# Books they forced you to read in highschool, that you took a liking to
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [September 15, 2002, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612 "2002-09-15T23:52:20Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Molly\_Coddle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Molly_Coddle)
#### Post date: [September 15, 2002, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/1 "2002-09-15T23:52:20Z")
Mine was “Brave New World” **Aldous Huxley**
---
### Author:  [@Lsura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lsura)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2002, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/2 "2002-09-16T00:02:13Z")
_On The Road_, Kerouac. I hated it in HS though - and loved it when I had to read it in college.
---
### Author:  [@samarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samarm)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2002, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/3 "2002-09-16T00:08:26Z")
**"The Crucible"** by _Arthur Miller_
Film was OK too.
---
### Author:  [@grendel72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grendel72)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2002, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/4 "2002-09-16T00:09:00Z")
**To Kill a Mockingbird**.
I read that book all the way through on the day it was assigned, which actually made the classwork a pain in the ass. The teacher was walking the class through it _so… damn… slowly_, and I would have to answer really detailed questions about stuff I’d read weeks ago… ARGH!
I loved the book though.
---
### Author:  [@LolaCocaCola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LolaCocaCola)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2002, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/5 "2002-09-16T00:13:53Z")
Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
---
### Author:  [@neutron\_star](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neutron_star)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2002, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/6 "2002-09-16T00:33:15Z")
Ouch, I remember how that felt grendel72. I would always read the book within the first day or two, then the teacher would take _months_ to get all the way through the book. Even then, some kids still thought the teacher was going too fast. Frusterating, to say the least.
As to the OP, I will be forever indebted to my 10th grade English teacher for reading us the short story “The Thanksgiving Visitor” by Truman Capote. I had never heard someone write with such unbridled eloquence. When he got to the sad ending of that story, I was trying as hard as I could to choke back tears. I immediately scoured the libraries and used bookstores for all the Capote I could find. The man was truly a genius.
_Of Mice and Men_ by and _Animal Farm_ were both great novels I may never have read without my 6th and 9th grade English teachers, respectively. They also inspired me to seek out other books by the same authors. _The Grapes of Wrath_ blew me away. I wish they’d have made us read that one in school.
---
### Author:  [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2002, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/7 "2002-09-16T00:42:17Z")
Too many to mention, but here goes:
**To Kill a Mockingbird**
**A Separate Peace**
**Native Son**
**Ordinary People**
**The World According to Garp**
**Pride and Prejudice**
and, if you can believe it, **War and Peace** - once I was given permission to skip the war parts if I wanted and to think of the whole thing as a big soap opera, not a high-faluttin’ work of art; plus there was a guide to Russian names in the back
**A Clockwork Orange**
Loved 'em all.
---
### Author:  [@Aixelsyd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aixelsyd)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2002, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/8 "2002-09-16T01:05:25Z")
Nicholas Nickleby
Hearts of Darkness
Hamlet
---
### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2002, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/9 "2002-09-16T01:24:05Z")
When I was in the fourth grade, we had to read _The Pearl_ and _The Red Pony_, by John Steinbeck. I hated them both. In the seventh grade, we had to read _Of Mice and Men_. I detested it. I decided John Steinbeck had to be the worst author in the world, and I swore never to read a single word he wrote again, even if I had to take a zero on a test at some point. I figured I could always make it up by working hard on the books in the rest of the class, I hated Steinbeck so much. However, it never came up until my Junior year in highschool, when I learned to my horror that we would only be studying one book in class that semester: John Steinbeck’s _East of Eden_. Earlier oaths not withstanding, I decided to buckle down and just read the damned thing… and it was the most incredible book I had ever read. I was floored. I was shattered. I laughed, I cried, and I actually _thought_ about the book. A lot. It made literature come alive to me in a way that nothing I had ever read in an English class had done for me before.
After that, I couldn’t get enough Steinbeck. I went back to _Of Mice and Men_, and literally kicked myself for not realizing what an amazing book it was the first time around. I remember reading _Cannery Row_ and falling in a kind of love with Doc. I remember re-reading it, and realizing that I felt so strongly about that character because he was just like my dad. (And, even better, I share the same name as the main character of the novel, Mack, who has a bit of a father-son relationship with Doc.)
That one class turned Steinbeck from my most reviled author into my favorite author, a position for which he has been often challenged but never defeated. More than that, though, _East of Eden_ made me realize what I wanted to study in college. I wanted to be an English major. I worked my ass off in that class, and did so well that I got into the AP program my senior year, which shocked my parents so much it damn near killed them.
---
### Author:  [@Fred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fred)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2002, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/10 "2002-09-16T01:57:34Z")
Practically all of them. The Great Santini, Cannery Row, Sweet Tuesday (Or Thursday, I can’t remember which), Othello, etc. etc.
---
### Author:  [@Dragonblink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dragonblink)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2002, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/11 "2002-09-16T02:07:30Z")
_The Scarlet letter_. Not only am I the only person I know who liked that book when they read it in high school, it actually turned me into a big fan of Hawthorne’s works.
---
### Author:  [@Lizard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lizard)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2002, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/12 "2002-09-16T02:32:17Z")
“Their Eyes Were Watching God,” by Zora Neale Hurston. A story of incompatible lovers, insanity and loss, written by a middle-aged black woman in 1930s Harlem. Heady stuff to a 17-year-old white kid in 1990s rural Ohio.
I also thought Martin Luther King, Jr.'s “Letter From A Birmingham Jail” was one of the most inspirational things I would ever read. If “genius” is defined as having a vision coupled to the drive to make it happen, then King really was a genius.
---
### Author:  [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2002, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/13 "2002-09-16T02:57:57Z")
I was forced to read **A Tree Grows in Brooklyn** in 9th grade, which is a story about a young girl growing up in the early 1900s. I certainly would never have picked it up on my own, but it is one of the best books I’ve ever read.
In seventh grade, we had to pick a book to read off of a supplied list, which would then be ordered for us. I picked **Watership Down** , which I just knew had to be something nautical. It wasn’t, but I loved it anyway.
My fifth grade teacher read **Where the Red Fern Grows** to us over a period of several weeks. Again, not a book I would have picked on my own, being more into science and science fiction at that age. When the teacher finished the book, I asked to borrow it over the weekend. I read the whole book in one sitting Friday night, finishing it by flashlight under the bedcovers. (I also remember returning the book that Monday, and being met with disbelief that I could have finished it over the _weekend_. 🙂 )
---
### Author:  [@Calliope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Calliope)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2002, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/14 "2002-09-16T03:22:06Z")
_Of Human Bondage_ by Somerset Maugham
---
### Author:  [@Joools](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joools)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2002, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/15 "2002-09-16T03:33:51Z")
_The Awakening_ by Kate Chopin. We read it in a literature class in 11th grade and I just hated it. I hated the plot, the protagonist, the style, everything. And then, my sophomore year in college I was in a literature class where we read it, and reading it that second time, my eyes opened.
I’ve read it several times since then, and it’s one of my favorite books.
---
### Author:  [@Daowajan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daowajan)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2002, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/16 "2002-09-16T03:55:34Z")
Here’s the only other person on earth who loved, loved, loved **The Scarlet Letter.** I even loved the style. Also, while writing a paper on it I suddenly realized I wanted to study English, but that’s another story.
Anyway. Roger Chillingworth owns you.
---
### Author:  [@capacitor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capacitor)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2002, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/17 "2002-09-16T06:41:35Z")
**Grendel** by John Gardner–in that book Beowulf’s monster was threatening to burn the Queen’s physical jewels!!! Oh man!! Now that’s EVIL!!
My English teachers had these sick senses of humor.
---
### Author:  [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2002, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/18 "2002-09-16T07:01:29Z")
The best book I read in high school was **Fifth Business** , by Robertson Davies. I haven’t met many other people who have even read it. It’s definitely worth a read.
---
### Author:  [@Fern\_Forest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fern_Forest)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2002, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/19 "2002-09-16T07:11:40Z")
I can’t really say they ever **forced** me to read anything. I went willingly and eagerly to everything.
Although I was most surprised to really enjoy **North and South** by Elizabrth Gaskell and **The Histories** by Herodotus.
---
### Author:  [@cainxinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cainxinth)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2002, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/20 "2002-09-20T02:00:00Z")
The Fountainhead by Rand
The Count of Montecristo by Dumas
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612.md?page=2)