The Gryphon Gazette has been catching upper-school English teachers off-guard and asking them their top five favorite books. One of the upper school teacher’s picks will be released every day this week leading up to the break.

I fully expected Ms. Vasil, the AP English Language and Composition and 9^th, 10^th, and 11^th grade English teacher, to be fully prepared to name her top five favorite books without having to put much thought into them at all (despite going into the feat quite unaware of what would be asked of her).

After claiming that it was “a difficult question,” and making sure I specified that her novels were listed “in no particular order,” she did just that. Her answers flew quite effortlessly from her mouth, and she seemed confident enough in her answers without second-guessing herself.

(In no particular order)

• “The Brothers Karamezov” by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  • “Basically the story of a man and his four sons and the varying routes their lives take. It’s very psychological, very spiritual; typical Dostoevsky.”
• “Housekeeping” by Marilynne Robinson
  • “The story of two sisters who are dealing with the aftermath of parents’ deaths and identity. It’s hard to explain the plots for some of my favorite books…”

• “Jitterbug Perfume” by Tom Robbins
  • “It [Jitterbug Perfume] is like a lot of Tom Robbins’s books in that it deals with about fifteen different storylines, most of them centering around a man and woman who live for many centuries who are involved in varying ways with the perfume trade.
• “Look at Me” by Jennifer Egan
  • “Also about fifteen different stories centering around the theme of how technology affects the way that we interact with each other, and how that threads through the lives of about fifteen different characters.”
• “Zero History” by William Gibson
  • “He [Gibson] is a dystopian sci-fi writer. It [Zero History] is kind of about the ways in which marketing and advertising and deep corporate manipulation of the populous affects society.”