I read Animal Farm the other day..

[GlassOnion]

Back to Animal Farm, my favourite line was the ending. "The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, but it was already impossible to say which was which."

[kaylayuh]

I hated "Romeo and Juliet" but loved "Othello". It's one of my favorites to this day and it makes me sad when people talk about how much they hate it.

My school did Shakespeare in 9th grade. We did American Classics (i.e. Mark Twain before the editting, F. Scott Fitzgerald) in 10th grade, American Gothic (i.e. Stephen King, Arthur Miller) in 11th grade, and Chaucer in 12th. 10th and 11th grades were much more enjoyable than 9th and 12th, mostly because the teachers were better; but, Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" is one of my favorite collection of stories. I even wear a posey ring and bracelet with the phrase from the Prioress' broach on it.

If you liked "Animal Farm", you may also like "The Idiot" by Dostoevsky, "Blind Faith" by Ben Elton, or "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley.

[zazanomore]

Grade 8: The Giver - Lois Lowry
The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton
Cowboys Don't Cry - Marilyn Halvorson
Grade 9: The Merchant of Venice - Shakespeare
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Grade 10: The Chrysalids - John Wyndham
Lord of the Flies - William Gerald Golding
Caesar - Shakespeare
Grade 11: Macbeth - Shakespeare
Catcher in the Rye - Jerome David Salinger
1984 - George Orwell
Grade 12: Hamlet - Shakespeare
The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
Lady Oracle - Margaret Atwood (A private study, and my protest of there being no Canadian or female authors on the choice list)

My favorites out of these were The Giver, The Chrysalids, Catcher in the Rye, and Lady Oracle.

[entrancedbymyGCC]

You are better read than I, but I went to high school in Florida and I think we only were actually assigned two novels during the whole four years! "Grapes of Wrath" and "Silas Marner". I think we did also do "Romeo and Juliet" which is probably the worst of the Bard's work. Fortunately, I love to read, and I was part of a book discussion group and the public library -- free books and a chance to hang out and talk every couple of weeks. We read a lot of Kurt Vonnegut because the guys, and it was mostly guys, loved it. I was not whelmed. But we did hit a lot of those highlights: "1984", "Animal Farm", "The Jungle", "Brave New World", "Catcher in the Rye", "To Kill a Mockingbird", "Lord of the Flies", "The Outsiders", "Stranger in a Strange Land" among many other things (If we met 20 times a year for 4 years, I must have gone through 80 titles during that time.

I've been meaning to re-read "To Kill a Mockingbird" its stuck with me all these years but I've only read it the one time.

[GlassOnion]

I've actually read a few by Doestoevsky, and I've been meaning to read Brave New World.

Personally, I read To Kill a Mockingbird, and I didn't really like it.

[kaylayuh]

zazanomore, your school had an awesome reading list. My English teachers focused more on term papers and poetry than they did on novels.

My personal favorite books would be, in order:

1. All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy
2. This Side of Paradise - F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
4. Lolita - Vladamir Nabakov
5. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
6. Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Salinger
7. The Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer
8. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
9. 1984 - George Orwell
10. Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll


Of those, favorites number 3, 5, 6 and 7 were read in school. Lolita, even though I love it, still disturbs me. I read "The Outsiders" in fifth grade for a book report and it's probably in my top 20 favorites. I also read "The Jungle" in 8th grade and read Upton Sinclair whenever I get the chance.

[GlassOnion]

I was in the "International Baccalaureate" diploma program through highschool, it's a university prep course. Due to that, I didn't read most of the books that you guys did.

I remember:
The Great Gatsby
Shakespearean plays
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Blood Wedding
Literary Murder
Antigone
The House of the Spirits

The house of the spirits was an absolute fantasic book, it covers a family like 5-6 generations down the lineage, and is jam jam packed with tons and tons of allegories, metaphors, themes and other literary features. We did huge projects on them, and there was an everlasting fountain of ideas you could work with.

[zazanomore]

Poetry was always a very small unit for us. My last poetry assignment was to choose any topic you wanted, find two poems that describe that topic, write two poems, and make it into a presentation via powerpoint.

I friggin' rocked that assignment. Everyone choose typical topics like love and feminism. But I chose apathy.

I miss having to go to school

My all-time favorite books are:

Man's Search for Meaning - Vicktor Frankl
The Silverwing trilogy - Kenneth Oppel
A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle
Lady Oracle - Margaret Atwood
The Machine Stops - E.M. Forster
Franny and Zooey - J.D. Salinger
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
Green Angel - Alice Hoffman

I've read all these books at least 5 times each.

[GlassOnion]

I've read the Silverwing series when I was in middle school. But I can't remember much anymore. I'm gonna look up on those books you mentioned zaza, I'm sure they'd have to be great if you read them 5 times!
Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde is on my to-read list, I've heard great things about it. And I love the concept.

For those who don't know, it's about a man "Dorian Gray" who becomes infatuated with a painting of himself. He becomes so obsessed with his beauty that he sells his soul, in exchange to keep his beauty forever- as long as the painting exists that is.

Frankenstein's Monster by Mary Shelley is a fantastic book btw, it's nothing like what the cartoons showed us on TV when we were little. It's incredibly well written and emotionally touching.

[kaylayuh]

As much as I tried, I could never get through Frankenstein. I also could never finish Dracula. For some reason, I was just incredibly bored by those books, and I love to read. I read practically everything and anything.. including the dictionary (cover to cover) a couple of times. But I just never was able to read Frankenstein or Dracula.