Suggested Reading List for the ACT – Articles, Websites, and Books

I’ve tried my best to find books that most people find enjoyable to read. Good luck!

These websites contain articles at a higher reading level than most news websites. The reading level of these articles is college-level, which is the level of reading you will see on the ACT.

National Geographic publishes articles about geography, history, and world culture.

The Economist publishes articles related to the economy. It targets highly educated readers.

The sections you can browse on this website are News, Culture, Politics, Science & Tech, and Business.

Foreign Affairs publishes articles about American foreign policy and global affairs.

On the left side of the page, you can choose topics such as World, U.S., Politics, Business, Technology, Science, and Health.

These books are all non-fiction, which is what most of the reading on the ACT will be. This is just an introductory list—feel free to look for any other non-fiction book that interests you.

The point is to find books of different genres that push you to become more familiar with non-fiction. The more you read books you are currently unfamiliar, the less unfamiliar the ACT reading will seem to you.

The books here are all enormously popular books that you will probably actually enjoy reading. Nonfiction does not need to be boring or painful!

This is an extremely popular book that applies economics to real life in a way that is fascinating and fun to read. It is broken up into small sections for quick and enjoyable reading. We highly recommend this book.

This book examines the events in the twenty-first century that completely changed the world. It has been highly recommended countless times by countless people. You will learn A LOT of useful things from this book.

Learn how to manage your money and build wealth from one of America’s most well-known financial coaches. This is an extremely practical book that can heavily influence your future and how you look at money!

Whether or not you plan to start a business, this book is a fascinating read about what makes ideas and businesses successful. This book will give you ideas for how you can make a difference and influence others with original ideas that people are interested in.

The title of this book pretty much speaks for itself. In a world where time always just seems so limited, this is an invaluable book about how to make the most of our time and enjoy our lives at the same time.

Again, this title is pretty self-explanatory. In this book, the authors spell out “the 64 timeless principles used by successful men and women throughout history.” Applying these principles could very well change the way you live your life.

This book contains a lot of short articles that are perfect for preparing for the types of passages you might see on the ACT, especially the Natural Science passage. The articles are short enough that you can read one when you have some extra time.