The best and worst books that you were forced to read...

[Finchx0rz]

Best: <u>The Great Gatsby</u>, <u>A Separate Peace</u>.

Worst: <u>The Old Man and the Sea</u>. Of all the emotional scars obtained from 11th grade, reading this pretentious pile of boredom caused one of the deepest. Old guy wants to catch a fish. WHOOP-DE-DOO! This was quite laborious to read for a novella.

I gave Hemingway a few more chances, but to this day I still can't stand him.

[DaveWadding]

Aw man, how did I forget Lord of the Flies? I read that my senior year and loved it!

And what's with all the Shakespeare hatin' going on? It makes me die a little...

JM, if you hated A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, I doubt you'll like The Great Gatsby, but give it a chance. And of course, if you can't get through the book, rent the movie (but not the Robert Redford version. Get the A&E version witih Mira Sorvino and Paul Rudd).

Escapay

I was pretty meh on LOTF. Maybe cause I had to write a final essay on it afterwards

JM, BEWARE THE GATSBY! BEWARE!!!!!!

[Leonia]

Best:
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.

Worst:
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.

[Harbinger]

Best:
A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare
The Oedepis Trilogy (Sp?) by Sophocles
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury

Worst:
A Seperate Peace
Lord of the Flies
A Wrinkle In Time
Alas, Babylon
The Call of the Wild
Julius Caesar
Farewell to Manzanar
Mythology (I love mythology but the book sucked)
Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry
The Giver
Island of the Blue Dolphins
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Death Be Not Proud
Among the Hidden
Endurance

..... the list goes on and on. The schools that i go to's english curricculums suck. And I absolutely love reading.

[Karushifa]

Okay...I'm a fan of Shakespeare and I think he deserves some props here. HOWEVER, that doesn't mean that I love all of his plays, far from it. Hamlet is the Elizabethan equivalent of an M. Night Shyamalan movie: slow, involved, and plodding at times, with the ultimate payoff at the end. I know some people adore it, and I can see why, but I'm somewhat indifferent to it. Same goes for Romeo and Juliet, which I would probably enjoy more if it weren't so cliche. The Merchant of Venice is probably my least favorite of the ones I've read/seen, mostly because: a) it seems to have no real focus, switching between comedy, farce, and tragedy without committing to any one style; b) none of the characters are all too likeable, except maybe Portia, and I found myself really not caring about what happened in the end; c) although Shylock is the most interesting character by far, the play is not about him; it's about some rich, boring, Christian Italians. Snooze. And finally, Julius Caesar is probably the single most boring work of literature I've ever read. This is an 8th/9th grade standard, so if you had to read this, your first instinct would probably have been to hate Shakespeare in general.

Now, the plays that I DO like:
- Twelfth Night
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Macbeth (short, sweet, and full of murder and revenge...nothing boring here)
- The Tempest
- Henry V
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- Othello

The key to liking Shakespeare is to see his plays actually performed, whether it be on the stage or in one of the better Shakespeare movies. It's not the precise wording that is so important as much as the mood of the speaker. If you sweat every single strange word and antiquated analogy, of course you're not going to like it. But if you sit back and watch how the characters interact with one another, you'll get a much better sense of what's going on. If I were to teach a Shakespeare class, I'd throw out all the meter analysis and such and have the kids actually act out what they were reading. You're not going to learn much about something that you don't enjoy, after all.

[Harbinger]

And finally, Julius Caesar is probably the single most boring work of literature I've ever read. This is an 8th/9th grade standard, so if you had to read this, your first instinct would probably have been to hate Shakespeare in general.

I agree. We finished reading Julius Caesar.. and I was like this can't be Shakespeare because I didn't enjoy it that much at all. It was very inconsistent and didn't know what it was trying to say. Luckily I had read Romeo and Juliet before, which I liked, otherwise I would have stayed off of Julius Caesar.

[Jessica]

Best:
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee (now one of my all time faves)
The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Worst:
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (don't ask me why, I just hated it)

[Zoltack]

And what's with all the Shakespeare hatin' going on? It makes me die a little...
Escapay

I like Hamlet... well I like Hamlet more than I like Romeo and Juliet.

[Timon/Pumbaa fan]

Hmmm, pretty hard to remember all the books I was "forced" to read, and there are going to be MANY more to come, however, here are a few of mine currently

Best:
The Wind in the Willows
To Kill a Mockingbrid
Hamlet(of course I loved this, I love The Lion King )
The Chronciles of Narnia series(well only the two that I read )
Island of the Blue Dolphins
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Harry Potter series

Worst:
Because of Winne-Dixie
The Outsiders
Holes(I actually love this book, however I actually had to read it after I saw the movie, and besides knowing a couple scenes better, the experience was dead)
Stargirl

I know there are other that belong in the "Worst category for sure, but I forgot their names.

[Roger Rabbit]

Best - Catcher in the Rye

Worst - Wuthering Heights

[LucyPevensie]

Best:
Romeo and Juliet
The Fall Of The House Of Usher
Jane Eyre

Worst:
Macbeth
All Quiet On The Western Front (All Boring On The Western Snore)
My Antonia