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What was your favorite book you had assigned for you to read at school?

Mine was Agatha Christie's A.B.C murders.

Well, in the U.S.A we have pretty crappy public schools where m*****ns and a*****ns walk around and think their lords of our country. 

My mom caught third graders smoking weed in her class. Third graders.

But that's not the point. Even if they have any kind of reading, it's a three pages book. So, yeah.

My tests show I read at a college level, so everybody in my class thinks I'm a god. In school, they have NEVER made me read a book my level or above. So I've got nothing to say. Except I've read Islands of the Dolphins in class, by myself so I guess that would count?

Oh, well at my school we are actually reading full books. It usaually takes us a couple of days to read them.

Yeah. I'm pretty sure Mason was being sarcastic. Unless his school really is that bad.

But, to answer the question, the best book I have ever been forced to read would have to be The Giver. Well, we didn't actually read it, it was read to us. But, I found the entire book interesting, as I do enjoy science fiction, and I like to imagine what the future has in store for us. What if the government turned it's people into placid, and emotionless drones? How is there no violence or war in this time? How long did it take for the government to do this? A number of questions formed in my head. A number of them were not answered in that book, driving me to read the other books in the companion series.

Now, here's what I like about the whole companion series aspect of The Giver. The Giver is the first book in the series, it ends with (*Spoilers*), (Jonas basically falling off a sled into the snow, and seeing a strange display of lights. ) Now, you can assume the worst, or the best. Is he (dead) or is he (alive)? You can stop reading, at the end of the book. There's no real cliff-hangers. If you don't read the other books, you're necessarily missing out on anything. The other books in the series each have a different main character. (Yes, you can see Jonas. As he is the leader of the group of people he found.) Each books highlights a new person, and how they grow. But, you don't have to read all of them. You can read any book separately, and still understand what is happening in the story. This helped me enjoy the series even more. if you read them in sequential order, you see how each character's actions helps to spur the story onward.

But hey, that's just me.

Yeah, I read that in the sixth grade. I remember it being pretty good. I just didn't find the ending satisfying enough to keep on with the series.

@ZagHero

Not trying to be a jerk, but my school is really dirty. They freaking walk around dancing, pointing the middle finger. I've been flipped off ALOT. And those kids were trying to be funny. 

People literally scream f**k and teachers yell at them, "D**n you b**tards! Stop f**king swearing!"

And that's the life of Mason Guzzi.

You should make a story about it, as a joke.

Haha....but it's no joke man. 

The Life of Mason Guzzi

You take control of Mason Guzzi, a young boy with no future. Experience the horrors of Rio Vista Middle School and fight your way to highschool, even if it means lying, cheating, fighting, and even murder. Bullies, cowards, and gays surround you in epic battles and you must do your homework, fight off bullies, and post on CYS. Craft epic weapons to combat the enemy, one by one. This is Mason's Life.

Do it Mason. Make the game. Finish it. Show them all.

XD

 

I loved that book!  We were made to read it in grade 6; that would have been about 1990.  Since it has been required reading somewhere, I guess you could count it.

Over the years, I actually had quite a few really good books that I read. Animal Farm by George Orwell and Lord of the Flies by William Golding were both great; however, my favorite was Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. I suppose that it is because I love older books.

My brother had to read Lord of the flies. In my opinion it is the saddest book I have ever read.

Currently my class is reading 'Uglies by Scott Westerfield' and analyzing its meaning and hidden metaphors and stuff. So far it's the best book I've read in school. But that's not saying much. At parts it can be boring merely because of how little plot there is. It is almost entirely based on character development instead of actual story so it falls a bit flat for me. Would be better for me if there was more to the story.

I'm caught between Macbeth and Watchmen.

Aw, my teacher wanted us to read watchmen, but the school didn't allow so we ended up reading Maus.

Our class is reading Macbeth. In fact, I am about to take a test on it.

Either Night by Elie Wiesel or Silence by Shusaku Endo. Both were emotionally tough to read and really made me think about things beyond just the scope of English Literature class.

I read Tuck Everlasting in grade 5, the City of Ember in grade 6, and Percy Jackson: the Lightning Thief in grade 7; so three years of good books in a row!

This thread is a year old.

It's so hard to pick a favorite, but I think I'd have to say it was "A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Minerva."  I read it in grade seven and it is a historical fiction about Eleanor of Aquitaine, told from her perspective as she waits in heaven for her husband, Henry II to be able to join her.  It's really the book that got me interested in British History (which was further cemented by a trip to the Victoria Wax Museum, where I learned about Henry the 8th and his 6 wives.)

We never read anything good in school, ever, unless you count my 5th grade teacher reading us White Fang and Johnny Tremain.

But after elementary school the teachers' spent most of their time in feeble attempts at getting the rest of the class to shut up so they could actually teach something and so I got to just chill and read whatever I'd brought from home at my desk, so I guess you can say I technically read a lot of good things in high school.

The WORST thing we were ever assigned was definitely The Awakening by Kate Chopin.

Well since this thread was necroed, I'll add my two cents in. 

The Hobbit: Tolkien. Loved it. I feel like the reason is obvious.

The Bell Jar: Sylvia Plath. The drop into insanity was super interesting to me. I was really enthralled with it at the time. 

A Time to Kill: John Grisham. This one I got so into that I ended up starting reading it and finishing it in the same day. 

To Kill a Mockingbird: For the reasons stated above.

I might be missing a few, but those are the main ones.

"Well since this thread was necroed, I'll add my two cents in. "

Yeah; ooops.  I realized it a few minutes after I had posted to it.  It was like the fourth or fifth on the first page of that subforum, so I figured it MUST be recent.  Boy do I have egg on my face now.

This entire board is a cemetery, you disturb the ghosts of dead threads just by walking into it.

Reading books went out of fashion, eh? :)

I'm fairly sure a lot of us read books. Just no one really wants to post about it here, for some reason.

That makes two of us now, Mynoris.

Yesterday I done revived the subforum without realizing that it was dead for a year. Oh, but I really wanted to answer the question.

The one that I remember most, and probably liked best, from my English classes was 1984. I reread it a few years ago and it's still on my list of favourite books.

Ayy Agatha Christie :D

Umm Hmmm... Animal Farm rofl

Mine was some odd gamebook (Enemy of My Enemy) that I loved to death. It also sparked my interest in gbs so I would say it was quite special for me.

My English teacher in tenth grade for whatever reason decided to assign us to read the English translation of Les Miserables. Even though I disagreed with Hugo's message in terms of justice vs amnesty, the story itself was certainly one of the best I've ever read especially in terms of sentimentality and evoking thought. This was at a time that I was just beginning to think about politics, and the book really helped me find where I stand.

Thanks for mentioning this; I started reading it a while ago and then lost my copy of the book (shameful, I know).  But I really enjoyed the little I read and so I have to actually finish reading it this time around.  After the December Contest is over, of course.

Personally, I have always been a fan of dystopian fiction. It's just something about people being put in shitty situations, and with perseverance and wit, makes it better (even if only for themselves).

Anyway, one of the books that particularly inspired me to begin writing is Lois Lowry's The Giver.

For those who aren't familiar with the book, the gist is that the citizens of this town are in what is seemingly an utopia, with no hardships, scarcity, or difference. However, as with every other citizen, the protagonist is designated a job. His job, however, is the keeper of memories, which exposes him to the truth about his community.

EDIT: I just realized that I necro'd this chain. My bad.

Meh, necroing is fine in Reading Corner, no one ever posts here anyway.

The Giver fucking scarred me. It was a horrible horrible thing for Tiny Mizal to come across all innocent and unknowing.

I mean, fantastic book, but depressing as hell and all stories were supposed to have happy endings dammit.

Same here. One of my sister's friends gave it to her as a birthday present (without having read it before ofc) and since she's never read much, I borrowed it. It had a cool concept but holy hell was it depressing and scarring for little me. The fun thing is that it's sold as a book for children.

I mean, it is a children's book, it's just that it's Babby's First Dystopia and so you go into it expecting he's going to fix the bad society or at least find people to help him but... that's not how dystopic sci fi works and kids won't be aware of that going in.

Animal Farm, while generally not categorized as a children's book can be similarly deceptive if you're young enough not to know what you're getting into. I engender being similarly devastated when I read it because I mean, it's cute talking animals what could possibly go wrong. @BerkaZerka has a good story about the first time he read that one too actually...

@ Mizal, Undr

I agree that the book is depressing. Also, like everyone ever who read the book, the ending was seriously a waterfall of emotions.

If I had to say though, my favorite thing about the book was its setting. A place where everyone is the same, an utopia at first glance. Then, just as you look into it, you can see the government pulling the shade over everyone's eyes. In fact, the book itself partially inspired the hive mind government I am using in the novel I am writing (and soon, once I learn the basics here, the Storygame)

Yes, the setting and general concept was one of the best things of the book. Good luck with your novel (and possible storygame).

Thanks! Actually working on a storygame right now. It is shaping up nicely.

Definitely Julius Caesar.  I have read it several times and memorized parts.  Antony had all the best lines, but Cassius was my favorite.

We read "The Interlopers" by Saki once, and I liked that a lot too.

 

I don't remember all of them and I'm very indecisive, so I'm gonna list a couple. 

The Name of the Rose is a common assignement here and I loved it. Shakespeare was also a brilliant read, as is Ariosto.

I really admired one teacher that didn't treat us as if we were innocent retarded babies and among other things recommended Norwegian Woods when we were in 10th grade. I didn't like it that much but it spurred me to read Murakami's books, some of which are really good. When I talked about it with another teacher years later she was shocked that that one had recommended such a book to 15 year-olds of course.

We also had a kind of book club during my last years of high school and I remember enjoying The Investigation by Jung-Myung Lee and The Perfect Life of William Sidis by Morten Brask.

Mine would have to be "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck. My class was given it two years ago to read and we also watched the movie. The teacher read some of it out and he definitely nailed the voices. 

Ah, I remember that one! It was a good book, it's just too bad that my teacher didn't go as far as to show the movie or read much of it.

Your teacher did the voices? Cool.

Doing voices for a retard is offensive.

The teacher left later that year if my memory serves me right.

Not saying it is related.

Definitely wasn't anything by that boring fucker Charles Dickens that's for sure.

I was wondering about that. trollHunter is sure to be near. 

Jane Eyre. Despite the fact it was the only required book I read cover to cover, it was surprisingly good. In my high school English class, I used to little spoon my own book behind the cover of the assigned book and read that instead. Once I got kicked out of Running Start classes for skipping, I figured I should actually do the work. I thought the book was going to be about snobby, rich Brits who gathered to drink tea and discuss the how annoyed they are at the working class. Young, innocent, and orphaned Jane finds herself living with her aunt… then her cousin goes full Jason Bourne on her ass and hits that bitch in the face with a book. Oh, and then she sees a ghost. It was quite the hook to draw in an adolescent ninjapitka.

In Middle School I was assigned/recommended The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer by my language arts teacher for a independent book report, A story of a Opium kingpin vampire drug lord and his clone within a fictional country between the U.S and Mexico, for me at that age it was a intense and gritty story that definitely had a hand in creating my love for darker science fiction in my future along with its sequel.
As a senior in high school in my honors Brit. Lit. class I was Assigned 1984 (a book I had already read). I enjoy 1984 but it holds more sentimental value to me as one of the parting gifts from my great aunt. When My aunt passed away she gave me three books 1984, Animal Farm and The complete Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy.
Im not sure if this counts as being assigned but in my independent reading class I had the opportunity to read A Clockwork Orange and write a report about it. In A Clockwork Orange you are firmly greeted by Nadsat my favorite part of this dark story. Nadsat is the Slang and language used through out the entirety of the novel and it made it so fun to break down and figure out what was being said on the page.

One of the book I preferred reading the most was "Of mice and men" by John Steinbeck. I was in Middle/High School (don't know which one to choose since the school system is different in my country), and I really felt a gap between the more childish themed stories I had to read before and this one. It was actually one of the first book I didn't complain reading for school.

An other one that I loved was a volume of poetry : "Les fleurs du mal" (The Flowers of Evil) by Charles Baudelaire. It made me love poetry, and convinced me to write some one my own.

In high school it was The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. In College it was Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. In college I also had to read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, but I did not care for either of those books.

 

I believe that in any school, children are simply obliged to study the Little Prince.

Good thing that this book is great !