Many of the fiction and essay passages, especially excerpts from prior centuries, present additional challenges through their syntax, vocabulary, figurative language, diction, context, and even spelling and punctuation. Here is a list of fiction from the 18th, 19th, and 20th Centuries that will help students improve their reading comprehension.
Novels
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
Charles Dickens, Hard Times
David Guterson, Snow Falling on Cedars
Jamaica Kincaid, Annie John
Erdrich, Louise, Tracks
Herman Melville, Billy Budd
Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye
Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club
Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle
Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence
Virginia Woolf, To The Lighthouse
Richard Wright, Native Son
Short Stories
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper”
Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Birthmark”
Ernest Hemingway, “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”
Langston Hughes, “Thank You, Ma’am”
Herman Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”
Flannery O’Connor, “Everything that Rises Must Converge”
Edgar Allen Poe, “The Tell-tale Heart”
