every few years, i had some required reading.

8th grade: Whirligig and Holes. Whirligig was so boring, i didn't even finish it! Holes was great. it's still one of my favorite books and the movie is great too.

10th grade: The giver (i don't think there was anything else). it was ok, but i didn't finish it either.

12th grade: The Kite Runner, Flowers for Algernon, A Long Way Gone (i think that's what it was), and i forgot the last book. those last two books, i didn't finish, i found them boring. Flowers for Algernon i finished, but i didn't like it. i don't see how that is usually on the reading list for 5th and 6th graders. The Kite Runner was a good book, but i didn't like all that happened in it. since i read it, i really want to see the movie now. >_<

I honestly can't remember whether the things I read in igh school were assigned or my own any more, but in college, I really enjoyed two books that I know I never would have picked up on my own. They are Carl Safina's Song for the Blue Ocean and Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild. They are both non-fiction, which is mostly why I never would have picked them up before, but I really like both of them. They make you think about the world.

To Kill A mocking bird, The Great Gatsby, Catcher in the Rye, Lord of hte Flies, and many more that I don't even remember hte titles too.
I read The Picture of Dorian Grey on my own, that one was freakin awsome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I enjoyed a lot of my assigned reading...any Shakespeare plays I loved, but I am into theatre, so yea. A lot of the ones already mentioned I liked, let's see To Kill a MOckingbird, The Scarlett Letter, Pride and Prejudice, The Great Gatsby and surprisingly a lot of the poems in my lit class, which I didn't think I would like but I did! I could go on for a bit but, Ill stop for now, maybe ill come back and edit it later!

Oh wow, the list is... huge. I'm an English major, so that's about all I do is read. There's been quite a number of things I've read for classes that I've thoroughly enjoyed... granted, most of them were in college instead of high school.

The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer. It's probably one of mu favorite pieces of literature. Absolutely brilliantly created, terribly ironic. It's not just smut no matter how much people try to say it is, haha.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is another excellent piece of medieval literature. It's short, but so very classic in its focus of chivalry and the like. All the usual knightly goodness.

Light in August by William Faulkner. In fact most things by Faulkner that I've read I've enjoyed. Joe Christmas has got to be one of the most awesome, ridiculous characters. :3

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Marquez, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Importance of Being Earnest, Ulysses by Joyce. A whole bunch of others. I simply adore reading.

I end up liking a lot of the required reading I have to do but the one that surprised me the most was 1984. Everyone else in highschool hated it so much. I may have been the only person in my senior English class to finish the book.

Originally Posted by PsychoFerret

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Try reading In Camelot's Shadow by Sarah Zettel. A different take on the story, but one I thoroughly enjoyed.

I liked To Kill a Mockingbird, The Wizard of Earthsea, Julius Caesar and Much Ado About Nothing. There's more, but I can't really think of 'em. It has been a while.

I've never had much required reading, except when I got into high school. 9th grade my favorite would have to be Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. It was slow in the beginning but by the end I was really enjoying it. 10th grade would have to be Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Most people in my class didn't enjoy that book but I did for some reason. And so far this year I've liked A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini and Memoirs of a Geshia by Arthur Golden.

HA!
Aggy, omg, I love your sig!

N/A

Not a huge Ayn Rand fan, but otherwise I enjoyed just about all of my required reading for high school--I think all the books I can remember have been mentioned already; same stuff everyone has to read.
And in college, I only took interesting-sounding lit. classes so of course I've enjoyed most of it. =D
Mme. Bovary, Combray, Moby Dick, many many fairy tales and modern adaptations...

I confess, I usually do not enjoy required reading. But The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexadre Dumas totally captured my heart. Was it wrong for me to be rooting for the Count, and his revenge the entire time? Maybe not. But I rooted for him nevertheless. It was kind of sad, though, that some innocents got burned in the crossfire.

Originally Posted by jamilee-nicole

I confess, I usually do not enjoy required reading. But The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexadre Dumas totally captured my heart. Was it wrong for me to be rooting for the Count, and his revenge the entire time? Maybe not. But I rooted for him nevertheless. It was kind of sad, though, that some innocents got burned in the crossfire.

I wish I'd had that assigned at some point so I could have discovered it sooner--I haven't started the second volume yet, but it's absolutely wonderful. You really can't help rooting for Dantes, with that kind of charisma. =D

My favorite story I had for required reading is most definitely Beowulf. My teacher had our entire class involved in reading it and it captivated our entire class so much that when the movie came out we were contemplating having a field trip to go see it (didn't happen because one of the students found out that they completely changed the story). Other things that I like include anything by Edgar Allen Poe or Shakespeare, Frankenstein, and I'm sure there's a few other things that I don't remember at the moment.

The hatchet- 6th grade
Tell tale heart- 7th grade
Night- 9th grade
Secret life of bee's- 9th grade
Julius ceasar- 10th grade

the only one I liked out of those was a Tell Tale Heart.

my senior year in high school we were required to read 'song of soloman'... i really had no desire to read it, frankly it didn't sound like my kind of book... but being the studious and good student that i was i started it anyways... and to my surprise i loved it! i couldn't put it down... and during the class discussions i was talking and talking, and i really didn't like talking when i was in school... haven't read it since... but maybe someday...

Grade 6 - Where the Red Fern Grows. Such a cheesy book but even now at age 23 I remember it being the first book I've ever cried too and that actually really touched me, and inspired me to read different theme books other than Goosebumps.

i Actually enjoyed several of my assigned readings. In tenth grade i read Flowers for Algernon which was pretty good and recently i read Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich which was interesting but enjoyable.

Actually most of the required school reading i ended up liking.

Sixth Grade: A wrinkle in Time. One of the first Scifi books i read. It was a bit confusing and creepy but i liked it. But when i tried to read the sequel i couldnt get into it.

Seventh Grade: The witch of blackbird pond. I cant remember if it was 7th or 8th but i liked this book. Im not usually into historical fiction but i liked the mystery of the book.

Eighth Grade: Of Mice and Men I liked this book but it was so sad when he got shot.
To kill a mockingbird I liked this. I didn't like the movie though
Ninth grade: Catalyst It wasnt as old as the other ones but it was okay.
Tenth Grade: My sister's Keeper Im mad i was getting into this book but because the rest of my class are morons the teacher took the books and made us do essays instead.

My final year, I had to read Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels, it was really good. The imagery involved in that novel is amazing, it was beautifully written. Essentially I found it to be just like a gigantic poem.

I had to read To Kill a Mockingbird - it was a great read.

I'd also like to give an honourable mention to the movie Memento - I had to watch that for Uni and it was great!

I'd have to say out of a select that we read, the titles I liked most were.

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton We read this in eight grade, I can remember being blown away! It was such a great book, even though it did have a sad ending. Its defiantly the most memorable of the books, we were required to read.

Animal Farm by George Orwell I really liked how Orwell uses animals, to represent the Russian revolution as a whole. It made things interesting in an insight way, about how things were back then.

The Giver- 6th grade
To kill a mocking bird- 7th grade
Animal farm- 8th grade
The Odyssey- 9th grade
In cold blood- 11th grade
All the Shakespeare I had to read

Everything else I was required to read I either hated or didn't finish...

I loveloveloved The Great Gatsby. I loved Lord of the Flies too, but I'd been reading it for years before my teacher assigned it XD I hated Beowulf and the Canterbury Tales though. BORING. The Time Machine was not as bad but still bad. I liked the new movie adaptation of it because it was like an alternate universe :) I also remember reading Giver in middleschool and I loved it, and Animal Farm too. Shakespeare has always been one of my favorite things to read in class. My English professor asked us what the title of the essay we were supposed to read alluded to (the title was What's in a name?') and I caught it right away.