# Books they forced you to read in highschool, that you took a liking to **URL:** \ **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:** 19\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2002, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/41 "2002-09-20T23:21:27Z")
My summer reading for tenth grade was _Les Miserables_ and _Siddhartha_. No one told me there was an abridged version of Les Mis, so I got the Thickest Book Known To Man and slogged through it. Great Zod, I hate that book. Dull dull DULL! Every other character in it was a complete idiot and Hugo just _had_ to give everyone’s complete life history before getting on with the story at hand. Two weeks before school started I finally finished it. Then I picked up Sid. Nice and short. By this time I was pretty much read out, so I decided I’d just look at a chapter before bed. Three hours later, I had finished the book and went to sleep. Perhaps it was the contrast with the interminable Les Mis, perhaps it was the contrast of Sidd with every other book I had ever been assigned in school before, but I loved it. That was the first assigned book I ever kept. Still have it too. ---
**Author:** ![Lux\_Fiat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bc79bd/32.png) [@Lux\_Fiat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lux_Fiat)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2002, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/42 "2002-09-20T23:23:23Z")
_Ironweed_ by William Kennedy. _As I Lay Dying_ by William Faulkner. _All the King’s Men_ by Robert Penn Warren. _Long Day’s Journey Into Night_, by Eugene O’Neill. _Macbeth_, _Henry V_, etc., etc. God bless English class. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Asbestos\_Mango](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@The\_Asbestos\_Mango](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Asbestos_Mango)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2002, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/43 "2002-09-21T03:53:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SpazCat \* > \*\*My summer reading for tenth grade was _Les Miserables_ and _Siddhartha_. No one told me there was an abridged version of Les Mis, so I got the Thickest Book Known To Man and slogged through it. Great Zod, I hate that book. Dull dull DULL! Every other character in it was a complete idiot and Hugo just _had_ to give everyone’s complete life history before getting on with the story at hand. \*\* I think you should know, **SpazCat** , that Ol’ Victor was getting paid by the word, and he was very short on cash at the time he was writing Les Mis, and therefore was padding the book wordwise in order to get as much money as he could out of it. Publishing companies didn’t operate on the advance/royalty system the way they do now. OK, now for the perfectly good books that were ruined for me by having to analyze them and write a composition- - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn The Scarlet Letter Of Mice and Men The Moon is Down The Red Badge of Courage\* [hijack]Trouble with Comp & Lit classes is that the emphasis is on the composition. Most teachers couldn’t care less if you read the book, as long as you turn in the paper. I can’t tell you how many people coasted through the class on Cliff’s Notes, and got the same A on the composition that I got when I _actually read the freaking book_. Also, the teachers I had pretty much had the format of the composition laid out, and if you deviated from it, you would get a bad grade. I got a D on probably the best composition I ever wrote. We were reading Poe’s “Masque of the Red Death”, and I had just seen Monty Python’s _The Meaning of Life_ and drew a parallel between the Poe story and the “Death Crashes a Party” sequence in the film. My teacher’s note said that it was not appropriate for a serious literary something or other. If what you get out of a story or book isn’t what the teacher thinks you should be getting out of it, you obviously don’t deserve a good grade, no matter how well-written your paper is.[/hijack ---
**Author:** ![The\_Asbestos\_Mango](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@The\_Asbestos\_Mango](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Asbestos_Mango)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2002, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/44 "2002-09-21T03:54:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SpazCat \* > \*\*My summer reading for tenth grade was _Les Miserables_ and _Siddhartha_. No one told me there was an abridged version of Les Mis, so I got the Thickest Book Known To Man and slogged through it. Great Zod, I hate that book. Dull dull DULL! Every other character in it was a complete idiot and Hugo just _had_ to give everyone’s complete life history before getting on with the story at hand. \*\* I think you should know, **SpazCat** , that Ol’ Victor was getting paid by the word, and he was very short on cash at the time he was writing Les Mis, and therefore was padding the book wordwise in order to get as much money as he could out of it. Publishing companies didn’t operate on the advance/royalty system the way they do now. OK, now for the perfectly good books that were ruined for me by having to analyze them and write a composition- - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn The Scarlet Letter Of Mice and Men The Moon is Down The Red Badge of Courage\* [hijack]Trouble with Comp & Lit classes is that the emphasis is on the composition. Most teachers couldn’t care less if you read the book, as long as you turn in the paper. I can’t tell you how many people coasted through the class on Cliff’s Notes, and got the same A on the composition that I got when I _actually read the freaking book_. Also, the teachers I had pretty much had the format of the composition laid out, and if you deviated from it, you would get a bad grade. I got a D on probably the best composition I ever wrote. We were reading Poe’s “Masque of the Red Death”, and I had just seen Monty Python’s _The Meaning of Life_ and drew a parallel between the Poe story and the “Death Crashes a Party” sequence in the film. My teacher’s note said that it was not appropriate for a serious literary something or other. If what you get out of a story or book isn’t what the teacher thinks you should be getting out of it, you obviously don’t deserve a good grade, no matter how well-written your paper is.[/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2002, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/45 "2002-09-21T04:02:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Thea Logica \* > \*\* > > I think you should know, **SpazCat** , that Ol’ Victor was getting paid by the word, and he was very short on cash at the time he was writing Les Mis, and therefore was padding the book wordwise in order to get as much money as he could out of it. Publishing companies didn’t operate on the advance/royalty system the way they do now. > > \*\* Proof that poverty doesn’t always breed genius. Sometimes it breeds overblown epics best used to squash spiders. ---
**Author:** ![Badtz\_Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e36b37/32.png) [@Badtz\_Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Badtz_Maru)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2002, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/46 "2002-09-21T04:19:06Z")
‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ ‘The Red Badge of Courage’ Shakespeares ‘Julius Caesar’ ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2002, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/47 "2002-09-21T06:48:39Z")
A lot of Shakespeare (Othelle, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, etc…) \*Of Mice and Men[/i[ _The Hobbit_- Yeah, poor us, we were forced to read _The Hobbit_. _War of the Worlds_ ---
**Author:** ![Agrippina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8797f3/32.png) [@Agrippina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agrippina)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2002, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/48 "2002-09-21T13:39:34Z")
**Animal Farm** –my favoritism towards this book was heightened because we had just finished **Old Man and the Sea** by Hemmingway. Uck. I have a feeling I would have loved the phone book if we read it after Hemmingway. Seriously, though, while reading AF my teacher told us about **1984** , which would become my favorite book of all time. **The Great Gatsby** **To Kill a Mockingbird** **Lord of the Flies** ---
**Author:** ![LifeOnWry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/96bed5/32.png) [@LifeOnWry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LifeOnWry)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2002, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/49 "2002-09-21T15:36:36Z")
b]Thea Logica\*\* - you poor thing. My English teacher was the exact opposite of yours. We had to write the papers, but we HAD to read the books. He allowed the use of Cliff’s Notes for study purposes (in fact, he used them himself as a sort of classroom syllabus) but he could tell if you hadn’t really done the reading. I really think his own passion for the books he assigned came across to us, and he made us deconstruct and analyze every damn detail, from the story itself to the technical “tricks” the writers used. Funny - he was the toughest teacher I ever had, and he was my favorite. I’m finding now that most kids I know prefer the teachers who make them work their asses off to the teachers who “teach to the test.” ---
**Author:** ![c-of-cyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@c-of-cyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/c-of-cyn)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2002, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/50 "2002-09-22T13:04:19Z")
**Jude the Obscure** by Thomas Hardy Still love it (and appreciate some of his other works) to this day. ---
**Author:** ![FisherQueen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/58f4c7/32.png) [@FisherQueen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FisherQueen)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2002, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/51 "2002-09-22T13:16:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Thea Logica \* > \*\* > > I got a D on probably the best composition I ever wrote. We were reading Poe’s “Masque of the Red Death”, and I had just seen Monty Python’s _The Meaning of Life_ and drew a parallel between the Poe story and the “Death Crashes a Party” sequence in the film. My teacher’s note said that it was not appropriate for a serious literary something or other. \*\* Just for the record, if you were a student of mine, and if what you’re describing was executed well, you’d definitely have gotten the ‘A,’ plus a little note from me expressing enthusiasm that you’d done something different from the other 99 papers I’m reading. ---
**Author:** ![nineiron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e56c9b/32.png) [@nineiron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nineiron)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2002, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/52 "2002-09-22T23:10:02Z")
As an aside… Doesn’t everyone realize that the reason you’re “forced” to read all of these books is that they are worthwhile and of course you’ll come to like many, if not most, of them, in time? I’d find it a lot more surprising if a group of educated adults DIDN’T come to appreciate the classics that their heartless teachers cruelly forced them to read. ---
**Author:** ![Jman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jman/32/4416_2.png) [@Jman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jman)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2002, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/53 "2002-09-22T23:56:56Z")
Like many of the other people here, I also loved: \*\*Grendel Catcher In the Rye \*\*and **The Great Gatsby** I also loved Shakespeare’s **Much Ado About Nothing** , **Night** by Elie Weasel (who I later heard speak at my college), and the play **Equus**. Oh, and just a note: I hated, hated, HATED **A Separate Peace** Jman ---
**Author:** ![The\_Asbestos\_Mango](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@The\_Asbestos\_Mango](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Asbestos_Mango)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2002, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/54 "2002-09-24T00:59:41Z")
**FisherQueen** , thanks, I feel better now. I think part of my teacher’s problem was that I saw a note of black humor in. “Masque of the Red Death” , mostly because of the almost absurdly pompous tone Poe took in writing the story. I was attacking the story from a completely different angle than was expected or desired. I didn’t say in the composition that I thought the story was funny, just that there was black humor in the story. Then brought in the Monty Python parallel. ---
**Author:** ![raz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@raz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raz)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2002, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/55 "2002-09-24T03:22:51Z")
I’m actually reading Upton Sinclare’s **The Jungle** right now in school. We just started reading it today and I am totally hooked. The only reason I am not reading it right now is so I can post this, then I’m going back to read it. Its so realistic and disgusting and sickening that you can’t help but read it. I thought **A Tale of Two Cities** was good for the most part, but sone of it was boring. Absolutely LOVED loved loved **Red Badge of Courage.** ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2002, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/56 "2002-09-24T05:12:32Z")
A lot of the short stories, like Poe and Conan Doyle, were fun. Most of the Shakespeare that we did was enjoyable, too. Probably because my teachers all realized that plays were meant to be performed, not read, and had us act them all out. **The White Mountains** and **The City of Gold and Lead** in Jr. High. **Animal Farm** **Lord of the Flies** **Of Mice and Men** **As I Lay Dying** , quite a nice change after The Sound and the Fury. A lot of other books have been mentioned that I’ve read and enjoyed, but we were never assigned them in school. You guys got to study Vonnegut? Man, what I would have given to do that instead of yet another brick o’ Dickens. ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2002, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/57 "2002-09-24T05:48:39Z")
I don’t think I could name all the books. Farenheit 451 Of Mice and Men The Time Machine Animal Farm Any Shakespeare play where we read it aloud in class (Teachers, the Bard is meant to be ACTED, not assigned as homework). Huck Finn Tom Sawyer The Cay But the best one, the one you were all waiting for to appear on my list, was tossed to me while I was sitting in the backseat after a weekend at the Ozarks summer of 8th grade. “What’s this?” I asked. “Just read it. Mr. Nickels is going to make you read it when you get in his class freshman year.” I looked at the cover. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. So I shrugged my shoulders and opened the book. A day later I was done with it and when I got to Mr. Nickel’s class I read it again, along with Speaker for the Dead. Sidenote: Last month I met Card at a book signing tour. He was speaking in front of 200-300 people and Mr. Nickels was there. After about an hour of speaking, before Card started signing books, he pointed out my former teacher and said “I was talking to this man before I came up here and he jokingly told me that he was singlehandidly responsible for a great deal of my fan base. Tell me, how many of you are current or former students of his?” I raised my hand…and was floored when I saw that well over half the audience had their hands up in the air too. Whatdayaknow? Sometimes teachers can make a difference. ---
**Author:** ![White\_Lightning](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@White\_Lightning](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/White_Lightning)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2002, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/58 "2002-09-24T07:01:08Z")
**WordMan** , they had you reading A Clockwork Orange in High School? Geez… And, **Calliope** , you were lucky. I didn’t discover Maugham until Cakes and Ale was on a reading list for a lit class I took my second year of college, and I’ve been devouring his stuff ever since. I’m going to go with **divemaster** with Crime and Punishment. I had struggled through it for a special assignment in 10th grade, and eagerly reread it in 12th (and again in my first year of college). Lovely book, and probably my favorite until I read Of Human Bondage. I also loved Great Expectations and The Stranger, both from 10th grade, although my other attempts to read various Dickens works and Camus’ The Plague were met with vicious ennui. ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2002, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612/59 "2002-09-24T07:01:16Z")
Till We Have Faces which I keep meaning to reread & Catch 22, (I also liked To Kill A Mockingbird, I think.) most of the rest I now _appreciate_ but that is not the same thing as “like.” (sometimes it is closer than others, though.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-they-forced-you-to-read-in-highschool-that-you-took-a-liking-to/128612.md?page=2)