If you read the blog last night, I bet you saw today’s lunch coming from a mile away.
Such a delicious and easy salad to make.
White nectarine slices added sweetness to the meal.
Sadie had negative interest in the fruit. She was all about the chicken and even managed to create a ring of drool while watching me eat.
It’s a gift.
High School Reading Material
Late this morning, I read an interesting article on MSNBC.com about the “10 books you really should have read in high school.”
The article admits to omitting “a lot of astonishing books,” but the list of books included (in no particular order):
- Frankenstein
- The Scarlet Letter
- The Catcher in the Rye
- The Great Gatsby
- Pride and Prejudice
- Siddhartha
- Lord of the Flies
- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- The Fountainhead
I was only assigned to read three of the books on this list. I read The Great Gatsby (loved it), The Catcher in the Rye (liked it a lot) and The Scarlet Letter (take it or leave it).
I read a lot of books not on the list and remember absolutely loving Of Mice and Men (I sobbed like a baby) and absolutely hating Fahrenheit 451 in high school. I started reading Pride and Prejudice as an adult and then the movie was on television as I was about halfway through reading it, so I watched the movie… and then never picked up the book again. Oops.
Question of the Afternoon
- What was the best book you were assigned to read in high school?
- What book – classic or not – do you think high school students should be assigned to read? (Maybe we’ll make it the next PBF Book Club book!)
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that sandwich looks great! yep, definitely could see that lunch coming 😉
i was assigned 7 of those 10 books. while not on the list, Catch-22 was my favorite i think! Either that or great gatsby. loved them both!
we had to read To Kill a Mockingbird. SUCH A GREAT BOOK. Now that I’m thinking about it, I might buy it again and re-read it..
i think i might pick up that book, too. it was the one on the list that i always wanted to read but never got around to actually reading. have you seen the movie a time to kill? the description of the book reminds me of that movie a lot.
hmm, no never saw that movie. but i would definitely recommend that book. from what i remember it was amazing.
ugh, i remember having to read the scarlet letter. i couldn’t get through it at the time. it was just terrible. if i read it now, it would probably be okay. but to a high schooler with better things to do, reading that was not a top priority.
Yes! Loved To Kill A Mockingbird! Also loved Gatsby. One that I had to read in high school that I disliked was Brave New World. Not my thing.
I saw the movie Pride and Prejudice first and then read it. The language is too lofty for me so the movie helped a lot. But I LOVE both. I think I like Elizabeth Bennet more in the book and Mr. Darcy (SWOON!) more in the movie.
yeah i found the book a bit slow… 🙂 probably why i never continued reading it!
I read Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, and I read Of Mice and Men too. I’m sure I read others but I can’t remember now off the top of my head. I know I read this much earlier than high school but I think The Diary of Anne Frank should be a required reading.
Love that sandwich! 🙂
agreed! such a good suggestion.
That ring o’ drool is impressive! Funny stuff!
The best book I was ever assigned in high school was “Jubilee” by Margaret Walker. It is phenomenal! It’s about the Civil War and the South and slavery and food. I love that book!
I think Diary of Anne Frank should be required as well as Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
I remember loving The Scarlet Letter! It was so risque for it’s time, even though the entire novel was practically Spanish to me.
hester pryne. what a sassy little minx.
Wow, I actually read 6 of the 10 books in high school! My teachers must have consulted that list. I think my favorite books I read in high school were Catcher in the Rye and the Shining by Steven King. I hated Lord of the Flies when I read it. But now everyone compares it to the Hunger Games which I love. Maybe it deserves a reread.
I only read two of those in high school, but I’ve read five by now. The Great Gatsby is still my all-time favorite classic novel. There’s a company that makes t-shirts with the gatsby cover emblazoned onto it – I want one so badly!
I think I actually read this when I was in Grade 7 (or around there) but Holes by Louis Sachar was awesome! I think they made it into a movie too. I’ve never read The Great Gatsby… I’ll blame it on the fact that I was in a British international school in the Middle East and in English all we got to read was Shakespeare and other really old books! Pride and Prejudice and To Kill a Mockingbird were included though, so I guess I’m not that naive!
I’ve read Most of these! Favorite hs books are pride and prejudice and 1984.
i want to read 1984!
1984 is totally worth reading! Great book
I read The Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, Lord of the Flies, and To Kill a Mockingbird. Loved them all!
oh and can we talk about how excited I am for Leo DiCaprio to be in The Great Gatsby movie coming out?! Love.
wait… WHAT?
oh yes! it’s true 🙂 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/07/the-great-gatsby-begins-australian-production_n_951778.html
We had to read Kill a Mockingbird, it was good! I also read Pride and PRejudice <—I love the new movie, btw!
Love a good 'meaty' lunch sometimes 🙂
I need to read The Great Gatsby….never got around to it before!
My favorite book in high school was Alas, Babylon!
Oh, this was a good book! And it takes place in Orlando. I totally forgot about this one.
The catcher in the rye was my favorite holden clawfield holds a special place in my art. And I think everyone should have to read the art of happiness
My all time favorite book I read in high school was Night by Elie Wiesel. I cried while reading this book many times. I have not read a book since that has affected me as much as this one.
That was my favourite high school read, too! I still have the book and I’ve never forgotten it. Amazing.
I was assigned 8 of the 10 books, and liked almost all of them. I don’t think I have a favorite, but Pride and Prejudice, The Great Gatsby, The Scarlet Letter, and Huckleberry Finn were some of my favorites.
I’ve read all these books except Siddhartha (never even heard of it). We had to read a book a month in my English AP class and some of these were on that list. One that I really enjoyed was 1984 because it was so insane to me then, but has so many parallels to the modern day.
I love the classics! They’re ignored too often!
Frankenstein was one of those books I dreaded reading, but absolutely loved. Mary Shelley was a gifted writer! And The Great Gatsby is still one of my favorites.
I also really enjoyed The Hobbit, A Brave New World, and Wurthering Heights. I probably wouldn’t have read any of those on my own!
One book I didn’t read in high school, but I wish was recommended is One Hundred Years of Solitude. It’s amazing book.
I read the Great Gatsby which I loved, and To Kill a Mocking Bird. I read atlas shrugged too but honestly forgot if I liked it or not. I know a movie came out about it though.(or is coming out).
I haven’t read it yet, but my fiance tells me that Invisible Man is a book everyone should read. He says its one of those books that’s still applicable today.
And I agree with so many others in that To Kill a Mockingbird was AMAZING!
YAY, the publisher in me was so excited for a post about books. 🙂
I read seven of the ten in high school (all except Siddhartha, Huckleberry Finn, and The Fountainhead)…and I’m a huge nerd, so I loved them all. 🙂 The best book I ever read in high school, though, has to be a tie between The Awakening (Kate Chopin) and A Doll’s House (Henrik Ibsen). My AP Lit class senior year did a lot of work with gender studies, and I eventually wound up writing my thesis on issues of gender in college, so I guess it was in the cards!
I LOVE The Awakening! It’s one of my top five favorite books. I’m making my husband read it, which is rough since he’s not a reader and it’s not really a ‘dude book’ ya know? lol
I read both of those in AP English also…the Awakening was crazy…so much “water” sybolism
I read about 4-5 of those on the list! Although Siddhartha…I believe I read it in World Religions class in college. Not su
I read Jane Eyre in high school and it remains one of my favorite books ever!
I think To Kill a Mockingbird and Catcher in the Rye should be must-reads for high schoolers for sure!
woops! sorry–hit enter accidentally 😛
not sure why but I didn’t like Great Gatsby that much. I liked the Scarlet letter though! And I didn’t get to read Huckleberry 🙁 I really should though!
Of that list, I only read To Kill A Mockingbird in highschool. Wowza, maybe I need to do some catch-up reading?! Maybe Australia has a different list out that our students read?
I loved the book and the activities the teacher had us do while reading, it is still my favorite book that I read in highschool.
I love this post!
That is a pretty good list, Catcher in the Rye is one of my favorites that I read again and again.
I also found it funny that you talk about Pride and Prejudice, every time I watch the movie “You’ve Got Mail” (which is a lot), I always make a mental note to read that book. Meg Ryan’s character makes it seem like a must read.
I haven’t gotten around to it yet.
As for suggestions, I think that Flowers for Algernon is definitely missing from the list. It raises a lot of interesting questions that people in high school could gain from discussing.
I also think that non-fiction is missing from required reading. It’s such an important genre. Especially for teenagers, they could gain a lot from learning from trial and triumphs of real people. It’s so inspiring.
I was assigned Great Gatsby, Lord of the Flies, and To Kill A Mockingbird. I really hated Lord of the Flies, but love love LOVE Gatsby to this day (I collect different printings of it that I see and like).
I was never assigned Catcher In The Rye but I read it on my own in 9th grade, which I feel is the time in life where one would feel a lot like Holden Caulfield, and ABSOLUTELY love it. It is probably my favourite one book, besides Margaret Atwood’s The Edible Woman (which I chose to read for an essay in high school, but loved sooooo much).
I don’t get much time to read anymore, sadly!
Ugh, they recommend the Fountainhead? It was a good book in that it made me think in very different ways, but it took me 9 months to make it through!
I wish we had been assigned to read Pride and Prejudice. And then we would have watched the BBC miniseries. Colin Firth . . . . drool (much like Sadie!)
I was only assigned two of the books: To Kill a Mockingbird and Lord of the Flies. I absolutely hated To Kill a Mockingbird but LOVED Lord of the Flies. I thought TKAM moved way to slow and I found myself skimming the pages just to get through the book. Lord of the Flies was awesome – that reminds me, I should read it again. And I LOVED Of Mice and Men – also cried like a baby.
I think students should read The Help. Great book and such a great message.
I’ve read all but the top four (Frankenstein, The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye and The Scarlett Letter) and most of them I read on my own for fun.
Siddhartha is amazing – it is a book that I re-read and always learn something new about the characters and myself.
Pride and Prejudice is wonderful to read and the BBC movie version is the best adaptation of it.
Fountainhead was a challenge to get through, but so interesting.
Lord of the Flies and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are both good.
But to Kill a Mockingbird. Oh goodness. So amazing. Harper Lee is a brilliant author. That is definitely a must-read for any high school student.
Other books that I think are must reads: Jane Eyre, Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, The Alchemist, and, my all-time favourite, Anne of Green Gables.
I only read 4 of those on that list. For some reason A Separate Peace sticks out in my head from having to read that in 9th grade English class. We dissected that book to shreds. It was the first critical essay I had to write and I just remember hating every inch of the book after many revisions of that essay!
I read 4 of the 10 in high school and have never read the rest! I think the Great Gatsby has to be my favorite of the high school bunch. I took all AP or honors English classes (dork), so I did a huge share of reading. Other standouts included Life of Pi and Fried Green Tomatoes.
Ooh and A Separate Peace!
and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Okay, I’ll stop now.
i have such a hard time using those full sized carrots, any reason you prefer them to baby carrots?
b/c they’re cheaper!
The Great Gatsby & Catcher in the Rye are both such classics! Another must-read is The Diary of Anne Frank! I remember reading it when I was quite young but I absolutely loved it. A similar book about the Holocaust which I remember reading is Number the Stars. if you have read/enjoyed Anne Frank, definitely give this one a read!
Question–> have you ever listened to an audio book? I am really enjoying Bossypants and am looking to download my next one…any suggestions?
i wish i could help – i want some recommendations, too!
I read most of them, I think I had a pretty “classic” focused english teacher in high school. But the one NOT CLASSIC book that we read in high school was “Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chobsky. It was the first and only book that every single person finished in about 2-3 days. It really pulled the reader in right away, and was a quick read as well. It was also way more edgy and therefore, interesting and relatable to 11th graders, than any of the classics. Next year it’s coming out as a movie starring Kate Walsh and Emma Watson!
I hate that this is becoming a movie. 🙁
It is my favorite book of all time and I dont want to ruin my characters. Im selfish.
Totally understandable, movies are never as good as the books!
The Fountainhead. Amazing.
Must reads: Atlas Shrugged and Brave New World. Maybe not for high schoolers, but in your lifetime, must reads for sure.
I hated The Great Gatsby and Lord of the Flies but I’m a HUGE Jane Austen fan. My fav of her books is called Persuasion…a def. must-read. I think The Count of Monte Cristo is also a book high schoolers should read. It was long, but still remains one of my all-time favs to this day. There are lots of important themes, ideals; situations for GREAT discussion/dialogue.
Oh golly. I love to read.
We read several on the list but To Kill a Mockingbird is still one of my favorite books of all time. I have read it a few more times since then. I actually didn’t like The Great Gatsby in high school (Gasp…I know). But, I think it was the way the book was taught and it totally turned me off. My sister loves it and gave me her copy but I’ve been putting off reading it. I think I need to give it another chance. I’m intrigued by the movie so I should probably do it before that is released!
I bet it IS the way Gatsby was taught to you. When I read that statement I thought Oh My Goodness! I LOVE the way Mrs. Gibbons taught it–that’s why I love it!
I liked reading Romeo and Juliet in high school, I didn’t read Frankenstein till first year university 🙂
I read all of those in high school except Siddhartha and The Fountainhead. Another one that I read in high school that I think everyone should read is I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. It’s tough to read at times but SO wonderful.
I LOVED the Great Gatsby! I think it was the first book I ever read that I just fell in LOVE with.
Also? LOVE white flesh nectarines (and peaches!)
Worst book I had to read in high school was I’m ok You’r ok. I am an avid reader, always have been, and I couldnt even make it through the 1st chapter! The day of the test I was like, oww no I am soooo gonna fail this test.” One of the girls who sat near me was helping her boyfriend who sat in front of me that day pass this class, soooo the test was multiple choice, she sat there calling out 1 a 2 c 3 b. I have NEVER even thought about cheating before, but I did use most of her answers–changing a few for good measure– and ended up making an A on that test! 1st and last time I EVER cheated on school work lol. The stress and guilt about getting caught juse was not worth it!!!!
From that list I was assigned The Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby and Pride and Prejudice. I have been meaning to read To Kill a Mockingbird for the longest time now and I finally got it in the library. Even if I didn’t enjoy reading all of the books I was assigned, most of the times I thought they were good.
Between being a senior English major and my high school classes, I’ve been assigned to read five of those books and have read all but three of them in their entirety (I never finished The Fountainhead…wowza is that book a doozy!)
My two favorite books from high school (which actually continue to be two of my favorite books, period) were Alas, Babylon and 1984. Apparently I have a thing for dystopia? Haha. But really. Both books are so engaging. I’m really not a huge literature person (and yet I’m an English major…hmm…) but I loved both of those books. I think they’re both definitely must reads.
I’m also a big fan of Of Mice and Men…way better than The Grapes of Wrath, imo. I didn’t really dig Fahrenheit 451, either, even though I like dystopian books. I couldn’t get into it when I read it. However, I’m in a Brit Lit class right now where we’ve read a bunch of stuff I read in AP English in high school, and I’ve enjoyed the repeat writings a lot more the second time through. Maybe I just need to give all these books I originally didn’t like another chance.
Oh YAY! Another 1984 fan 😀 It’s my favorite book! (totatlly saw your comment after I posted mine, thought I might be the only one who loved that book)
i didn’t like grapes of wrath AT ALL!
I read 5 of the books (not all required by my school) during high school.
Some of the other ones we had to read were Crime and Punishment (really long and kind of difficult), Wuthering Heights, Rebecca, Heart of Darkness…we read some challenging ones!
I read Where the Red Fern Grows in middle school and LOVED IT! It’s a great young adventure story and as a fellow dog lover, I’m sure you would too – and Sadie would make some friends. I love re-visiting books I read in school – I usually end up liking them a lot more now!
Ok, I’m going to be such an OUTCAST here, but my absolute favorite book was 1984 (& it’s still my favorite!)- I loved it!! & I loved animal farm too..I think it’s because of all of the political ties in it.
I totally cried reading Of Mice & Men too..such a good book!
have you seen the movie version of of mice and men? i cried like a baby in that one too!
I’ve never seen it. I can only imagine, I bet I would cry too!
I read Frankenstein and the Scarlet Letter in high school. A lot of those other books are on my personal list of books to read. Especially Pride and Prejudice. It seems wrong that I haven’t read it yet.
I’ve only three on the list as well: Gatsby, Scarlet Letter, and To Kill a Mockingbird. I loved them all. I have not read Catcher in the Rye–I was always in a different section that didn’t choose that one!
My favorite book I was required to read in HS was The Awakening by Kate Chopin. It is a fabulous read!!
I was talking with a HS friend recently and we were discussing how we both LOVE to read and feel like even in our AP English classes we missed out on a lot of classics. We strolled around Borders (RIP my favorite Friday night nerd hangout) and found TONS of books we felt like heathens for never having read. I added a ton to my list! Now if I could only put down the chick lit….
Also, The Sound and the Fury. So interesting.
we were assigned 7 of the 10 books on that list….and in the first two years!!
My favorite book that was assigned reading in HS, which ultimately became one of my fave books ever, is The House of the Spirits by Isabelle Allende. I HIGHLY recommend it. It takes some getting used to the writing style at first, but it’s quick to pick up on, and honestly, I could not put it down. Full of action, romance, sorrow, defeat, triumph, gathering the will to survive when everyone would understand if you gave up… UGH just thinking about it makes me want to pick it back up again! It really is an incredible book.
I do think I will have to go home and start reading it again. Wow.
side note: HATED Fahrenheit 451.