# What books you were "forced" to read for school did you actually enjoy? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 29, 2019, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-you-were-forced-to-read-for-school-did-you-actually-enjoy/831701 "2019-03-29T01:51:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![divemaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/divemaster/32/78_2.png) [@divemaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/divemaster)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-you-were-forced-to-read-for-school-did-you-actually-enjoy/831701/21 "2019-03-29T14:02:36Z")
I, too, enjoyed most of my academic assigned reading. A couple that have always stuck with me as very glad to have been assigned, as I would probably have never picked them up on my own, were **Crime and Punishment** and **Candide**. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-you-were-forced-to-read-for-school-did-you-actually-enjoy/831701/22 "2019-03-29T14:04:29Z")
Lots of Greek plays Heart of darkness A separate peace Catcher in the rye Lots of stuff. I should probably look at a list of classics to remind myself what i read, then. I hated a lot of it, especially the American literature, for whatever reason, but i liked a lot, too. ---
**Author:** ![Doyle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doyle/32/439_2.png) [@Doyle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doyle)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-you-were-forced-to-read-for-school-did-you-actually-enjoy/831701/23 "2019-03-29T14:11:06Z")
Huckleberry Finn was the best without question. e ---
**Author:** ![Stuntman\_Mike](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stuntman_mike/32/334_2.png) [@Stuntman\_Mike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stuntman_Mike)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-you-were-forced-to-read-for-school-did-you-actually-enjoy/831701/24 "2019-03-29T14:13:02Z")
The Old Man and the Sea The Prince and the Pauper The Mosquito Coast ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-you-were-forced-to-read-for-school-did-you-actually-enjoy/831701/25 "2019-03-29T14:24:16Z")
In grammar school, in third or fourth grade we were assigned _The Mouse and the Motorcycle_ by Beverly Cleary and _Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing_ by Judy Blume. I don’t remember much about the former, but the latter established my love for Judy Blume and I tore through pretty much all her books the next few years. Also, in seventh or eighth grade (we had the same English teacher for both, so I can’t remember which grade it was), we read _Flowers for Algernon_, which I remember both enjoying very much and being creeped out by. In retrospect, it did seem a bit of an odd choice for a somewhat conservative Catholic school due to its sexual bits, but I don’t remember any parent complaining or any kids snickering about it. I’d be curious to revisit it to see what I think now. Oh, and there was also _Lord of the Flies_ in eighth grade. That was right up my alley. In high school, I loved _Catcher in the Rye_. I know lots of people hate it, and I wasn’t even a particularly rebellious kid with a great distaste for authority (hell, I was Republican at the time, so much as a high school junior or senior could be a “Republican.”) But I loved the hell out of that book and enjoyed Holden Caulfield’s character. I revisited it years later in college, and I still enjoyed it every bit as much. I wonder how I’d view it now as a 43-year-old, but my guess is that I’ll still like it, as I do like Salinger’s portrayal of angsty adolescence. That’s about all I really remember loving from high school. The others I got through, and enjoyed well enough, but don’t remember much about them. I vaguely remember enjoying _Lost Horizon_ and _Heart of Darkness_ and _Wild Sargasso Sea_. But English was my least favorite subject in high school (ironic, as I ended up an English major in college after a series of events where it happened that come senior year, the fastest way to graduate was to take six more English courses, which is what I did. Not because of a particular love of literature, but because I wanted to get out of there with a degree.) However, there did end up being a lot of books I loved in college, but there’d be too many to list (plus a lot of the reading material I did was concentrated on poetry.) ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-you-were-forced-to-read-for-school-did-you-actually-enjoy/831701/26 "2019-03-29T14:33:36Z")
Not counting short stories… Huckleberry Finn Of Mice and Men Hamlet Lord of the Flies The Pigman Beowulf ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-you-were-forced-to-read-for-school-did-you-actually-enjoy/831701/27 "2019-03-29T14:39:59Z")
_Brave New World_ ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-you-were-forced-to-read-for-school-did-you-actually-enjoy/831701/28 "2019-03-29T14:54:34Z")
To Kill a Mockingbird A Catcher in the Rye Great Gatsby I needed to read all of these in high school and enjoyed them immensely. In the “not-quite-the-OP” side, we had to read a book from a specific list and I chose Tess of the D’ubervilles and I LOVED that book. ---
**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:** [March 29, 2019, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-you-were-forced-to-read-for-school-did-you-actually-enjoy/831701/29 "2019-03-29T14:58:24Z")
In 10th grade, I had a class that focused on “monsters.” The two that stuck with me were _Frankenstein_ and Daphne Du Maurier’s _Rebecca_. (I think Shirley Jackson’s _We Have Always Lived in the Castle_ may have been the same class, and I loved it, too.) A lot of my junior high and high school classes let us pick our own books, and _The Three Musketeers_ was awesome. For my drama class, we had to pick the biography or autobiography of a famous entertainer and I picked Lenny Bruce’s _How to Talk Dirty and Influence People,_ which I guess tops the list. ---
**Author:** ![Rough\_Draft](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@Rough\_Draft](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rough_Draft)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-you-were-forced-to-read-for-school-did-you-actually-enjoy/831701/30 "2019-03-29T15:46:55Z")
The ones I remember liking jump instantly to mind: William Golding, _Lord of the Flies_ Pat Frank, _Alas, Babylon_ John Knowles, _A Separate Peace_ George Orwell, _Animal Farm_ ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-you-were-forced-to-read-for-school-did-you-actually-enjoy/831701/31 "2019-03-29T16:00:09Z")
The Bridge of San Luis Rey Pride and Prejudice Emma Macbeth Henry IV Part 1 Chaucer (at university) ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-you-were-forced-to-read-for-school-did-you-actually-enjoy/831701/32 "2019-03-29T16:46:07Z")
One of the best books I’ve ever read was assigned to me in 9th grade English class: [**A Tree Grows in Brooklyn**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Tree_Grows_in_Brooklyn_(novel)). It had a picture of a young girl on the cover, and was not a book I ever would have picked up on my own. Another was already mentioned upthread: **Adventures of Huckleberry Finn**. I liked it so much I finished it in a day. Another was one our 5th grade teacher read to the class over a period of weeks: **[Where the Red Fern Grows](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_the_Red_Fern_Grows)**. After the teacher finished reading the book to us, I asked to borrow it so I could read it again. I remember taking it home on a Friday afternoon, and finishing it before I went to sleep that night by flashlight under the covers. Another was in 7th grade: **[Watership Down](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watership_Down)**. Actually I did pick it off a list of options, and assumed it was about a ship or submarine sinking. (I’d recently seen the movie _[Gray Lady Down](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077629/)_ about a submarine sinking.) Imagine my surprise and disappointment when the cover had a picture of a rabbit on it! :smack: Nevertheless, it was one of the best books I’ve ever read. > [@dorvann](#): > > _Mrs Frisby and The Rats of NIMH_. by Robert C. O’Brien It is one of my favorite books and I’ve reread it numerous times. It was retitled The Secret of NIMH when it made into a animated film in the 80s. The film is alright even if it add supernatural elements that weren’t in the book. Thanks for the recommendation! I loved the film as a kid, and recently got it on Blu-Ray (haven’t rewatched it yet.) I’ll have to track down the book. > [@dorvann](#): > > …I also remember reading \*The Great Brain \* by John D. Fitzgerald and its sequels. I was never assigned this to read, but I read the whole series anyways and loved it. I got the series for my son as well when he was younger. ---
**Author:** ![Rushgeekgirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rushgeekgirl/32/3715_2.png) [@Rushgeekgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rushgeekgirl)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-you-were-forced-to-read-for-school-did-you-actually-enjoy/831701/33 "2019-03-29T16:55:52Z")
Of Mice and Men turned me on to my all-time favorite writer, John Steinbeck. After reading that I read everything else he wrote within a year or so. I think I was probably in seventh or eighth grade at the time. Everyone else was reading VC Andrews and I was telling everyone how awesome Grapes of Wrath was. I haven’t thought about this in years. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-you-were-forced-to-read-for-school-did-you-actually-enjoy/831701/34 "2019-03-29T17:06:59Z")
I remember liking To Kill a Mockingbird. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-you-were-forced-to-read-for-school-did-you-actually-enjoy/831701/35 "2019-03-29T17:17:08Z")
I never read assigned books. Just enough of cliff notes or asking other students to fake it through reports. After graduating I eventually went back and enjoyed To Kill a Mockingbird, Brave New World, and Animal Farm. ---
**Author:** ![Dropo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Dropo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dropo)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-you-were-forced-to-read-for-school-did-you-actually-enjoy/831701/36 "2019-03-29T17:32:19Z")
_The Monk_ by Matthew Lewis Far and away, the best - and most lurid - book I ever read in college, for college. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-you-were-forced-to-read-for-school-did-you-actually-enjoy/831701/37 "2019-03-29T17:38:03Z")
**Alas Babylon** is the only one I recall right now that I enjoyed reading in high school, and I was an avid reader from gradeschool thru high school (novel a night kinda thing), but none of the ‘required reading’ interested me. On reading a couple of other replies - yeah **Brave New World** is another one. ---
**Author:** ![Clawdio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d07c76/32.png) [@Clawdio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clawdio)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-you-were-forced-to-read-for-school-did-you-actually-enjoy/831701/38 "2019-03-29T17:40:16Z")
I really only remember being “forced” to read two books (the rest i can’t remember if i chose them or they were forced on me). The two were: **The Grapes of Wrath** and **The Red Badge of Courage**. I remember moderately enjoying Grapes, and thinking Red Badge was terrible. What I can say for certain is that in highschool I was not yet smart enough to really understand either of those books. At that age I still saw books as just stories, and didn’t really understand metaphor or allegory. ---
**Author:** ![The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_wind_of_my_soul)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-you-were-forced-to-read-for-school-did-you-actually-enjoy/831701/39 "2019-03-29T17:43:53Z")
I can think of three authors whom I was initially introduced to at school, but then went on to read a whole bunch of their other books on my own time: 1. The People of Pineapple Place by Anne Lindbergh 2. The BFG by Roald Dahl 3. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver I also adored The Princess Bride, although I didn’t go on to read anything else by the author. ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-you-were-forced-to-read-for-school-did-you-actually-enjoy/831701/40 "2019-03-29T18:44:43Z")
I enjoyed Shakespeare. Mostly, I think, because the guy was actually writing for a commercial audience and was trying to be entertaining, instead of navel-gazing “profundity”. There’s plenty of profundity, of course, but it’s an organic side effect of him being a genius. I like _The Crucible_, too. Then there were the occasional gems in those thick “English literature” books that got forced on us. Reading through them on my own time, I liked _The Cremation of Sam McGee_, _The Lady or the The Tiger?_, and pretty much anything by Saki. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-you-were-forced-to-read-for-school-did-you-actually-enjoy/831701.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-you-were-forced-to-read-for-school-did-you-actually-enjoy/831701.md?page=3)