# YOUR Required Reading List (poll) **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 3, 2001, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-required-reading-list-poll/48307 "2001-01-03T22:14:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2001, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-required-reading-list-poll/48307/1 "2001-01-03T22:14:21Z")
Well, we all know that in High School we had required reading. I was not entirely pleased with many of the books we had to read. So, if I could run the nation’s educational system in at least this part here’s the books I’d require, two per grade level. 9th: **The Scarlet Letter** (yeah, I did like it) and **The Phantom of the Opera**. Mainly because freshmen need to get a grip and both of these are tails of the “good” in people (IMO). Maybe we can avert Manson freaks this way, who knows…anyway 10th: **Any _two_ religious works** , or study of any two religions in general (with specifics on as much original text as possible for, say, Old School Sumeria or something). This year The student picks two and gives a detailed report on both of them. Either two seperate reports with much detail and perhaps even history, or one report comparing and contrasting the religions (if applicable). 11th: **Atlas Shrugged** (no _sighs_ please), **The Communist Manifesto** (ditto), **1984** , and **Brave New World**. I see these as the extremes in political positions/ideology with semi-corresponding distopian views. 12th: Here’s the biggie…drum roll please…_nothing_! That’s right, no particular book required at all this year, only _a_ book, probably of a decent length (over 350 pages, say) and a detailed report on it. This report, as well, need not be praising it per se, it could be a systematic critique laying bare flaws, it may be a collection of thoughts, etc etc. Hell, its your senior year…give them a break after all the hell I put them through before. Yes, I know I was a little rough on the tykes, but I think our nation needs a swift kick in the ass to get the brain back up where it belongs 😉 So, what does anyone else think? I mean, which books would you require were you so inclined? Needn’t be as wordy as me, of course, or ramble on even longer if you will. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Astroboy14](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/df705f/32.png) [@Astroboy14](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Astroboy14)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2001, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-required-reading-list-poll/48307/2 "2001-01-04T07:01:55Z")
Required reading for everyone, IMHO: **Cat’s Cradle** by Kurt Vonnegut! Bestest book ever! Number 2 would have to be **Skinny Legs and All** by Tom Robbins. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2001, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-required-reading-list-poll/48307/3 "2001-01-04T12:30:08Z")
**The Devil’s Dictionary** by Ambrose Bierce, \*\*Catch-22 and **Fight Club**. ---
**Author:** ![Spritle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Spritle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spritle)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2001, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-required-reading-list-poll/48307/4 "2001-01-04T12:46:49Z")
I’d require some Steinbeck (probably _Of Mice and Men_ and some more Vonnegut (_Slapstick_ or _Time Quake_ along with those mentioned above. It’s interesting to note that the OP centered the reading list thematically as opposed to a time or place (18th century lit. or European Lit., American Lit., etc.). This represente two very different and opposing schools of thought (NPI). The thematic approach allows for more direct connections to life situations (“Authenticisms” as dubbed by Grant Wiggins) while time period or location grouping allows more connections to social history i.e., comparing Victorian era British writings to the social, political and economic events of the time. The groupings need not be steadfast; it can change by years, semesters or even units. Sorry about the detour; many of you know from my earlier postings that I was a teacher. I guess you can’t separate the teacher from the person, regardless of their current job! ---
**Author:** ![tiny\_ham](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a183cd/32.png) [@tiny\_ham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tiny_ham)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2001, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-required-reading-list-poll/48307/5 "2001-01-04T18:52:28Z")
I think a great book for 9th or 10th grade (and short for those densely packed high school semesters) would be The Collector by John Fowles. In addition to be exciting and somewhat “freaky”, which is all the rage with the kids these days, it also deals with self esteem issues in a non-catcher-in-the-rye way. In fact, Catcher In The Rye is discussed. Also, I think everyone in the world should be required to read A Prayer For Owen Meany…if for no other reason than to foster a love of reading. jarbaby ---
**Author:** ![stargazer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb8c5e/32.png) [@stargazer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stargazer)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2001, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-required-reading-list-poll/48307/6 "2001-01-04T23:47:51Z")
I would definitely have people read **A Prayer for Owen Meany** as well, **jarbaby**. And I’d have them read at _least_ one of Shakespeare’s plays per year, with the caveat that they either act them out or see them performed for the first two years – it lends a depth and appreciation that just reading doesn’t. I’d have them read parts of Chaucer’s **Canterbury Tales** , and part of **Beowulf** , so they could see some of the evolution of our language. I’d have them read **Grapes of Wrath** , some Dickens (I was an ENGLISH major, and I managed to escape without ever having read Dickens!), some Moliere, and a bunch of poetry. Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun” would be mandatory, too, as would **The Great Gatsby, The Scarlet Letter, and Slaughterhouse Five**. I’d at least expose them to **Paradise Lost, Pilgrim’s Progress, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner** , and some of T.S. Eliot’s work. I’d encourage them to read/see **Our Town, The Importance of Being Earnest** , and **Cyrano de Bergerac**. Oh, there are so many more! I guess I’d love to have literature a bigger focus in high school, but then it would have to be like 7 years long. ::sigh:: Oh well. I guess I’ll just have to inflict this stuff on my kids, when I have them. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2001, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-required-reading-list-poll/48307/7 "2001-01-05T01:52:00Z")
**spritle** that’s interesting, never knew there was actually some school of thought around it. **stargazer** Yeah, Gatsby is awesome. I might (in my hypothetical world) put it on a suggested reading list for the senior year. **spooje** Fight Club!! Great book indeed. Sort of communism-meets-nihilism, in its own cute way. This, however, is a prime example (and the only example, IMO) of a case where the movie was better than the book. **jarbabyj** You might want to check out a book simply entitled “Girl” which is pretty Catcher-in-the-Rye-esque as well. Catcher is probably my third favorite book. Interestingly enough, none of my “favorite” books are on my reading list. Hmmm… **astro** Robbins, man, I gotta get something by him. He has been referred to me multiple times. So many good books to read! Steinbeck, though, to all who mentioned him…_so damn depressing_. Even Travels With Charley depressed me for chrissake. That man has an ability to hit me, I dunno. ---
**Author:** ![Medievalist2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e19adc/32.png) [@Medievalist2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Medievalist2)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2001, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-required-reading-list-poll/48307/8 "2001-01-13T11:18:34Z")
The Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid Beowulf The Canterbury Tales Boccaccio’s Decameron Dante’s Divine Comedy Anything by Shakespeare Milton’s Paradise Lost Any novel by Dickens Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner Hemingway’s short stories ---
**Author:** ![labdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/5fc32e/32.png) [@labdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/labdude)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2001, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-required-reading-list-poll/48307/9 "2001-01-13T18:57:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by aynrandlover \* > \*\* **Atlas Shrugged** (no _sighs_ please) Atlas Shrugged!!! No way in hell are you going to get your average high school kid to read atlas shrugged. Its long, boring, and repetative. The whole book should have been cut down by about 75%. In another thread about Ayn Rand someone posted a very funny ayn rand imitation. Maybe someone can find it for me. It reminded me of the teacher from South Park writing a romance novel. ``` "John was a big manly man, with a strong penis, a large throbbing penis that stood tall.........etc" ``` ---
**Author:** ![Nocturne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9fc348/32.png) [@Nocturne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nocturne)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2001, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-required-reading-list-poll/48307/10 "2001-01-13T19:03:44Z")
Antigone Death of a Salesman The Glass Menagerie The Canterbury Tales Macbeth Hamlet Twelfth Night A Midsummer’s Night Dream Slaughterhouse 5 The Hobbit The Lottery Pygmalion Tender is the Night/The Great Gatsby Fahrenheit 451 The Mayor of Casterbridge A Separate Peace To Kill a Mockingbird As for poets, they need to read Dickinson, Poe, Eliot, Pound, Lord Byron, Tennyson, Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Alexander Pope, Emerson, Longfellow, Stein, and Phyllis Wheatley. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2001, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-required-reading-list-poll/48307/11 "2001-01-13T22:32:43Z")
I like **Nocturne** ’s list. Add some Eudora Welty and Willa Cather, Shirley Jackson and Poe, Larry McMurtry and Cormac McCarthy. ---
**Author:** ![Nacho4Sara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Nacho4Sara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nacho4Sara)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2001, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-required-reading-list-poll/48307/12 "2001-01-13T23:56:38Z")
I read some awesome books in high school, and I would require many of the same: _Nectar in a Sieve_ by Kamala Markandaya _A Doll’s House_ by Henrik Ibsen _Things Fall Apart_ by Chinua Achebe _Madame Bovary_ by Flaubert _Anna Karenina_ by Leo Tolstoy _Great Expectation_ by Charles Dickens _Huckleberry Finn_ by Mark Twain _Twelfth Night_, Mr. Shakespeare _Leaves of Grass_, Walk Whitman _The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock_, TS Eliot. _A Streetcar Named Desire_, Tennessee Williams Some I didn’t read in school, but it would have been cool if I had: _A Tree Grows in Brooklyn_, Betty Smith _You Can’t Go Home Again_ or _Look Homeward, Angel_, Thomas Wolfe _Memoirs of a Geisha_, Arthur Golden _In the Skin of a Lion_, Michael Ondaajte _Slaughterhouse 5_, Kurt Vonnegut _Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_, I’m totally blanking on the author! _Tender is the Night_, Fitzgerald Something by Faulkner should be required of seniors; and every child should read _The Wind in the Willows, Anne of Green Gables, The Little Prince_ and _The Chronicles of Narnia_ - Book 2 (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) seems to be the accepted standard, and I’d go with that. And of course, the book that made me love to read above all others, _A Wrinkle in Time_ by Madeline L’Engle. ---
**Author:** ![Nacho4Sara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Nacho4Sara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nacho4Sara)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2001, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-required-reading-list-poll/48307/13 "2001-01-14T00:01:46Z")
D’oh! I forgot _The Wish Giver_ by Bill Brittain and _The Master and Margarita_ by Bulgarov. Awesome books, the first for kids and the second for adults. Both are incredible. ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2001, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-required-reading-list-poll/48307/14 "2001-01-14T05:24:11Z")
Per grade level, I don’t know. But the following, some of it agreeing with the above, in no particular order: Lord of the Flies - William Golding Cyrano de Bergerac - Edmond Rostand The Iliad - Homer At least pieces of The Greek Myths, by William Graves (it’s a big book) along with Bulfinch’s Mythology 1984 - George Orwell Macbeth - William Shakespeare Giovanni’s Room - James Baldwin Essay on Man - Alexander Pope In social studies: All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque Gorgias - a political dialogue by Plato 1984 - George Orwell and, an offbeat suggestion, but my favorites for how the world **really** works: The Wealth of Nations - Adam Smith ( surprisingly liberal views, in the modern sense of liberal, not at all like his stereotype ) Cities and the Wealth of Nations - Jane Jacobs, who argues in the book that cities are the source of all economic growth, and that the world should be divided into city-states. If the kids are going to read about utopias, it might as well be one that is grounded in an argument from evidence, instead of ideology. The Constitution - the whole thing. Should cover at least a semester, with appropriate debates about all the issues covered in the Bill of Rights. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2001, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-required-reading-list-poll/48307/15 "2001-01-14T05:57:27Z")
I am of the opinion that the best book I was required to read in high school was _Fifth Business_ by Robertson Davies. That’s a must for the curriculum. Dickens bugs me, but somewhere along the way you gotta do some; _David Copperfield_, while ponderous, is at least one of the better things he’s written. I’d also add Chaim Potok’s _The Chosen_ and, somewhere, _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_. Can we have a “humanities/philosophy” section, where I can make my students read Socratic dialogues and Aristotle’s “Ethics”? Pretty please? I’d eliminate _The Scarlet Letter_; it would have been a great short story, but as a novel, it’s a colossal waste of time. One of only two books I couldn’t get through in high school, the other being Willa Cather’s _Death Comes For The Archbishop_, which also gets the axe. I musta blinked when Nocturne said “Dylan Thomas”, right? hehehe… ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2001, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-required-reading-list-poll/48307/16 "2001-01-14T06:11:41Z")
i don’t know if i like the term “required reading.” Because it implies you have to read the book and in school…I think suggested reading, not necessarily in school because we all know how it is having to discuss symbolism and whatnot. But I’ll take a shot at books I have deemed good enough to make it in this world. I’ll try to put on “good” books, that is, books that have some shot at being classics. \*A Tree Grows in Brooklyn The White Hotel The Handmaid’s Tale The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Rebecca Flowers for Algernon \*Something by SK- there are a lot but at least one should be read. IMO. \*Ethan Frome The Haunting of Hill House\* This is a “children’s book” section…books for adults and kids but primarily aimed towards children. Some books are too good to be missed when you’re young, and when you’re older you might feel too mature to pick them up… _Charlie and the Chocolate Factory_- or _James and the Giant Peach, Mathilda_, or \* The BFG\* for that matter. Roald Dahl rocks…for kids and for adults. \*The Secret Garden The Long Secret/Harriet the Spy The Trial of Anna Cotman\* Can’t remember anything else, sorry…😛 ---
**Author:** ![Lady\_Magdelane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a4c791/32.png) [@Lady\_Magdelane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lady_Magdelane)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2001, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-required-reading-list-poll/48307/17 "2001-01-14T06:40:03Z")
Aagh! Last semester I did my student teaching near my college in Pennsylvania in an English classroom. Here are the required readings for the academic 11th graders that I taught: _The Scarlet Letter_ _The Grapes of Wrath_ I personally feel that these two novels should have been read in 9th, or maybe even as late as 10th grade. Here are the books that they _should_ have been reading, and not that mamby-pamby, not challenging the kids BS: Kate Chopin,_The Awakening_ Anthony Burgess, _A Clockwork Orange_ Samuel Beckett, _Waiting for Godot_ James Joyce, _A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_ Yevgeny Zimyatin, _We_ Thomas Hardy, _Tess of the D’Urbervilles_ Terry Prachett, _Small Gods_ Now, for a senior Advanced Placement class… ooooooo, the possibilities! Leo Tolstoy, _Anna Karenina_ (Joel Charmichael trans.) Franz Kafka, _The Metamorphasis_ Chinua Achebe, _Things Fall Apart_ Amy Tan, _The Joy Luck Club_ William Faulkner, _Light in August_ Fyodor Dosteovsky, _Crime and Punishment_ Soren Kierkegaard, selected essays, journals, etc. ::sigh:: All better. ~Mag ---
**Author:** ![Moe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moe/32/2972_2.png) [@Moe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moe)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2001, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-required-reading-list-poll/48307/18 "2001-01-14T06:53:42Z")
Mag, you beat me to it. I can’t believe it took that long to mention _Crime and Punishment_. ---
**Author:** ![Lady\_Magdelane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a4c791/32.png) [@Lady\_Magdelane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lady_Magdelane)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2001, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-required-reading-list-poll/48307/19 "2001-01-14T07:40:59Z")
Hey, if someone has to do it, it will be me… ---
**Author:** ![bluecanary](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bluecanary/32/3614_2.png) [@bluecanary](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bluecanary)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2001, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-required-reading-list-poll/48307/20 "2001-01-14T22:38:42Z")
No-one should be _required_ to read _any_ book. There has to be some latitude for taste and interest IMHO. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-required-reading-list-poll/48307.md?page=2)