Making up Freshman English in '84: The Shining. Still have mine.
Don’t remember any of the others.
Surprisingly, The Brothers Karamazov and Doctor Zhivago. I had never read any Russian lit before that, and I enjoyed both.
Let’s see… taking into account that growing up in PR I had required lit in *both *English and Spanish, and each with some “universal” components…
On the English side Required Reading list we had quite a lot of SF (Bradbury: Something Wicked…, Martian Chronicles, Illustrated Man; Clarke: Childhood’s End, 2001; Asimov: I, Robot; and as well A Chanticle for Leibowitz, Alas Babylon, On the Beach), so of course I was a happy boy (though a bit concerned I’d be nuked to oblivion any day now); plus Shaw and Orwell, and Ionesco just because hey, people being weird. Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse-5 during a unit on satire. And of course we got some good Shakespeares (Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Macbeth). Solzhenytsin in translation was a bit tough to chew though interesting at first.
However, Holden Caulfield went through my life leaving nothing but the regret of unrecoverable time spent. So there’s that.
In Spanish I got a kick out of the Argentinians - Hernández, Guiraldes, Bioy Casares, Borges. OTOH, to be honest, García Marquez and Vargas Llosa were something of a schlep at the time and only the latter got much easier with time.
Loved Othello and Billy Budd.
***When the Legends Die ***by Hal Borland. I reread it as an adult and enjoyed it just as much as I did in high school.
I read Of Mice and Men, Huckleberry Finn, and To Kill a Mockingbird in middle school, and really enjoyed all three. I’ve reread them as an adult as well, and all three hold up very well. I’ll admit to not liking the end of Huckleberry Finn very much–the addition of Tom sawyer and his schemes doesn’t work very well, IMO–but the rest of it appealed to me then and appeals to me still.
In high school Catcher in the Rye stands out, and like pulykamell upstairs I was not at all a Holden-type kid. I reread it at about age 32 and again in my mid-forties, and found it excellent both times. The story seems sadder with each reading. I did like My Antonia as well. That’s one I liked less well when I reread it years later–didn’t dislike it, but didn’t like it nearly as much as I’d remembered. Oh well!
Not sure if college is counted, but I read Absalom, Absalom!, Ragtime, and Oliver Twist–loved the first two and very much enjoyed the third (though the whole Rose Maylie gang could be a little hard to take).
“1984” was awesome. Had to write a paper on it in the 12th grade, 1 year later was assigned it again as a freshman in college and submitted the same paper (with revisions).
Of the works of literature I had to read in college, I most enjoyed Lord of the Flies, The 480, Animal Farm, and 1984.
I enjoyed The Scarlet Pimpernel and re-read it occasionally - a lot of my others have been mentioned.
I discovered Watership Down because one of my teachers taught a couple of grades, and the book was assigned to the kids a year older than me. I saw a copy lying around, with a bunny on the cover, and being obsessed with all animals I picked it up.
That was 7th grade and it’s still my all time favorite. And I don’t pick favorites easily for almost anything.
To Kill a Mockingbird - Pleasantly surprised, was fully expecting to loathe this
Gulliver’s Travels
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck.
On the Beach by Nevil Shute.
I had to read the graphic novel “Maus” for a college literature class. Due to the content, I can’t say I enjoyed it, but it’s something everyone should read, as they should with “Maus II” which came out not long afterwards.
As far as short stories go, I remember liking “To Build a Fire” and “Leiningen versus the Ants”.
Lord of the Flies
A great read from start to finish. I ended up renting both movies after I finished the book.
Brave New World
Kind of racy at the time for a middle school book. But I loved it.
Flowers for Algernon
The short story for me too. I didn’t appreciate it as much as I did when I read it later as an adult, but I still liked it at the time.
Harrison Bergeron
Pretty weird short story that I thought was very out-the-ordinary for what we usually read.
1984
We read this either before or after Brave New World.
The Huxley book was better, but this one was good too. I really wanted to know what was going on and who was behind it all.
“Gods, Graves and Scholars”
Not forced to read. But read to. I had an 8th grade Social Studies teacher (circa 1973) that read to class one day a week. He read Kurt Vonnegut. Welcome to the Monkey House.
Well, that didn’t just turn me into a huge Vonnegut fan, it made me an avid reader as well. I couldn’t get enough.
They should call this book Johnny Deformed.
In the 8th grade, we were given edited copies of ‘Flowers In The Attic’ for a class reading assignment. (I’m sure you can imagine my surprise a couple of years later when I read the full story)
For 9th grade English class, we read ‘The Dove’. That one appealed to me because, hey a kid close in age to me and he’s sailing all the way around the world alone, by himself. Thought that was the coolest thing ever.
Hmm. The film was nothing like the book… :dubious: 
“Of Mice and Men” (to this day one of my all-time favorites) and “The Catcher in the Rye”.