Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

The majority of books you are assigned to read in class are going to be miserable, if only for the fact that you are assigned to read them. However, a few are able to overcome this obstacle and actually be enjoyable.

The most enjoyable book I was assigned in high school was Sophie's World. While it is certainly no classic, it was a fun and light introduction to philosophy, which I have since become capitvated with.

Opening Skinner's Box has been my favorite non-fiction of my college career thus far, which was assigned for my introductory psychology class.

I also enjoyed The Bacchae by Euripides very much.

Yours?

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

Huck Finn

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

A Brave New World in college. Also, a lot of Shakespeare.

Dante's Inferno was badass in high school. Also, Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass and Emily Dickinson.

I loved Call of the Wild and Where the Red Fern Grows in junior high.

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

Catch-22 ftw

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

1984

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

brave new world
dante's inferno (only so I can pretend to be well read)
lord of the flies

only good shakespeare- titus andronicus

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

[ QUOTE ]
Also, Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass

[/ QUOTE ]

Good one, I only read Song of Myself, though... I need to find that book.

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

Those who have read The Inferno:

Do you have a version you recommend?

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

http://img234.imageshack.us/img234/4538/03011ek2.jpg

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

[image][/image]
http://www.whoosh.org/issue33/graphics/iliad.gif

http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/...1856975223.gif

http://www.audiobooksonline.com/shop...hbridge%20.jpg http://media.bestprices.com/content/...0140390340.jpg http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/glover2.jpg


The first three I've read in the original Latin/Greek. All of these books are worth reading.

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

Their Eyes Were Watching God

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

I liked "Slaughterhouse-Five" and "Fahrenheit 451". also, my tenth grade English teacher had half the class read Stephen King's "The Stand" and that was a pretty good read. Certainly not your standard high school book.

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

Russel Banks "Rule of the Bone"

I would recommend this book to anyone aged 18-30. Great book.

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

Im reading "Our Own Devices" for a summer assigned reading. It is quite good, but im not that far into it yet.

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

Dudes:

Nice job recommending some lesser-known works. 1984, Slaughterhouse Five, etc. are all awesome reads, but I think that most people have encountered them in school or otherwise. So even if one of those is actually your favorite, it would be dope if you could recommend a lesser-known favorite as well.

Much love,

Tron

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

L'étranger - Camus

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

[ QUOTE ]
L'étranger - Camus

[/ QUOTE ]

great book.

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

[ QUOTE ]
Russel Banks "Rule of the Bone"

I would recommend this book to anyone aged 18-30. Great book.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nice book. Surprised you read it for a class.

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

East of Eden - Steinbeck

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

First thought that came to mind was The Flivver King.

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

I've had a few. Beowulf, Crime and Punishment, The Iliad, The Odyssey. I'm sure there are a couple more that I'm forgetting. I've also read Catch-22 and Dune for class, but those were much more open-ended rather than assigned.

Of course, even these don't come close to outweighing all of the garbage I got assigned.

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

The Ordinary Seaman

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

A Clockwork Orange in High School. I seemed to be the only one that liked it.

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

The Trial - Kafka

Both in high school.

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

[ QUOTE ]
A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

The Trial - Kafka

Both in high school.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow - impressive. Where in TO did you go to high school? We never got anything close to that. It was all Fifth Business and Margaret Atwood for us.

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

Hhmmm...

I really liked Emerson a lot. But the best are The Iliad and The Odyssey as well as Discourses on Livy, Master and Margarita, and The Republic. Oh, King Lear too

TPK

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

The Trial - Kafka

Both in high school.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow - impressive. Where in TO did you go to high school? We never got anything close to that. It was all Fifth Business and Margaret Atwood for us.

[/ QUOTE ]

Bishop Allen. Its on Royal York south of Bloor St. Both were for a course called "The Quest" that the teacher wrote himself. Possibly the smartest man I've ever known, far better teacher than any university profs I've had. And the course was amazing. In addition to those two books we read The Fall by Camus, Siddhartha by Hesse, Night by Wiesel, and Waiting for Godot. Best class I've ever taken.

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

High School - Crime and Punishment
College - The Nonexistent Knight and the Cloven Viscount by Calvino (im a bio major)

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

The Trial - Kafka

Both in high school.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow - impressive. Where in TO did you go to high school? We never got anything close to that. It was all Fifth Business and Margaret Atwood for us.

[/ QUOTE ]

Owen Meaney was assigned here in Lafayette. Didn't get Kafka though.

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

[ QUOTE ]

http://www.whoosh.org/issue33/graphics/iliad.gif

http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/...1856975223.gif



[/ QUOTE ]

These were my two favorites with Ovid's Metamorphoses coming in third.

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

I was assigned to read almost half of these in high school.

I don't think I actually read any of them. Maybe I actually missed out on something.

A Seperate Peace was good, or at least the 7th grade me thought it was.

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

Friday Night Lights
The Things They Carried

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

Frankenstein - Mary Shelley

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

When I was in high school we were assigned to read some August Wilson plays which were excellent, such as Fences.

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Russel Banks "Rule of the Bone"

I would recommend this book to anyone aged 18-30. Great book.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nice book. Surprised you read it for a class.

[/ QUOTE ]

me too. but well worth it

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

I figured this thread would be flooded with "To Kill a Mockingbird," I am very surprised.

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

frankenstein and catcher in the rye...

so many more books could have been great if we didn't have to do all the lame work and just got to enjoy the books...

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

Probably The Forgotten Solider by Guy Sajer this past semester. It details the time Sajer spent as a German solider in WWII.

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

[ QUOTE ]

The Things They Carried

[/ QUOTE ]

Nice, that one is high on my list. It was the "freshman book" that everyone had to read at my college.

Re: Best Books You\'ve Been Assigned to Read
 

you know ancient greek???