East Hamilton Middle High School

English III

English III
11 Grade
2023 Summer Reading

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CHOOSE ONE OF THE FOLLOWING BOOKS TO READ OVER THE SUMMER.
You will be assessed over this book the first week of school.

CHOICE 1:  IN COLD BLOOD by Truman Capote

In Cold Blood

From Goodreads: “On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.

As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy. In Cold Blood is a work that transcends its moment, yielding poignant insights into the nature of American violence…In Cold Blood took six years for Capote to research and write, and it took an incredible toll on Capote personally—so much so that he never published another book again. In Cold Blood is said to have been his undoing.”

CHOICE 2:  THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY:  A SAGA OF MAGIC AND MURDER AT THE FAIR THAT CHANGED AMERICA by Erik Larsen.

Devil in the White CityFrom Goodreads: “The Devil in the White City is a fact crime drama by journalist and renowned non-fiction author Erik Larson. The book describes the events of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, where the serial murders of 27 to 200 women were carried out by one Henry Howard Holmes over the course of the fair. Larson employs a novelistic style in his writing but insists that “anything between quotation marks comes from a letter, memoir, or other written document.”

The book juxtaposes its two main characters, the aforementioned H.H. Holmes, and Daniel Hudson Burnham, as embodying elements of “the great dynamic that characterized the rush of America toward the twentieth century.” As the book is set in 1893, it is to be expected that the cultural, ethical and moral values of the time are different from the values we espouse in the present day. This is a period when national pride and competition between nations are commonplace in every field, from architecture to industry to the arts. It tells of the wonders and miracles that help build the World’s Fair, and the horrible events of serial killer’s murders and disaster, which lead to the city of Chicago’s downfall.
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