Highschool books you actually enjoyed

kaitie · Oct 8, 2009

Alright, this was inspired by the best novel thread below, but it just got me thinking. Most students read the first twenty pages, went to that website whose name I can't remember now and read summaries, then BSed their way through essays. And I'll admit, even for someone like me who enjoys reading, quite a lot of it was pure misery to get through (David Copperfield, anyone?).

So I'm just wondering, what books did you have to read that you actually really enjoyed?

My list:

Ender's game, which I think is the only thing the majority of students actually read.

A Tale of Two Cities--Okay...I get almost as much crap for this as I do for being a lit major who didn't like Shakespeare, but I don't particularly like Dickens. I just don't. The plots, etc., typically annoyed me, and he tended to be more dreary than I ever liked. I understand the reasoning for this, but let's just say every time Dickens came up in class, I just had to groan. Until this one. It was brilliant. I remember having to go back and reread the first fifty pages and get a friend to help me with it because it was written in such a difficult way for my poor high school self, but even despite the difficulty I really enjoyed it, and found myself wanting to pick it up again and see what happened next. It definitely wasn't a chore.

Moby Dick--I think this one gets a bad rap because it was always seen as the epitome of the hard to read, symbol-ridden book that was required reading. Truth be told, though, it's a really fun book. Interesting plot, interesting characters, quite a bit more humor than I would have expected, and it just was overall pretty fun. I read it twice.

I could add many more if I included college, but I took an awful lot of lit classes so the number is pretty high.

nitaworm · Oct 8, 2009

Of Mice and Men
Roll of thunder hear my cry
The Outsiders
The Illiad

alleycat · Oct 8, 2009

I enjoyed A Separate Peace and To Kill a Mockingbird. I remember not enjoying Silas Marner.

When I went to high school the focus during the sophomore year was on short stories (from old to new). We had a large textbook of stories and I read, and enjoyed, most of them. I think I even read ones that weren't assigned. Since then I'm sometimes longed to find a copy of that textbook so I could read the stories again.

I read Walden in the eighth grade (parts were assigned to be read, but not the whole book) and it's been a special book to me ever since.

sunandshadow · Oct 8, 2009

Lord of the Flies
Canterbury Tales
Grendel
Lots of Poe and Hawthorne short stories, and Shakespearean plays

I'm not sure whether I actually liked Crime and Punishment, but it was interesting and memorable, I think I learned stuff about writing from reading it.

I'm also NOT a Dickens fan; I had to read several of his novels and sisn't really like any of them.

Caitlin Black · Oct 8, 2009

Number one, The Hobbit. Loved it. First in the class to finish reading it. In fact, I'd gone on to read Fellowship Of The Ring and finished THAT before the class moved on from The Hobbit.

The Time Machine was great. Read that in history class. Opened my eyes to a style of writing, but captured my imagination with the tale.

Didn't really get assigned many classics. Never read any Dickens. Did read Of Mice And Men, but didn't think much of it. Then again, I'm in Australia and read it in the 90s, so racial oppression wasn't something that was big in my mind - I could tell it was important, but there was nothing in my life to latch onto it.

Any time we were told to do a book report on any book in the library I typically chose SF/F and loved them all, though all I can remember (they weren't famous ones) was a book about a guy who is born at age 19... something about growing people in labs.

Read a couple of Shakespeare plays. Only really liked Macbeth, can't remember what the other two were. What's the one with Shylock?

alleycat · Oct 8, 2009

Cliff Face said:
What's the one with Shylock?

The Merchant of Venice.

fringle · Oct 8, 2009

I was a big book dork and I liked all of them except:
Catch 22
Walden
Moby Dick

Nearest and dearest to my heart were:
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Beowulf
Ethan Frome
The Great Gatsby
To Kill a Mockingbird

sheadakota · Oct 8, 2009

Oh geeze, you guys got to read cool books in high school, but then when I went we read on stone tablets-

anyway... Heart of Darkness was my favorite- we weren't offered the hobbit and ender's game wasn't written- don't think the author was even alive-*sigh* I shall now slink away and count my age spots.

Caitlin Black · Oct 8, 2009

Ah, I read To Kill A Mockingbird too... rated it about the same as Of Mice And Men - seemed important but couldn't connect.

And yes, I read The Merchant Of Venice - I think we even acted out some of it, which was a bit better than reading it.

Mumut · Oct 8, 2009

Shakespeare except histories but definitely his sonnets. Chaucer. Jerrard Manly Hopkins and Wordsworth's poems.

KTC · Oct 8, 2009

Oh God, I loved David Copperfield. There's a neighbourhood near me---I drive past it every day---where all the streets in the sub-division are named for Copperfield characters. I would love to live there. Peggotty Circle, Copperfield Drive, Micawber Street, Traddles Avenue, Steerforth Street...and of course, there is also a Dickens Drive. So literary. Indeed. Le sigh.

I liked every book I ever studied in high school. I can't recall one that I didn't like.

charlotte49ers · Oct 8, 2009

The Great Gatsby
The Good Earth
To Kill a Mockingbird
In Cold Blood

KTC · Oct 8, 2009

charlotte49ers said:
The Great Gatsby
The Good Earth
To Kill a Mockingbird
In Cold Blood

Interesting. Capote and Lee were childhood friends. Both excellent books. Imagine two literary giants playing together as runny-nosed kids. (-;

alleycat · Oct 8, 2009

KTC said:
Interesting. Capote and Lee were childhood friends. Both excellent books. Imagine two literary giants playing together as runny-nosed kids. (-;

I'm betting Lee could have beat him up.

Those are two of my favorite books as well. This past summer I was in a "go back and read stuff I've already read" mood, and rereading In Cold Blood was one of the books on the list. Chapter 1 is really a prologue; if someone wants to learn how to write a good prologue, I would suggest reading that one.

Nakhlasmoke · Oct 8, 2009

cry the beloved country - alan paton

and

kringe in 'n bos - Dalene Matthee (english translation - circles in a forest - but I've never read it so i can't comment on how it reads in english)

Cranky · Oct 8, 2009

I enjoyed reading Shakespeare, and that's it. My junior year is the only year we had any books assigned for reading. In fact, I can only recall having to read the Shakespeare and Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. And I hated Hawthorne. I remember some discussion about Thoreau's Walden, The Scarlet Pimpernel, and Edgar Allen Poe's poetry, but I only remember reading Annabel Lee.

My teacher preferred to have us watch old movies instead for American Lit. Go figure. Some Like It Hot, Rear View, and It Happened One Night were pretty good, I'll give her that. But books they were not.

SarahMacManus · Oct 8, 2009

The only two books I remember being required to read in high school were "The Hobbit" and "Jonathon Livingston Seagull". Hippies!

charlotte49ers · Oct 8, 2009

KTC said:
Interesting. Capote and Lee were childhood friends. Both excellent books. Imagine two literary giants playing together as runny-nosed kids. (-;

I would have loved to listen in on some of their conversations.

Libbie · Oct 8, 2009

Kaitie, you actually had Ender's Game and Moby Dick required in high school? LUCKY!!! I'm jealous.

I went to an alternative, arts-focused school, so I don't recall any assigned novels in ninth through twelfth grade. (We were a nerdy, artsy bunch, so we all read constantly anyhow. No need to make us read more, I suppose.) But in seventh and eighth grade, I had a lot of assigned fiction, and I didn't love all of it.

The ones I really adored, though, were Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies, and Their Eyes Were Watching God.

OpheliaRevived · Oct 8, 2009

I loved Brave New World. Hated Grapes of Wrath. (Don't hit me.)

Rarri · Oct 8, 2009

Catch-22, but only because i chose to read it

Unfortunately, school destroyed several books for me; every time i see Cold Mountain - for example - i'm overcome with a desire to watch the copy burn.

WendyNYC · Oct 8, 2009

Brave New World
To Kill a Mockingbird (my favorite)
The Great Gatsby
Romeo and Juliet
MacBeth
Lord of the Flies
Antigone
The Odyssey
Great Expectations (loved this one!)

I had a great English teacher who made everything feel accessible.

Gemnyc · Oct 8, 2009

One of the only books I remember liking was called something like 'Penguin Book of Classic Horror Short Stories.'
It had The Tell-Tale Heart by Poe, and The Monkey's Paw by WW Jacobs. The whole anthology was really well put together. In fact I remember I never gave it back at the end of the school year and still have it in a bookshelf at home.

Rarri · Oct 8, 2009

Oh, Skin by Roald Dahl; i'm sure it was that collection that had the story about the woman, the lamb and the murder. Brilliant!

~*Kate*~ · Oct 8, 2009

Crime and Punishment
The Handmaid's Tale
Slaughterhouse Five
Macbeth
Hamlet
Romeo and Juliet

I don't know that I enjoyed Heart of Darkness per se, but I was glad that I read it.

Highschool books you actually enjoyed

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let it snow

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brings the random.