Why is independent reading important?
Becoming a fluent reader in English is one of the most important skills that will help you to prepare for college in the United States. One of the best ways for you to improve your reading is by reading texts that are level-appropriate.
The more your read, the more skill you will develop as a reader in critiquing and evaluating texts, synthesizing materials from multiple sources, and note taking.
Becoming a skillful reader in English will also help you to: build background knowledge, develop your English vocabulary, acquire an understanding of complex grammatical structures, and learn more about U.S. culture.
How to use this list
This list is a good place to start looking for a good book, but you are free to pick any book from the Hostos Library or from the collection in your CLIP classroom.
IF THE BOOK THAT INTERESTS YOU HAS ALREADY BEEN TAKEN: remember that books are organized by subject - so books in the same call number neighborhood may be about similar subjects. Please browse (look at the books nearby) to look for other books that may interest you and that is a good reading level.
How to find books outside this list
OneSearch is Hostos Library's main "search engine". All the CUNY colleges use OneSearch as a tool to find books. See here for instructions on using OneSearch to find books.
Non-fiction books describe people, places, ideas, and things as they exist in the world.
Non-fiction books in the library are ordered by subject. For example, near the Vegan Diets book are other books about food, from Caribbean recipes to the health effects of fast food. You can use the call number of a non-fiction book to go to the "neighborhood" of books about a subject that interests you. Look around on the shelf and you might find another book that is even more interesting.
For a non-fiction book, you do not have to start reading on page one - instead, look at Table of Contents in the first few pages of the books. The Table of Contents is a list of all the chapters. Find the chapters that look the most interesting to you.
It is best if you read the whole book, but if it is very long, you can pick part of the book for your report. You must choose at least 50 pages from the book.
Option B by 
Malcolm X by 
Dreams of Trespass by 
A Long Way Home by 
Medieval Crusades by 
They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky by 
Sammy Sosa by 
It Gets Better by 
Transparent by 
The New Latina's Bible by 
Writing My Wrongs by 
Study Skills for Speakers of English As a Second Language by 
Study and Critical Thinking Skills in College by 
The Latino Generation by 
The Blues by 
Frida Kahlo by 
Growing up with Two Languages by Literature, also called fiction, includes stories, novels, poems, and plays. They might describe people, places, ideas and things as they exist in the world, but the author has imagined the details. Sometimes they describe completely invented people and places.
Literature books are ordered by the country of the author and then by last name of the author. You can use the call number of a work of literature to find other books written by someone else of that country. An author's books will be all together, both in the original language and any translations.
(There are a few complications to this--for example, books written in the same country but in different centuries will be far apart--but the most helpful thing to remember is that for literature, books are divided by first by country and then by author name.)
Black Hole by 
Killing and Dying by 
Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth by 
Black Panther by 
Aya by 
Barefoot Gen - A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima by 
Cosmos Latinos: An Anthology of Science Fiction from by 
The Spoken Word Revolution by 
On New Ground by 
Nuestro New York by 
American Street by 
The Crossover by 
The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell by 
Mayo Clinic Healthy Weight for EveryBody by 
Bipolar Disorder by 
Finding Your Emotional Balance by 
Bronx Artist Documentary Project by 
Vegan Diets by 
How to Design Cool Stuff (Before & After) by Oxford Bookworms books are very short books that have been written especially for people learning English as a second (or third, or fourth) language. There are eight levels of difficulty, from very easy to read to harder to read.
Where can I find the Bookworms?
The Oxford Bookworms books are near the entrance of the library's reading room (see the map).
This section also includes books published by Townsend Press.
The Townsend Press books include fictional stories about everyday life as well as some non-fiction stories that people tell about their own lives.
Libraries arrange books by call number. The call number is connected to the subject of the book.
Because books are arranged by subject, it's a great habit to browse (look around at other books nearby), as books on similar subjects will be close to each other.
On the book, the call number will look like this: 
The books in the stacks (downstairs in the large reading room) are arranged from A to Z as follows:
1. Looking for your book's call number, always start at the TOP of the label and work your way down line by line.
Let's say this is your call number:
Once you have found the shelf wit
h your book, notice that the shelves are divided into small sections.
The call numbers are read in a zig-zag way within the sections: look for your call number by looking from left to right, then down to the next row.
Then read across the next row, left to right, then down to the next row, until the bottom shelf.
The next number will be on the top shelf of the next section.
If you reach the end of the shelf and have not gotten to your number, go around to the next shelf.
