What was your favorite book that you read during high school?
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mangeons (
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September 24th, 2011
What book did you love that was required reading during high school? This can go for English class or any other class where you might have been assigned a book to read. Personally, I’ve been a fan of To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, Lord of the Flies, Candide, and The Giver so far. What was your favorite, or is your favorite that you’ve read so far?
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1984. I like it so much I didn’t give my copy back to the school. I know that was really bad of me
I loved a short book (only about 100 pages) they made me read when I was 14, it’s The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor “Who Drifted on a Liferaft for Ten Days Without Food or Water, Was Proclaimed a National Hero, Kissed by Beauty Queens, Made Rich Through Publicity, and Then Spurned by the Government and Forgotten for All Time.”
The subtitle is the best abstract you can get, the guy mostly stays in the boat, he and his thougts.
Hope you like it
I really enjoyed reading 1,2,3…infinity, by George Gamow.
However, I might have read that in junior high.
Catcher in the Rye. Romeo and Juliet (actually I loved the movie more).
Most of the classic American novels are boring to the point of nauseating. I did everything I could to get out of them, including telling my mother about one of the “potentially offensive material objection sheets” they passed out for one of them. I think the book had the word “shit” in it somewhere. Since my mom loves nothing more than getting pissed off about meaningless crap, my teacher allowed me to choose my own alternate novel, as long as the author was dead and American.
I actually got class credit for reading “The Mists of Avalon” by Marion Zimmer Bradley – a novel that is dripping with sex and other “potentially offensive material”, by the way.
Probably Hamlet, I love Shakespeare. The runner up would have to be Jurassic Park, although it really doesn’t compare to Hamlet. I also enjoyed Romeo and Juliet, but did not really like Julius Caesar. The worst book I ever had to read was Heart of Darkness and The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.
In 10th grade English, the teacher asked if anyone in the class wanted to choose a book for the class to read. I appeared to be the only kid who wanted to read any book at all (it was a crappy school), and I suggested Siddhartha , by Hermann Hesse. I don’t remember why I picked that one; it was just being talked about a lot at the time.
If the teacher had known more about the book, I don’t think she would have approved my choice (it has more sex in it than would have been considered appropriate for that age and era). But it was my first exposure to a different way of seeing reality, and it launched me on a lifelong exploration.
Gotta be the Tolkeins. Also most of Kosinski’s novels, and a book called Birdy.
Macbeth, Hamlet, A Brave New World, and The Princess Bride.
“The House of Spirits” by Isabel Allende and “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood. In the years since, I’ve read most of these authors’ other works.
Where the red fern grows.
The Kite Runner
Their Eyes were Watching God
Catcher in the Rye
Things Fall Apart
Heart of Darkness
I guess I’ll stop here,because you said one and so far I’ve listed 5-
I actually really liked reading a whole lot. ...
Pretty sure I’m the only one who didn’t tely on spark notes
to get assignments done, oh well
@digitalimpression that book used to make e cry like a baby, as well as Tuck Everlasting and Bridge to Terabithia
1984 vs Animal Farm. I’d read each book before in late elementary or early jr. high and liked them as fantasty/sci fi but had no idea of the correlations to history and present social bents until the books were discussed in depth during school.
There are books I re read every few years just to see what new things I take away from them- not Silas Marner though, never again Silas Marner.
While not a book per se, I did get a lot out of reading Emily Dickinson’s poetry in my American Lit class. I also greatly enjoyed A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. I related to both very strongly at the time. Emily was a loner girl who hid in her room and wrote these fabulous poems with fire in them. And Dickens’ character Sydney Carton [does something in the novel] that really spoke to how I felt about life, and my place in it. I wish I had time to re-read it now, thanks! :D
Probably either Dubliners by James Joyce or Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard.
@boxer3 All of those were great books.
It was more of a short story, called A Separate Peace. I’ve read it many times over the years. That was one of the first stories in which all of the characters and the setting became very vivid in my mind.
Of mice and Men for English class. That book rocked. We also saw the movie, which was very good too.
Candy, FTW!
1984, Brave New World, almost anything dystopian.
Also, The Catcher in the Rye.
I’ve noticed some trendily-decorated paperback editions of “high school classics” like The Great Gatsby popping up on shelves next to the women’s chick-lit at Target.
Since this OP limits us to reading required in class, I’ll say As You Like It by Shakespeare or Lord of the Flies by William Golding.
None, and I don’t get what is so great about most of them. Even 1984 was boring.
After a quick scan, I didn’t see my first answer said so…
On The Road by Jack Kerouac. It really shaped my way of thinking. I tried to make more room for adventure in my life.
I quite enjoyed Fahrenheit 451.
@Kardamom I seem to have a strict interest in non-fiction. The only fiction I was into when I was younger was the Anne Rice vampire series, but after that, I moved on to books about genes, science, philosophy etc. I felt fiction were just stories (even though they were good stories) while non-fiction dealt with actual facts, past and present.
I like fiction stories, but I think T.V. serves that purpose. If I’m going to find time to read, I’m going to learn something besides some moral lesson.
We were required to do monthly book reports through junior year English class. (There were set lists to choose from.) I chose The Autobiography of Malcolm X for one of those and was surprised at how much I liked it. I chose it because I like biographies & auto biographies and ended up appreciating reading about a life experience that I could never imagine.
For required class reading, I enjoyed A Separate Peace.
Animal Farm was amazing and I absolutely loved it. Similarly, To Kill a Mocking Bird changed my life. Still one of my favourite books. Also loved the play 12th Night.
Thank god for book reading in school.
@tranquilsea The movies was nice too.
In high school I liked to read crime books. Sir Conan Arthur Doyle and Agatha Christie were good.
@Hibernate you should try Crime and Punishment (if you haven’t read it yet) if you like crime books. It was a riveting book.
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. Loved it. Have read it several times since.
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner. Pretty much blew my mind.
A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean. About a thousand times more touching and beautiful than the movie. (And that was a pretty good movie.) One of the best last lines of a story I’ve ever read.
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin. I cried.
The only one I remember liking was The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
I would have liked some of the books listed above, many which I did read on my own, but none of those books were assigned to me. I must have gone to a lousy high school!
It’s interesting to read the above posts. Many of the books mentioned were read on my own vs. being required. I loved Animal Farm which was found in a bookcase in our house left behind by an older sibling, which led to reading 1984 before the year came to be.
Most of the high school required reading was a chore. Fortunately, a high school English teacher turned me on to Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. based upon a bonus question on a quiz. The question was, “Who wore the golden boots?” from Slaughterhouse 5. The answer was Billy Pilgram. The teacher also gave me a copy of Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters as a gift. It is a brilliant soap opera of life in small town USA told from the grave.
Another novel found on my own was Watership Down by Richard Adams. While about a group of rabbits in England that set out to create a utopian life, it is an allegory of how humans learn to rely on the strengths of others in order to achieve their collective goals. It should be required reading.
I just remembered, Gulliver’s Travels. Excellent satire.
Can I add a couple more: Of Mice and Men (the movie is also excellent); 1984. I’m happy that I didn’t have to read them for school – which would automatically have made me resent them. Instead, I loved them and continue to.
First and foremost: A Death in the Family by James Agee. I love that book more than almost any other.
Working by Studs Terkel. Terkel is a reporter who spoke with dozens of Americans about what they do for a living and how they feel about what they do. It’s extremely interesting.
Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger – much better book than Catcher, IMO.
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, of course.
Paul’s Case, a short story by Willa Cather.
Unaccompanied Sonata, a short story by Orson Scott Card. Ender’s Game too.
@wildpotato I just finished Ender’s Game. I’ve handed it to my 16 year old son to read. It was a great book.
I loved to read, but hated most of the books I was forced to read for school. A couple of exceptions were Lord of the Flies and 1984.
@tranquilsea I did. But it’s not that much of a mystery. I figured it out he will kill the landlord but I never saw it coming when he felt remorse. I saw him as Napoleon [there’s no one better , no one like me]. Was a good book but not a true crime book. I mean it had a lot of others existentialist problems [made the book a very good one but it went far from being a pure crime book].
@Hibernate I know it’s not a mystery nor a true crime in the current sense. But it is an awesome book about a horrendous crime and everyone coming to terms with it including the murderer and the police who are trying to out manoeuvre him.
I believe it read it three times. And every time it was different, even if I knew what was going to happen I always saw new things that I skipped the first time.
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