Barberton Public Library Hooks & Books discussion

What are some of your favorite and/or least favorite books you were required to read for a class? I loved reading The Joy Luck Club and The French Lieutenant's Woman in my Film and Literature class in college. I did not really enjoy Anthem by Ayn Rand which I read in Utopian/Dystopian Lit.

I despise Ayn Rand thankfully I never. had to read her for school. I do remember reading Bridge to Terabithia in middle School and it is still one of my favorites.

Eve wrote: "I despise Ayn Rand thankfully I never. had to read her for school. I do remember reading Bridge to Terabithia in middle School and it is still one of my favorites."
I've never read Bridge to Terabithia. They showed an animated short of it at the library when I was in elementary school and I was too young for it. It gives me a sense of dread! I do understand why it is important to children's literature!

Pearl Buck and Mice and Men were least favorites. Freshman year English class. I swear my teacher went out of her way to find the most boring books to give 15 year olds outside of Romeo and Juliet. Forget what the Pearl Buck book was titled, but it was about a guy in Ancient China who asks his father to get a bride for him. The family goes from being a poor farming family to wealthy. They made at least one black and white film of it.

I know there were others, but those two were the ones that stuck in my mind. Most of my favorite books I read in school that stick in my mind are ones I read outside of assigned reading. Probably the one that I remember liking in high school was Tuesdays With Morrie for one of my religion classes I think or an English class. Either way, junior year assigned reading.

I mostly remember for high school assigned reading was driving my teachers nuts because I've never been able to stop at one chapter, even for the awful ones. Why I drove them nuts is because it was read a chapter for homework and have a quiz the next class period. My memory is good, but if it doesn't want to remember stuff, nothing I can do to help will do a doggone thing. That drove me nuts too, particularly with French. I wanted to do well in French because my dad learned it as a second language-side effect of being taught by French nuns in school. English was his third. Arabic, French, English-my dad was trilingual.

Just found this thread. The Good Earth was written by Pearl Buck. I didn’t mind it, but didn’t read it in school either. I do like John Steinbeck though. I hated both Mark Twain and Charles Dickens, and yet kept getting assigned books written by them. I think I read Great Expectations at least twice and watched at least one movie. It never got easier to trudge through.