Books you were forced to read at school!

[Rex]

Macbeth
Romeo & Juliet
Great Expectations
Farenheit 451
Hamlet
Slaughterhouse 5
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
The Guns of August
The Martian Chronicles
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Of Mice and Men
The Diary of Anne Frank
Les Miserables
To Kill a Mockingbird
All Quiet on the Western Front
Lord of the Flies
Animal Farm
Several short story anthologies
Several Edgar Allan Poe stories

I will edit my post when I remember the rest of the list.

 

[Kookamoor]

I don’t think the 32 students would choose different books. If we assume that there are equal numbers of boys and girls, you would probably get 15 boys choosing the same book, 15 girls choosing the another book and the 2 remaining students choosing something completely different. I have seen their choices when schools were running a programme where a sponsors pay for 3 (one per term) books given to Year 7 students for them to read and keep. Students were asked to choose the books they wanted to receive and it was a really short list. It was much longer in schools were teachers choose the titles to go on the list.

Yes, but if students pick the books then they'll pick books that they *know*. The best thing about reading lists is that it opens your eyes to books you would likely not otherwise read. Sure you get some misses that you hate, but I found that more often I *gained* appreciation for books.

 

[jenn]

wuthering heights. that's what i read in grade 11. and now that i remember it, i also remember loving it.

i agree with kookamoor. true you may not love everything, and you may never go back to some of it. but it will lead you to other things that you may never have considered reading. i do think that schools would benefit from reading some more current fiction, along with classic literature, because i think that often students, especially in high school are left wondering, "ok. but what in the hell has that got to do with me?"

 

[RobertFKennedy]

Books you had to study at school - which did you like and which did you dislike?

I think the only book we studied which I enjoyed was Dickens' Great Expectations.

I didnt enjoy Shakespeare and books like Scoop by Evelyn Waugh and The Inheritors by William Golding were just dreadful.

What about the rest of you?

 

[Libra6Poe]

Similar thread here .
I enjoyed Bronte's Jane Eyre the most. I read it my freshman year in high school... transferred to another school.. then ended up having to read it again my senior year.
I do not recall disliking any (although, I remember I didn't particularly enjoy reading Beowulf)

 

[ions]

Highschool or Post Secondary?

I didn't have the capacity to make proper judgements on anything I read in highschool. I'm of the opinion that kids of that age don't have the ability to properly appreciate such works. I got more out of Shakespeare studying it in University than I did highschool for example. Still found it over-rated.

Gah, after the thread merge my post probably doesn't seem so relevent.

 

[Peder]

I really didn't enjoy anything much about school early on. I behaved myself and got there on time and was never sick, but beyond that was only average in the three R's. That all changed when I later read Sinclair Lewis's Arrowsmith, in High School (?) and over a long weekend, and discovered the joy of reading (and when I took a shine to mathematics about the same time). Since then it has been reading, math and technical stuff without ever looking back.
Peder

 

[Jemima Aslana]

Hmmm

In Gymnasium (that's similar level to Upper Secondary) I read Hamlet and liked it - I'm generally a sucker for Shakespeare.
I read Catcher in the Rye and found it incredibly boring.
All the rest of what we read was only bits and pieces of different works.

Now at university I've read Hamlet again and I still like it
Defoe's Moll Flanders grew on me, but it isn't a book I'll pick up again unless my tastes change.
Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter didn't appeal to me at first, but after having finished it I'm sure I'll pick it up again sometime.
Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans - I've read it a long time ago in a Danish translation and thus didn't read it thoroughly in English. But what I did read I didn't particularly like.
Kate Chopin's The Awakening - I loved it. I can't quite put my finger on why. But the feel of it simply spoke to me. Definitely one I'll be reading again.
Milton's Paradise Lost - a bit heavy and probably not one I'll read in it's full length again, but I can easily imagine going back to read some of the books once in a while. Especially Book 2 hehe
Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon was fabulous - definitely one of the better books I've read.
Brontë's Jane Eyre - have read it long ago and liked it - I suspect I shall like it when I read it again.
Fowler's The French Lieutenant's Woman: see Jane Eyre. Though I liked it not quite as much as Brontë's piece.
Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto - I found this book absolutely hilarious. Really, it's amazing how the characters are so stereotypical and flat and still appeal so much.
Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse. Finished it today. Am not impressed. Dislike her style a LOT. Doesn't appeal to me at all
Henry Fielding's Joseph Andrews - It annoys me. Haven't quite finished it yet, but it really really annoys me. I'm looking forward to be done with it. Parts of it are good and funny but too much of the rest is horrible.

 

[Peder]

Almost everyone seems not to like Catcher in the Rye. And I think the word most often used is "boring." That very unaninimty strikes me as awesome! I never read it in school but probably later in college, or even after college, as a book I had missed. I can't comment on the 'boring' part of the evaluation, because I read it through, even though I would not call it thrilling, or gripping. But the single image that gives rise to the title, of Holden's yearning to be the catcher out there in the rye field saving children from going over the edge, struck me then and has always stayed with me as the image of a noble yearning. It appeals deeply to the sentimentality within me.

An old softy,
Peder

 

[Jemima Aslana]

I dunno - sometimes I think I was too old to read that book when I did. Sometimes I think I was too young. I was 18. It's a noble yearning, true, I won't argue there, but did it have take an entire book to describe it? The book itself is not good enough to carry through - boil it down to a novellette and it might have carried that noble yearning moral better than it did.

Ah well. That class is long in my past now.

 

[mehastings]

I don't care for Steinbeck. I know he's a great author, I know he wrote about things that are still relevant today, I know blah blah blah. It felt like the second I heard his name my brain would tune out.

 

[Sitaram]

Speaking of Evelyn Waugh, I liked the PBS Television production of Brideshead Revisited so much that I purchased the set of 5 VCR tapes, and I purchased a copy of the book, hardcover (it came with a red ribbon place holder in the binding no less, just like the King James)

The book did not seem very thick, considering the movie takes two days to watch. No matter what page I open to in the book, it seems to be the movie dialogue verbatim. I suspect the movie is very true to the book.

Cardinal Newman coined the term "illation" which denotes a very gradual process, spanning years, during which a person gradually internalizes many experiences that ultimately bring him to the conviction of faith.

This process of "illation" is exactly what Charles Ryder's life in the novel exemplifies.

I think the only book we studied which I enjoyed was Dickens' Great Expectations.

I didnt enjoy Shakespeare and books like Scoop by Evelyn Waugh and The Inheritors by William Golding were just dreadful.

What about the rest of you?

When I was 14 or 15, I really enjoyed Goldings Lord of the Flies. And it was a great Biblical insight for me to learn that Beelzebub means "Lord of the Flies." I thought this meant that I should read each and every book by Golding, for surely he must be an enlightened being. I purchased The Spire and was shocked to discover that I did not enjoy it as much as LOTF.

I really enjoyed Catcher in the Rye when I was 15, and went on to read Franny and Zoey. I still have my original copies. I dont seem to enjoy Catcher in the Rye as much now, when I look at it.

(once again... I hung after a lot of typing, updating this post)

 

[Peder]

Jemima,
Your question gives me the irresistible conviction that I have to go back and re-read it. Boring and all. For that single nugget.
Peder

 

[Ice]

I don't care for Steinbeck.

Of Mice and Men was one book I could never get into. It was a part of our school syllabus, but after reading the first page I couldn't bring myself to want to finish it and certainly not to write an essay on it (which was highly unusual for me).

 

[MonkeyCatcher]

Books that I was "forced" to read at school:

Year 9 : Holes by Louis Sachar
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare


Year 10 : Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Year 11 : Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera (the book that was later developed into the movie Whale Rider).

Year 12 : To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Year 13 : I believe is to be Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

This is just what our class read, other classes were made to read Catcher in the Rye in Year 12, and Animal Farm in Year 11.

 

[Jemima Aslana]

Jemima,
Your question gives me the irresistible conviction that I have to go back and re-read it. Boring and all. For that single nugget.
Peder

Is an apology on my part in order then?

Aaaanyways, I totally forgot that we also read Roddy Doyle's The Snapper back in Gymnasium - good times. Got top marks when I got a question about that one at my exam Didn't particularly like the book - but after I've been to Ireland I might appreciate it better - should probably read it again.

We read Angela's Ashes as well. Yep, we had an Ireland theme - our study trip was to Ireland. 'twas great. So was this book. Frank McCourt really depicts his own childhood in a very good way. Spite of all the grime, dirt, poverty and all he still makes you laugh and feel good about the friendships and such. Brilliant book.

We read Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck too - I don't really recall what I felt about that book. Though I think I may have skipped through some of it I read the majority... but I really can't remember what I thought about it... how odd.

 

[Peder]

Is an apology on my part in order then?

Jemima,
No not at all! I never met a book I didn't like ........... sort of.
Now you are writing sentences that cause one to chuckle. LOL

Peder

 

[SFG75]

Loved the poetry curriculum of Poe, Frost, as well as Dickinson. As for books, I loved Animal Farm, The Jungle, as well as Huckleberry Finn. The others couldn't compete for my visiual consideration as the head cheerleader sat in front of me.

 

[Peder]

I went to an all-boy's school so I never had that, er, 'problem.'
I forgot about what I read all by myself.
Peder

 

[ruby]

To kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee always sticks in my mind from reading it at school as at first i could not get into it at all,but read it again when i got older and its one of my favorite books! My Daughter starts yr 10 next wk and its part of the yr course work and i know she will hate it!