What books did you read in school?

[Curious layman]

Inspired by the banned books thread.

i read Blood Brothers . A play about twins separated at birth, lots of superstition and the differences in how different parts of society are treated IIRC. Very good, I really enjoyed it. Even thought about going to see the musical a few times.

 

And Of Mice and Men. Novel about Lenny Small and Lenny Milton, displaced ranch workers. The teacher read most of this and did the voices, so this was really enjoyable too. Didn't really understand it until a while ago when I read an excellent summary of it on Quora. Been thinking about reading it again.

[iNow]

Most of my best reading came after school. I don’t much recall the stuff that was assigned 

[zapatos]

I read The Godfather in 7th grade.

[LaurieAG]

I can remember "Trustee from the Toolroom", "A Town Like Alice" by Nevil Shute and "All the Kings Men" by Robert Penn Warren.

 

[MigL]

When I was in high school, English ( literature ) was mandatory.
Memorable books that come to mind

Merchant of Venice
Macbeth
Animal Farm
1984
Lord of the Flies
The Great Gatsby
Of Mice and Men
Catcher in the Rye

Outside of school, I read mostly Science Fiction.
 

[mistermack]

Two of the best books I read in school were 'I, Claudius' and 'Claudius the god'. 

Also any of the Thomas Hardy books I can highly recommend. He really knew how to paint word-pictures and word-movies.

[Peterkin]

Besides assigned reading - I can't recall most of them; The Mayor of Casterbridge, Lord of the Flies, Heart of Darkness, To Kill a Mockingbird, Brave New World, and A Tale of Two Cities - I read some very good poetry, Siddhartha, The Tontine, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Centaur, The Sun Also Rises, Lady Chatterley's Lover, Doctor Zhivago (that was a slog!) and most of Shaw (that was a ball). Some of them in math class, and I did get caught, but my math teacher understood how lousy I was at his subject.  

[Endy0816]

Lot of overlap with others

Island of the Blue Dolphins, Brave New world, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Good Earth, Siddhartha, Of Mice and Men, The Garden of forking Paths, The Awakening, Lord of the Flies, The Great Gatsby, Animal Farm, 1984, Night

Science fiction and Fantasy recreationally.

Edited August 28, 2022 by Endy0816

[mistermack]

9 hours ago, LaurieAG said:

"A Town Like Alice" by Nevil Shute

I never read that, but I believe he also wrote "on the beach". That was a gripping read.

[TheVat]

Much overlap with others.  Mig's list very similar to mine in HS, also heavy doses of sci-fi (IIRC, we read Childhood's End, by ACC, for a HS class.  Also Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.) Nice to see someone found Borges at an early age - The Garden of Forking Paths, or anything from his Ficciones, would be an ambitious read for many high schools.  I remember Tlon, Uqbar completely blowing my mind.

I am assuming Peterkin's partaking of Lady Chatterly was extracurricular.  If it wasn't then clearly I went to the wrong schools!

Still have yet to read The Centaur, though have read a fair range pf Updike.  Another Not Typical High School Fare.

I liked Nevil Shute's OTB more than the film adaptation - parts of the film seemed a little contrived or didn't quite flesh out characters.

 

 

[Peterkin]

I wasn't impressed by Updike; his view of teenagers was nothing like my experience. I've never had any patience with fictional adolescence, no matter how old the adolescent in question... I forgot earlier to mention [extracurricular] Trollope,  Heller, all Steinbeck novels - he was my gateway to long fascination with the Arthurian legends, and via that, to Roman history. Science fiction didn't enter until my early 20's with The Martian Chronicles.  

[TheVat]

The bots are getting prettier.

Which reminds me of Asimov's robot novels, which I read in high school.  They were an accessible way to talk about bigotry and racism, among other things, employing the standard sci-fi device of using the future to talk about the issues of the present.

[dimreepr]

20 minutes ago, TheVat said:

The bots are getting prettier.

Which reminds me of Asimov's robot novels, which I read in high school.  They were an accessible way to talk about bigotry and racism, among other things, employing the standard sci-fi device of using the future to talk about the issues of the present.

I was turned off, by the idea of a sex robot...

[TheVat]

My post made more  sense a couple hours ago when there was a bot post before mine.  Now deleted. 

Dim, rest assured that the sex robots are turned off by the idea of you.  Joking aside, yes the whole idea is repellent - the term sex robots implying an AI designed for one purpose.  But true AGI might not want that purpose or to be limited in its career choices.

[paulsutton]

On 3/14/2021 at 2:36 AM, iNow said:

Most of my best reading came after school. I don’t much recall the stuff that was assigned 

Same here,  I had a book called The Universe and Planet earth which gave me my first real intro to the topic of protons, neutron, electrons and the particles that make these up (well the first two of course).   Book is still a really excellent guide to the topic as it has info on earth sciences,black holes, physics, chemistry etc.

On 8/28/2022 at 5:08 AM, MigL said:

When I was in high school, English ( literature ) was mandatory.
Memorable books that come to mind

Merchant of Venice
Macbeth
Animal Farm
1984
Lord of the Flies
The Great Gatsby
Of Mice and Men
Catcher in the Rye

Outside of school, I read mostly Science Fiction.
 

Yes we read Of Mice and men

Inspector calls

long, short and the tall

and a few others which I can't remember.

[Polykephalous]

On 3/13/2021 at 9:50 PM, Curious layman said:

Inspired by the banned books thread.

i read Blood Brothers . A play about twins separated at birth, lots of superstition and the differences in how different parts of society are treated IIRC. Very good, I really enjoyed it. Even thought about going to see the musical a few times.

 

And Of Mice and Men. Novel about Lenny Small and Lenny Milton, displaced ranch workers. The teacher read most of this and did the voices, so this was really enjoyable too. Didn't really understand it until a while ago when I read an excellent summary of it on Quora. Been thinking about reading it again.

We read Of Mice and Men at school and one day the teacher put us in the lecture room and showed us an old black & white movie on the TV of the story. The teacher left the room unattended and we all jumped in shock and awe when my friend pulled out the latest David Bowie LP and we talked about it until the teacher came back. Not convinced that 13y old kids where impressed by Lennie and George but I have to say I would love to see that movie again if I could find it, and also David Bowie is still cool!

 

[MigL]

4 hours ago, paulsutton said:

and a few others which I can't remember.

I remember 'Merchant of Venice' well.
I was 'Antonio' in the stage play at my high school.

Bet you didn't realize I was a Shakesperian actor ...

[Peterkin]

Quote

Not convinced that 13y old kids where impressed by Lennie and George

13 is far too young for Steinbeck, or Shakespeare, for that matter. I'm trying to think what literature would work for middle school. Not many: those novels generally have adult content. I don't mean 'adult' in the popular sens of sex&gore; I mean complex ideas that require some mature experience and knowledge to appreciate. The Outsiders might be appropriate, Robinson Crusoe, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, The Wrong Box....  I can think of lots of science fiction students that age might understand, like and learn from. We never read any SF in school - wonder why.

Edited September 27, 2022 by Peterkin

[TheVat]

Middle school?  Old Man and the Sea.  The Red Pony (an accessible Steinbeck to 13 y.o.)  The Call of the Wild.  Huck Finn.  The Secret Garden.  Lord of the Flies.  Connecticut Yankee, for sure.  A Wrinkle in Time.  20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.  Etc.

[zapatos]

I used to read my dad's books after he was done with them. Included a lot of spy thrillers, detectives, murders and sex. My parents didn't care but they never would have been approved by my school.

[Peterkin]

48 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Middle school?  Old Man and the Sea.  The Red Pony (an accessible Steinbeck to 13 y.o.)  The Call of the Wild.  Huck Finn.  The Secret Garden.  Lord of the Flies.  Connecticut Yankee, for sure.  A Wrinkle in Time.  20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.  Etc.

I forgot about The Red Pony. We did read LotF, though a little later, 15-ish. They didn't give us any fantasy, either, so L'Engle and C.s. Lewis were off the table - but it seems to me Welles and Verne would have been just about right for kids of that age, and presented enough issues for discussion. 

[paulsutton]

On 8/28/2022 at 5:08 AM, MigL said:

When I was in high school, English ( literature ) was mandatory.
Memorable books that come to mind

Merchant of Venice
Macbeth
Animal Farm
1984
Lord of the Flies
The Great Gatsby
Of Mice and Men
Catcher in the Rye

Outside of school, I read mostly Science Fiction.
 

Catcher in the Rye has a different significance for Beatles' fans

[markspenser]

On 8/28/2022 at 7:08 AM, MigL said:

When I was in high school, English ( literature ) was mandatory.
Memorable books that come to mind

Merchant of Venice
Macbeth
Animal Farm
1984
Lord of the Flies
The Great Gatsby
Of Mice and Men
Catcher in the Rye

Outside of school, I read mostly Science Fiction.                                                                                                                                                                                                           

But I like different genres, and it's great that now in uni, I read different books. It's cool to find out about new authors and new writing styles. And somethimes, when I have to write reviews or something like that, I see the even deeper meaning of everything. But from time to time, I use help https://papersowl.com/essay-writing-service-review because writing is hard, and after reading essay service review, I can get quality help and receive original writing. It's cool that it's possible to get help like this, but I still prefer to read and write everything myself.

 

Oh, I read different books, but honestly, there were only a few which I really liked. And one such book is The Great Gatsby - and until now, it's one of my fav books. And also I loved The Invisible Man. The rest were classical books from school reading lists.

Edited September 30, 2022 by markspenser

[dimreepr]

On 9/28/2022 at 7:42 AM, paulsutton said:

Catcher in the Rye has a different significance for Beatles' fans

It depends on the fans ability to read music, or is it, it depends on how the sour note resonates with a screaming child... 😖

[paulsutton]

5 hours ago, dimreepr said:

It depends on the fans ability to read music, or is it, it depends on how the sour note resonates with a screaming child... 😖

I meant in the context that Mark Chapman was holding a copy of the book when he shot John Lennon in 1980.