# What non-canon novels were you assigned to read in High School English? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [September 4, 2025, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-canon-novels-were-you-assigned-to-read-in-high-school-english/1022762 "2025-09-04T21:49:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-canon-novels-were-you-assigned-to-read-in-high-school-english/1022762/1 "2025-09-04T21:49:59Z")
Spinning off from a couple other current threads. I can name only one that (I think) few high school students would be required to read, and that is **Tarzan of the Apes** (1912). I have almost zero recollection of the assignments or discussions that accompanied it. Maybe my 9th grade teacher just wanted to demonstrate that reading was fun. I mostly remember this, because it was the first school book that I was required to purchase with my (well, my parents’) own money. The paperback was $1.95 and could be purchased from the same window where we bought our gym clothes. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-canon-novels-were-you-assigned-to-read-in-high-school-english/1022762/2 "2025-09-04T22:02:16Z")
By far the strangest high school English reading assignment I had was reading Arthur Hailey’s teleplay _Flight Into Danger_ which was remade as the film _Zero Hour!_ which was later remade as the movie _Airplane!_. Trying to seriously analyze a scene with a doctor asking the pilots if they ate the chicken or the fish for dinner was a tad surreal. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-canon-novels-were-you-assigned-to-read-in-high-school-english/1022762/3 "2025-09-04T22:18:12Z")
The one which springs to mine is _[The Chocolate War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chocolate_War)_, a young-adult novel (which was still a relatively new publication when we read it) about a Catholic all-boys high school, and the student body’s tormenting of a non-conforming classmate. I suspect that part of the reason we were assigned it was because we, too, were a Catholic all-boys high school, with an unfortunate history of bullying and hazing. We also read Herman Melville, but instead of _Moby-Dick_, we read the lesser-known _Billy Budd_. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-canon-novels-were-you-assigned-to-read-in-high-school-english/1022762/4 "2025-09-04T22:51:28Z")
_Nectar in a Sieve_ by Kamala Markandaya. Set in India. All I really remember about it wàs a question on a quiz: “How did Nathan react to the first pumpkin?” ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-canon-novels-were-you-assigned-to-read-in-high-school-english/1022762/5 "2025-09-04T22:55:41Z")
Well, I dunno if it’s non-cannon, but it seemed unusual to me at the time. Our textbook in 10th grade consisted almost entirely of the best short stories in horror and science fiction. We read Bradbury’s _All Summer in a Day,_ _The Lottery_ by Shirley Jackson, we watched “_The Birds,”_ we read a bunch of Poe, and to top it all off, our Final Exam was to watch _Monty Python and the Holy Grail._ It was pretty awesome. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2025, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-canon-novels-were-you-assigned-to-read-in-high-school-english/1022762/6 "2025-09-05T00:19:59Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > I can name only one that (I think) few high school students would be required to read … If that’s the qualification for inclusion in this thread, then I’ll offer William Faulkner’s _The Reivers_. I’ve never met anybody else, not even in other English classes in our school at that time, who had to read it at high school. But our teacher really enjoyed Faulkner, so maybe that’s why we studied it. It was (if memory serves), Faulkner’s last novel; and it was made into a movie in the late 1960s. I’ve seen the movie in the years since, and it’s not bad. Steve McQueen is in it. Not that I complained about having to read the book; I rather enjoyed it. It was a good story. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2025, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-canon-novels-were-you-assigned-to-read-in-high-school-english/1022762/7 "2025-09-05T01:04:04Z")
My high school teacher loved Theodore Dreiser’s _An American Tragedy_, and so we read it. Maybe that was canon in the 50’s? I ended up quite enjoying it. > [@kenobi\_65](#): > > The one which springs to mine is _[The Chocolate War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chocolate_War)_, I’d never heard of this, but for many years our book club facilitator was that author’s daughter, and a lot of folks seemed to be familiar with it & like it. ---
**Author:** ![Tabco](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tabco/32/7644_2.png) [@Tabco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabco)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2025, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-canon-novels-were-you-assigned-to-read-in-high-school-english/1022762/8 "2025-09-05T01:26:05Z")
Feels like everything I read in high school was pretty standard fare. Perhaps either _Jonathan Livingston Seagull_ or _Grendel_ by John Gardner. Maybe _Night_ be Elie Wiesel? ---
**Author:** ![Edward\_The\_Head](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ce73a5/32.png) [@Edward\_The\_Head](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edward_The_Head)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2025, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-canon-novels-were-you-assigned-to-read-in-high-school-english/1022762/9 "2025-09-05T15:15:55Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > _Nectar in a Sieve_ by Kamala Markandaya. Set in India. We did this in college, I don’t remember a thing about it. We also read _Things Fall Apart,_ of which I also remember nothing. I don’t remember reading anything in HS that most other people didn’t read. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2025, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-canon-novels-were-you-assigned-to-read-in-high-school-english/1022762/10 "2025-09-05T15:42:41Z")
As part of a unit on Sophocles’ Oedipus plays, we listened to Lee Breuer’s _Gospel at Colonus_ and watched Woody Allen’s _Oedipus Wrecks_. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2025, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-canon-novels-were-you-assigned-to-read-in-high-school-english/1022762/11 "2025-09-05T15:47:32Z")
> [@Tabco](#): > > Maybe _Night_ be Elie Wiesel? We read that one too. ---
**Author:** ![Jaycat.again](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat.again/32/11525_2.png) [@Jaycat.again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaycat.again)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2025, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-canon-novels-were-you-assigned-to-read-in-high-school-english/1022762/12 "2025-09-05T16:24:12Z")
A really strange play called On Borrowed Time, wherein an old man climbs a tree to try to evade Death. ---
**Author:** ![raspberry\_hunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@raspberry\_hunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raspberry_hunter)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2025, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-canon-novels-were-you-assigned-to-read-in-high-school-english/1022762/13 "2025-09-05T16:44:18Z")
The Birds and definitely Monty Python definitely seems atypical (my classes certainyl didn’t do that), but “All Summer in a Day” and “The Lottery” were both pretty standard school canon, I think. I’m amused that my high schooler has just read Bradbury’s “The Veldt,” which I also read in a school textbook at about that time. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2025, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-canon-novels-were-you-assigned-to-read-in-high-school-english/1022762/14 "2025-09-05T16:49:48Z")
Bradbury is my favorite writer. _All Summer in a Day_ haunted me for a long time after I read it, but I never attached the author’s name to it and so for years I didn’t know who wrote it. Fast forward to college, I checked out a book of Bradbury short stories, not really knowing who he was, but his stuff was great! The more I read, I was like, _this seems familiar._ Just the tone and the voice. And then I found that story again, and it was a moment of true joy when this nebulous haunted feeling finally found its source, and I found my favorite author. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2025, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-canon-novels-were-you-assigned-to-read-in-high-school-english/1022762/15 "2025-09-05T17:22:19Z")
A lot of people mentioned having to read _The Brothers Karamazov_ but we read _Crime and Punishment_, which I actually liked even though it was very long. Another book we read that I haven’t seen mentioned was _Mrs. Dalloway_. That, I didn’t like. But I was very lucky: One of the reading passages in that year’s AP English exam came from that book, which made answering those questions easy. Oh, and a lot of people mentioned _Tess of the D’Urbervilles_. We read _The Return of the Native_ instead. It was ok. Not my favorite, but I didn’t hate it as people seem to hate _Tess_. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2025, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-canon-novels-were-you-assigned-to-read-in-high-school-english/1022762/16 "2025-09-05T17:30:17Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > The one which springs to mine is _[The Chocolate War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chocolate_War)_ We read that one as well but I don’t remember if it was in high school or junior high. I had forgotten about it until you mentioned it now. I assume it’s coincidence that we’re both in the Chicago area since it’s different counties, towns and districts (plus I was in public school, not Catholic) unless it was just on some IL Dept of Education list of books to teach. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2025, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-canon-novels-were-you-assigned-to-read-in-high-school-english/1022762/17 "2025-09-05T17:36:00Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > I assume it’s coincidence that we’re both in the Chicago area since it’s different counties, towns and districts (plus I was in public school, not Catholic) unless it was just on some IL Dept of Education list of books to teach. I live in the Chicago area now, but I grew up in the Green Bay area, and attended a now-defunct Catholic school in suburban De Pere. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2025, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-canon-novels-were-you-assigned-to-read-in-high-school-english/1022762/18 "2025-09-05T17:38:00Z")
I’ll update my files! So… very much a coincidence 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2025, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-canon-novels-were-you-assigned-to-read-in-high-school-english/1022762/19 "2025-09-05T17:38:59Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > A lot of people mentioned having to read _The Brothers Karamazov_ but we read _Crime and Punishment_, which I actually liked even though it was very long. > > Another book we read that I haven’t seen mentioned was _Mrs. Dalloway_. Interesting - those are both on the syllabus of Columbia’s required first-year literature course (or were, 20 years ago). ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2025, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-canon-novels-were-you-assigned-to-read-in-high-school-english/1022762/20 "2025-09-05T17:49:22Z")
I remember reading _A Canticle for Leibowitz_ by Walter M. Miller Jr.. If I recall correctly it was an extra-credit assignment. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-canon-novels-were-you-assigned-to-read-in-high-school-english/1022762.md?page=2)