Books like: To Kill a Mockingbird, Slaughterhouse Five, Animal Farm, any variety of Steinbeck that gets assigned.
I was not the most studious in high school and missed out on a lot of classics simply because I didn’t want to read an “assigned” book.
So what did I miss? What is a must read in adulthood?
by cooliovonhoolio
22 Comments
1984 and Fahrenheit 451
The Great Gatsby
Here’s what I can remember reading that you haven’t listed: 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Lord of the Flies, Great Gatsby, The Giver, The Crucible, Brave New World, and honorable mention from early undergrad: Invisible Man
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Catch-22
the catcher in the rye & lord of the flies
The House of the Scorpion
The Book Thief
I really liked Jane Austen’s “Emma,” but her “Pride and Prejudice” (which is also good) is probably assigned in high school more often, if that matters. (As you may already know, the movie “Clueless” was very loosely based on “Emma.”)
“Brave New World” and “A Separate Peace” are also worth checking out.
Romeo and Juliet is actually great and it took me a long time to admit it.
Basically all of them are worth revisiting. Whether you like them more or less than in high school is another matter, but worth revisiting? Yes.
Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Road by Cormac McCarthey
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card (Just buy it used)
The grapes of wrath for sure
The Metamorphosis. 100%. Reading it as a teenager I related to Gregor, like ah yes I know how it feels to be hideous and monstrous and misunderstood. I thought the book was very angsty. Reading it as an adult you’re like omg this is actually a comedy about his family refusing to deal with the reality of their son and how absurd that is. It’s hilarious.
Catcher in the Rye
The good Earth
*One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest* by Ken Kesey
*Brave New World* by Aldous Huxley
In the same vein (though it wasn’t assigned, I knew people who read it)
*We* by Yevgeny Zamyatin
Heart of Darkness
OK, great suggestions here. I’ve got a creative idea to suggest. Why not read “Reading Lolita in Tehran” first to sharpen your appreciation for the literature that is available to you! A very short description of the “plot” is that a group of women in Tehran read classic books together led by a teacher. You might then want to read some of the books mentioned in that book.
Their Eyes were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn hits different as an adult