Books I Was Forced to Read (throughout my education)

Submitted by bitterms on Tue, 02/20/2001 - 09:59
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  • Puddin' Head Wilson - Mark Twain (college)
  • To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee (9th)~
  • The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck (9th)
  • Run Rabbit Run - John Updike (12th)~
  • Ethan Frome - Edith Wharton (12th)
  • Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (college)~
  • Dracula - Bram Stoker (9th)*
  • Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain (11th)*
  • Lord of the Flies - William Golding (10th)
  • A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (10th)*
  • A Raisin in the Sun - Lorraine Hansberry (9th)~
  • Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger (11th)~
  • The Red Badge of Courage - Stephen Crane (11th)
  • The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway (11th)
  • Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston (college)
  • Beloved - Toni Morrison (college)
  • Ceremony - Leslie Marmon Silko (college)~
  • All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy (college)
  • The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorn (11th)
  • A Separate Peace - John Knowles (9th)
  • Clan of the Cave Bear - Jean Auel (college)
  • The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje (college)
Author Comments: 

Some of these I loved, some I hated, some I know I read but can't remember, and some I couldn't finish regardless of the requirements! (you'll be surprised which ones!!!)

~didn't absorb

*didn't finish

nadine04/21/2000

I'm just curious as to why you had to read Clan of the Cave bear in college. I can't imagine any course including this (although I did read it in the 7th grade or so)?

Some of the books you didn't absorb in the lower grades (To Kill a Mockingbird, Raisin in the Sun, Catcher in the Rye) are worth a read. However, you may now find you are too old for Catcher in the Rye now. In 11th grade, Holden could be pretty cool, but from the perspective of an adult, he is sort of whiny and spoiled.

bitterms04/24/2000

I've been planning on re-reading some of these.

I read "Clan of the Cave Bear" for Physical Anthropology. We read it for perspective. When we were done, we compared the descriptions of the people in the book (Neanderthals and Cro-Magnums, if I recall correctly) to what we learned in class about them.