Trinity High School is proud to offer a voluntary program to sophomores, juniors, and seniors--the Great Books Program.

Trinity’s Great Books Program draws inspiration from programs found at the University of Chicago, the University of Notre Dame, and St. John’s College in both Annapolis and Santa Fe. The program is student-driven, inquiry-based, and aims to explore the human experience and its complexity through classic works of literature. Students will develop their worldview and critical-thinking skills by asking questions, formulating and sharing their opinions, and supporting their ideas with textual evidence. Trinity’s program uses well-crafted, multicultural selections that connect to our established curriculum, while also offering enrichment opportunities and the chance for mentoring.

Students who choose to participate will select a book from a given category and work over the semester with a faculty member who sponsors the book for a personalized learning experience. Students will read one book each semester or summer, for a total of three books each year. Students must complete two years minimum (six books) for recognition. Members of the Class of 2021 will need to complete three selections total for recognition. Students may not repeat the same category during their work in the program. Students will earn fractional credit with the completion of this program, recognition at graduation, and a special designation on their transcript.

The program's current categories and books are listed below.

The program is evolving, and book selections are subject to change.

Maya Angelou: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Frederick Douglass: Narrative Life

W.E.B. DuBois: The Souls of Black Folk

Ralph Ellison: Invisible Man

Anne Moody: Coming of Age in Mississippi

Solomon Northup: 12 Years a Slave

Jesmyn Ward: Salvage the Bones

Booker T. Washington: Up from Slavery

Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart

Bessie Head: Maru

Bessie Head: When Rain Clouds Gather

Cheikh Hamidou Kane: Ambiguous Adventure

Saul Bellow: The Adventures of Augie March

Kate Chopin: The Awakening

Theodore Dreiser: Sister Carrie

Ralph Ellison: Invisible Man

William Faulkner: Light in August 

Ernest Hemingway: A Farewell to Arms

Sue Monk Kidd: The Secret Life of Bees

Mark Twain: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Edith Wharton: Ethan Frome

Carlos Bulosan: America is in the Heart

Celeste Ng: Everything I Never Told You

Viet Thanh Nguyen: The Sympathizer

Monica Sone: Nisei Daughter

Saint Athanasius: The Life of Saint Antony of Egypt

Saint Augustine: Confessions

Saint Catherine of Siena: Little Talks with God

Saint Francis de Sales: Introduction to the Devout Life

Saint John of the Cross: Dark Night of the Soul

Saint Teresa of Avila: The Interior Castle

Saint Therese of Lisieux: The Story of a Soul

Aeschylus: Agamemnon 

Marcus Aurelius: The Meditations

Homer: The Odyssey

Plato: Phaedo

Sophocles: Antigone

Suetonius: The Twelve Caesars

Agatha Christie: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Arthur Conan Doyle: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Dashiell Hammett: The Glass Key

Dashiell Hammett: The Maltese Falcon

Tony Hillerman: Dance Hall of the Dead

Daphne du Maurier: Rebecca

Confucius: The Analects

Hermann Hesse: Siddhartha

Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching

Homer: The Odyssey

Thomas Kyd: The Spanish Tragedy

Christopher Marlowe: Doctor Faustus

William Shakespeare: Othello

William Shakespeare: The Tempest 

William Shakespeare: Twelfth Night

Sandra Cisneros: The House on Mango Street

Cristina Henriquez: The Book of Unknown Americans

Richard Rodriguez: Hunger of Memory

Shusaku Endo: Silence

Yasuanari Kawabata: Snow Country

Yukio Mishima: The Sound of Waves

Murasaki Shikibu: The Tale of the Genji

Junichiro Tanizaki: The Makioka Sisters

Rachel Carson: Silent Spring

George Gamow: Mr. Tompkins in Wonderland

Margot Lee Shetterly: Hidden Figures

Rebecca Skloot: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Stephen Ambrose: Band of Brothers

Erich Maria Remarque: All Quiet on the Western Front

Michael Shaara: The Killer Angels

Elie Wiesel: Night

Dante Alighieri: Purgatory

Saint Bonaventure: The Life of Francis

Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice

Pearl Buck: The Good Earth

Charles Dickens: Great Expectations

Charles Dickens: Oliver Twist

Fyodor Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment

Fyodor Dostoevsky: The Karamazov Brothers

Gustave Flaubert: Madame Bovary

Graham Greene: The Power and the Glory

Sigrid Undset: Kristin Lavransdatter I--The Bridal Wreath

Evelyn Waugh: Brideshead Revisited

Rene Descartes: Discourse on Method

Jean-Paul Sartre: No Exit

Mary Brave Bird: Ohitika Woman

Mary Crow Dog: Lakota Woman

Bartolomé de las Casas: A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies

David Grann: Killers of the Flower Moon

N. Scott Momaday: House Made of Dawn

John G. Neihardt: Black Elk Speaks

Leslie Marmon Silko: Ceremony

Fyodor Dostoevsky: The Brothers Karamazov

Fyodor Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment

Nikolai Gogol: Dead Souls

Boris Pasternak: Doctor Zhivago

Leo Tolstoy: Anna Karenina

Ivan Turgenev: Fathers and Sons

Orson Scott Card: Ender's Game

Philip K. Dick: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Frank Herbert: Dune

J.R.R. Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings

Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov by Anton Chekhov

Selections from Great Short Stories by African American Writers

Selections from Great Short Stories by Contemporary Native American Writers

Selections from Short Stories by Latin American Women

Selections from Short Story Masterpieces by American Women Writers

Selections from The Complete Short Stories by Saki

Selections from The Oxford Book of American Short Stories

Selections from The World's Greatest Short Stories

Lafcadio Hearn: Japanese Ghost Stories

Henry James: Turn of the Screw

M.R. James: Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories

Selections from American Supernatural Tales

Selections from Best Ghost Stories of J.S. LeFanu by J.S. LeFanu

Selections from The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories

Bram Stoker: Dracula

Any student interested in participating can contact

Mr. Cominsky or Mrs. Bolster for more information.