What are your favorite or least favorite books that you had to read for school? I really enjoyed Great Gatsby, but hated The House on Mango Street. What about you?
I read Marathon Man in school. It totally kicked ass, I highly recommend it, but do yourself a favor and don't go looking for information about it before you read it.
Moby Dick. Not only is it long, but the professor showed a mini series with Patrick Stewart. After that he discussed the book... BEFORE we had read it. Suffice to say I had no incentive to read the book and I BS'ed the writing assignment about it.
I read Mary Shelly's Frankenstein for the first time in High School, and it was pretty enjoyable, and very different from the ideas about the character we get from the movies.
I hated reading The Lord of the Flies in high school. Not that it was a bad book. It was very good, but our English teacher required that we use three different colored highlighters and make notes in the margins while reading. This wasn't a suggestion, or a recommendation, but a requirement. If I remember correctly, we actually had to turn in the books on a regular basis so she could evaluate our literary analysis. She made us over-analyze the subtext to such an extreme that she sucked out all the enjoyment. Not to mention that the analysis was rarely open to our own interpretation. After we were done reading it, we had to fill out a report about what we learned during reading it. I spoke my mind about the experience, and don't regret it. I should read that book again though. See how good it is on my own.
I really really hated Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. For a horror novel it's impressive how little actually happens.
Favorite was probably Black Hawk Down, it wasn't assigned reading but we got to choose a non-fiction book to do a paper on during my senior year and that was the one I chose. The movie doesn't due justice to just how bizarre that whole incident was at times.
" I hated reading The Lord of the Flies in high school. Not that it was a bad book. It was very good, but our English teacher required that we use three different colored highlighters and make notes in the margins while reading. This wasn't a suggestion, or a recommendation, but a requirement. If I remember correctly, we actually had to turn in the books on a regular basis so she could evaluate our literary analysis. She made us over-analyze the subtext to such an extreme that she sucked out all the enjoyment. Not to mention that the analysis was rarely open to our own interpretation. After we were done reading it, we had to fill out a report about what we learned during reading it. I spoke my mind about the experience, and don't regret it. I should read that book again though. See how good it is on my own. "
There is a conspiracy among all high school english teachers - and I mean all - to suck every last drop of fun out of reading Lord of the Flies. No one who has read it for class has avoided being forced to find every metaphor on every page. They never do that for any other book. It's always LotF, and they always destroy it. Even Dracula, which has more symbolism, was spared this treatment.
Also a terrible book to read for class (or at all): Atonement by Ian McEwan.
The Grapes of Wrath might be my favorite book, but I didn't really enjoy it when I was in high school. It was only when I taught it that I could really appreciate it.
As a budding Orwell fanatic, I am really glad to see the love he is getting in this thread. I think 1984 has defined who I am today in more ways that I could begin to imagine.
So yeah, that is mine...but I read it in my own time, never had it assigned till university. And I got all sorts of fun books ofr university. Funny thing is, I didn't really read most of them at the time. Now that I have a soul-crushingly stupid job I've started reading all of the stuff that I didn't bother with before, and man does that make for some awesome lunch breaks.
EDIT: Oh yes, my least favourite high school book was Wuthering Hights, but LotF runs a close second because its heavy handed garbage.
I'm reading the book A Handful of Dust in school just know. I'm surprised that I've actually enjoyed it quite a bit. Its not a hugely popular book so I would recommend it to people who enjoy reading. I've also really like The Catcher In the Rye and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
The Catcher in the Rye - Least Favorite...and for good reason. Terrible book about a socially awkward teen rebelling against "The Phonies", and trying to distance himself as far away from others in an attempt to avoid falling prey to the same mundane fate of a normal life. Holden is the douche bag emo kid of yesteryear. He is spoiled and makes extremely judgmental assessments of the people around him, without ever recognizing his own hypocritical behavior. The book has a terrible plot; a mismatch of pathetic encounters over a couple of days that help to convey how up his own ass the author was. This book was not anything special, but it's obligatory use of vulgar words in a time when it was taboo made it a "Classic" . I read this book 2 years ago... still a bad taste in my mouth
Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter - Favorite... not part of curriculum, but I enjoyed it more than anything I had to read in all my years of English class.
" @Th3_James: Um, I'm not a big fan of this book...but I'm pretty sure that everything you said would be best described as "the whole f***ing point". "
Yeah I actually wrote an essay along those lines. The main character of a book doesn't have to be heroic or even liked by the reader for the novel to be good.
Least Favorite- Anna Karenina. 1000 pages of 19th century Russian soap opera bullshit Favorite-Brave new world or Fahrenheit 451- 2 of the best sci-fi books ever
Favourite books for School Macbeth - William Shakespeare Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck One flew over the Cuckoo's nest - Ken Kessey The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - R.L Stevenson Worst books Dear Nobody - Berlie Doherty
I loved Hamlet. Just hated having to read it aloud in my english class and stopping every other line to recap what we just read. It caused me to read ahead while others read aloud and when it came around to me to read I would have no idea what page we were on.
" I loved Hamlet. Just hated having to read it aloud in my english class and stopping every other line to recap what we just read. It caused me to read ahead while others read aloud and when it came around to me to read I would have no idea what page we were on. "
This happened when I read Macbeth in my Standard Grade English class when I was in 4th Year of high school. We then read it again in 5th Year Higher English with a different teacher. She took the approach of read a full scene then go back and discuss the scene as a whole
@RogueBomber12: Hah. 12 angry men. I only had like 4 lines in our re-enacment, so I read the whole book and there would be the occasional odd pause as everybody stared at me.
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