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Literature class books that you enjoyed aned did not enjoy

Zergling

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I'm kind of curious what books people enjoyed and why, partially for curiosity and partially just for something to talk about (Since a lot of people probably take some sort of literature classes in various years of school.)
 

Maverick

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I had to read Brave New World and I thank my English teacher for it. I also had to read some Roald Dahl books as a kid (like the witches) and thought they were great. All didn't like the other books I had to read.
 

Kiddo

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I would say that To Kill a Mocking Bird was one of my most memorable reads. I believe that would have been in Sophmore English class. I've always been attracted to stories with sad endings. Everything by Shakespeare was pretty good. I don't know why, but I found Grendel, Of Mice and Men, and The Old Man and the Sea to be rather annoying. For my Junior year, I read The Winds of War and Les Miserables and they are still my favorite novels.

And my favorite short story will always be "The Lottery".
 

Recoleta

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Hmmm some of my favorite from lit classes have been:

"Candide" by Voltaire...heroic, mysterious, awkward/odd/quirky, complicated and yet simple all at once.

"Oedipus Rex" by Socrates (I think?)

"In the Time of the Butterflies"

"Cronica de una muerte anunciada" ("Chronicle of a Death Fortold"...it's available in English) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It's just a different kind of story...Marquez is a very good writer IMO if you ever get the chance to read his stuff.

**From earlier in life/for pure enjoyment books**

"The Giver" (I read this book in the 5th grade, and I have not read again it since then...but I remember being completely engrossed in this story).

The whole "Chronicles of Narnia" series...C.S. Lewis is brilliant

"I Love Everybody (and other atrocious lies)" by Laurie Notaro...it's a chick book, but Notaro is hilarious. I have never read a book that made me laugh uncontrollably out loud. (a.k.a. an airplane ride is not an appropriate place to read this book)
 

nightning

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+1 for Chronicles of Narnia... had The lion, the witch and the wardrobe in elementary or what not.

Other ones I liked
Catcher in the Rye
Animal Farm
Shakespeare plays

Stuff I didn't like
mostly short stories which I couldn't ever recall the names to...
Oh stuff by Margaret Atwood (spl?)... didn't like her at all.
 

Metamorphosis

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The only book that I ever enjoyed that I was forced to read was The Great Gatsby and that was probably just because of the organized crime element.
 

Vortex

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Enjoyable:

Candide, le grand cahier, huis clos. Come to think of it, I enjoyed most of the literature for the French classes, I just detested the French classes themselves, since I suck at French.

thinking, thinking....

Okay. I didn't enjoy the Joy luck club, about a boy or the great gatsby. To be fair I don't think I managed to read all of great gatsby but our teacher managed to piss me off to such an extent that everything she taught us turned toxic to me. In her praise, she did introduce me to ''the lottery''.

I'm not going to sit here, staring at my screen until I remember more, so that's it. I know we must have read some more, but I remember very little.
 

Veneti

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I liked "Fahrenheit 451".

Basically because it seemed to represent the future so well.

Worst thing is that over time it becomes more and more real.

The dogs that chased the criminals that appeared on the screens for the viewers to watch. (Just like we now have helicopters in on the chase and filming the action live)

The people that just watched the screens on the walls that surrounded them, never venturing into the real world (Which is pretty much how the internet is going, and we are going to join into it far more yet).
 

Rhu

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Probably the worst book I reemember being forced upon me in highschool was My Antonia by Willa Cather -- Fantasies inspired by an unrequited love were never so bland. I did learn something important, though--if you want to get a decent grade, reading the teacher is more important than reading the text.
 

Recoleta

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Probably the worst book I remember being forced upon me in highschool was My Antonia by Willa Cather

:yes: Lol...I had to read that too! I was actually gonna list it as one of the worst that I have ever read...but I figured no one would have even heard of it so I didn't bother. Oy, it was terrible!

I thought "The Red Pony" by John Stienbeck was bad too. But that was back in elementary/middle school.
 

Veneti

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I hated Willian Shakespeare, taming of the shrew.

I absolutely hated English and dropped it as soon as possible....

Hmm... perhaps thats why INTJ's go more into science... not so much as it uses their intuition etc... but more that they can "cluster" together... They can be introverted in their labs, they can think and they can dream of the big solutions... Rather, than getting all touchy feely by showing non existent emotion towards something they don't give a monkeys about :D eg stage drama. :D :D Lucky I'm holding back.
 

ygolo

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I hated Willian Shakespeare, taming of the shrew.

I absolutely hated English and dropped it as soon as possible....

Hmm... perhaps thats why INTJ's go more into science... not so much as it uses their intuition etc... but more that they can "cluster" together... They can be introverted in their labs, they can think and they can dream of the big solutions... Rather, than getting all touchy feely by showing non existent emotion towards something they don't give a monkeys about :D eg stage drama. :D :D Lucky I'm holding back.

I hated almost every book for which my first read was forced(and actually only read enough of them to get by). Luckily, I read a good percentage of my assigned reading before I was assigned to read them. I have sometimes attempted to revisit my assigned reading, knowing this about myself, but the resentment makes it hard for me to enjoy them.

A clear exception, was college freshman English, in which the courses were divided by themes. I chose the holocaust themed literature class, and I found most of the reading very enlightening. Of those, I would say Night was my favorite.
 
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I did not enjoy most assigned reading, simply because I resented that it was mandatory. However, I particularly enjoyed "Heart Of Darkness" and "The Misanthrope". Another assigned reading I enjoyed was "The Late Shift", although strictly speaking it was nonfiction rather than literature.

I remember particularly disliking "Billy Budd" and "The Great Gatsby".
 

Zergling

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I didn't like most of the stuff I had to read in middle school, Westing Game I remember was one I liked, The Pearl is one I remember not liking (It was kind of boring, just went on and on and on.)

School also did three Shakespeare stories: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Henry IV part 1. I liked the Henry one, didn't like the other two. (Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet were pretty overdramatic, and people did a lot of things that didn't make sense.)


In high school:

Likes:
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Lottery (One I notice a lot of people like, it may be a good example in general for setting up and describing a story well.)
Henry IV (mentioned above)
Scarlet Letter
Huck Finn
Great Gatsby
Jane Eyre (I didn't like it that much while reading it, as it went on and on and on during some parts, but afterwards seemed much better, the characters were a lot better in it than other stuff to read in school.)


Dislikes:
Hamlet (mentioned above)
Antigone (Since all the characters knew what would happen, but just kind of made their decisions anyway, there wasn't really a way to get attached to the story, and it didn't have anything else in it to bring me in.)
Doll House (Henrik Ibsen)
A couple of "ethnic Identity" ones, that didn't have much of a story to them. (Which was kind of surprising, it seems that there would be more "minority" stuff out there with stories that have similar qualities to the other stuff we end up reading.)


The biggest problem with a good chunk of the stuff to read in english classes is that it's kind of soap operaish, in that they are about a small group of people with some sort of situation that would be quite easy to resolve if they took a step back and thought about it, but for some reason they don't, and instead a lot of drama happens.
 

wildcat

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I'm kind of curious what books people enjoyed and why, partially for curiosity and partially just for something to talk about (Since a lot of people probably take some sort of literature classes in various years of school.)
Excuse. Forgive me if I am slow.
What do you need literature classes for?
The books are in the library.
Do you need a class to get a book from the library? No.

You do not know what to read, what is good, what is bad, etc. All right.
Go to the librarian. Ask her. That is why she is there.

Take the book home. Read a page or two. You know from the first page if a book is good or not. If you do not like the book take it back.
Tell the librarian you did not like the book. If she gives you only bad books then you obviously have a different taste.

In that case go to the bookshelves and pick a book at random. Read the first page. Put it back. Go on. You finally come to the book you like.
This is what I did.

You do not need classes. There you have to read books you do not like. Do not waste your time.
 

wildcat

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If I were a literature class teacher this is what I'd do.

I take the children to the library immediately. I say: Go to the bookshelves and start picking books at random.
Read the first page of each book. If you do not like the first page put the book back.
If you do like the first page take the book and come to me.

When the first kid comes to me with the book I say: Read now four more pages.

When the kid comes to me again I ask: Did you like the first pages?
If she says yes I say: Go home and read the book. When you have read it come to me and tell me why you liked it.
If she says no I did not like it, I say: Take the book back and pick another book. Read the first page.. etc. You know the drill.

Classroom is not a good idea. There you have to listen to people who discuss books that mean nothing to you. It is boring. Anything that is boring is a waste of time.
 

Eileen

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Hmm. It's hard to remember what I liked in HS. Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, Cold Sassy Tree, Night... there were some good ones. The ones I really love teaching: Things Fall Apart, Night, The Great Gatsby, Of Mice and Men, Their Eyes Were Watching God, A Raisin in the Sun...
 

Metamorphosis

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What makes a book a classic? Why do we read some books and not others? To me, if it is not non-fiction you cannot possibly measure the value of one book against another (excluding grammatical errors and such, obviously).
 

Ivy

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Really? So, basically, in your opinion Danielle Steele = Charles Dickens = Kurt Vonnegut = Stephen King?
 

Zergling

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The point was more about books that people had to read in school, not classes that people took just to get to read. (As you might guess from reading the thread, people would not have read a lot of this stuff if taken to a library and let loose.)
 
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