Books that do and don't suck

[The Bandit]

Strangely enough, Animal Farm was required reading for my school.

Although given how we're not taught about the Soviet Union until college, the teachers had to gloss over the political commentary. My country's school system = FAIL

But we also had to read Beowulf, The Merchant of Venice and Don Quixote.

What the hell's the point of reading it if not for the political commentary? It might as well be a children's book (with murderous pigs, but still).

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Grapes of Wrath, As I Lay Dying, 1984, Frankenstein all fall into the "not suck" category.

Oliver Twist, Billy Budd, most of Shakespeare that I've [been forced to] read (with the exception of Hamlet), The Canterbury Tales, The Decameron, Gulliver's Travels, all fall into the "oh my God, these books suck so very bad" category.

The Scarlet Letter wasn't bad. It's not a favorite, but it was certainly tolerable.

Other good books that weren't required for me:
Fight Club, Atlas Shrugged, The Book Thief, The Fountainhead,

EDIT: I totally missed "required." Oh well. fix'd

 

[ioxles]

Oliver Twist, most of Shakespeare that I've [been forced to] read (with the exception of Hamlet), The Canterbury Tales, The Decameron, Gulliver's Travels, all fall into the "oh my God, these books suck so very bad" category.

Yah, don't read Shakespeare, if anything watch it. No Scratch that, watch Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead. Or the BBC adaptations.

 

[Cilliandrew]

On the horrible pile: "Who Has Seen the Wind"

On the good pile: "Farenheit 451"

Everything else kinda falls in between. I used to hate the books we had in primary school, though.. With a passion...

"The Cay", "A Wrinkle in Time", "I am David"... Gosh i despised all of those books..

"The Outsiders" was kind of okay, i guess.

Holy Crap We arre reading those now. We finished A wrinkle in time last year

Haha, good luck! I know alot of people seem to enjoy "A Wrinkle in Time", but i couldn't stand it.. As a rule, anything with the Newbury Honour Award is going to be something i don't enjoy.

The one cool thing: As an assignment, we were asked to write a brief sequel to "A Wrinkle in Time"...I took great joy in insuring that every character met a grisly end. There would be no "Wrinkle in Time 3"..


Did the same thing in high school with John Steinbeck's "The Pearl".. Good gosh I hated that book...

 

[Lamppenkeyboard]

How could someone say that "1984" is inappropriate for High School?

If you like Stephen King, "The Stand" is pretty good.

 

[timmytom1]

Curious incident of a dog in the night was rather good, i`d recommend it

 

[ShakyFiend]

In English Lit I'm reading poetry anthologies by Philip Larkin and Carol Ann Duffy and they suck maaaajor donkey balls

But in English Language I'm reading Cupcakes and Kalashnikovs by various female authors and if you can get over the PURE FEMINISM then it's actually a pretty good read.

Also, I read 1984 and Animal Farm for recreational purposes and they were boring as fuck. Still way better than Larkin and Duffy though

Ok im going to pick this apart piece by piece as I will probably be banned if i try to sum it up all once.
1. Philip Larkin is not crap
2. Philip Larkin is NOT crap
3. Carol Ann Duffy is now poet laureate and while I dont like her personally, this clearly means she is not crap.
4. 1984 and animal farm are accepted and as masterpieces around the world and have been since they came out (incidently if you find them crap you probably dont understand them which means you should either read up on Russian history or stop critiscising things you dont understand.
Ok end of rant, oh and because I know this is coming I AM AWARE that this is an OPINION which you have a RIGHT to, im ok with that. The opinions however are just wrong

 

[ShakyFiend]

On the surprisingly good side: The Portrait of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.

since when has oscar wilde been 'surprisingly good'. Read importance of being earnest or salome, both are excellant

 

[Loves2spooge]

Woah, woah, DO read Shakespeare. A lot of people in England don't like it because they're forced to read it in high school, but it's beautiful. Or if you only ever read one play by Shakespeare, make it Macbeth.

 

[Carl The Manicorn]

Good: Zombie Survival Guide, King Dork, I Hope they Serve Beer in Hell, Steal this Book, Of Mice and Men, and my personal favorite, The Best Non-Required Reading of (I think) 2005.

Bad: Twilight, The Bible, Catch-22, and the worst of them all, ANYTHING WITH TEENAGE VAMPIRES!!!!!!!!!

 

[Rossmallo]

It's more a play script than a book, but if you don't mind reading a book in that format, "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf" (sic) is quite interesting (had to renact it for drama gcse, somehow pulled a B-grade off), as are Darren Shan's collective works. Vampire and Demon horror taken down to a more accessable level. Brilliant.

Oh, and as for bad ones...Twilight. It's like paying for bad fanfiction!

...Speaking of that, theres some bad fanfiction that falls into both categories, ie, so bad its hilarious. Anyone who's read My Immortal or Anniversary Day will agree with me here.

 

[L24z13L]

I mostly read Sci-fi and fantasy books so I doubt any of these will turn up on an assigned reading list but they're good books nonetheless.

The Drizzt series by R.A. Salvatore is pretty good and helps you make fun of people who play dual scimitar-wielding dark elf rangers
Any book by Charles Sheffield (no "any book" is not the name of a book)
STARFIST series by David Sherman and Dan Cragg
Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn Trilogy by Tad Williams
The Sword of Truth Series by Terry Goodkind

If anyone picks up the Sword of Truth books: take a look at the picture of Terry Goodkind. My friends and I have always thought that he looks like a Sith Lord in that picture. Do you agree or are we just crazy?

 

[Najos]

I can't believe you don't like Catch 22. It is a little hard to read, but damn if it isn't great once you get into it.

Some stuff I actually liked in high school:
The Great Gatsby
Ethan Frome
Canterbury Tales
Julius Caesar
Ishmael (not sure if this was for Lit, think it might've been some other class)
Of Mice and Men

Stuff I hated (AKA, stuff I didn't finish reading):
Everything by Dickens
The Scarlet Letter
The Hobbit (pretty sure this was in junior high, though)
And really, almost everything we had to read.

Outside of school stuff I highly recommend anything and everything written by Kerouac, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test if you're into drugs at all, and Catch 22...not sure why that other guy didn't like it. Hard to get into, but an awesome book once it gets going.

 

[kegisak]

Let's see, assigned reading...
Nothing lately has jumped out at me one way or the other, really. But then, I prefer to read a book, not lobotomize it in class, so that may have something to do with it. Although a few years ago I read the outsiders in class and very much enjoyed it.
As for out of class reading, I wont bother to reccomend Terry pratchett, as it's been said already (though frankly I think he should be required reading) I would reccomend the monster blood tatoo series, though it's rated 'teens' so it might be a touch light, and anything by David Eddings if you're a fantasy fan. Heck, even 'The Losers was a great book. Also, I find the redwall series good, but they are classified as childerens books, so if you're looking for something deep...
I don't know what that guy up there is talking about, I loved Gullivers travels.

 

[Horticulture]

My favorite books from secondary school were House of the Spirits and Blood Meridian. I still love magical realism and Cormac McCarthy.

My school carved up the reading list into yearly themes, the year of 'American Literature' had by far the least pleasant list. Between the Scarlet Letter, The Great Gatsby and Death of a Salesman, and the fact that the class was directly before lunch, I was compelled to skip whenever I could get away with it.

If I were teaching a late high-school literature class, I'd assign House of Leaves [http://www.amazon.com/House-Leaves-Mark-Z-Danielewski/dp/0375703764]. Then again, I shudder to think of the school district that would entrust the intellectual development of their young to me.

 

[Syndarr]

Bookish ramblings GO!

Books I liked when I had to read them in school:
Flatland
Jane Eyre
Anything by Shakespeare (particularly The Tempest, King Lear, and Macbeth)

Books I hated when I had to read them in school:
Anything by Charles Dickens

I was never assigned 1984 in school, but I read it later on my own and liked it. Same with Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, Clockwork Orange, and Watership Down. If you like Watership Down, I'd recommend The Plague Dogs. I'd also recommend Riddley Walker, which has nothing to do with Watership Down, but is a fascinating read. Also, I'm a woman and I liked Lord of the Flies. XD

A book that I can say I absolutely hated is Lilith, by George MacDonald (the guy who wrote The Princess and the Goblin). It started out kind of cool, and I thought it was going to be a nice fantasy story, but it turned out to be this incredibly ham-fisted Christian allegory about sin and redemption and how women are basically evil and selfish. By the time I was done reading it, I was really pissed off and felt like I'd been slapped in the face.

Other awesome books:
His Dark Materials
Howl's Moving Castle
Imajica
The Farthest-Away Mountain (yeah, it's more of a kid's book, but I still love it)

 

[jebus4you]

I suggested 1984,Animal Farm, We, and a few other books, but the teachers and administration said the books were not appropriate for high schoolers.

... the hell?

MY English teacher recommended 1984 to us!
Jeez.

OT: 'Agent Zigzag' is the best one I've read recently. Damn it was funny finding out that the British Intelligence services had full control of the entire German Spy Network in Britain during WWII.

same 1984 was really good and animal farm but i had to read Beowwulf which i didn't enjoy for some odd reason and the Bible was pretty good if you look at it right

 

[Fbuh]

This is highly amusing. In middle school, that is, from the ages ranging from 11-13, we read After the First Kill, a delightful little tale about terrorists taking over a school bus and killing several of the children. Great, huh?

Conversely, we read such harmless stuff like Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde in high school. Is it just me, or did anyone else get the more violent and mentally scarring books at the younger, more impressionable age?

PS: I never did get around to reading 1984. But then, my public school system sucked a big fat load of dooky.

 

[Julianking93]

I used to hate reading since all the books I was forced to read for school sucked nut sack. That was until I read a little book called Watchmen that changed my perspective literature.

 

[Lukeje]

In English Lit I'm reading poetry anthologies by Philip Larkin and Carol Ann Duffy and they suck maaaajor donkey balls

But in English Language I'm reading Cupcakes and Kalashnikovs by various female authors and if you can get over the PURE FEMINISM then it's actually a pretty good read.

Also, I read 1984 and Animal Farm for recreational purposes and they were boring as fuck. Still way better than Larkin and Duffy though

1. Philip Larkin is not crap
2. Philip Larkin is NOT crap

Ninja'd.

...anyway, the only books I can remember reading for English were Of Mice and Men, To Kill a Mockingbird and A Midsummer Night's Dream. All were pretty good, though I made sure to read them before we had to read through them in class (it sucks the fun out of reading when you're analysing every sentence).