Books you had to read... that you actually found interesting?

The Phantom Tollbooth. I don't really remember much of it, but I remember liking it when we had to read it for 5th grade.

"The world ends with you. If you want to enjoy life, expand your world. You gotta push your horizons out as far as they'll go."

I liked Of Mice and Men and The Great Gatsby a lot moe than I expected. But the real surprise to myself is how much I'm enjoying Sense and Sensibility. I really thought I'd hate that.

I had to read Life of Pi for my Intro. to Lit class, and I have to say it's really good.

edited 17th Oct '10 8:56:39 PM by Chaosjunction

Searching for meaning in meanings

I had to read the second book in A Series Of Unfortunate Events in fifth grade.I loved it.

A Series Of Unfortunate Events is considered required reading?? I understand that it's very stylized, but they made you read it in school? Wow. I just figured it was a little too "pop culture" and not "high literature" enough for schools to actually assign it.

I'm up for joining Discord servers! PM me if you know any good ones!

While I can think of a number of books and stories from school required reading I liked (1984, Frankenstein, some Asimov and Bradbury, Watchmen. Yes, Watchmen was required reading for my freshman year of college. That's what happens when you go to college in Hipster Mecha Portland), those were reads I expected myself to like. There's only been one time where I was surprised at how much I liked a school book.

And that would be Cat's Cradle. Let's just say it was the first of the now many Vonnegut books I own.

edited 6th Dec '10 2:01:22 PM by Sparkysharps

"If there's a hole, it's a man's job to thrust into it!" — Ryoma Nagare, New Getter Robo

The Hobbit, but that wasn't surprising as I'd read it before and was a huge Tolkien fan.

However, I was surprised that I liked Pride And Prejudice. I went into it expecting to hate it — that was gone after the first page.

edited 18th Oct '10 3:27:33 PM by Zizoz

I liked Lord of the Flies and To Kill A Mockingbird and loved Brave New World. The Great Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye didn't impress me, and I hated The House on Mango Street and The Ramayana. The Kingdom of This World was all right. Better in the first half.

I'm reading Lord of the Flies, and I think it's AWESOME.

EDIT: In school

edited 18th Oct '10 9:14:14 PM by Arisaka

Twelfth Night.

An useless name, a forsaken connection.

I liked:

• All the Shakespeare I read
• Paradise Lost (although I had already read it, which is why I signed up for a class on Milton)
• The Stranger
• The Metamorphosis
• Siddhartha
• A Tale of Two Cities

Had to read Catch-22 for an assignment, it's now probably one of my favourite books.

Also, To Kill A Mockingbird was surprisingly good.

edited 19th Oct '10 8:53:11 PM by Bowyn

There is an art, it says, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.

Lord Of The Flies all the way. I had to read that three times in high school and I still like the book.

To Kill A Mockingbird was probably one of my better required reading experiences.

The Great Gatsby was far and away the worst.

Wuthering Heights wasn't a lot of fun either, but that's because I wanted to reach into the book and slap the characters silly.

Not a book but in terms of poetry I was pleasantly surprised by both The Miller's Tale from The Canterbury Tales and The Rape Of The Lock which were both laugh out loud funny.

Welcome to the Sea of Chaos

Hmm....I've hated a lot of the stories I've read while in school, but the best I've read were The Giver, The Westing Game, Tangerine, The Most Dangerous Game, The Lord Of The Flies, Romeo And Juliet, and To Kill A Mocking Bird (though partially ruined because of the projects I took). I guess if I have to pick one out of all of them, it would be The Lord Of The Flies.

The worst were easily The Old Man And The Sea (so painfully boring), The Pearl (so depressing), and A Farewell To Arms.

(double post, had trouble with the computer)

edited 20th Oct '10 7:00:41 PM by Mistermister

I just finished reading Death of a Salesman. Omigod so good.

Read my stories!

Books in English that I enjoyed

To Kill a Mockingbird Lord of the Flies Catcher in the Rye

Your gonna go far kid...

I just finished reading Death of a Salesman. Omigod so good

We watched the film with Dustin Hoffeman before reading the play. I don't know whether the film version is soley to blame, although seriously, I hated Hoffeman in the role, but now I hear his voice whenever I read it. Seriously off-putting. Linda makes me furious, Willy makes me furious...er(?) and the only character I could actually stand was Charley.

The only thing I've ever really enjoyed reading for english is Shakespeare and the poetry. We're studying Auden at the moment. Freakishly obsessed with time, but I really love him. Come to think of it though, I also really adored An Inspector Calls. The play that made me interested in politics.

I am willing to explore my humanity. Take off your clothes.

A couple years ago I had to read Three Cups Of Tea for school. You wouldn't expect a nonfiction book about building schools for girls in Asia to keep you up till 2 a.m., but it did.

This was before I stayed up till 2 a.m. every night, obviously.

^ Someone else had to read Three Cups Of Tea? Cool! I liked it quite a lot, too. But it is basically a book-long Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming.

Other things I liked: The Merchant Of Venice (I like Shakespeare to begin with, but even I was surprised by how compelling I found that play), Cyrano De Bergerac, The Count Of Monte Cristo (though it probably helps that I read an abridged version), Alices Adventures In Wonderland, and assorted works by Sherman Alexie. Especially his short stories. Those were awesome.

Come to think of it, the very first assigned reading I ever had was Shiloh. And I love that book—it is a book with both a medal and a dog on the cover, and not only does the dog not die, he lives a happy life (eventually).

"Proto-Indo-European makes the damnedest words related. It's great. It's the Kevin Bacon of etymology." ~Madrugada

We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families. Funny story, turns out I didn't have to read it after all, due to a mistake with the course syllabus. But I finished it anyway, and now whenever I'm in a group of people who aren't political scientists I'm most likely to be the one most knowledgeable of the Rwandan genocide.

Lord Of The Flies was probably the first high school reading that I liked and not just tolerated.

I still don't understand what the point of that story was. I'll only ever remember it from that South Park episode where they got a bunch of Mexican immigrants to read it and summed it up as "Old man... not get feesh".

edited 3rd Dec '10 11:09:25 AM by melloncollie

"Why did Hemmingway's chicken cross the road? To die. Alone. In the rain."

...Carry on.

"Proto-Indo-European makes the damnedest words related. It's great. It's the Kevin Bacon of etymology." ~Madrugada

My problem was that even when I was assigned books that I'd read multiple times before on my own, I usually got incredibly sick of them by the time we got through with them in class.

^^^^It was required reading at the NC School for Science and Math two years ago, when I was a junior there, and then also required for freshman at my university the next year. So I knew several people who had to read it twice. :P

edited 3rd Dec '10 11:39:40 AM by Zizoz