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college talk > Required Reading That You Enjoyed

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message 1: by Ashley (new)

Ashley (readerandwriter) Is there any required books from this term or past terms that you ended up enjoying?

Two books that I enjoyed in past terms are:

Things Fall Apart for an English 118 class I took.

My Name is Asher Lev for a Humanities class.

Both of these books are very good.


message 2: by Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner), The Founding Bookworm (new)

Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner) (perpetualpageturner) | 4407 comments Mod
some of the business books i've had to read have been quite enjoyable..such as Who Moved My Cheese & From Good to Great. In my English comp class we read Death of a Salesmen. I enjoyed that alot. other than that..my required reading has been less than satisfying.


message 3: by Spencer (new)

Spencer (spencerafreeman) Ashley-- I loved Things Fall Apart! It's one of my favorite books!

Two of my favorite books are actually from required reading lists: Things Fall Apart and The Things They Carried.





message 4: by Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner), The Founding Bookworm (new)

Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner) (perpetualpageturner) | 4407 comments Mod
i'm reading the things they carried right now!


message 5: by Spencer (new)

Spencer (spencerafreeman) Are you?? Yay! Well I hope you like it- There are some parts that are really sad (in a good way) but even if you're not that into it, the chapters are fairly short so you can breeze through it


message 6: by Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner), The Founding Bookworm (new)

Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner) (perpetualpageturner) | 4407 comments Mod
i am enjoying it so far!


message 7: by Nawar (new)

Nawar (nawaralq) | 53 comments Lillith's Brood by Octavia Butler, it was so different from all the other stuff we usually read, (political, historical , classical) and it was also a genre I never thought I would like but it was great.
I probably wouldn't read books like that unless I had to though, but it was a good book either way.


message 8: by Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner), The Founding Bookworm (new)

Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner) (perpetualpageturner) | 4407 comments Mod
Anastasia..i LOVED it! :)


message 9: by Kelsey (new)

Kelsey (kelseynicole) awl.


message 10: by kate (new)

kate (katelucia) Wuthering Heights, Catcher In The Rye, Kindred, The Kite Runner, The Handmaid's Tale, Mists of Avalon, The Magnificent Ambersons, The Red Tent, & I'm sure there's more.

I liked a lot of the things I had to read. <3


message 11: by Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner), The Founding Bookworm (new)

Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner) (perpetualpageturner) | 4407 comments Mod
wow you got to read some good books!


message 12: by [deleted user] (new)

Em...Macbeth, The Merchant of Venice, The Go-Between, loads of poetry by W.B. Yeats and John Donne.


message 13: by Lori (new)

Lori Walker I've enjoyed:

Catch-22, The Things they Carried, and All Quiet on the Western Front (my summer reading for my senior year of high school; one of 3 groups chose from)

The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Huck Finn were all from my sophomore year of high school and I've had to re-read Gatsby and Huck in college.

The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Others and Nature and Selected Essays (Emerson) were ones from college that I've enjoyed.

I haven't taken a good lit class where I just loved every bit of reading. My adviser told me that when he went to college, he got a list of books his freshman year (or maybe it was when he declared) and he was supposed to read those books. Any he hadn't finished by his senior year, they did a capstone course to cover them. I would have loved to do this!


message 14: by Lori (new)

Lori Walker I've enjoyed:

Catch-22, The Things they Carried, and All Quiet on the Western Front (my summer reading for my senior year of high school; one of 3 groups chose from)

The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Huck Finn were all from my sophomore year of high school and I've had to re-read Gatsby and Huck in college.

The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Others and Nature and Selected Essays (Emerson) were ones from college that I've enjoyed.

I haven't taken a good lit class where I just loved every bit of reading. My adviser told me that when he went to college, he got a list of books his freshman year (or maybe it was when he declared) and he was supposed to read those books. Any he hadn't finished by his senior year, they did a capstone course to cover them. I would have loved to do this!


message 15: by Kelsey (new)

Kelsey  Baguinat (kelseybaguinat) I loved To Kill a Mockingbird, A Tale of Two Cities, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Catcher in the Rye, and Flowers for Algernon. I'm sure there's also more that I can't think of right now...


message 16: by S (new)

S In my 9th grade (I think) English class we read The Odyssey, which I really loved. After we finished reading it, we watched a film adaptation which was made me appreciate the awesomeness of the book even more.

My friend's English class was reading The Catcher in the Rye, but my class wasn't. So after she was finished with the book I asked if I could borrow it and it's one of my favorite books to this day :)


message 17: by Lynnie (last edited Feb 22, 2009 11:15AM) (new)

Lynnie (this is all high school stuff) I liked the Great Gatsby pretty well.... and The Moon Is Down. I'd really like to read it again b/c I remember really liking it but I'm foggy on a lot of details. We read The Importance of Being Earnest aloud. It was hilarious.. the funniest guys read the girl parts and girls read the boy parts. omg. so funny. Instead of reading it, we watched the Helena Bonham Carter movie version of Twelfth Night (she's the only one I remember being in it). It was good.

In college I've had to read mostly short stories, but as far as novels go.. I really loved Cat's Cradle and One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest was ok.


message 18: by Annie (new)

Annie Hartman (anniebananie) | 242 comments ^^Lynn- I loooove the great gatsby!!!

Two other books that I read in high school that I absolutely love and would totally recomend to everyone would be the trial and the namesake. both amazing!!!


message 19: by Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner), The Founding Bookworm (new)

Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner) (perpetualpageturner) | 4407 comments Mod
I really need to read The Great Gatsby..I don't recall us every having to read it. I think maybe it was on a summer reading list where you had to choose one of so many books..but I never HAD to read it.


message 20: by Molly (new)

Molly (slinkyxo) | 153 comments Ooh interesting topic!

Some required reading that I enjoyed (of what I remember)

Catcher in the Rye
To Kill a Mockingbird
Rebecca
The Bean Trees



message 21: by Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner), The Founding Bookworm (new)

Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner) (perpetualpageturner) | 4407 comments Mod
I loved Rebecca as well!!


message 22: by Michelle (new)

Michelle (shadowrose) I haven't had to read much in college so far, but for high school it is the following:

Wuthering Heights
Any Shakespeare
Sophie's World

I have a hard time trying to remember what I read for fun and what I had to read.


Sarah (Mood Reader) (bookworm1887) I forget the name of the class, but it was an English class. I hated the professor and she made us read The Joy Luck Club and I loved it.


message 24: by Emily (new)

Emily  O (readingwhilefemale) | 487 comments The Count of Monte Cristo
The Great Gatsby
To Kill a Mockingbird
Macbeth
1984 (I read that one on my own first though)
a bunch of poetry by English people
The Once and Future King
Frankenstein



message 25: by Lori (new)

Lori Walker I'm doing some honors contracts for my history classes this summer and my professor for my Vietnam class assigned A Rumor of War. I'm really enjoying it! Parts of it are a bit graphic (like when he describes some of the KIA causes of death) or make me angry (like the massacring for civilians for the hell of it). But I'm one that believes good books get a reaction out of you.


message 26: by [deleted user] (new)

Okay well as an avid reader, through elementary, middle and high school I read all the required reading before the year we were supposed to read them. I loved them all. :-) I'd always get mad we were reading those books because I had already read them!

In college, I read THINGS FALL APART (which I actually disliked in high school but ended up loving in college). We read a lot of short stories in my college English class & we also read ALL SOULS, which was a book about Boston the 70s and 80s. (My school is located in the area so it made sense)




message 27: by Justine (new)

Justine (paperbackheart) The only thing I can remember reading and REALLY enjoying was The Things They Carried. We did a circuit on Edgar Allen Poe, which was okay, but only stands out in my mind because of the awesome essays I wrote.


message 28: by Liz (new)

Liz There's a fair number of these. From high school I liked Brave New World, Jane Eyre, Macbeth, 1984 and The Handmaid's Tale. The horrendous symbolism in The Scarlet Letter did make me laugh, but I don't think that really counts.
In college I would have to say Persuasion, The Mill on the Floss, Twelfth Night, Rebecca and Dracula. What can I say, I'm an English major.


message 29: by Jess (new)

Jess John Steinbeck's East of Eden is now my favorite book. It's not one of those books that many people pick up, mostly because of how large it is and because it's written by Steinbeck, but it's a book that changed my life.

All of my college required reading has been political science research and philosophy of religion. I don't really think I have any favorites from there, haha. I have a slew of books about Islam that I like, though.


message 30: by Nuri (new)

Nuri (nools) | 145 comments Oh, East of Eden. That book made Steinbeck my favorite writer for a a good portion of my teenaged years. I liked his other things all right, but there's a passage about fathers and deity... I think it's roughly chapter 3 or so? But it was one of the first times I read something and was convinced it was written for me.


message 31: by Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner), The Founding Bookworm (new)

Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner) (perpetualpageturner) | 4407 comments Mod
Anybody read any required reading that you've enjoyed lately?


message 32: by Kayla (last edited Oct 25, 2009 12:54PM) (new)

Kayla | 604 comments I really liked The Great Gatsby, Sophie's Choice, The Scarlett Letter, To Kill a Mockingbird, Pride and Prejudice, The Odyssey, Crime and Punishment, Eugene Onegin, and Hamlet. The Things They Carried was pretty good too, but I don't think I would ever want to reread it.

When I first started college, the freshman class was assigned to read Caucasia by Danzy Senna over the summer. I had never heard of it but I loved it, and the author came to the campus during the second semester and autographed our books.

I also always enjoy the short stories I have to read for my English and Creative Writing classes.

As for poetry...there wasn't much. I liked many of Shakespeare's sonnets and I really loved My Last Duchess by Robert Browning, but that's about it.




message 33: by Chrissie (new)

Chrissie | 58 comments We only had to read two books in 10th grade: everyone read The Great Gatsby, and then they assigned us in book groups at random & I got Into the Wild. Both books were great, and I really wish we did more reading, but we spent most of our time sitting around & prepping for the WASL.

I switched to college for 11th & 12th and I took all the English classes I could. I found my love for John Keats, Raymond Carver, and Victorian literature.


message 34: by Emily (new)

Emily  O (readingwhilefemale) | 487 comments I loved The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Count of Monte Cristo, Frankenstein, and The Once and Future King.

I also loved almost all of the poetry we read, which was mostly English and included Elizabeth Barret Browning, Robert Browning, Lord Byron, Shakespeare, Petrarch (we did a whole section comparing their sonnets and writing our own), William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Alfred Lord Tennyson.
I love poetry, and my teacher taught it very well.


message 35: by Tami (new)

Tami | 3103 comments Mod
I don't remember liking any of the required reading, but I do remember absolutle hatred for some. Since I have been out of classes that require reading for awhile now (other than text books) I have reread some of those required in high school and enjoyed some, tolerated others. I guess I am not too good with books that we had to disect. I want to read for enjoyment. I don't mind discussing reads but when you pick it apart piece by piece it ruins the book/story for me.


message 36: by Denise (new)

Denise I really enjoyed The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. I most likely wouldn't have read it if it wasn't required, but it turned out to be really good. One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich was pretty good, too.


message 37: by [deleted user] (new)

Most of the stuff I have to read for college I really like. For instance Death Without Weeping The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil. Although I dunno if 'like' is the right word for that book. It's the most horrible thing ever, it'll make you extremely angry at the way things are and extremely upset at the same time...but it's a fantastic book.


message 38: by Emily (new)

Emily Hmm...I didn't read a lot of novels in college. I think my favorite that I was introduced to that I had never read before was The Handmaid's Tale. Love that book!

Required reading I remember liking in high school, or was at least glad someone made me read:The Bean Trees, 1984, Of Mice and Men, and The Joy Luck Club


message 39: by [deleted user] (new)

The Handmaid's Tale is absolutely brilliant!!!


message 40: by Jessika (new)

Jessika Hoover (jessalittlenerdy) I ended up loving Invisible Man, Catch-22, The Grapes of Wrath, and The Handmaid's Tale last year when I was taking several lit classes. It was a new experience for me because I'm used to just hating all of my required readings. They are now all on my list of favorites :)


message 41: by Edina (new)

Edina | 24 comments To Kill a Mockingbird!


Jana at ThatArtsyReaderGirl.com (miss_jana) | 125 comments I liked The Crucible, Hatchet, The Giver, Time Machine, and Night.


message 43: by Emily (new)

Emily  O (readingwhilefemale) | 487 comments Oh I loved The Crucible! It has so many great things to say. And his personal history behind why he wrote it is so moving. What a guy.


Jana at ThatArtsyReaderGirl.com (miss_jana) | 125 comments I loved the way my class read The Crucible. We were all assigned parts and then got up and acted it out. I understood it so much more because I was a part of it. :)


message 45: by Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner), The Founding Bookworm (new)

Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner) (perpetualpageturner) | 4407 comments Mod
The Crucible was such a great required reading!


message 46: by Jessie (new)

Jessie (Jessie08) | 128 comments I just finished Coming of Age in Mississippi. It was required for my 1950's history class. It's an autobiography from one of the girls that was part of the famous Woolworth's sit-in in Mississippi. It's all about her childhood and growing up to be part of the Civil Rights Movement. It's kinda slow at some points, but overall I really enjoyed it.


message 47: by Adriana (last edited Nov 10, 2009 12:50PM) (new)

Adriana | 188 comments The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison for Humanities class.


message 48: by Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner), The Founding Bookworm (new)

Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner) (perpetualpageturner) | 4407 comments Mod
Any good required reading lately?


message 49: by Kayla (new)

Kayla | 604 comments I'm taking a Dystopian literature class and all of the books on the syllabus are great (Brave New World, The Road, 1984) but they're all rereads though. I read all of them for fun in high school. Still, it's fun to go back to them, and it had been so long since I had read Brave New World and I had forgotten so much that it was like reading it for the first time.

Registration for Spring starts next week and I'm really hoping to get into a Contemporary Lit class. All of the books on the syllabus sound great:

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino
Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee

...and there are like six others.


message 50: by Samantha (new)

Samantha (samhanson) | 179 comments Some of my favorite books were required reading in high school English classes. I love The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, and Of Love and Shadows.


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