The Ultimate SAT Reading List

In assembling our “Ultimate SAT Reading List”, we identified those books that 1) the College Board has explicitly recommended in the past, 2) have been featured in previous paper SATs, or 3) are currently featured in the Digital SAT sample tests. We also cross-referenced several other published lists to compile the most diverse, hyper-linked guide to supplementary reading to date.

The list is organized by Reading passage topic, so you can target the types of texts which challenge you most.  We will also be sharing — and adding to — this list, one title a week, on Instagram. Follow us for additional recommendations and tips.

Fiction / Narrative Prose

The Book Thief

The Goldfinch

Exit West

A Death in the Family

Life of Pi

Metamorphosis and Other Short Stories

Nine Stories

Never Let Me Go

Pachinko

Short Stories of Saki

Slaughterhouse Five

The Bonesetter’s Daughter

The Color Purple

The Folded Leaf

The House of Mirth

The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Plague

The Three Musketeers

The Yellow Wallpaper

Treasure Island

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Washington Square

Winter Dreams

Wuthering Heights

Natural Science

A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes

A Brief History of Time

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry

In the Shadow of Man

Gulp

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for Hat

On the Origin of Species

Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life

Stuff Matters

The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World

Social Science

Fast Food Nation

Gods, Graves and Scholars: A Story of Archaeology

Naked Economics

The New Jim Crow

One Billion Americans

The Signal and the Noise

The Paradox of Choice

Tipping Point

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Founding Documents / Great Global Conversation

A Room of One’s Own

Great Issues in American History, Volumes I-III

On Liberty

A Vindication of the Rights of Women

Democracy in America

Federalist Papers

Hind Swaraj

Milestone Documents in American History: Exploring the Primary Sources That Shaped America: 1888-1955

Reflections on the Revolution in France

Three Guineas 

Walden

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration

The Woman Warrior

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