about, and not the prepared marketing pitch of what the author thinks the story is about.

I had an author tell me that her story was not inspirational. OK. I am fine with that. However, once she was just talking, the story line could not avoid telling me it was inspirational. The thing was, she didn't want to pitch an inspirational, knowing that this was not a genre I represented, but wanted to pitch it as a contemporary. No, she was not trying to "pull one over on me." Subconsciously, she believed her story would fit with anything contemporary.

The second thing I will often do is, when I hear someone start into a memorized pitch, I will often find a place to "politely interrupt" and ask a question. Now, I know this sounds mean, but this pattern interrupt will often get that author again, just talking about his or her story. I will also add that when I do interrupt, it is truly because there is something I simply don't know.

Now that we are on the subject of those questions, what are some questions you might need to be prepared for:

1. What other stories have you written in this same genre?
2. Tell me about the motivations of the character?
3. Talk about the conflict. What is the driving internal conflict for the character?
4. If pitching to an agent - Which publishing house do you see  your story located at and why?
5. If pitching to an editor - Why do you believe this story fits with our particular publishing line?
6. On average, how long does it take you to complete a story from start to finish?
7. What do you see is the high concept for your story?
8. If your book was previously published - What were your sales numbers last year? For the last three months? Please note I am talking about sales numbers (this would be units sold not reviews).
9. If you were self-published originally, and now are looking to move into traditional publishing, why are you making this shift?
10. If you have tried pitching this story, who have you pitched to and what was their reaction Note - If you have already been rejected we cannot take that story back to that same editor.

Just a few things to consider. Be prepared for everything.

Are you prepared?

New Blog Site and Reviewer

OK, I might be a bit biased about this one, but it was my daughter's idea.

She is an avid reader and has been talking about wanting to do reviews about the book she is reading. Her thought was to give readers feedback on their YA books from someone who really is in the YA demographic.

So, she just set up a blog site.

As I said, she is only going to focus on YA novels. Nothing more.

Please note, this is in the beginning stages, but it might be a great way to get another review for your YA book.

DISCLAIMER: Scott Eagan and Greyhaus Literary Agency will not have any say in her reviews. This is 100% her feedback and comments!

BRONWYN READS

Getting Over Jumps Requires Looking To The Next Jump

As some of you know, my daughter competes in Hunter/Jumper Equestrian Competitions. Yes, this is correct, I let my teenage daughter get on her off the track Thoroughbred and run really fast and jump

over really large fences. I think I am finally getting to the point that I can actually breathe and watch her at the same time.

Now for anyone who has done this before, one skill riders learn to do is where they are looking when they go over each of the jumps. Here are some of the basics:

1. If you look at the jump you are going over, you are telling the horse to do the same thing, and the odds are, you will crash through the jump.
2. If you are looking at the ground, you will end up on the ground.
3. But..., if you look ahead of you, and more specifically, if you look to the next jump you clear it beautifully.

So, why do I bring this up? This skill applies to how we approach things in everyday life, and certainly, how we approach writing and challenges.

The key is to look to the future.

When I am considering signing a new author, one of the first conversations I have with that author is where they seen their future heading. I talk about their future books. What do they have planned?

Now this does not mean all of your stories have to be thinking of linked books. We just want you to think toward where you want to be heading.

As an agent this is something I am always talking about with my authors. We are always planning on the next contracts, the next projects and so forth while we are knee-deep in the middle of a current contract. In some cases, we are talking about new lines, new publishers and plans. We are talking about how things went on the current projects and where we want to make changes.

You have to really look beyond simply what we are working on right now. This is something many struggle with simply because it requires multi-tasking. Not an easy process, but certainly something worthwhile.

So, on a Tuesday, where are you looking in your future? Are you looking only at the current jump, or are you looking to the future jump or hurdle?

What I Look For In A Query

I want to take the time today to let you in on some things I look for when a pitch comes across my desk. I do want to stress that every editor or agent looks at different things, but, my bet, is that most look at many of the same things.

I know that many authors often hear over and over again that "If you have a great story, it will sell." Unfortunately, this is not always the case. You may have a great story, but this goes far beyond that.

So, what do I look for? Today, I am going to focus on those initial e-queries that come across my desk.

Step 1 - Open the email and look at the professionalism. This says a lot. If you are submitting to me with a "Dear Editor/Agent" or a using my agency as my last name, it becomes clear that you have not done your research. It tells me that you are probably just mass mailing that query out. How much do you really know about me?

Step 2 - I look at the basics of the book. We're talking about the genre and word count. Is this something that I work with? Is this a project that I can even sell? As you all know, every agency and editor specializes in specific things. Since I only look at romance and women's fiction for the mass media market, if your story doesn't fit that, I will be passing on this. I know this sounds obvious, but it is amazing how many authors get frustrated when they get rejected for this reason.

There is another piece of this. Is this a word count that editors will buy? Is this a genre that is hot right now and will even sell? Again, you may have a great writing style, but if the market is not buying, then it will not matter. If you have a novel of 300,000 words, unless you are a Stephen King or similar level author, no one is going to sign this book.

Step 3 - I look at the premise of the story. Is this something that is believable and, again, something that the market will buy. Too often, I see projects that start off well, but then turn into a direction that really makes the story unbelievable. A lot of this also revolves around the characters. Remember the readers connect with your characters. If you have characters that readers feel distanced from, the story will not work.

Step 4 - Do I like this? One of my umber one reasons for rejections is just something that  don't like. We don't have to like everything. You as a reader or a writer don't like to read everything. You might say you do, but the reality is, you have favorites and you have dislikes. As an agent, you want someone who wants to do nothing but talk about your book. You want us to have a desire to read your book over and over again.

When I do get your story, whether it is a partial of a full manuscript, again, I go beyond simply the premise. I am looking at the voice. I am looking at the style. I am looking at the level of your writing. Let me explain that last one.

There are a lot of you out there who do things in your story because someone told you that would make the story better. you use strategies because it is the latest hot approach. You use a model that you have seen other authors use. But, you are not using the approach that your story needs. Good writing just happens. Good writing is organic. It is not forced.

Hopefully this gives you some insight into my approach.