The best book your school made you read?

[afroebob]

The best I had no choice in: Tie with To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men

Best that I got to pick: Lord of the Flies

All amazing novels, love em to death. And this is coming from a guy who can probably attribute the majority of his reading to reading each Harry Potter book once.

 

[Infernai]

Oddly enough the english department we had was quite good and they knew their stuff, plus most of them were pretty cool. The problem was that half the books we had to read were utter shite on a crusty roll: Some classes got to read some of the other books mentioned here and they were on curriculum for some english classes, but unfortunately i wasn't lucky enough to get those classes. However, two books i read in english i absolutely adored: Of mice and Men and Hamlet.

Of mice and men is definitely my favorite: It had good characters that i still remember even now. What i absolutely loved about it though is it didn't try to hit us over the head with a moral and drag it's narrative out for-fucking-ever to hammer it in as violently as possible. It had it's themes, it expressed them, got to the point and ended it without dragging itself out to a painful length. I respect it for knowing when it was time to end, few of the books in my school actually knew when to do that and any author who can know when it's the right time to end their book no matter how short or long it may be i can respect.

Hamlet was also quite good.

 

[Nubrain]

I did a sifi and fantasy lit course in university and we got to do the Hobbit, Ender's game, Contact, and Clay's Ark all that I loved it would have been the best course ever if we hadn't had to slog though Mists of Avalon. Also in University I got exposed to King Lear that is till my favorite Shakespeare play.

In high school animal farm and The Lord of the flies spring to mind I've always been a pretty avid reader though so there were very few books that I was exposed to that I did not like at all. Mists of Avalon, Dubliners and Anthony and Cleopatra are the only ones I seem to recall being pained to get through.

 

[revjor]

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. Also The Things They Carry.

 

[recurve6]

The Things They Carried was (is) exceptionally excellent. I've had to read it twice for high school and once so far in college, and it's still a very good read.

 

[thejackyl]

Considering I hated reading back in grade/high school I'm dyslexic, and you can REALLY tell when I gad to read out loud. And I had to have the classmates with the most droning and boring voices in my class. I nearly fell asleep every English class I had because of that. Or I would lose my place due to me trying to follow along and not being able to read as fast as they could.

But if pressed to name one:

The Hobbit: I was forced to read a book during 3rd grade's free period, and someone suggested this (probably the teacher), read it, didn't really understand it 100%, but I did enjoy it. Had to read it in 4th grade along with the rest of the class.

The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe - 5th Grade: I was a good student, and I usually got all my homework done during class. 90% of the time we'd have a free period and I spent that time looking for something to do. The teacher, tired of me doodling and sleeping, handed me a book and said that I should read if I didn't have anything better to do. I read up to book 5 in the series, but I don't think I ever finished that book. (This was also the same teacher who had told me - After losing a tooth in class, and was bleeding pretty bad- That it wasn't her problem and that I couldn't be excused to stop the bleeding, but I digress)

In fact, I had that problem of "Having nothing to do" a lot during free periods, and for some reason they frowned on my drawing and writing. Those periods sucked because I usually spend the entire hour digging in my backpack "looking for something to do."

Wait... What was the topic?

 

[tce11]

2001: A Space Odyssey in grade 11, this book changed my life, and is still one of my favourite novels ever (and the movie is fantastic too).

I really enjoyed Hamlet when we read that, but lots of other people have said this.

Jane Eyre was a surprisingly good read actually.

For something more obscure Monkey Beach.

 

[Vegosiux]

Waiting of Godot.

Oh yeah, loved that one. Also went see it in theater.

Hamlet as well, as pretentious as it sounds, but don't worry, I'm not one of those people who try to show off with the entire monologue and think they're smart for it...

Don Quixote de la Mancha as well.

Hmmm, actually I did like Oedipus Rex as well, and the Iliad and the Odyssey.

 

[Strazdas]

i wish my school had told me to read books like these. here we have 50+ mandatory books all of which are local authors and mainly consists of either farming life descriptions or whining about soviet oppression. once i finshed school they added like 5 foreign authors though, but those are no better.
i am jealous of you for having a decent school system.

 

[Strazdas]

i wish my school had told me to read books like these. here we have 50+ mandatory books all of which are local authors and mainly consists of either farming life descriptions or whining about soviet oppression. once i finshed school they added like 5 foreign authors though, but those are no better.
i am jealous of you for having a decent school system.

Australian Schools usually read only Australian written books. Most of which are so fucking stereotypical and cliched it's such a slog to read through.

do you also have to read 200 year old books written in a dialect long dead, while your teacher may be one of the 5 people in the universe that even cares for the dialects existence?

 

[SinisterGehe]

Can't say... I never read any of the assignments.
I just am excellent bullshitter and really good at reading the blurb and last few pages.
Got me trough the Finnish classes with relatively good grade.

But the best blurb had to be on some odd early 20th century philosophical drama. Mainly because it had no blurb and was 35 pages long and in Script style.

 

[Arakasi]

i wish my school had told me to read books like these. here we have 50+ mandatory books all of which are local authors and mainly consists of either farming life descriptions or whining about soviet oppression. once i finshed school they added like 5 foreign authors though, but those are no better.
i am jealous of you for having a decent school system.

Australian Schools usually read only Australian written books. Most of which are so fucking stereotypical and cliched it's such a slog to read through.

I'm with you, they're all fucking terrible.
The way they shove our shitty literature into the school system is appalling.

 

[adamsaccount]

The Hobbit and Lord of the flies, though neither are near my favourite books

 

[Boggelz]

Our class read The Kite Runner and it is actually an amazing book. Definitely recommend it to anyone not familiar with the plot.

We read it because we have to write a major essay on literature and Kite Runner covered so many themes that it was easy to adapt it to any topic.

 

[Snownine]

Just going with the stuff from public school, I really dug The Illustrated Man, Fahrenheit 451, 1984, Things Fall Apart and the Hatchet series.

Edit: How could I forget of Mice and Men? Great book!

 

[bigfatcarp93]

The Hobbit. I am sooooooooo not joking.

 

[janjotat]

I believe it was called something like "the apple" It was about a Utopian society in the future, but it had serious drawbacks to the societies structure

The Giver maybe? I think there was an apple on the cover. It was about a utopian society where everyone saw in black and white, and I think books were banned. My class read this in the 6th grade. Actually, all mu favorite books from grade school came from that year. We also read Number the Stars, The Hatchet, and Homecoming.

I didn't read anything great in highschool, but I can vouch for the people that loved To Kill a Mockingbird and Flowers for Algernon. I read these in adulthood and recommend them to people all the time.

Thats the one thank you for telling me. Flowers for Algernon was also an excellent read. I felt sorry for him during his deterioration and fascinated by it.

 

[IamQ]

While my school didn't actually make me read it, it was still part of their library. The book was Let the Right One In, and it's an amazing book, combined with spawning an equally amazing film.

It was also the last book I read, and last I read it was a few years ago.