Campus gets quiet when our community scatters for summertime pursuits, but we’ve got a great way to stay connected: summer reading.

“While reading may initially feel like a solitary venture, as you know—or will soon come to know—from your English classes at St. Andrew’s, one of the great joys reading makes possible is having a lively conversation with others about stories and ideas,” says Emily Pressman, Dean of Teaching and Learning. “In this sense, reading is a way to build connection.”

We’re inviting students, faculty, and staff; students’ loved ones; alumni; and others to connect through reading this summer. For SAS underformers, that looks like reading one book assigned to their entire form (more on that below!) and (at least) one book from suggestions by adults on campus. 

The latter list saw recommended reads from adults across our varied, vibrant community—from faculty members, to staff in our Health Center, Athletics leadership, and beyond. With books on topics from coming of age, to surviving war, to living creatively, to the history of tuberculosis, and much more, there’s something on the list to engage even a reluctant reader.

“It’s a wonderfully wide-ranging list: fiction and nonfiction, brand new works and longstanding classics, lifetime favorites and books that are on the top of the adults’ ‘to be read’ pile, which they’re excited to discover alongside you,” Pressman says. “All of these adults will be eager to connect with you in the fall to discuss the book(s) you’ve chosen.”

Also connecting underformers, their peers, and adults are these assigned texts: All rising III formers are required to read Gather by Kenneth M. Cadow; rising IV formers required reading is Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel; and the rising V formers are required to read The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga.

Finally, all rising VI formers are required to read two texts from the Senior Exhibition list, which includes: By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolano, The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes, Quicksand by Nella Larsen, Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin, and The Awakening by Kate Chopin. 

For the VI Formers that have elected to take AS Humanities, the exhibition list is as follows: Giovanni's Room, Quicksand, To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, Angels in America by Tony Kushner, Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller along with Fences by August Wilson.

Regardless of their form year, students looking to read beyond what they’ve been assigned have a bounty of books from which to choose. We’re excited to see what ideas, themes, and lessons they’ll bring from their summer reading to book discussions, to coursework within and beyond the humanities, and to campus life and culture.

Read Emily Pressman’s full letter to families on summer reading here.