Catcher in the rye, things fall apart, farewell to arms. Bad good, eh… in that order
Best-Case-3579 on
We read To Kill a Mockingbird, then had the rare privledge of watching it in the classroom afterward.
“What the Sam Hill are you doing?”
meanteeth71 on
Beloved, and then we got to go to Howard and participate in a lecture with Toni Morrison. We were required to prep questions and my friend got to ask hers; was then asked on stage and got a hug and encouragement.
freerangelibrarian on
Silas Marner, Moby Dick and Julius Caesar. Silas Marner was okay, Moby Dick was awful (even though it was an abridged version) and Julius Caesar was boring.
I love Shakespeare now. I guess I’ll never know if I’d like Moby Dick because being forced to read it at age 16 spoiled any chance of that.
SAB40 on
As someone who was a huge reader in early childhood and reads a ton now, I loathed assigned reading! It completely sucked the joy out of it for me.
Argus_Checkmate on
Mostly the same. Siddartha, Steinbeck, Orwell, The Bard.
+Brave New World, Lord of the Flies,The Collector, Slaughterhouse-Five. I thoroughly enjoyed most if not all of them. Although I distinctly remember feeling back then like Steinbeck was for old people lol.
ConcreteCloverleaf on
I remember reading *Hamlet*, *MacBeth*, and *Twelfth Night*. I took AP English in grades 10 and 11, and I remember my grade-11 AP teacher assigning *The Chamber* by John Grisham and *Their Eyes Were Watching God* by Zora Neale Hurston as the summer reading. I still don’t understand why he made AP students read a John Grisham novel. Maybe he didn’t want to burden us with too much serious reading over our summer holidays?
Memesplz1 on
The ones I remember:
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee – Loved it.
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton – Loved it.
Tom Brown’s School Days by Thomas Hughes – Hated it.
Hard Times by Charles Dickens – I didn’t mind it. It was ok.
Think we read a bit of Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer – hated it.
I struggled (and still do, to some extent) to get engaged with 1800s (and older) novels.
Most-Artichoke6184 on
I still remember a few, even though I graduated from high school back in 1976:
To kill a mockingbird – – still one of my absolute favorite novels.
A separate peace – – I like this one as well.
Damn, I can’t remember any others now.
Ladyintheskreets on
2009 graduate
To Kill a Mockingbird
Of Mice and Men
The Outsiders
Flowers for Algernon
The Great Gatsby
Moby Dick
The Odyssey
Twelve Angry Men
Things fall apart – summer before college
penalty-venture on
USA, Y2K era, and these are what I remember:
*The Scarlet Letter* by Nathaniel Hawthorne: I think I was the only one in my class who enjoyed this one, otherwise it was widely hated
*The Awakening* by Kate Chopin: I didn’t care for this one at all.
*The Grapes of Wrath* by John Steinbeck: I think this is a really good book, but as high schoolers, we were too green to understand it at the time.
*Centennial* by James A. Michener: This was given to our advanced English class, it’s about the Platte River, and I’m pretty sure it was just a test of wills. The book is 1056 pages long and IMO very dry. I did not finish it in time to turn in my report (I wrote a report up to the 3/4 mark and then ended it mid-sentence, thinking I could buy myself some time—“Oops! My printer must have messed up! I’ll bring the rest in on Monday!” but couldn’t bring myself to push through & took the C, which I thought was generous)
*There Things They Carried* by Tim O’Brien: I think this was the general favorite by all students.
Past-Wrangler9513 on
We did a lot of Shakespeare – Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Taming of the Shew, and I think Macbeth
I enjoyed Julius Caesar the most but I’m sure it’s because I had the best English teacher for that one and we watched it instead of if just reading it.
The Iliad and The Odyssey
Crime and Punishment
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Pearl
All Quiet on the Western Front
Huckleberry Finn
A lot of short stories – The Lottery by Shirley Jackson and The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell are the most memorable for me.
I liked most books I read in school except for Crime and Punishment. I really didn’t enjoy that one.
RagaKat on
I have an easier time remembering the required reads in my middle/junior high for some reason. Great Expectations I loved, Cheaper by the Dozen, Hatchet, White Fang I enjoyed. I loved Hamlet, Shakespeare in general. Loved Animal Farm, liked the Invisible Man
High School:
Night by Elise Weisel was one I think. I enjoyed it enough to be able to read it without dragging my feet, but not something I would have chosen myself.
The House on Mango Street and the Joy Luck Club were 2 I read and they were fine but I remember being pretty bored. Our Town by Thorton Wilder was a bit better.
I loved 1984 by George Orwell and Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
I think it was high school we read Picture of Dorian Grey, but maybe it was junior high. I liked that one as well.
Drives me crazy I can’t remember more than that
TheMuteHeretic_ on
To Kill a Mockingbird, When Things Fall Apart and Mosquito Coast. All amazing books.
ConstantComforts on
The Once and Future King by TH White was easily my favorite in high school, although there were a ton of short stories I loved as well.
The Outsiders was another favorite, but that was a middle school requirement for me, not high school.
tkingsbu on
12th night
Romeo and Juliet
The tempest
1984
Lord of the Flies
To kill a mockingbird
In grade 13 I read ‘the trial’ and ‘the castle’ by Kafka
I’m sure their were others, but I’m 52 now and forget some of them…
———
The only one I didn’t enjoy was 12th night… just not my cup of tea… but I loved the other Shakespeare stuff we did…
ChudieMan on
I’m an avid reader, but I don’t recall enjoying a single book assigned to me in high school.
Queenofhackenwack on
we had to read all the classics…..but i never opened a single one… each day in class, the 50 pages were gone over, almost word for word….. why bother reading…. just listen to what was said….i was on work study : school 8 am till 11:30 am then off to work.. noon til 8 pm, full time.. with all my other home work, i didn’t have time to read 50 pages, took those lit classes all four years, easy peasy….
locallygrownmusic on
The ones I can remember:
To Kill a Mockingbird – Loved it
Bless Me Ultima – Hated it
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian – Was ok
Hamlet – Didn’t enjoy it but didn’t hate it
The Great Gatsby – Was ok
I pretty much exclusively read SFF for pleasure in high school though so my thoughts may be different if I reread these now.
Generic_Format528 on
I liked most of them, Macbeth remains one of my favorites. The only two I remember strongly disliking were A Separate Peace and Strange Piece of Paradise. I feel more empathetic as I grow older so maybe I’d like them more now. Almost certainly not going to reread Strange Piece of Paradise due to the length though.
Edit: The Crucible was fantastic as well. I guess my favorite highschool reads were plays haha.
takemeup-castmeaway on
We read *a lot* in school. Formative reads were selected stories from Sherlock Holmes, Tom Sawyer, and short stories (The Pearl, The Most Dangerous Game, etc.) in 7th grade and All Quiet on the Western Front and To Kill A Mockingbird in 8th grade. Canterbury Tales and The Song of Roland were a blast for hs teenage me who was going through a Medieval craze.
Couldn’t for the life of me get through anything Huxley. Great Gatsby was a flop for me as well.
Clear-Journalist3095 on
To Kill a Mockingbird, old man and the Sea, animal farm, a lot of Poe stories and poems, Macbeth, Frankenstein, Julius Caesar, Beowulf, A Tale of Two Cities. There has to be more than that, but I can’t remember 🤔 I was on the advanced track and my teachers didn’t play, we read a lot of stuff.
I have never learned to like TKAM, Frankenstein, or any Hemingway. But reading Shakespeare in high school led me to a love of that time period and the writing of the time. I took more than one class on it, in college. I also got really into Dickens after we read Tale of Two Cities, and read a bunch of his books over the next few years on my own. I never did learn to love Animal Farm, but I took on 1984 for a book report that year . Because I was 14 in ninth grade, most of it was over my head, but I appreciate it more every time I reread it (I’m 37).
22 Comments
Catcher in the rye, things fall apart, farewell to arms. Bad good, eh… in that order
We read To Kill a Mockingbird, then had the rare privledge of watching it in the classroom afterward.
“What the Sam Hill are you doing?”
Beloved, and then we got to go to Howard and participate in a lecture with Toni Morrison. We were required to prep questions and my friend got to ask hers; was then asked on stage and got a hug and encouragement.
Silas Marner, Moby Dick and Julius Caesar. Silas Marner was okay, Moby Dick was awful (even though it was an abridged version) and Julius Caesar was boring.
I love Shakespeare now. I guess I’ll never know if I’d like Moby Dick because being forced to read it at age 16 spoiled any chance of that.
As someone who was a huge reader in early childhood and reads a ton now, I loathed assigned reading! It completely sucked the joy out of it for me.
Mostly the same. Siddartha, Steinbeck, Orwell, The Bard.
+Brave New World, Lord of the Flies,The Collector, Slaughterhouse-Five. I thoroughly enjoyed most if not all of them. Although I distinctly remember feeling back then like Steinbeck was for old people lol.
I remember reading *Hamlet*, *MacBeth*, and *Twelfth Night*. I took AP English in grades 10 and 11, and I remember my grade-11 AP teacher assigning *The Chamber* by John Grisham and *Their Eyes Were Watching God* by Zora Neale Hurston as the summer reading. I still don’t understand why he made AP students read a John Grisham novel. Maybe he didn’t want to burden us with too much serious reading over our summer holidays?
The ones I remember:
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee – Loved it.
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton – Loved it.
Tom Brown’s School Days by Thomas Hughes – Hated it.
Hard Times by Charles Dickens – I didn’t mind it. It was ok.
Think we read a bit of Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer – hated it.
I struggled (and still do, to some extent) to get engaged with 1800s (and older) novels.
I still remember a few, even though I graduated from high school back in 1976:
To kill a mockingbird – – still one of my absolute favorite novels.
A separate peace – – I like this one as well.
Damn, I can’t remember any others now.
2009 graduate
To Kill a Mockingbird
Of Mice and Men
The Outsiders
Flowers for Algernon
The Great Gatsby
Moby Dick
The Odyssey
Twelve Angry Men
Things fall apart – summer before college
USA, Y2K era, and these are what I remember:
*The Scarlet Letter* by Nathaniel Hawthorne: I think I was the only one in my class who enjoyed this one, otherwise it was widely hated
*The Awakening* by Kate Chopin: I didn’t care for this one at all.
*The Grapes of Wrath* by John Steinbeck: I think this is a really good book, but as high schoolers, we were too green to understand it at the time.
*Centennial* by James A. Michener: This was given to our advanced English class, it’s about the Platte River, and I’m pretty sure it was just a test of wills. The book is 1056 pages long and IMO very dry. I did not finish it in time to turn in my report (I wrote a report up to the 3/4 mark and then ended it mid-sentence, thinking I could buy myself some time—“Oops! My printer must have messed up! I’ll bring the rest in on Monday!” but couldn’t bring myself to push through & took the C, which I thought was generous)
*There Things They Carried* by Tim O’Brien: I think this was the general favorite by all students.
We did a lot of Shakespeare – Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Taming of the Shew, and I think Macbeth
I enjoyed Julius Caesar the most but I’m sure it’s because I had the best English teacher for that one and we watched it instead of if just reading it.
The Iliad and The Odyssey
Crime and Punishment
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Pearl
All Quiet on the Western Front
Huckleberry Finn
A lot of short stories – The Lottery by Shirley Jackson and The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell are the most memorable for me.
I liked most books I read in school except for Crime and Punishment. I really didn’t enjoy that one.
I have an easier time remembering the required reads in my middle/junior high for some reason. Great Expectations I loved, Cheaper by the Dozen, Hatchet, White Fang I enjoyed. I loved Hamlet, Shakespeare in general. Loved Animal Farm, liked the Invisible Man
High School:
Night by Elise Weisel was one I think. I enjoyed it enough to be able to read it without dragging my feet, but not something I would have chosen myself.
The House on Mango Street and the Joy Luck Club were 2 I read and they were fine but I remember being pretty bored. Our Town by Thorton Wilder was a bit better.
I loved 1984 by George Orwell and Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
I think it was high school we read Picture of Dorian Grey, but maybe it was junior high. I liked that one as well.
Drives me crazy I can’t remember more than that
To Kill a Mockingbird, When Things Fall Apart and Mosquito Coast. All amazing books.
The Once and Future King by TH White was easily my favorite in high school, although there were a ton of short stories I loved as well.
The Outsiders was another favorite, but that was a middle school requirement for me, not high school.
12th night
Romeo and Juliet
The tempest
1984
Lord of the Flies
To kill a mockingbird
In grade 13 I read ‘the trial’ and ‘the castle’ by Kafka
I’m sure their were others, but I’m 52 now and forget some of them…
———
The only one I didn’t enjoy was 12th night… just not my cup of tea… but I loved the other Shakespeare stuff we did…
I’m an avid reader, but I don’t recall enjoying a single book assigned to me in high school.
we had to read all the classics…..but i never opened a single one… each day in class, the 50 pages were gone over, almost word for word….. why bother reading…. just listen to what was said….i was on work study : school 8 am till 11:30 am then off to work.. noon til 8 pm, full time.. with all my other home work, i didn’t have time to read 50 pages, took those lit classes all four years, easy peasy….
The ones I can remember:
To Kill a Mockingbird – Loved it
Bless Me Ultima – Hated it
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian – Was ok
Hamlet – Didn’t enjoy it but didn’t hate it
The Great Gatsby – Was ok
I pretty much exclusively read SFF for pleasure in high school though so my thoughts may be different if I reread these now.
I liked most of them, Macbeth remains one of my favorites. The only two I remember strongly disliking were A Separate Peace and Strange Piece of Paradise. I feel more empathetic as I grow older so maybe I’d like them more now. Almost certainly not going to reread Strange Piece of Paradise due to the length though.
Edit: The Crucible was fantastic as well. I guess my favorite highschool reads were plays haha.
We read *a lot* in school. Formative reads were selected stories from Sherlock Holmes, Tom Sawyer, and short stories (The Pearl, The Most Dangerous Game, etc.) in 7th grade and All Quiet on the Western Front and To Kill A Mockingbird in 8th grade. Canterbury Tales and The Song of Roland were a blast for hs teenage me who was going through a Medieval craze.
Couldn’t for the life of me get through anything Huxley. Great Gatsby was a flop for me as well.
To Kill a Mockingbird, old man and the Sea, animal farm, a lot of Poe stories and poems, Macbeth, Frankenstein, Julius Caesar, Beowulf, A Tale of Two Cities. There has to be more than that, but I can’t remember 🤔 I was on the advanced track and my teachers didn’t play, we read a lot of stuff.
I have never learned to like TKAM, Frankenstein, or any Hemingway. But reading Shakespeare in high school led me to a love of that time period and the writing of the time. I took more than one class on it, in college. I also got really into Dickens after we read Tale of Two Cities, and read a bunch of his books over the next few years on my own. I never did learn to love Animal Farm, but I took on 1984 for a book report that year . Because I was 14 in ninth grade, most of it was over my head, but I appreciate it more every time I reread it (I’m 37).