This list of books is what I remember being forced to read in high school. I didn’t like these books then and it’ll be a long time before I give them another chance, if at all.
here’s the books I liked (read on my own): http://www.listsofbests.com/list/3194
I should make a university list but I threw away all my syllabi so I can name authors in general but not specific texts. I remember writing an evaluation of a required course freshman year where I noted that the required canon should be reexamined. I felt then that we shouldn’t have to read certain so-called “classics” because times change and so should the coursework. I was of the mind that some things do lose their relevancy and we shouldn’t hold on to them due to nostalgia or tradition. (I just wanted the powers that be to ponder the possibility that some classic texts are now archaic.) This sort of thinking is also why I disliked much of the required books during high school.
Two things I would recommend you come back to some day are Catcher in the Rye and Romeo and Juliet, and you have to read the former on your own, when you’re feeling lonely and left out, and you have to see the latter on stage. Don’t read it, or of course it won’t move you.
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