# What are the most assigned books in college and high school courses? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 2, 2010, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-assigned-books-in-college-and-high-school-courses/523394 "2010-01-02T13:16:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-assigned-books-in-college-and-high-school-courses/523394/41 "2010-01-04T07:43:30Z")
> [@not\_alice](#): > > I venture that if I ask random people around town to assess the value of th books they read in high school to them, and then asked if they were helpful in “facing their own death” or “integrity”, they would simply stare at me. If I asked them if school had spent more time preparing them to understand the economics of a rapidly changing world via reading instead of some of what they read, they would leap at it. Cite? While I agree that there’s certainly a valuable role in the school curriculum for non-fiction books on things like industrial and technological history, I’m not sure I believe your unsupported speculation that most people found no meaning at all in assigned works of literature and would “simply stare” if asked to describe what they got out of them. I also think that you’re being rather optimistic in imagining that non-fiction books necessarily have more lasting practical value for readers than belles-lettres. The particular information that’s useful “to understand the economics of a rapidly changing world” changes just as rapidly, and there’s no guarantee that making high school students read a particular contemporary text on industry or economics is going to have direct practical benefits for them ten or twenty years into their working lives. You only need to look at some of the examples in, for instance, [_In Search of Stupidity_](http://www.insearchofstupidity.com/) to realize that many industries or policies that we laud as brilliant success stories turn out to be something quite different a few years down the road. If ten years ago we’d been assigning high-school students to read, say, _Dow 36000_ to “prepare them to understand the economics of a rapidly changing world”, we’d be feeling a little silly about now. ---
**Author:** ![cerberus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@cerberus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cerberus)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-assigned-books-in-college-and-high-school-courses/523394/42 "2010-01-04T07:46:10Z")
The Norton Anthologies ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-assigned-books-in-college-and-high-school-courses/523394/43 "2010-01-04T08:21:30Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Cite? You want a cite for my clearly stated opinion? My post is my cite 🙂 > [@](#): > > While I agree that there’s certainly a valuable role in the school curriculum for non-fiction books on things like industrial and technological history, I’m not sure I believe your unsupported speculation that most people found no meaning at all in assigned works of literature and would “simply stare” if asked to describe what they got out of them. Probably you don’t live in a town where 70% of the people over 25 never graduated high school and fewer than 10 % have a college degree, as I do. > [@](#): > > I also think that you’re being rather optimistic in imagining that non-fiction books necessarily have more lasting practical value for readers than belles-lettres. Cite? 🙂 > [@](#): > > The particular information that’s useful “to understand the economics of a rapidly changing world” changes just as rapidly, and there’s no guarantee that making high school students read a particular contemporary text on industry or economics is going to have direct practical benefits for them ten or twenty years into their working lives. You missed my point entirely. The world DOES change rapidly, the industries and jobs and careers will come and go. The more examples of this are understood, the better off people will be as their fear will be reduced, understanding increased. They will learn patterns of operation in the economic sphere (to poorly coin a phrase). Being able to draw on patterns (akin to “socialization” as used in other fields) is immensely valuable even if the particulars have changed. Which is what you expect will happen when they read literature, wrt writing and maybe future reading too, right? > [@](#): > > You only need to look at some of the examples in, for instance, [_In Search of Stupidity_](http://www.insearchofstupidity.com/) to realize that many industries or policies that we laud as brilliant success stories turn out to be something quite different a few years down the road. Are you even paying attention and trying to understand what I wrote? I gave examples of books industries that date to the 19th century. That is, roughly the time of the whaling book you are so fond of. How much time must we wait? Which of the 3 industries are still relevant today, since you held that one out as a great example of how to learn about capitalism? > [@](#): > > If ten years ago we’d been assigning high-school students to read, say, _Dow 36000_ to “prepare them to understand the economics of a rapidly changing world”, we’d be feeling a little silly about now. I fail to see how that book (if it is real) is about the history of a mature industry, and so it is a straw man, not related to what I posted at all. A more recent example, might be “The soul of a new machine” by Tracy Kidder, and even more recent, “The Cathedral and the Bazaar” by Eric Raymond would put a lot of what goes on day to day in the life of a teen or college student into perspective. I suspect (the rest of this sentence is my cite :)) that the reason this stuff isn’t taught is that the teachers and administration are not familiar with it or flexible enough to adapt so they teach the same stuff year after year, decade after decade. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-assigned-books-in-college-and-high-school-courses/523394/44 "2010-01-04T17:06:07Z")
> [@not\_alice](#): > > You want a cite for my clearly stated opinion? Oh, it was nothing but your opinion? I thought that if you were offering an estimate about what the reactions of a certain population would be in response to a certain question, you might have had something factual to base it on. No harm, no foul. > [@not\_alice](#): > > Probably you don’t live in a town where 70% of the people over 25 never graduated high school Oh, I see. When you started talking about getting the opinions of random people in your town about the value of a certain aspect of their high school education, I assumed that you were referring to people who had actually **obtained** a high school education, not people who had started one but never completed it. > [@not\_alice](#): > > I fail to see how that book (if it is real) is about the history of a mature industry, and so it is a straw man, not related to what I posted at all. > > A more recent example, might be “The soul of a new machine” by Tracy Kidder ? You’re calling _The Soul of a New Machine_, a book about an effort by a group of computer engineers in the 1970’s to design a new generation of minicomputers, a “history of a mature industry”? I also think it’s odd that you hold up this work as an example of greater accessibility in reading materials for high school students. A look at the plot summary, IMO, makes that assessment pretty questionable: > [@](#): > > Edson de Castro, one of the founders of Data General (and sometimes known as 8-bit Teddy) had a favorite theme for project Eagle that he would frequently demand of his engineers. He wanted the MV/8000 (Eagle) backwardly compatible with the Data General Eclipse series of computers, but having come from DEC, he didn’t want a “compatibility mode bit” as Digital Equipment Corporation had done with their VAX systems to make their product backwardly compatible with the PDP-11 series of computers. To this end he would often say: “I don’t want an Eclipse with a BAG on the side of it!” meaning he didn’t want a kludged-up Eclipse to become Data General’s next generation product, the MV/8000. > [@not\_alice](#): > > Are you even paying attention and trying to understand what I wrote? Yes, I’m paying attention and trying to understand what you write, but you’re being rather incoherent and arbitrary so it’s difficult. We seem to have agreement on the basic idea that it would be useful for high school students to have more exposure to curricular reading material on important non-literary subjects like industrial/technological/economic history. But you seem to be trying to extrapolate from that position some exaggerated inferences about the pedagogical usefulness of popular non-fiction works (in particular, for some mysterious reason, assigning unique usefulness to the arbitrary category of “history of a mature industry”) and the comparative unimportance of literary classics. Anyway, this is all getting pretty deep into GD territory, so I’ll leave my end of the discussion here in case posters want to continue the original GQ inquiry about what the most commonly assigned books are. (And by the way, yes, [_Dow 36000_](http://www.amazon.com/Dow-36-000-Strategy-Profiting/dp/0609806998) is an actual book, as even the most minimal googling effort would have informed you.) ---
**Author:** ![Reno\_Nevada](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Reno\_Nevada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reno_Nevada)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-assigned-books-in-college-and-high-school-courses/523394/45 "2010-01-04T17:36:22Z")
I did read a biography of Andrew Carnegie in one of my high school history classes, and it has stayed with me better than several of the books I read for high school English classes (including _A Separate Peace_, for instance). I do think that biographies should have a place in a curriculum. I enjoyed \*The Soul of a New Machine \*and _Microserfs_, but after I had experience in the computer software industry. I don’t think I would have gotten much out of them during high school. In general, trying to teach things that are current in high school is going to be problematic, because it is hard to see what will stay around and what is a passing fad. And I couldn’t get past the jarring shift in person in \*Moby-Dick \*when I tried to read it (long after college). ---
**Author:** ![fiddlesticks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddlesticks/32/18129_2.png) [@fiddlesticks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fiddlesticks)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-assigned-books-in-college-and-high-school-courses/523394/46 "2010-01-04T17:58:11Z")
Wow, I only read 5 of the 10 despite being on the advanced track back in high school (89-92), including AP English (R&J, Macbeth, Huck Finn, Scarlet Letter, and Lord of the Flies). My AP English class started with _The Once and Future King_ then jumped all around. I’d probably make my AP English teacher cry to say that I can’t remember much else specifically. (The books from my whole high school career kind of merge together in my mind.) I did get a 5 on the test). The work I remember most specifically from AP English was T.C. Boyle’s _Greasy Lake_ short story. I know I read _Grapes of Wrath_ at some point in high school… I was also assigned historical and books of technological interest in social studies classes vs. English classes. The most memorable were _The Jungle_, and Norris’ _The Octopus_. ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-assigned-books-in-college-and-high-school-courses/523394/47 "2010-01-04T18:02:43Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Oh, it was nothing but your opinion? I thought that if you were offering an estimate about what the reactions of a certain population would be in response to a certain question, you might have had something factual to base it on. No harm, no foul. It is not even a “foul”. any error is yours. Perhaps English is not your first language, or you are not aware of the construction “I venture that …” represents the putting forth of a hypothesis, or maybe you don’t fully understand what a hypothesis _is_. > [@](#): > > Oh, I see. When you started talking about getting the opinions of random people in your town about the value of a certain aspect of their high school education, I assumed that you were referring to people who had actually **obtained** a high school education, not people who had started one but never completed it. The “obtained” it all right. I would suspect (hypothesis again) that years of classroom education without any apparent relevance is what drives them out without the diploma. I personally don’t consider them dropped from society or less worthy of consideration in policy matters because they could not complete a HS diploma. Quite the opposite - I see it as a major concern, and it is easy to see that such folks are struggling because of their lack of education. Do you doubt that? Once you look there, then it is fair to ask what about the curriculum could be improved., for the benefit of individuals, and society as a whole. Perosnally, I’d rather see, at least for people who don’t elect it, less time on Shakepspeare, and more time making up for the material, eg, my parents and probably yours, provided us as enrichment. People can always come back to Shakespeare, but the demographic state of the economy, both locally and nationally, makes clear that lack of practical skills has a huge affect on one’s life course. I’d rather address that than lament that people who don’t have even the basic love of lifelong learning are going to somehow lack a vague opportunity of self-fulfilment decades later because they didn’t read Beowolf in high school. > [@](#): > > ? You’re calling _The Soul of a New Machine_, a book about an effort by a group of computer engineers in the 1970’s to design a new generation of minicomputers, a “history of a mature industry”? Sure, although I don’t think that was clear to Kidder at the time. It was the peak of the mini-computer industry he was describing. It rose rapidly and fell just as quickly. Seen a “mini-computer” lately? Are you aware of later analysis into the weaknesses of the “Massachusetts Miracle” compared the the emergence thereafter of Silicon Valley dominance? Probably not, but personally, I think those are the sorts of things that HS kids should be learning, because their future careers will be affected by the same types of forces - heck their own consumption patterns today are driven by both emerging and failing industries. Few if any industries are very stable today and are not being buffeted by the winds of change. I think it is a great idea to teach kids first awareness of, and then navigation, of these matters. And if it can be done by reading literate and interesting books, more power to it. Besides, you were the one that held up “Moby Dick” as a treatise on the state of the whaling industry at the time IIRC :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > I also think it’s odd that you hold up this work as an example of greater accessibility in reading materials for high school students. A look at the plot summary, IMO, makes that assessment pretty questionable: Oh so you have never read the book? You are put off by some technical terms in some random plot summary and you know everything? Pehaps a review of the Amazon page for the book will give you something tastier to chew on regarding the actual themes in the book. > [@](#): > > Yes, I’m paying attention and trying to understand what you write, but you’re being rather incoherent and arbitrary so it’s difficult. Then maybe you should ask for clarification of what you recognize you don’t get, instead of asserting it is wrong simply because you don’t get it. there is no shame in asking. We are all different people here, we can;t always know in advance what our readers already know or don’t know, so I don’t mind engaging in a discussion rather than a shouting match. > [@](#): > > We seem to have agreement on the basic idea that it would be useful for high school students to have more exposure to curricular reading material on important non-literary subjects like industrial/technological/economic history. But you seem to be trying to extrapolate from that position some exaggerated inferences about the pedagogical usefulness of popular non-fiction works (in particular, for some mysterious reason, assigning unique usefulness to the arbitrary category of “history of a mature industry”) and the comparative unimportance of literary classics. Lots of big words and assertions, not citations or even rhetoric forthcoming from you to support it. Why don’t you share with us what you mean particularly by “important non-literary subjects like industrial/technological/economic history”? How is it different from what I suggest? What examples of actual books would you include? I gave one example, I’d give many more, some which might surprise you. But like the current canon, it is certainly up for debate. I am not aware of any single book that MUST be included, although I am open to hearing about it. And I’d hardly suggest that among the books I suggested, all of them are “popular” in any sense. I think they are worth studying. But that hardly makes them “popular”. If you have other examples, bring them up. Mine are only examples at this point. Collaborate with me 🙂 Instead of taking potshots, especially when you say we are in basic agreement, why not build on that agreement and ask for clarification - this is a train-of-thought discussion after all, not a lecture - when you are not clear on something > [@](#): > > Anyway, this is all getting pretty deep into GD territory, so I’ll leave my end of the discussion here in case posters want to continue the original GQ inquiry about what the most commonly assigned books are. > > (And by the way, yes, [_Dow 36000_](http://www.amazon.com/Dow-36-000-Strategy-Profiting/dp/0609806998) is an actual book, as even the most minimal googling effort would have informed you.) So are millions other books, so what? You brought it up and accuse me of wanting to put it in the canon. The title itself makes me think it is preposterous to include in the category I was discussing. Am I wrong about that? In response, I gave you a couple of what I think are better examples. Do you disagree? Can you not see the difference between that book, and , e.g. “Mauve” ([Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World: Garfield, Simon: 9780393323139: Amazon.com: Books](http://www.amazon.com/Mauve-Invented-Color-Changed-World/dp/0393323137)) There are many fine books in that genre that would be interesting at a HS level. Not for lit class, but perhaps in addition to lit class. I live in the area described by Grapes of Wrath, and later where Cesar Chavez organized grape workers. I think a whole multi year curriculum could be built around that locally that could cover lit, math, history, economics, careers, cooking, all sorts of skills at various levels of immediate practicality and abstractness. I guess I am thinking of a ore “integrated curriculum” instead of each department being its own “silo”. You could still teach all the same stuff, just around a shared theme. I think it would be more interesting to more kids, and hence more effective. I realize it would be harder to design and maintain for teachers and administrators than a standardized “silo” style curriculum, but is anybody honestly arguing that the current style is working for us as a society? Anyway, that is just some of the OTTOMH thoughts I have that lead to my suggestion about a genre of books that would be helpful instead of some of the existing lit books. I’d leave them available for those that want them as elective, they are fine by themselves, but when teaching time is a limited resource, it is fair to consider which to leave as “required” and which might no longer make the cut. Perhaps you can share with us what brings you the similar conclusions regarding what categories of books might be interesting? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-assigned-books-in-college-and-high-school-courses/523394/48 "2010-01-04T18:09:43Z")
> [@anson2995](#): > > I doubt you’ll find a single poster who was assigned to read Maus Fourth grade. Other than that you’re pretty much on target: I read eight of those books/plays in high school. The drama program did Macbeth my sophomore year but it wasn’t technically an assignment. I somehow got through both high school and college without reading The Scarlet Letter. ---
**Author:** ![Ace309](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ace309/32/1050_2.png) [@Ace309](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ace309)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2010, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-assigned-books-in-college-and-high-school-courses/523394/49 "2010-01-04T18:16:49Z")
> [@Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](#): > > Jimmy Stewart wrote a Calculus book that, I would guess, a majority of colleges use. [He has so much fucking money from this.](http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB123872378357585295-lMyQjAxMDI5MzA4NDcwMjQzWj.html) I was going to suggest Stewart, assuming you count all of the variants (early transcendentals, early vectors, custom editions that split single- and multi-variable sections into two books, etc) as the same book. At my large state university, three sections of calculus are offered: 121-122 (Fun With Calculus), 131 (Calculus for Management), and 141-142-241 (Real Live Calculus). The 141 sequence is taken by all STEM [science, tech, engineering, math] students, which is just an enormous segment of the school, and requires Stewart. 121-122 and 131 use different books, and I’m not sure what the proportions are. I think Stewart is fairly standard for STEM departments and not at all standard for social sciences and humanities. Plato’s dialogues are assigned in many Philosophy classes that count for general ed requirements, but I’m not sure how many non-Philosophy students fulfill their requirements in those classes. My Comp classes used a lot of short stories that I had never heard of before to help guide our writing, so I’m not sure that English 101 classes are necessarily where you’ll find most-assigned books. ---
**Author:** ![Skylark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Skylark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skylark)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2010, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-assigned-books-in-college-and-high-school-courses/523394/50 "2010-01-05T06:44:37Z")
> [@Krokodil](#): > > This was a different Jim Stewart, a concert violinist in his 60s, not the **It’s a Wonderful Life** actor. _That_ Jimmy Stewart retired a Brigadier General. [Link](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Stewart_(actor)#Military_service). ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2010, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-assigned-books-in-college-and-high-school-courses/523394/51 "2010-01-05T14:36:22Z")
> [@emmaliminal](#): > > Chiming in to agree; your professor needs a cite and/or additional restrictions. Maybe it’s the most assigned reading material in colleges in classes on the Holocaust or WWII? or the most assigned graphic novel? You later posted that you’d see \*Night \*by Elie Weisel. That’d be my bet for most assigned WWII/Holocaust text, far beyond the readership of _Maus_. As for “I Had a Dream”, I would bet that “Letters from a Birmingham Jail” surpass it for MLK texts. ---
**Author:** ![Desert\_Nomad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desert_nomad/32/177_2.png) [@Desert\_Nomad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desert_Nomad)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2010, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-assigned-books-in-college-and-high-school-courses/523394/52 "2010-01-05T14:48:27Z")
In addition to the above, we had to read: The Scarlet Letter Red Badge of Courage The Seventh Cross The Crucible A Tale of Two Cities Great Expectations What would have been FAR, FAR better for everyone is in lieu of most of this, a course on basic finance, economy, money management, investing (how markets work etc). There is no course like this in high school, but there needs to be. ---
**Author:** ![zut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zut/32/2875_2.png) [@zut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zut)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2010, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-assigned-books-in-college-and-high-school-courses/523394/53 "2010-01-05T15:22:51Z")
[Top-selling textbooks, per Amazon](http://www.amazonsellercommunity.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=178179&tstart=0). The top ten are: ```auto NO ISBN TITLE AUTHOR PUB DATE 1 0321543254 Biology with MasteringBiology (8th Edition) Campbell, Neil A. 12/7/2007 2 0073379611 Managerial Accounting Garrison, Ray 2/9/2009 3 0136006175 Chemistry: The Central Science (11th Edition) Brown, Theodore E. 1/8/2008 4 0495011665 Calculus: Early Transcendentals (Stewart's Calculus Series) Stewart, James 6/7/2007 5 0470374942 Intermediate Accounting Kieso, Donald E. 3/23/2009 6 0321489845 Biology: Concepts and Connections (6th Edition) Campbell, Neil A. 2/28/2008 7 0470084715 Principles of Anatomy and Physiology Tortora, Gerard J. 4/2/2008 8 007310597X Understanding Business Nickels, William 11/9/2006 9 0073375691 Economics (McGraw-Hill Economics) McConnell, Campbell 10/24/2008 10 071677108X Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry Nelson, David L. 2/1/2008 ``` ---
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2010, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-assigned-books-in-college-and-high-school-courses/523394/54 "2010-01-05T15:36:53Z")
> [@cerberus](#): > > The Norton Anthologies This would be my guess. Every college curriculum for virtually every major out there requires a ground-level lit course. Your “English 101” course. This course can be taught by tenure-track faculty but more often than not, it’s an adjunct or graduate instructor. These folks are unlikely to have their own book, and in some cases may be teaching the course that is not really their main focus. As an instructor I’m aware that the number of books and the price of books matters greatly to students. It can influence your evaluations, especially if students buy books and feel they weren’t useful or needed. So instructors tend to look for anthologies that cover a broad topic so they can select a number of readings instead of having students buy five separate books, or whatever. Norton is a really good reader (I used it in high school and college), is readily available, and in all likelihood can be sold back at a good price. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2010, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-assigned-books-in-college-and-high-school-courses/523394/55 "2010-01-05T15:38:36Z")
I went through high school and several college lit classes at a top-20 university, and I have never heard of Maus. So, just no. I did, in my school career, have to read _Jane Eyre_ twice, once in HS and once in college; and I also was assigned _Lolita_ twice (two different college courses). Most of the other books I had to read have been mentioned above. I do recall that for Dickens, my high school senior English teach assigned _Dombey and Son_ instead of _Great Expectations_ because she knew that Cliff Notes did not exist for D&S. I took a 20th C. American Lit class in college, and I think the most recent book we read was Saul Bellow’s _Humboldt’s Gift_. That was published in '75, and this was in about '88, so that’s not too bad. Most of the reading was earlier though: Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Faulkner, O’Conner. I think one of my _Lolita_ assignments was in this class too. ---
**Author:** ![Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7993a0/32.png) [@Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jamaika_a_jamaikaiake)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2010, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-assigned-books-in-college-and-high-school-courses/523394/56 "2010-01-05T18:16:21Z")
> [@Krokodil](#): > > This was a different Jim Stewart, a concert violinist in his 60s, not the **It’s a Wonderful Life** actor. Oh, yes, I know that. However, please don’t tell my students when I imply otherwise in class. > [@Ace309](#): > > I was going to suggest Stewart, assuming you count all of the variants (early transcendentals, early vectors, custom editions that split single- and multi-variable sections into two books, etc) as the same book. Of course. When you count “Plato,” don’t you count every dialogue and every edition thereof? ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2010, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-assigned-books-in-college-and-high-school-courses/523394/57 "2010-01-05T22:49:13Z")
> [@Hippy\_Hollow](#): > > This would be my guess. > > Every college curriculum for virtually every major out there requires a ground-level lit course. Your “English 101” course. This course can be taught by tenure-track faculty but more often than not, it’s an adjunct or graduate instructor. These folks are unlikely to have their own book, and in some cases may be teaching the course that is not really their main focus. I’ve never heard of \*The Norton Anthologies \*& neither did my major require an English lit course. Of the books in post #3, I read 8 of them in high school, as well as many others mentioned in this thread (_A Separate Peace, A Prayer for Owen Meany, Night_, etc.) ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-assigned-books-in-college-and-high-school-courses/523394/58 "2010-01-06T02:52:07Z")
[The Bedford Handbook](http://www.amazon.com/Bedford-Handbook-2009-MLA-Update/dp/0312595042/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262746243&sr=1-4) might be up there. I introduced it to the last school where I taught. It’s _really_ helpful. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-assigned-books-in-college-and-high-school-courses/523394/59 "2010-01-11T01:55:00Z")
> [@Silverstreak\_Wonder](#): > > Rick, when a book is only used by teachers and never in any other setting, that would be the useless literature. Moby Dick sure fits that. The school officials would only have to determine that the literature is used in a non-education career setting, and put more emphasis on things like biographies, which I don’t remember even reading any at all! You’ve admitted to a disinterest in history, so what evidence is there you’d have been interested in that sort of history? > [@](#): > > I am sure large companies could point to literature on their founders and their visions, and they were not stupid visions of a nut (yep, Moby Dick again) but instead visions that came true and made money and jobs for us, just what we ought to be trying to teach, not how to be a nut with a stupid vision, see now? That’s why we have economics and business classes. - Rick, Economics major. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-assigned-books-in-college-and-high-school-courses/523394/60 "2010-01-11T08:54:40Z")
> [@zut](#): > > [Top-selling textbooks, per Amazon](http://www.amazonsellercommunity.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=178179&tstart=0). I clicked through and saw that Maus I was not even in the top 100 list. Then again though, I don’t think that they consider it a textbook: > [@](#): > > [Amazon.com](http://Amazon.com) Sales Rank: #529 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books) > > Popular in these categories: (What’s this?) > #2 in Books \> History \> Military \> World War II > #3 in Books \> History \> World \> Jewish > #3 in Books \> Biographies & Memoirs \> Historical \> Holocaust Pretty good for a novel published in 1986. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-assigned-books-in-college-and-high-school-courses/523394.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-most-assigned-books-in-college-and-high-school-courses/523394.md?page=4)