# Poll: What books were you required to read during High-school? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 1, 2003, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-what-books-were-you-required-to-read-during-high-school/185611 "2003-07-01T17:23:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![lachesis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@lachesis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lachesis)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2003, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-what-books-were-you-required-to-read-during-high-school/185611/61 "2003-07-03T15:13:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Wang-Ka \* > \*\*I later learned that Charles Dickens tended to be wordy because he was paid by the word. > > Wonder what Melville’s excuse was… \*\* thank you, that provided me with my “nearly sprayed the keyboard” moment today. i needed that, after other depressing stuff this morning. oh, and “Romance Under the Elms”, **MarsDragon**? was that the special school-censored version of “Desire Under the Elms”? 😉 gee, i’d forgotten things like reading parts of _Canterbury Tales_, and _Antigone, The Lottery,_ and movies like _West Side Story, Macbeth_ (Orson Wells’ version)… gosh, i can’t even name half of it anymore. and for anyone who had to wade through stuff like _The Awakening_ or _Look Homeward, Angel_… may i congratulate you on being such tough survivors as teens. i only read them recently on my own. they immediately went into my “do not keep” book box upon completion. ---
**Author:** ![ArtyDooDoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/13edae/32.png) [@ArtyDooDoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ArtyDooDoo)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2003, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-what-books-were-you-required-to-read-during-high-school/185611/62 "2003-07-03T17:19:30Z")
Am I the only one who had to read The Chrysalids, by John Wyndham? Even though I read it in grade 7, it remains my very favourite required reading for all of my middle and high school years. ---
**Author:** ![austen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@austen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/austen)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2003, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-what-books-were-you-required-to-read-during-high-school/185611/63 "2003-07-03T19:24:55Z")
Plays: _Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet, The Glass Menagerie, Lysistrata, Antigone, Othello, Death of a Salesman, A Doll’s House_ Books/Novels: _Huckleberry Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird, Lord of the Flies, Heart of Darkness; Cry, the Beloved Country, Oliver Twist, Mayor of Casterbridge, The Scarlet Letter, Jane Eyre, A Tale of Two Cities, Canterbury Tales, The Great Gatsby, The Prince, A Farewell to Arms, Far From the Madding Crowd_ Epic Poems: \* The Iliad, The Oddesey\* ---
**Author:** ![11811](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/9d8465/32.png) [@11811](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/11811)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2003, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-what-books-were-you-required-to-read-during-high-school/185611/64 "2003-07-04T10:28:27Z")
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Catcher in the Rye ---
**Author:** ![fizgig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f04885/32.png) [@fizgig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fizgig)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2003, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-what-books-were-you-required-to-read-during-high-school/185611/65 "2003-07-04T18:34:07Z")
Cannery Row The Scarlet Letter Huck Finn Jane Eyre The Oddessy Canterbury Tales Moby Dick The Great Gatsby Animal Farm Lord of the Flies Julius Ceasar Romeo and Juliet Murders in the Rue Morgue ---
**Author:** ![Hammerstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c4cdca/32.png) [@Hammerstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hammerstein)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2003, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-what-books-were-you-required-to-read-during-high-school/185611/66 "2003-07-05T04:05:36Z")
Freshman Year - World Lit…mostly excerpts The Upanishads (excerpts) Chinese poetry (several poems) Antigone The Tempest Several Shakespearean Sonnets Silence Canterbury Tales (Excerpts) Beowulf (Exercept) Song of Roland Epic of Gilgamesh (Excerpt) Sophomore 1984 Brave New World Animal Farm Lord of the Flies Junior The Great Gatsby Various short stories and poetry Huckleberry Finn The Awakening The Scarlett Letter Senior The Secret Sharer Heart of Darkness Elliot poetry (Prufrock, Hollow Men, Wasteland) The Dead Portrait of an Aritist as a Young Man The Stranger Darkness at Noon Catch-22 Slaughterhouse V Light in August Fast Food Nation Night The Things They Carried All Quiet on the Western Front Unfortunately…due to changes in the way education is done in my district, there was less time for Shakespeare than most. ---
**Author:** ![IUHomer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90db22/32.png) [@IUHomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IUHomer)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2003, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-what-books-were-you-required-to-read-during-high-school/185611/67 "2003-07-05T14:29:57Z")
The usual stuff mentioned, plus I recall in my senior year in advanced lit we had to read Plato’s Republic, Dante’s Inferno (in English, thankfully) and Goethe’s Faust. I think there were others in between, but those in particular stick out in my mind. ---
**Author:** ![IUHomer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90db22/32.png) [@IUHomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IUHomer)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2003, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-what-books-were-you-required-to-read-during-high-school/185611/68 "2003-07-05T14:32:09Z")
I’m hoping Fast Food Nation was not something you read in a literature class. I’m reading it now. It has some good points about how manipulative the industry is, but much of it seems to be a typical liberal anti-business diatribe. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-what-books-were-you-required-to-read-during-high-school/185611.md?page=3)