I created an own thread for this because asking it in the Shakespeare-thread would have been a too early hijack. Also, I would expand this a little more than the "What are you reading?"-thread in its current form allows Which books were considered part of your education? I am asking "considered", because what I want to know of you is a) which literature is considered canonical at the schools and universities of your country? Which authors in Russia, Israel, Great Britain, India, the Us etc are considered must reads, not having red them or at least knowing them being a gap in any average education? Obvious choices like, for example, Shakespeare, Dickens... and b) which ones became really educational, but may not have been considered canonical by your teachers? Which ones changed your life and influenced the forming of your reading patterns? (Following links provided by Wikipedia...) In any German school career,Goethe makes always an appearance, of course, as does Schiller. Most teachers of German classes also introduce Kafka, although he is so hard to digest for many of the students that I by now belive that after introducing him through one or two of his short stories, it should be left to the students themselves wether they pick him up again. I know many who do as well as many who vow never to touch any of his books or stories again. Thomas Mann, Anette von Droste-Hülshoff, Brecht, and Carl Zuckmayer are favourites, but also Max Frisch and the 1920ies novels of Irmgard Keun, and Erich Maria Remarque. Now I can't, however much I try, limit my most formative reasding experiences to German authors (and I would still have to include one or two childrens books... "Krabat", by Ottfried Preußler, many of the Grimm brother's tales as well as a lot of other collections and 80 percent of everything Astrid Lindgren ever wrote). Zola, Dostoyevski, Brecht, one book only of each of the authors mentioned above, well... Pratchett (because after 30 books of one author, he surely has influenced you reading patterns) and, recently found, Michail Kononow (a discovery which has yet to be explored further).
Shakespeare cropped up a few times before I dropped English at 16. Dickens did too, although we never worked our way through the whole of one of his books in class. The only other book I worked through in class was Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird", some of my friends at uni also went through this book at school too. So it seems quite popular in the UK schools. Damn good read too. In my german A-Level we went through a book by Max Frisch (Andorra) and another by Friedrich Durrenmatt (Der Richter und sein Henker). I preferred the latter, it was a good ol' detective story whereas Andorra seemed more reliant on symbolism and things like that. Which meant that, as it was in German, more went completely over my head than normal. (edited as I pressed submit too early)
English: "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe "Macbeth" by Shakespeare "1984" by George Orwell "A Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley Dutch: "De Donkere Kamer van Damocles" by W. F. Hermans "De Aanslag" by G. Reve "Montyn" by D. A. Kooiman French: "Dom Juan" by Moliere "Les jeux sont fait" by Sartre German: "Ode to Joy" by Schiller and some of Goethe's poems. Those are the books that stand out in my memory of high school reading. I'll do a list of books that I read outside of school that were important to me later.
So far we have studied some random Australian rubbish in english (which I hated every moment of because the books were so incredibly bad) and a lot of stupid poems. I think that my school thinks that girls can't read, or something. Personally, I have just finished The Beauty Myth by Naomi Woolf, which I thought was absolutely wonderful. Wish I had read it earlier, when we were studying gender representation. Actually, we analysed the cover design of it in english but for some reason were not required to read it. What a waste of an opportunity.
a) I don't actually know about Singapore it's-self as I don't go to a local school but in my various schools (mostly international) I have started with books like "The Giver" by Lois Lowrie and "Catherine Called Birdy" by Karen Cushman in seventh grade (year 8 ) then "Catherine Called Birdy" again in 8th (i moved schools...had to do it twice) In 9th grade we read "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry" by Mildred D. Taylor then "A view From the Bridge" by Arthur miller We then read Shakespear's Macbeth. This year we have started with "The Woman in White" by Wilkie Collins (an amazing book, in my opinion). I don't know for sure what comes after this but I think it's "To Kill a Mocking Bird" by Harper Lee. b) Not entirely sure if there was anything the teachers did not consider 'canonical', then again I have never even thought about it. I know my english teacher at the moment complains that there is to wide of a gab between GCSEs and IB (the systems our school follows). He finds the GCSEs don't prepare students for the amount IB loads on them... Books that changed me? I think "The woman in white" will be one of those...I always remember reading "Goodnight Mister Tom" probably because it was one of the first proper novels I actually read. Obviously, Shakespear will aswell. edit: a smilie appeared where it eas not intended
The Works of Shakespeare was an optional module at my university but, when I considered not doing it, my friends said, 'Oh come on Jonathan, you can't do an English Lit. degree and [i:9df428cef4]not[/i:9df428cef4] do Shakespeare!' So I succumbed to peer pressure and was glad of it in the end.
Pinter, Orton, Wesker, Beckett, Brecht were the set drama texts. the only one that stayed with me to this day was Beckett. In particular "Waiting for Godot" Wouldn't feel much poorer for missing out on the others. . Without a doubt, Lewis Grassick Gibbon's Sunset Song - well the whole trilogy. A local book by a local author I've never seen such exquisite use of language, the rhythms, the cadences reflecting the emotions in the text. Reduced most (ahem) of a class of 17/18 year olds to discovering they had something in their eyes/hay fever. On the curriculum only because of where we lived. Doubt if he's on anyones curriculum these days. Pity.
I studied a lot of different texts in my various English Literature classes, but I think my teachers would agree that an education would be incomplete if it didn't include the following; Shakespeare, Chaucer, William Blake, Thomas Hardy, George Orwell (and yet I got away with never studying any of his work - my education is incomplete!), Dickens, Wordsworth, the war poets (such as Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen) Kipling, Yeats, James Joyce, and possibly Ibsen. There are also certain texts that are considered a must, such as Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, JB Priestley's An Inspector Calls, Beowulf, and Dulce et decorum est by the aforementioned Wilfred Owen. Various of these are introduced at different stages. For younger children, you'd be unlikely to go through school without reading something by Michael Morpurgo or Gillian Cross. By the age of 16, you will more than likely have studied Shakespeare, Hardy, Orwell, Wordsworth, the war poets and all the individual texts I listed above. If you carry on studying English Literature to the age of 18, you would probably cover all the others listed. Writers who have profoundly influenced me include (but are not limited to), in no particular order; Shakespeare, William Blake, Wilfred Owen, JB Priestley, Roger McGough, Adrian Mitchell, Terry Pratchett, Mervyn Peake, Norton Juster, Lynne Reid Banks, JRR Tolkien (The Hobbit was the first book I tried to read on my own), Carl Sandburg, John Steinbeck, Jane Little and more.
I too read and loved To Kill A Mockingbird, although I never can say the title without adding a "How" to the beginning! I studied English Lit. through to A-Level, but I'm pretty sure I never covered half of the authors Buzzfloyd listed!! Mind you, my education was in Hastings - not famed for great schools. Grace went further afield, even as far as the great capital, to find her literary mentors. Shakespeare, Shakespeare, Shakespeare. Luckily, I love Shakespeare anyway! We also studied DH Lawrence (for as long as we could keep ourselves awake, anyway), Ibsen, Forster, and several short stories and poems by various people. In my personal life, I have to cringily admit that I do go straight for the shelves labelled "Inspirational Fiction", such as Paulo Coehlo or Starhawk, or non-fiction books by people you've probably never heard of but can be found in new-age bookshops. Although I'm only cringing because most of you have not yet read these books and had your lives changed to be just like mine! :badgrin:
Too many to count or recall. I did take a very cool class in university on the drama of Shakespeare's time, exclusive of Shakespeare. John Ford's Tis Pity She's A Whore is one of my favourite plays.
What's typical for the states? Either Hamlet or MacBeth, plus Romeo & Juliet. Sometimes, you can throw in a side order of Julius Caesar... that covers the Bard. At least one or two samples from Emmerson and Thoreau. Antigone, occasionally Oedipus Rex. American highschools are unaware of the fact that Oedipus at Colonus exists. Lord of the Flies and The Good Earth are both quite common, but i managed to dodge both of them by changing schools at the right time Poe, Hemmingway, and Melvil are all standard classics. Clay and Mather are usually covered in History more often than Literature, but there you go. Milton is usually saved until college. Thomas Hardy is handed out almost as often as the Brontes (take your pick), Conrad's Heart of Darkness usually makes its way into the syllabus for honors courses, but only in places that are either free from racial hang ups (eg, countries other than america), or so hung up that they don't care. Twain is usually grossly glossed over by examining huck finn and stopping there. Kate Chopin gets a mention once in a while because we gotta have more chick authors. Orwell is almost unheard of cause he makes people think. Ayn Rand is usually only mentioned to students because of the scholarship essay contests, her works are rarely ever taught. Kippling's Jungle Book is more common than Jack London's call of the wild, but London is more common than Kippling's Gunga Din. All of this is, however, quite meaningless, cause kids in america can't read until they become sophmores in college, or doctoral candidates in the case of the football players.
Some More Standard US Secondary School Lit Theodore Dreiser, Upton Sinclair, Henry David Thoreau, Jonathan Swift, Stephen Crane, J.D. Salinger, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O'Neill, Arthur Miller, Joseph Heller
I read Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman at A-Level. It contained a line which expressed exactly how I felt from when I was about 14 to when I was about 21; "I still feel kind of temporary about myself."
Gotta say that when I was 12 I read my first DW book and that really got me into reading again. After reading plenty of them My vocabulary increased and my ability to string together a viable sentance...well...that happend. So I certainly think that the DW books have played a large part of my education. Amongst others there have been the Dan Brown books again extending my vocabulary and helping me to rethink the way i phrase a sentence.
English The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 1984 Beowulf Animal Farm Brave New World Henry V Hamlet Lord of the Flies etc.
Well I read "To Kill a Mockingbird" (though, it seems just about everyone has) and a few of Shakespeare's stuff. Read "Helen Keller" and thought it was extremely boring (not to say it doesn't have a good message and all that). We did "Old Man and the Sea" in 8th grade. Let's just say I don't really recommend it. Umm...Oh, read "Farenheit 451". Extremely good. As for books I read outside of class? Well I read "Catch 22". Of course no one has seemed (is this a word?) to have read this but I liked it. Sort of educational, I guess. Funny, definetly funny.
I also read Farenheit 451 and To Kill a Mockingbird. I did study Conrad's Heart of Darkness, I'm not sure if I read Catch-22 in highschool for a class, it is possible. In my History of War class we read about Auschwitz and My Lai as well as Across Five Aprils and All Quiet on the Western Front, we read Heinlein's Glory Road and the Foundation trilogy by Asimov in Science Fiction and I think that might have been when I read Slaughter House 5, I read as much as I could stomach of Crime and Punishment and convinced my teacher to let me stop reading that. We also had The Cherry Orchard, some Tennessee Williams, Shakespeare, Lysisrata and the Clouds as well as Oedipus Rex. I read Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, some Dickens, Twain, Thoreau, and Dante. I'm not sure they were all for classes though. The first "grown-up" novel I ever read was an historical romance by Anya Seton called Katherine, she was the sister-in-law of Geoffrey Chaucer and the lover and later, third wife of John of Gaunt, I was nine. I guess the most educational books I ever read was the set of encyclopedia my mother bought our family when I was seven. Between WorldBook and the old gradeschool textbooks we had from my aunts(and my dad's) old one room country school I had an advanced reading level from first grade on. We would read them all the time, and every time a dinnertable discussion came around to some question Dad would tell us to look it up and there would be a race to get the proper volume. My middleschool art teacher showed me The Hobbit and eventually it became one of my favorites, my brother Sam and my sister love Tolkien just as much as me. My mom introduced us to her old favorites, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Maud Hart Lovelace and others. I read books like Mr Bass' Planetoid and the Danny Dunn books as well as Baby Island and the Oz books. I read horse books like Black Beauty, the Black Stallion, the Godolphin Arabian, and Pippi Longstocking, Nancy Drew, and lots and lots of others, I was a chainreader when I was a kid. I snuck the sexy cowboy paperback novels and things like Valley of the Dolls, that might have been how I got to be a fast reader. I remember giving my less intellectual brother "Flap" an exciting adult novel when he was 12 or so and having trouble getting interested in reading. He still doesn't read as much as the rest of us, but he made it through school. They made "Flap" into a movie starring Anthony Quinn. It was pretty cool, sort of reminiscient of Billy Jack, only not so lame.
Laura Ingalls Wilder! I read all her books when I was a child. I loved them, and was sorely disappointed with that stupid TV series.
Books & Poems that influenced me outside of my education: "The Lord of the Rings" by J.R.R. Tolkien Still one of my favourite books and the book that got me interested in fantasy and English fiction and literature at age 12. "Dulce et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen This was the poem that awakened my love of poetry. The intensity of image, the harsh clarity... it showed me what power poetry can have. The rest of his poetry has also influenced me considerably. "Lord of the Flies" by Golding "Catch-22" by Heller Terry Pratchett's books, obviously. Especially "Jingo". "The unbearable lightness of being" by Kundera. Also some of his other books. Wipneus & Pim. A series of dutch books for little children. Don't remember much about them, except that I devoured these as a child (age 5 and 6 I think). Shakespeare Isaac Rosenberg Siegfried Sassoon Dylan Thomas There is so much left to read, though.
OOh well if you wanted the books that I read in school...well i probably should have read what was said before posting anyway theres good old shakespear: McBeth, Romeo and Juliet (including an analisis of romeo + Juliet, I can't remember the director though....the one with that leanardo dude) and I did The Tempest in drama. Other books include Dicken's A christmas Carol, A View from the bridge (I'm not sure of the author), John Steinbecks Of Mice and Men and Across the baracade (again not sure of the author) I have also coverd a few poems in English but A didn't think to much of any of them
In high school english we had to read: Lord of the Flies Stotan The Elephant Man To Kill A Mockingbird Shakespeare Night and probably some others I can't remember. In college we read no books, we write, and write some more. I hate writing, I wish we would read books. Edit: To add Night.
What college did you go to? What did you study? I minored in English literature in university, so I obviously had to read loads, but I suppose you could place out of all of your required English classes by taking a test or something and then not have to read any books :?: You are only talking about fiction, right? You must have had to read non-ficion or textbooks for your courses.
I read Jane Austen, Arandhati Roy, Shakespeare, Priestly, Sheridan, Atwood and Carol Ann Duffy at school. At uni i've studied, among others: Philip K Dick, Shakespeare (again, obviously) Hardy, Emily Bronté, Jane Austen (again) Atwood (again) Orwell, Huxley, Wordsworth, Shelly, Byron, (lots of other Romantic poets) Conrad, Camus, Joyce, Woolf... A bit too many to go on with here. I'm doing English Lit with Psychology. I have to read a lot of stuff. My English A level teacher wanted us to do 'A Clockwork Orange' and 'American Psycho' for our coursework. Unsurprisingly, the exam board said no. But I went and read both after he recommended them... Truly excellent books. Fucked up and wonderful.
Clockwork orange was a great book, but hard to read.. Harder than Trainspotting I read lots of Shakespere for English Lit., "On the preston front" (?), Anne Frank Diary, but was really bored with Thomas Hardy's and other books you expect from school reading list. I was bored by most of the books I read for school, I like to choose for myself. Books I read at the time, but not for school, include "The catcher in the rye", "Lord of the flies", "catch-22", "the cuckoos egg" by Clifford Stoll, "Complicity" then most others by Iain Banks, lots of (the evil) Richard Layman, all by Dean (R) Koontz, and Stephen King.. ~B:wink:B~
Similar at my school aswell, though they topped it by doing the film and lit. studies on "Forrest Gump", its english not a bad history of the vietnam war.
My education was mildly fractured... While in the USSR, I remember reading short stories and excerpts from books, all with a common theme of "Children's lives before the revolution". The children were, for the most part, poor and uneducated - they often died from hunger, illness or exposure. We were supposed to compare our lives to theirs, and be grateful for what we have. At the same time, we read about various children-martyrs, real or fictional, who gave their lives for the revolution (like Gavroche in "Les Miserables") or died fighting the Nazis. I remember owning a book called "The Hero Children", which listed names and bios of young fighters/martyrs, some as young as 7. The book was a hardback, as big as two Going Postal's together. The bios were quite short. Maybe 10% of all the kids listed had survived their bouts with heroism. ... Back then, it was very much inspirational. Now, it makes me sick to my stomach. You're not supposed to applaud a kid who jumps under a tank with a granade... I also remember reading a lot of poetry (Pushkin, Lermontov, Nekrasov), as well as short stories by Gorkiy and Tolstoy (often about poor peasant children), and Pushkin's fairy-tale sagas (many kids knew them by heart, especially since they were made into fantastically beautiful animated movies ) At home, I was allowed to read anything I could get my hands on, and did. (Bradbury, Mark Twain, Jules Verne, Shakespeare, Jack London, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Dickens - in Russian ) The only book my parents specifically told me to stay away from, was "Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov. (I'm guessing it's because they didn't think I'd understand it at age 9, and will not like it). So I read it when they weren't looking, didn't understand it, but liked it anyway. (I read it again, years later, and probably still wasn't ripe enough) After I got to American schools, my curriculum was pretty standard. (Greek Mythology - oooh, we LIKE Greek mythology here - Shakespeare, "Across 5 Aprils", Arthur Miller, more Bradbury, George Orwell, Atwood (wee!), James Fenimore Cooper...) I'm just surprised no one has mentioned "The Outsiders" yet - I got to read that one twice, in two different schools. (edited)
I'm glad I saw the movie before I read Forrest Gump, I never would have been able to forgive them for not putting in the part about Raquel Welch if I had known about it beforehand. Not to mention Sue!! I have been to Laura Ingalls home in Missouri, saw Pa's violin and the bread dish that was the one thing they saved from the fire at their first house, and visited the graves in Mansfield. She was a truly interesting and tiny woman. Her daughter spent some time in Istanbul as a journalist, I think Rose might have written professionally before her mother did. I always had a problem with the Little House TV series, they took way too many liberties with the characters from the books, they might just as well have left the books alone and come up with all original material.
Oh yeah, I forgot "The Outsiders." I love that book. Go Piggy! I feel I should hit myself because I didn't mention LOTR and the Hobbit. Those were the books that really got me into reading. (I tried reading the Silmarilian and Unfinished Tales but kind of found it sort of dull. I hope this doesn't make me sound like a "tolkien traitor" or anything.) Some other books that I read outside of school that got me into the whole fantasy genre were the Redwall books. There these books about these little animals that go around fighting each other and eating really awesome food. Yeah, that's all I can think of now until someone else mentions something else I forgot and I feel I should hit myself again.
My niece is writing a fan fiction story, well actually two, based on Redwall. I am really enjoying her Juniper Reguba, Daughter of Warriors, starring a deadly squirrel. I think I am going to have to find Redwall soon.
You should definetly give it a try. Especially if you like food. I know this sounds kind of bizarre, but take it from someone who's a big food fan. Everyone once in a while the little animals take a break from waging war against each other and have these massive feasts. It always makes my mouth water.
I should clarify this, the bad history of the vietnam war was from all the additional film documentaries we watched as references for forrest gump. Basically I left highschool with a good grasp of the Vietnam war not grammar when it came to my english skills :roll:
Ella, we studied Carol Ann Duffy. I really enjoy her work. I even wrote a poem in her style. Tamyra, I would love to see Pa's fiddle! I hated the TV series too, I think they should have changed the title if they were going to mess around with her story so much.
Well, Buzzfloyd, keep Missouri in mind as a travel destination, Mansfield, Laura Ingalls Wilder's home is an easy drive from Branson. That town is so overbuilt with hotels that they are sure to be reasonable for many years and no one said you had to go to any of those shows if you don't want to. The wine industry is coming back there as well, and Missouri was well known for wine before the Prohibition, not to mention it is one of the most lovely states I've seen, (I've seen 42). Plus they throw bread at you in some of the restaurants, I don't know how that started.
This could take a while (I did a lot of English at School): Books: Dickins - Great Expectations (hated it) Lord of the Flies 1984 Handmaids Tale Aldus Huxley Patrick White - Tree of Man (a chapter on a leaf falling is a bit much) My Brother Jack (Aussie author can't remember name but hated it) Emma and Pride and Prejudice (love it) Day of the Triffods Poets John Dunne Emily Dickonson Sylvia Plath Plays Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (Absolutely fabulous! Go see a production ) Shakespeare - all the big ones plus Troylus and Cressida - don't bother its rubbish but if you read shakes version and then watch Troy it has additional amusement value I know I've missed some...
We do read articles from our text book but its just not like highschool were we actually read books. The articles we do read we have to write reviews on and we have to write a 5 source essay on adult learning and after this class is done I have to take an Expository Writing and Research class. Then, hopefully, I will be done with all english. I read the Redwall books back in 8th grade and I just got the 3rd one as a gift so I'm going to read them again soon.
Just to clarify, we read an awful lot more in school than just the list I gave before; but I was only giving the ones that were considered a must for a proper education.
There was a lot of art in my freshman english class. I'm not sure why, we had to memorize about 25 paintings and their artists and match them up on a test. The only way it related to english was we had to pick one of the artists and do a report. Mine was on Leonardo Da Vinci.
So was one of mine... Reading this thread made me a) realize that I red a lot of that stuff and b) that there is so much left I still have to read.... gazillions of tons of books... Life is so short.
It's weird how many books we have all read (apart from Terry P's books obv) just because of school. I dont know.... I guess I knew we all studied similar books but... well you know.... At school... Great Expectations - Dickens To Kill a Mocking Bird - Harper Lee Romeo and Juliet - Shakespeare Macbeth - Shakespeare Then in 6th form, A Level english lit Hamlet - Shakespeare Othello -Shakespeare Glass Menagerie - Tennesse Williams The Handmaid's Tale - Margrat Attwood The Miller's Tale (Canterbury Tales) - Chaucer 1984 - George Orwell Brave New world Songs of innocence and experience - William Blake And out of all of them........ I think I enjoyed To kill a mocking bird most of all.... but I also enjoyed Handmaid's tale (but not the exam grrr). Heheh Chaucer was good too once you could understand the old english.
Darn computer! The first edition of this post didn't show up. 2nd edition: A friend did a book report thingy on a Discworld book for our english class because she opted out of reading Night because it was about the Holocaust. Other english classes at my school read Ferenheit 451 and Siddhartha but we didn't so I read them on my own and they were okay reads.
I opted out of reading Lord of the Flies because it was not something I wanted to put into my psyche. However, the Holocaust is something that actually happened, so it's already there; avoiding nasty fiction is just a matter of choice, but avoiding nasty fact is stupid.
I think it was more she could have read it, but we had a new teacher so she did it because she could get away with that.
