Novel you were assigned to read in HS and/or college that you MOST enjoyed

[alcibiades_mystery]

Obviously, I read a lot of novels in HS and college that changed the way I thought, and that I really loved. But I'm thinking here of novels that started out as just work for school ("I have to read this book for class") and that turned into WOW moments. Limit it to just ONE.

In High School: Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon
In College: William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!

[Trailrider1951]

1. Not novels, but I enjoyed everything I read by Edgar Allen Poe

So much so that I now have his complete works on my kindle, along with Mark Twain, Joseph Conrad, William Shakespeare and others.....all for FREE at amazon.com.

[LynneSin]

31. I loved EAP

:D

[MorningGlow]

2. Two in high school

Daphne DuMaurier's Rebecca, and the novella Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton. Rebecca was perfect for us freshman girls (I went to a Catholic girls high school)--we were thrilled that something so romantic and juicy was assigned as English homework. With Ethan Frome, it looked like it was going to be one of those agonizingly dry pieces of early American fiction, so the suspenseful story was a pleasant surprise.

[OneGrassRoot]

5. One of my faves was an Edith Wharton novel as well:

House of Mirth

The other is Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.

:hi:

[bigwillq]

3. To Kill a Mockingbird

and then we watched the movie and had a bit of a party! My English class that year was the best! :bounce:

[Common Sense Party]

54. I'm re-reading that now; first read it 25 years ago in h.s.

My daughter's about to read it this year, so I wanted to remember why I liked it so many years ago.

[HopeHoops]

4. "Flowers for Algernon"

[Dr. Strange]

9. This one.

[TZ]

13. Great book.

I think I read it in elementary school though so its hard to make it my wow book...

[Dr. Strange]

15. I've been considering reading it again, now that I'm an adult.

(Yes I am!)

[TZ]

30. My mother also took me to see the play Charlie and Algernon

before I read the book. It was wonderful. I highly recommend it if you ever hear about a theater doing it.
On Edit: On the adult statement...yeah, thats kinda questionable, Dr. Boobie.:P

[cyberswede]

6. Slaughterhouse Five

..or Cat's Cradle - I can't remember which was the assigned book, but I liked it so much I read all of Vonnegut's other books.

[BillStein]

7. Great Expectations

Still a favorite

[av8rdave]

8. The Jungle (Upton Sinclair) and The Caine Mutiny (Herman Wouk)

Funny story about that second book. When I was a senior in High School, I was a finalist for a Navy ROTC scholarship - a full ride. I had to drive up to Harrisburg, Pa for the final interview. I cobbled together a suit and off I went. I wound up sitting in a room with 3 Navy officers, all taking turns asking me questions. One of them asked me if I like to read, which of course I do. Then he asked what the last book I read was. I remembered that being honest above all else was critical, so I answered honestly: The Caine Mutiny. NOT a popular book with the Navy brass.

Needless to say, I didn't get the scholarship.

[alcibiades_mystery]

10. ROFL

They thought you were fucking with them.

:rofl:

[av8rdave]

18. Hey...it saved me from the Navy.

They actually called me a few weeks later, after I had an appointment to the Air Force Academy, to ask if I wanted to do Navy ROTC on my own dime. I was so shocked and amused that I wasn't able to come up with a sarcastic reply.

They were kind enough to wish me luck in Colorado. Actually, I should add that they were nothing but cordial and respectful at the interview.

[tinymontgomery]

48. The movie is great

with Bogart. I use it in my leadership class on how not to lead. It is not so hated in the Navy now.

[av8rdave]

51. That's good to know

It is a good movie...great cast and all. Still, I loved the book.

[tinymontgomery]

52. Just started it this week

to finish out the semester. Bogart is great in this. When I show it (it takes me about a week because I keep stopping to discuss the leadership value) I bring in some balls I have and roll them around in my hand, the kids crack up while I do it. Lots of fun plus getting the point across, be careful what you ask for.

[Iggo]

11. Cliff's Notes. (n/t)

[Lindsey]

16. Animal Farm & The Grapes of Wrath. n/t

[av8rdave]

19. I loved Grapes of Wrath. Steinbeck's second best novel, IMO

[TZ]

12. "Grendel" by John Gardner in High School

I actually read most of my wow novels before college...(daughter of an English teacher)

[petronius]

42. That's probably my favorite book that I read during HS, but it wasn't actually assigned

as far as I can recall. Great book - I keep seeing it on my shelf, and I'm close to taking it out again...

[MiddleFingerMom]

14. Catch 22 in H.S. -- Love in the Time of Cholera/The Unbearable Lightness of Being in college... n/t

[Broken_Hero]

17. Hmm,

In high school, The Broken Cord by Michael Dorris.

In college, Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfights in Heaven, by Sherman Alexie

:O)

[LeftinOH]

20. Huckleberry Finn. It really is profound -and I'm glad it was assigned.

[seabeyond]

21. tale of two cities. what do you think. i never read. son is reading it. he LOVES to read

he is having such a hard time reading this book.

curious what people think of it that have read it.

[XemaSab]

59. Dickens is tough

I think one of the things that makes Dickens really hard for modern readers is that back in the day it was serialized, so you would have read a chapter, waited a month, read another chapter, and so forth. Trying to read it all in one go I wind up feeling like I do right after Thanksgiving dinner: overstuffed. :P

[Bertha Venation]

63. It's not an easy read.

I'm sure you're praising your son for reading it. I had to read it slowly so I could comprehend.

[seabeyond]

66. he is such a massive reader

all of us are. in an advanced english. i find it hard to believe, there is a "tough" book, lol. he has read passages and sounds boring to me. didnt grab me. i will let him know what you two have said. will comfort him.

[Hosnon]

22. Watership Down... although that may have been middle school. nt.

[bikebloke]

23. Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

I started it about five times before I meshed with it.

[cemaphonic]

24. I love the heck out of Moby-Dick.

Yes, even the plotless whaling bits.

[Jean Louise Finch]

25. One Hundred Years of Solitude

We read that in high school, and I loved it.

[Phentex]

67. Mine too. Sad part is

I can't remember if it was high school or college! :D

I re-read it many years later for a book club and loved it then too.

[eyepaddle]

26. It's a tough call, I think I'll say Red Badge of Courage.

But that may be just because it was the FIRST book I'd been assigned that I enjoyed. After hammering through American Lit, contemporary lit got a lot more fun amd I enjoyed most of those: The Hobbit, Flint, The Martian Chronicles, and even Tarzan were all pretty easy to read without having to be flogged to do so.

[era veteran]

27. On the Road , Jack Kerouac Eng 101 University of Kentucky

We then read The Autobiography of Malcolm X , UK had some movement people in the English Dept.

[amyrose2712]

28. Animal Farm and 1984 nt

[Rabrrrrrr]

29. So many, but the one that came to mind first was 1984.

[LynneSin]

32. It wasn't in HS but middle school - I loved the book "The Cay"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cay

I went to a very rural, very white school. I think the teacher was trying his best to make us think about about those of other races and how we should treat everyone equally. I loved the book but most of the kids in the class didn't like reading it.

[superduperfarleft]

33. Native Son. n/t

[ceile]

34. Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Loved Dante's Inferno and we read a lot of John Donne as well.

[jobycom]

35. College: Les Miserables. HS: Huckelberry Finn. MS: Lord of the Flies.

[IcyPeas]

36. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

[WinkyDink]

37. Madame Bovary.

[dropkickpa]

38. Gah, my school was crap!

The only book I really liked that was assigned was All Quiet on the Western Front, and our in class discussion was so superficial I wanted to pound a nail through my eye.

I am a voracious reader, but we read so few books in HS, and most were complete snoozers, and very simple ones and very few classics or well thought of ones. I remember spending almost an entire semester on the Great Gatsy, which I actually fucking hated. Ugh. I actually got in trouble in English class for reading other books! Of course, I also got in trouble because I didn't turn in hand-written drafts of papers, either because I did everything on the computer (early '90's). I'm so happy for my daughter that by the time she gets to HS the days of hand-drafting are over.

[NuclearDem]

39. Anything by George Orwell

Followed by Brave New World, Grapes of Wrath, and Fahrenheit 451

[tigereye]

40. Woolf's The Waves - that was in college

John Hersey's The Child Buyer - in high school, but it might have been junior high - as strange as that may seem.

[EFerrari]

69. To the LIghthouse was amazing.

I actually started painting after I read that. lol

[Lucy Goosey]

41. The Hobbit in middle school

Catcher in the Rye in high school

I didn't read a lot of fiction in university, but CanLit was mandatory at my school in Canada's national capital, and I loved Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood. Since then I've read and enjoyed everything Atwood has written.

[pokerfan]

43. Of Mice and Men

Do novellas count?



Candy sat on the edge of his bunk. He scratched the stump of his wrist nervously. “I got hurt four year ago,” he said. “They’ll can me purty soon. Jus’ as soon as I can’t swamp out no bunk houses they’ll put me on the county. Maybe if I give you guys my money, you’ll let me hoe in the garden even after I ain’t no good at it. An’ I’ll wash dishes an’ little chicken stuff like that. But I’ll be on our own place, an’ I’ll be let to work on our own place.” He said miserably, “You seen what they done to my dog tonight? They says he wasn’t no good to himself nor nobody else. When they can me here I wisht somebody’d shoot me. But they won’t do nothing like that. I won’t have no place to go, an’ I can’t get no more jobs. I’ll have thirty dollars more comin’, time you guys is ready to quit.”

[BlueIris]

44. A Separate Peace.

Labyrinthine symbolism, and still very moving to me to this day.

[GoCubsGo]

45. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

It sent me on my leftist way.

[flvegan]

46. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

[tinymontgomery]

47. Not assigned but

The Electric Cool Aid Acid Test and On The Road. Snowblind was also interesting.

[Biker13]

56. "Snowblind"!

I've been trying to remember the title of that book for YEARS! Thank you!

Biker's Old Lady

[flying rabbit]

49. The Monkey Wrench Gang. n/t

[applegrove]

50. "God's Little Bits of Wood" by Sembene Ousman. A translation of the french original.

It was like a movie/character study of the Dakar-Niger Railway strike back in colonial times.

[Generic Brad]

53. Atlas Shrugged

But I did not like it for the reasons you might think. Ayn Rand dreamed up one of the stupidest pieces of literature I have ever encountered. The entire thesis her book was built upon was an idiot's fantasy. But it was assigned reading in my Economics 101 and the rest of the class thought she was brilliant because the professor said so and the book was thick.

That was the tome that helped me realize I was a liberal, I was in the minority, and there are an awful lot of stupid people out there who have no clue about economics.

[RZM]

55. Portnoy's Complaint. In college. n/t

[Biker13]

57. "Main Street"

by Sinclair Lewis. I didn't understand it at first, but when I did finally "get it", it changed my life.

Biker's Old Lady

[Kat45]

58. Catcher in the Rye--but I had already read it on my own a year or so earlier

And I honestly hated every other book we were assigned. I had been a prolific reader ever since I learned to read, which was when I was very little, and my junior high English teacher (for 2 years) pretty much killed my love of reading. I hated most of the books, which I'd say skewed to male-oriented stories (though I suppose that was the bulk of classic literature). He made us read so many big, thick, boring books, often in too short a time. None of the other English teachers did that, and I was really pissed off that I had to spend hours staying home reading (books I hated) when my friends were out enjoying themselves. To this day, I never regained my love of reading and always resented that teacher for that.

[Common Sense Party]

68. That's a book that doesn't hold up well when it's reread in adulthood.

I tried to read it a few years ago. I couldn't get through it. The kid's an insufferable prick.

[The Midway Rebel]

60. As I Lay Dying -- Faulkner

11th grade. Taught me how to read with my gut.

"My mother is a fish."

[slay]

61. Slaughterhouse-Five and Siddhartha

both awesome in very different ways.

[lovemydog]

62. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

64. "The Magus" by John Fowles.

This very weird book was assigned in a college English lit class (in about 1966, right after they invented the printing press and we could throw our clay tablets and styli away). I loved it. One of these days, if I can find my old copy, I'm going to read it again.

[GusBob]

65. tough calls

everything by hemingway in HS
everything by faulkner in college