What's your favourite book you were made to read in school?

i hated every single book i was forces to read in school and that shit put me off reading for years after.

Lord of the Rings and The Magician’s Nephew

The Truce, by Mario Benedetti. I was 13 or 14, and it’s the first time I cried while reading a book. I finished it seated on a park bench, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, maybe I’m really afraid about old age.

I read The Giver in the sixth grade and it blew my mind a little bit. I think it was the first time I was exposed to the concept of a dystopian society and it was very interesting to me. Then later in 10th grade I read Catch-22 for a book report and that is definitely up there too.

Of Mice and Men. Reading this very much shaped what I enjoy out of a book ever since.

The Great Gatsby. Its last page makes a killing, pun intended.

Probably Fahrenheit 451.

The way that book predicted and depicted streaming as a vapid activity that will make you numb is what stuck with me most both then and now.

I quite liked the short stories with illustrations in the textbooks.

Specifically the spooky ones. Illustrated by the guy who did the covers for “scary stories to tell in the dark”. Stephen Gammell I remember reading them over and over.

The ones that look like runny black ink. Terrifying.

As for high school level. Honestly I remember a few required readings and not liking them.
Middlesex , thought it would be interesting but it was just like listening to someone’s mental train of thought and was super boring. And catcher n the rye. Super boring about an incel. I probably would have liked the Great Gatsby then, but I only read it after high school.

I was super into fantasy and horror in high school so I didn’t care much for anything else.

Great Expectations. I actually developed a liking of Dickens from school, I don’t get the “sentimentality” arguments people make about his writing, a lot of his stories are rawand visceral critiques of Victorian Britain.

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, something about it made me feel a profound sadness that still sticks with me today. I red this all the way back in high school as part of class reading. The fact I still think about that book today means my teacher was cooking, I hope he knows he made an impression on me, I wish I could tell him.

Tuesdays with Morrie was my favorite book back in school. Still one of my favorite books I reread from time to time.

I liked Shakespeare - Hamlet, MacBeth, Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice, The Tempest. Probably year 10 or 11. Also Animal Farm.

I didn’t care much for Lord of the Flies, or My Family and Other Animals. Probably year 9.

Others I remember fondly were The Silver Sword and Stig of the Dump, from year 5.

I only read the Old Man and the Sea later as an adult, along with other Hemingway books which I enjoyed.