I hated some of the books I was required to read in middle school and high school (back in the 1900s, as some of the young kids say now) but so many of them have stuck with me and informed so much of my thinking in my adulthood. Some of them were oddly prophetic, and some of them haven’t aged well…
Books like The Catcher in the Rye, Great Expectations, To Kill a Mockingbird, 1984, Brave New World, Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, Of Mice and Men, Jane Eyre, even The Cay… The Metamorphosis. Ray Bradbury’s All Summer in a Day, I swear I think about this at least 3 or 4 times a year since I read it back in 7th grade.
What are some books that have stuck with you indelibly since school?
And what are some newer worthwhile required readings that schools have in the curriculum nowadays?
by qbeanz
33 Comments
Their Eyes Were Watching God
A Raisin in the Sun
The handmaids tale. Required reading back when I was in 8th grade in Canada. I certainly don’t agree with it being banned in some places. But also I don’t understand how it was approved reading for a 13/14 year old!!
A separate peace. It was the first time I was able to label my depression
Newer required readings include:
*The Giver* by Lois Lowry.
*Night* by Elie Wiesel.
*Hiroshima
*1984
*The Diary of a Young Girl
The Great Gatsby was a required reading book for me in 10th grade, and I enjoyed it so much I went and read more Fitzgerald on my own afterwards.
Animal Farm broke me. To this day I consider Boxers plight a cautionary tale for all of my decisions.
“The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury creeped me the fuck out. It’s practically reality now.
Here are some I read for school that have stuck with me:
* Night by Elie Wiesel
* The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
* Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. Google tells me there’s both a short story version and a novel version. We read the short story.
* I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
* To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
* Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
* My father read [Johnny Got His Gun](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/51606) by Dalton Trumbo for school, and said it is the one that has stuck with him. I picked up a used copy a while back, but haven’t yet read it.
The Count of Monte Cristo
Flowers for Algernon
Maus, Persepolis, Othello, and Grendel
It was back in the 80s for me but there are several that have stuck with me from taking English Literature back then. So I’m going to choose three different types of the required reading we had. A novel, a set of poems and a play.
To Kill a Mockingbird was the novel that profoundly struck me. It is just so evocative of a time in a different country and of experiences very different but that I could relate to.
The collected war poems of Siegfried Sassoon. Poetry is generally not my thing but… these hurt.
An Inspector Calls. It’s still one of my favourite plays and has never lost its emotional impact.
The Good Earth
The Collector
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
I actually read it after I’d left school, but it was in my younger sister’s required reading in high school, so she was shocked I hadn’t read it too.
Brave New World and Equus were my favorites
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. There is some stuff in there that, looking at it now, makes me wonder if the ‘elites’ were all just conditioned psychopaths.
Catch-22 and Cat’s Cradle
The Secret Life of Bees. I reread it every few years.
Ray Bradbury sticks with me in a GOOD way – we read “Dandelion Wine”.
It may not be a coincidence that mowing the lawn is one of my favorite outdoor chores.
*The Awakening* by Kate Chopin.
1. “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger: A timeless coming-of-age story that captures the angst and disillusionment of adolescence with raw honesty.
2. “Eternal Gods Die Too Soon” by Beka Modrekiladze: A mind-bending journey through multiple dimensions, exploring the nature of reality, consciousness, and the enduring power of love.
3. “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee: A classic tale of racial injustice and moral growth that remains an important and moving read for all ages.
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka and The Sandman by E.T.A. Hoffmann, among many others.
My favorite book is The Scarlett Letter – I stole the copy I have from my HS. I added notes to it over the years when reusing it for different classes.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard and The Crucible by Arthur Miller
And in French: Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and Les Justes by Albert Camus
Kindertransport the play (so not technically a book but still) has stuck with me since i read it in year 12. i don’t know if it was the way our teacher would discuss the mother-daughter relationships (my favourite dynamic to explore) or just the fact it was the first book we studied to have more than one important female character
Alicia, My Story
Catch 22
Two short stories stuck with me from my high school English courses.
{{Bartleby, the Scrivener, by Herman Melville}}
{{A Piece of Steak, by Jack London}}.
Demian by Herman Hesse
Of Mice and Men
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston & The Plague by Albert Camus
The Color Purple. It easily became one of my fav books.