Books you read in high school

Like you guys, I was forced to read novels by my high school teachers. Most of them sucked. But my two favorites were The Catcher in the Rye and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Loved them.

My parents actually had to sign permission slips because the books contained the F-word and other adult themes. I grew up in a very blue state. Rules were different back then.

The Catcher in the Rye .

My parents actually had to sign permission slips .

I read that for a book report from a list of books to choose when I was 12.

No permission slip. It's so funny that this book was controversial for the F word.

The main character clearly says that graffiti with the F word is bad. And that it ruined the aesthetics of the museum. So bizarre.

In Grade 8 of high school (a combined junior & senior high) i gave a book report presentation of Stephen King's "Carrie", generating howls of laughter when i explained how her menstruation led to pyrotechnics.

We were assigned The Catcher in the Rye as the first book of my freshman English class. I think we had to read to read it in the summer before the school year started. No permission slip required.

Others that I remember:

The Inferno
Things Fall Apart
The House on Mango Street
Macbeth
The Merchant of Venice
A Midsummer Night's Dream
The Stranger
Beloved
To Kill A Mockingbird
The Great Gatsby
1984
Of Mice and Men
Lord of the Flies
Crime and Punishment
The Scarlet Letter

I thought I'd be able to recall more, but that's it, spread across four years. I guess those were the most memorable. I didn't enjoy The Great Gatsby at the time but figure I should probably give it another try.

Even though I went to high school from 1994-98,  I guess this list would probably be considered "woke" by modern standards and probably send some of our resident waygookers into fits of red-faced rage. Some of this is the stuff of viral school board meltdown videos. So yeah, maybe times have changed...

I honestly can't remember a whole lot. We read The Chrysalids, Lord of the Flies, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, along with some bog-standard Shakespeare plays.

Read lots but the one that sticks is 'The Seahawk' by Rafael Sabbatini, I still read it today.

It's been a few years now!!!  I don't recall ever having to have a permission slip for any of the books so maybe they were OK - despite it being last century
I'm sure we did a minimum of two books a term with 3 terms in a year so that would have been 30 books and I can remember about half of them (assuming I have got the number of books per term correct!  It was a while ago.)

I was at an all girls' high school so we read 'The L-shaped room' and 'Young mother'  (probably with the purpose of persuading us not to get pregnant too early)
A few Shakespeare works (McBeth, The Merchant in Venice, King Lear, maybe Twelfth Night and probably another one - I am sure we did one a year.
'To Kill a Mocking Bird', and 'Black like me'
'Of Mice and Men' and 'The Pearl'
'Animal Farm' (and maybe 1984 or maybe I just read that later myself)
'The Witch of Blackbird Pond' also rings a bell for high school reading
I think 'A wrinkle in time' was from middle school days. 

Despite being from New Zealand I don't remember doing any  New Zealand authors - other than some poetry from a poet whose name I can't remember which is probably just as well - I didn't like his/herpoetry and couldn't understand it.

In terms of assigned reading

The Great Gatsby
Puddinhead Wilson
The Sun Also Rises
Black Boy
My Antonia
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Romeo & Juliet
Midsummer Night's Dream
Twelfth Night
Troilus & Cressida
The Odyssey
The Aeneid
Tartuffe
City of God
Sic Et Non
Beowulf
Canterbury Tales
Dream of the Rood
The Catcher in the Rye
To Kill a Mockingbird
Of Mice and Men
The Call of the Wild
A Raisin in the Sun
Kindred
Hamlet
Oedipus Rex
Antigone
Candide
Gulliver's Travels
A Modest Proposal
Leviathan
The Prince
The Republic
Crito
Politics
Second Treatise of Government
The Social Contract
Wealth of Nations
Faust
...A lot...my Humanities class was ridiculous in how much we had to read for Literature class and Western Civ class.

In terms of assigned reading

The Great Gatsby
The Sun Also Rises
The Catcher in the Rye
To Kill a Mockingbird
Of Mice and Men
Candide
Gulliver's Travels
The Prince
The Republic

These ones were not part of my grade school curriculum, but i'd read on my own in high school and/or uni.

Wealth of Nations
Faust

All of it? In uni i read parts of both, owned all of the former but it was a dry pig to get through, the latter a chore.

The most rewarding high school assigned readings i've repeatedly read since includes Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven, Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, all three a joy.

All of it? In uni i read parts of both, owned all of the former but it was a dry pig to get through, the latter a chore.

I think part.

Come to think of it, was Faust or Dr. Faustus? And which Troilus and Cressida was it? It was some time ago. A fair number I don't remember much of beyond being slogs and various snippets of lectures in my head.

I never understood the Shakespeare thing. Plodding, boring and pedantic.

Some guy writes plays 500 years ago in weird English and we're supposed
to think they are inspired, Not.

Then in uni I studied science and only had to undergo one English class
in 4 years.  Thank god.

They're plays. They're supposed to be watched.

Agreed. Pre-Elizabethan literature is far superior.

I don't remember reading a single book in high school...strange! Mind you, I was only there for 2 years and a bit years .

Just remembered, we studied parts of 'The March of Te Rauparaha'. A very long poem about the Ngati Toa tribe chief, back in Intermediate school. Actually thought it was pretty cool.

I never understood the Shakespeare thing. Plodding, boring and pedantic.

True for some, but Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, and the Henriad slap. And Richard III is probably one of the most entertaining plays out there.

So, I am loathe to come off here as a snob, but ...

William Shakespeare is the towering genius of English language literature.  His facility with and use of language, his dramatic story-telling, deftly-drawn characterizations, indelible imagery, telling phrases, soaring rhetoric (when appropriate), grasp of human nature, its foibles, ordinariness and indeed majesty, infuse his works with power, relatability and poetry so far unequaled. 

There is a reason educated people laud him--and it is totally warranted.  Just look at our modern language and idioms.

Mind's eye, hair standing on end, time is out of joint, sweets to the sweet, to the manner born, murder most foul, frailty thy name is woman, sick at heart, the dog will have his day .... and those are just from Hamlet (and off the top of my head, I'm sure there are more). 

They're not all Hamlet, to be sure, but he wrote 37 plays (and a bunch of sonnets) in about 25 years, an output exceeded by, say, Barbara Cartland.  They won't all be timeless classics.  Consider too the number of his works not just produced, but re-produced in modern idioms, over and over again.  There's a reason for that!

Want some fun?  Go here:  https://www.literarygenius.info/a3-shakespeare-insult-generator.htm

Plodding, boring and pedantic are terms someone may use, firstly, if not seeing them performed, as Billy points out, or more likely, by people who can't read very well and lose track of what was being said, and have to go back and start over every few lines.  We can't blame Shakespeare for anyone's learning differences or, hate to say it, lack of intellectual capacity.  Remember, he was writing for the masses, so ...

I don't mean to call anyone stupid, uneducated or boorish, perhaps go and find some quality films of his works where actors practiced in the vernacular are able to translate his amazing work into vibrant retellings of his vibrant tales.  Heck, I even liked the Leo DiCaprio/Claire Danes  Romeo+Juliet okay.  (And I played Mercutio in college.) 

deftly-drawn characterizations, indelible imagery, telling phrases, soaring rhetoric (when appropriate), grasp of human nature, its foibles, ordinariness and indeed majesty, infuse his works with power, relatability and poetry so far unequaled. 

Dude, just use English. What are even half these words.............. .............. indelible? Like, I can't eat it? Shackspeer Junior over here.

Dude, just use English.

I did.

I know you're kidding, but apparently some of us here can't distinguish inedible from indelible.  But blame Shakespeare.

So, I am loathe to come off here as a snob, but ...

The rest of your post disproves this statement.

I did.

I know you're kidding, but apparently some of us here can't distinguish inedible from indelible.  But blame Shakespeare.

Othello is my favourite. Shakespeare rocks.

I may be the only person who likes Coriolanus and has seen the movie with Balkan vibes and the Hiddleston stage play (at the Seoul Opera House video broadcast).