Required Reading You Actually ENJOYED!!

[fieldmouse3]

Most of the books I liked came from elementary school, but not all. I really liked "Megan's Island" and still reread that from time to time, as well as "Number the Stars." I was also one of the only people who liked reading "Romeo and Juliet" in 9th grade and "Julius Caesar" in 10th grade. I liked "Our Town," too!

 

[ModernDaySpyridon]

Elementary through Jr. High
Old Yeller
Where the Red Fern Grows
Two Old Women
A Ray Bradbury collection

High School
Romeo and Juliet
Macbeth
Of Mice and Men
To Kill a Mockingbird
In Cold Blood
Leinegan Versus the Ants (Short story)

College
The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard
Shaping the Spiritual Lives of Students
Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paolo Friere'
The Wise Woman
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Great Divorce
The Screwtape Letters
The Challange of Jesus by NT Wright
All Grown Up and No Place to Go
Women in the Church by Stanley Grenz
Ancient Future Faith
Postmodern Times

 

[ZiSunka]

Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Sister Carrie
Walden
A Silent Spring
Sense and Sensibility
Lost Horizons
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
and so many more...


Ones I didn't enjoy so much:

Little Women
Jane Eyre
Catcher in the Rye (Why all the hype on this one, It's awful!)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
and so many more...

 

[SH89]

All Quiet on the Western Front

This was a required reading? All Quiet on the Western Front is one of my favorite books, and I really think my school district should replace the Catcher of the Rye with this novel. Holden Caulfield, the main character of the Catcher in the Rye, is a wimp--he is depressed only because he roams around New York by himself and feels lonely. Big deal Rambo.

Paul Bäumer, the narrator of All Quiet on the Wetsern Front, served in the German army during one of the most horrific wars of all time(WW1). He saw his friends get gased, machine gunned, and bayoneted. But poor little Holden didn't have anybody to talk with.

Schools should replace Catcher with All Quiet--there is a lot more to learn from All Quiet on the Westeren Front than the tales of the courageous Holden Caulfield.

(I am sorry for going off-topic, but I just really, really hate the Catcher in Rye)

 

[Nienor]

Stop being mean to Holden...I like him.

 

[WhenFinallySetFree777]

The two that pop instantly into my head are The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood and The Giver by Lois Lowry.

 

[want2change]

I always seem to love the required reading . Some of my favorites are...

Lord of the Flies, House of Mirth, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Crime and Punishment, The Importance of Being Earnest, Hamlet, Anthem, A Seperate Peace, Pride and Prejudice, A Tale of Two Cities, Island of the Blue Dolphins (and the sequel whose name I can't remember), Great Expectations, The Scarlet Letter, To Kill a Mockingbird, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Chosen, Edith Hamilton's Mythology, The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler(sp?) and so many more.

in fact, I can only think if three school books I haven't liked: Madame Bovary (and I tried so hard to like it!), A Member of the Wedding, and Huckleberry Finn.

 

[futuredoc]

Loved the Grapes of Wrath, and Romeo and Juliet

 

[rak]

kafka's metamorphases and richard writes black boy

 

[Moana]

None, my teacher's picks in books sucks.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

All Quiet on the Western Front is one of my all-time favourites. It illustrates the nonsense of war, nationalism and the lies of militaristic heroism better than any other book, and yet manages to do it without being preachy at all. It simply recounts what the war was like.

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! - An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, -
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori*.

-- Wilfred Owen (who was killed in action in 1918, a week before the war ended.)

* "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" - Latin: "It is sweet and meet to die for one's country. Sweet! And decorous!"

 

[MidnightJewel]

I liked:

Romeo and Juliet (and still do, even after studying it in two different year levels)
Z for Zachariah
Of Mice and Men
Julius Caeser
To the Is-land

We havn't actually studied that many books at my school (usually only one or two a year) but i love reading so i have enjoyed most of the books we have studied, and my last english teacher loved me because most of the students hated the book we were studying (To the Is-land) and i asked to read the rest of the trilogy...lol. Never got around to finishing them though, there was to much else to do in class

 

[thatgirliknew]

To Kill A Mockingbird

 

[american_eggroll]

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

 

[rainygirl]

The Outsiders
Lord of the Flies..( Which I read again just recently )

 

[stonetoflesh]

Stuff I enjoyed at the time I had to read it:
Arthurian legend stuff (Morte d'Arthur, Once & Future King)
The Girl Who Owned a City (junior high)
The Odyssey
The Great Gatsby
Edith Hamilton's Mythology
Johnny Got His Gun
Lord of the Flies
A Tale of Two Cities
Beowulf
Grendel
The Most Dangerous Game (short story)
The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe
An Introduction to the Creation of Electroacoustic Music

 

[Nella Fantasia]

Well, I had one in my mind that I really enjoyed, but I can't think of the title...Must not have been that great. Or it's just been so long ago, and my memory is horrible.

 

[mohawk]

Catcher In The Rye...(I liked it)
To Kill A Mockingbird
The Good Earth
The Illiad
The Odyssey

 

[Moana]

Catcher in the rye

 

[GrinningDwarf]