A classic the you should have read in school

[Leslie]

What are some classics that you read in school. I read all the ones that were assigned to me so I'm not sure what I missed. Thanks.

[sara keleny]

Lord of the Flies

A Tale of Two Cities

The Grapes of Wrath

Shakespeare

[Areesha]

To Kill A Mockingbird and My Family and Other Animals (My school was shit and that's all they ever forced us to read).

[Melissa Wiebe]

Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies, A Tale of Two Cities, To Kill a Mockingbird, Romeo & Juliet, Twelfth Night, I Never Promised You A Rose Garden, and All Quiet on the Western Front.

[Gail]

I remember loving Flowers for Algernon!

[Amanda]

Classics I read in school - Grapes of Wrath and Ethan Frome (HATED both), To Kill a Mockingbird (didn't hate it, but didn't love it), Brave New World (liked it, didn't love it), Lord of the Flies (really liked), Great Gatsby and 1984 (LOVED both).

Read but not sure if it qualifies as a classic - House of the Spirits. To this day, one of my favorite books. My introduction to magical realism.

Didn't read in school, wish I had - Lolita, Fahrenheit 451, Foundation, H.G. Wells.

[Gerald]

I read very few of the books assigned for my summer reading. I probably read "Flowers for Algernonand the infamous Lord of the Flies. I also read A Separate Peace. Ironically although I was in the B class(know what I mean) we had much better reads.

[Karin]

I'm trying Grapes Of Wrath for this square. very slow going. Having a hard time reading the dialect.

[Adore]

^ i just read that and absolutely loved it. try to stick with it -- the dialect gets easier after awhile.

[Kristin]

I just read The Color Purple and loved it. Some of the "should have read in school
Books" seem to be better as an adult. I enjoy and appreciate them so much more.

[Kristin]

I just read The Color Purple and loved it. Some of the "should have read in school
Books" seem to be better as an adult. I enjoy and appreciate them so much more.

[Samantha]

Recently read Johnny Tremain; To Kill A Mockingbird; Anne Frank's Diary, Charlotte' Web; Animal Farm. I read War of the Worlds to my boys at bedtime. Hated reading Nineteen Eighty-Four. Trying to catch up on some of the classics I never read, but should have.

[Linda]

I remember reading "Shane" in 7th grade and loving it.

[Karin]

Still working on Grapes. I stopped for a while and then picked it back up. I finally reached the "really into it" stage and I like it but boy does it depress me. Probably not great for right before bed but now I just want to plow through it (no pun intended) and put it behind me. The sooner I finish, the sooner I can stop feeling so sad for the plight of these families.

[Melissa]

Grapes of Wrath, To Kill a Mockingbird, 1984, Farenheit 451, Animal Farm, Great Gatsby, Grapes of Wrath, The Handmaid's Tale, tons of Shakespeare, The Catcher in the Rye, the Outsiders, The Crucible, The Scarlet Letter .

What I wished we read but didn't: Sophie's Choice, Lolita, The Color Purple, The Invisible Man, A Room of One's Own, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,

[Linda]

Romeo and Juliet
Hamlet
A Tale of Two Cities
The Scarlet Letter
Pride and Prejudice
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
1984
Animal Farm / 1984
A Separate Peace
The Catcher in the Rye
Cry, the Beloved Country
The Outsiders
The Crucible
Our Town
Lord of the Flies
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Of Mice and Men
Macbeth
Le Petit Prince
Death of a Salesman
Antigone
The Brothers Karamazov
The Glass Menagerie
The House of the Seven Gables
My Ántonia

Some of what others are calling classics didn't come out until after I was out of school.

[Janet]

Linda,
My list looks pretty much like your list....must've been the Ohio curriculum at that time.

I would add
Winesburg, Ohio
Brave New World
The Sound and the Fury
The Great Gatsby
The Sun Also Rises
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Walden
Uncle Tom's Cabin
The Metamorphosis

[Jen]

I'm ashamed to say that I hardly ever finished the books assigned to me in school. Here are the ones I can remember being assigned:

Romeo and Juliet
Pride and Prejudice
My Ántonia
Lord of the Flies
The Scarlet Letter
The Crucible
Julius Caesar
The Sun Also Rises
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Great Gatsby
White Noise

Not a very diverse list :( Here are some classics I've read since that I really liked: North and South, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Jane Eyre, Kindred, & The Handmaid's Tale

[[deleted user]]

I read all the books that were assigned to me in school, but there weren't many of them really. Going from memory:

Julius Caesar
A few Poe stories
Catcher in the Rye
Brave New World
Lord of the Flies

I actually WANTED more lit, so a took "Jazz Age", in which I read

The Sun Also Rises
The Great Gatsby
The Grapes of Wrath
Tortilla Flat

and "Fantasy"

The Hobbit
Watership Down

Both of these courses were taught by Dave Price, who had a real contagious excitement for literature, which I've retained for the rest of my life.

Later in college I loaded up on lit courses and ever since college I've been knocking back the classics.

I remember reading these on my own:

Tons of Edgar Rice Burroughs
I, Robot
The Sword of Shannara
Harlan Ellison
Of Mice and Men
Animal Farm
The Illustrated Man
The Martian Chronicles
Ton of comics

[Joe]

"To Sir With Love" underappreciated classic!

[Hannah]

If you've never read A Separate Peace, we read that in high school and it's fantastic.

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

I feel like we were often assigned shorter works by classic authors and since I've read their great works. I wish we could have read those instead, clearly their better stuff, even just portions, rather than suffering through something like Billy Budd instead of Moby Dick.

One of my librarian friends went to a Quaker boarding school for high school and read mostly women or minority authors. I had the opposite experience like most - dead white guys.

I never read... JD Salinger as assigned reading. Had to read it on my own and did so before college in case I missed something.

[Terry]

Pretty much a repeat of all those above...
Macbeth
Grapes of Wrath
Cannery Row
The Scarlet Letter
1984
Animal Farm

Try John Steinbeck if you haven't read him.

[Michael]

I might be one of the few people who read Wuthering Heights in HS and liked it. Also 1984

[C. John]

Michael wrote: "I might be one of the few people who read Wuthering Heights in HS and liked it. Also 1984"

1984 in either grade 11 or 12 (11 I think but we did take Brave New World in grade 12 so it might have been then)
Wuthering Heights in grade 13. Okay but not one of my favourites though.