3.53 avg rating — 238,273 ratings

"I am imagining this class as trying to teach a survey of English Lit using five books, so I want to span history and language styles. This is a fun, raunchy collection of stories filled with gorgeous language. "

3.94 avg rating — 579,743 ratings

"An English Lit survey wouldn't be complete without Shakespeare and this happens to be my favorite play. The wordsmithing! The play within a play! The great characters! "

3.91 avg rating — 1,900,975 ratings

"I wanted to include novel from the Romantic period and I think this may be the epitome. It might be fun to teach some of Rousseau's philosophy alongside it. "

3.93 avg rating — 5,937,273 ratings

"I know I'm skipping a bit going from Romanticism to Modernism, but this is, to me, epitomizes modern life in America. "

4.20 avg rating — 781,443 ratings

"I wanted the last book in my survey to be post-Modern. Catch-22 is actually my favorite of the genre, but I would rather teach this. The unreliable narrator and the what constitutes a happy ending in this book make it fascinating. "