16 "Assigned-Reading" Books You Loved in High School

Mary wrote: "Remember in honors senior English being assigned Canterbury Tales. We had to memorize the Prologue in the original Olde English and then recite it for a grade. We were assigned certain tales to rea..."
When I was a kid my dad introduced me to the Miller's Tale and Tale of the Wife of Bath. I am sure my mother did not approve. He also had me memorize some of the more lurid parts of Macbeth and would trot me out to recite for his cronies. I acquired a love of the really old classics after that, associating them with the Old Man's approval and the uproarious response of his friends. Ah the memories--it was the 60's for me.

Jenny wrote: "There is no better way to ruin a book than assigned reading. It took me years to get my appreciation of shakespeare back and then only because someone on reddit called it "400 year old Game of Thro..."I suspect that is the reason why I liked a lot of the books on this list, because I was not assigned to read them: some of them I read for the first time more than 40 years later. I got to do electives for my English requirements, and we abstained from over-analysis, and usually got to pick our books from a list. Two of the most memorable and best were suggested by teachers: The Double Helix (James Watson), And All the King's Men (Robert Penn Warren). In French, we were all assigned the opening (Chateau D'If) part of Le Comte de Monte Cristo, and I was disappointed when we stopped there.

My daughter did a more rigid California Honors/AP sequence, and she often did not like it at all. Talk about taking all the fun out of reading... It keeps English lit types employed, and fails to teach practical real life skills: how to read and write non-fiction.

can we do a list of books from high school that we hate to this day? Lord of the Flies for me ;)

The school I went to had us read Lord of the Flies, Catcher in the Rye, The Odyssey, All the Pretty Horses, David Copperfield, and a lot of Shakespeare.

Loved Flowers for Algernon was a favorite. Despised Shane though ended up having to read it twice when I switched schools prior to graduation.

Rebecca wrote: "Of Mice and Men and A Separate Peace. Both were phenomenal, and I never would have read them had they not been assigned."

I loved A Separate Peace! One of the best I remember from school.

Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn

I'm of another generation. The only books on this list that were assigned reading are Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies, and Macbeth.

The others I remember are The Scarlet Letter, Les Miserables, Johnny Tremayne, Moby Dick, Great Expectations, The Old Man and the Sea, Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, most of Shakespeare's plays, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and worst of the worst, Giants in the Earth. We called it Clods in the Sod. The Jungle and Don Quixote were assigned but not for English class.

Notice the great diversity? White men and white men.

Science fiction/fantasy was forbidden, even for book reports.

The Jungle and, I suppose, Great Expectations were my favorites.

I loved

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,
Robinson Crusoe,
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,
David Copperfield,
Oliver Twist
The Hobbit
Watership Down

I was homeschooled for high school and my mother just let me read. :) so, I didn't have to "dislike" any books and I also didn't have to read "Lord of the Flies".

Cheryl wrote: "I'm of another generation. The only books on this list that were assigned reading are Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies, and Macbeth.

The others I remember are The Scarlet Letter, Les Miserab..."
Oh! I read Les Miserables too... Is one of the most lovely storys... I cried in the end of the book. I liked very much the Jean Veljan.

At school we had to read five english books, four of which are on the list.
- The catcher in the rye (youth, not fitting in)
- Brave new world (dystopia)
- Lord of the flies (social system, downsides of human nature)
- Macbeth (classics)
-Death of a Salesman (play)

It was fun to read Brave new world. "I'm so glad I'm a beta" became a running joke among us pupils.
I strongly disliked "The catcher in the rye" when I had to read it at school, Holden's language was too rude for me. I only liked his concern about the ducks and when he talks about his sister Phoebe, the name fascinated me. Later when the book was mentioned in my favourite movie "Running on empty" with River Phoenix (in a school lesson! in the movie) I decided to reread it and then I really liked it!
The others were okay, Shakespeare a little dry with the old-english language.

the count of monte cristo. hands down the best book that i had to read that was assigned to me. surprised it's not on this list!

Alex wrote: "the count of monte cristo. hands down the best book that i had to read that was assigned to me. surprised it's not on this list!"

That's one of my all time favorites.

The Crucible

Where is Goodnight Mister Tom? and Of Mice and Men?

The Once and Future King!!! (Was assigned to the "lower" English class, but I read it along with them anyway!); Flowers for Algernon - loved it! Goodbye Mr. Chips - Loved it! And most of the books already mentioned: Shakespeare, Dickens, Austen, Tolstoy, Hugo, Marquez, Bradbury, Vonnegut, etc. Guess I went to a high school with deep commitment to literature.

Loved Moby Dick, Hamlet, Paradise Lost, and Great Expectations. Hated The Scarlet Letter.

I really enjoyed The Caine Mutiny in high school. I plowed through in 5 days which was quite the achievement for a kid who hated English class.

My school had Shakespeare, Jonson and Sheridan. We also had Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Bleak House and (I think) Great Expectations. There was nothing that wasn't written by a British/English author altho I got to read French and German writers when I chose those languages for my O- and A-levels (gods that dates me doesn't it?!)

Jenny wrote: "There is no better way to ruin a book than assigned reading."

May I steal this quote? It's sooo true. Sadly.

We had to read The Great Gatsby in high school and I hated it. It's a snoozer - something to read when insomnia hits, but not much more than that. Out of curiosity I listened to the audio version recently and found no more merit in the book than I had as a teen. Zzzzzzz.

Of the bunch in the list, I liked Macbeth the best.
A Tale of Two Cities (assigned reading) I liked, but Oliver Twist and Great Expectations both appealed more. Maybe because I chose to read them on my own?

The Outsiders was boring 7th or 8th grade reading. I wanted adventures and they give us this? Bleh.

The Picture of Dorian Grey was pretty interesting, but I liked other books from that college course more.

I read Handmaiden's Tale, and thought it OK dystopian. Seeing as Ms. Atwood was being such a snob about her book not being science fiction, even though it is, I had no desire to read anything else by her.

I listened to Brave New World as read by Michael York. What a trip that was.

Most of the rest of those books we did not get assigned.

Wait, people read The Handmaid's Tale and The Martian Chronicles as high school assignments? The hell kinda high school did you go to?

The books on this list I read were either college assignments or ones I read on my own. Things Fall Apart was assigned to me, and it's one of my favorites. Hell, I even did my Capstone project on it!

A Separate Peace, Shane, The Pearl, Wuthering Heights, and A Midnight Clear were my required reading favorites.

No Anna Karenina? I really loved that one! It's one of my most favorite books period!

Totally forgot totally loved this bad boy. And a second fave

I read only three of them! I'm kind of ashamed! Pride and Prejudice, The Great Gatsby and The Picture of Dorian Gray!
I didn't grow up in an english speaking country, but we read extracts from other authors like Dickens, Kerouac, the Brönte sisters, McEwan, Wilde...
I'm definitely going to check some of the book listed here! Reading literature out of school is defnitely better! Teachers don't quiz you about them!

I've read most of the above books, not all in high school, but my HS reading often encouraged me to try one of the above books. In 12th grade we read, "Hard Times," by Dickens, which I loved. That made me go on to a Tale of Two Cities, which I liked even more.

One of my favorite HS assigned books was "1984." I was the nerdy kid who loved my assigned readings, especially novels. Unfortunately, my 9th grade teacher substituted Ivanhoe for Moby Dick, which the other classes were reading. I hated Ivanhoe and never hear any references to it, whereas people are always referring to Moby Dick, which I never got around to reading it.

'Of Mice and Men' by John Steinbeck.
Loved this book immensely, good ole Lennie and George!

Arta wrote: "It's interesting how students are "required" to read these books in school here and some people are ungrateful and don't appreciate it, whereas where I went to school, I had to read these furtively!"

Where did you grow up (I loved my required novels in HS. Sorry you had to hide.)

Where is A Farewell to Arms? I was required to read this in school, and this book made me fall in love with reading.

We read several of these, and the only one that I absolutely detested was Moby Dick. The most boring book ever written! We read a lot of dystopian world - Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies, Brave New World, 1984, Farenheit 451, A Clockwork Orange, as well as The Scarlet Letter, The Catcher In The Rye, A Separate Peace, (which I loved) The Crucible, The Great Gatsby, and a lot of Shakespeare, which I still don't like. We read all of The Canterbury Tales in Old English. I was the only person who loved that.

Michelle (Champ) wrote: "Where is A Farewell to Arms? I was required to read this in school, and this book made me fall in love with reading."

That's really interesting because after HS before College I read a lot of Hemingway. I loved his spare style, hated most of his topics (except Sun Also Rises). I say that it's interesting because it's kind of cool the way each individual responds differently to the same thing.

We did 1984 in my English class and I loved it - you know a book is good when you wrote a 6000 word essay on it and still never got sick of it. I still read it every so often now (although I do skip over most of the bits Winston reads from 'The Book' because by that stage you really get the political message of the story without needing to be beat over the head with it like that)

I've read only 3 of those books, and yes, they were all for school! And I loved all three of them. Macbeth, Wuthering Heights and To Kill a Mockingbird.

What's missing on the list is a different Bradbury, Farenheit 451, and of course Orwell's 1984.

Could add a whole bunch of Shakespeare, we read a couple plays a year. And while I never read Catcher in the Rye (though other classes in my high school did), I read Of Mice and Men.

I am relieved to have been spared Lord of the Flies.

I had to read "To Kill a Mockingbird" (I'm so thankful, it became my favorite book) and "A Separate Peace." The rest was just literature textbook stuff...I vaguely remember "Beowulf."

We were assigned 7 of these and every last one put me to sleep. The only one I liked was To Kill a Mockingbird and I think I read that as a "choose your own classic" assignment rather than with the entire class.

For high school reading, I read 'To Kill a Mockingbird', 'Pride and Prejudice', and 'Macbeth'. Most of the others I read on my own outside of high school.
We also read 'The Scarlet Letter', 'The Crucible', 'Romeo and Juliet', 'A Raisin in the Sun', 'Of Mice and Men', 'Night', 'I Have Lived a Thousand Years', and 'Great Expectations' (which I didn't actually finish, though as an adult I might pick it up someday).

:)

Only two of these were assigned reading for me in school: Lord of the Flies (hated it) and To Kill a Mockingbird (enjoyed it).

My favourite assigned book was probably A Wrinkle in Time in fifth grade, because I vaguely remember asking my teacher if she had the sequels so I could read them. I also enjoyed In the Heat of the Night (twelfth grade, I think?).

My worst were The Chrysalids and Catherine, Called Birdy.

We read the classics. Also, Bell Jar and The Diary of Anne Frank

Tracy wrote: "I had to read "To Kill a Mockingbird" (I'm so thankful, it became my favorite book) and "A Separate Peace." The rest was just literature textbook stuff...I vaguely remember "Beowulf.""

Oh, yes, my two favorites. "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "A Separate Peace." What worlds to visit.

I swear I was the only kid who loved Heart Of Darkness.

I will add that as well as the usual classics, one of the books we read for English was The Turning, Tim Winton's short story collection (this was in Australia). It's a fantastic book, would totally recommend. A lot of the stories focus on people moving into adulthood which was perfect for our class full of 17/18 year olds

Colleen wrote: "I swear I was the only kid who loved Heart Of Darkness."

That's one I really want to read. Haven't gotten to it yet, but loved his Lord Jim. I read that in HS and the whole time I kept saying to myself, "Why do I like this book. I shouldn't like this book." But I did.

Brave New World
The Count of Monte Cristo
Les Misérables
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
The Glass Menagerie

Fahrenheit 451. Still one of my all-time favorites.

As a high school English teacher myself, I find the absence of To Kill A Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, and Heart of Darkness disturbing.

Frankenstein and Hamlet

The Red Badge of Courage
The Grapes of Wrath
Enjoyed them.

Wuthering Heights was assigned, and it turned out to be my all-time favorite book.

I think my school is doing it wrong, because we only read Macbeth.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in fifth grade :)