Comments | in_excelsis_dea: My Reading List

in_excelsis_dea

My Reading List

Jun 22, 2010 16:46

So back in my first semester, we were told that by the end of our fourth semester, we have to read 20 different authors from our reading list. These are my 20 authors. Need I mention how much I dislike "Classic" literature?

I have until the end of June to read these all, by the way. This is going to be so much fun...

Poe, Edgar Allan. "The ( Read more... )

uni, ramble, rl, books

Comments 4

control_paradox June 22 2010, 16:05:26 UTC

Yikes. I'm not a huge fan of classic literature, but some of these books on the list are all right. We had to read about half of these in our literature class last year.

astaraelweeper June 22 2010, 18:07:55 UTC

If it makes you feel better, I read five and a half of the books on that list at SAMO, for English classes, and a few of the poems and short stories. Could have read as many as seven books, if I'd made one different choice on outside reading books (where we were given a list and options--I didn't pick Invisible Man, though I really wish I'd read it in place of O Pioneers, which was on the same list and which I did not much like), and if I'd actually read all of The Awakening. So you can think of this as filling in for a lot of what you missed in English classes by moving to Germany, if that helps.

(I really wish I'd read more/all of The Awakening, actually--it seems like a fabulous book, I just forgot about it and then totally ran out of time, so read the first quarter of the book, one chapter in the middle, and the final three chapters. Which I'm really glad I didn't admit to anyone in my class, because we had a timed writing on it and then Ms. Yarber picked my essay for the whole class to read as an example of what we were ( ... )

in_excelsis_dea June 22 2010, 21:06:12 UTC

Actually, Steinbeck is on the list. The list is actually five pages split into six literary periods (we have to choose 3) and at least ten texts per period. There are certain rules of what we can and can't pick (at least five authors per period, at least two poets and three playwrights -- or the other way around, can't remember), etc. In theory, it isn't so bad, because these are all books, or authors, that we have at least touched upon in class and if I actually did my "required" reading the last three semesters, there's a lot of overlap. But...I didn't. And I'm just starting on the list now ( ... )

astaraelweeper June 23 2010, 00:38:44 UTC

Yeah, simply hated O Pioneers. Fucking over-written, with way to much beat-you-over-the-head naturalism. Unfortunately, I felt much the same about the Scarlet Letter. Though that was in large part because of how fucking slowly we read that one (it was the first in-class book for 11th grade AP, and the pace, as always for that first book, was glacial).

No one figured out that I hadn't done the reading for that one book, in that English class. Thank God. Definitely taught me a positive lesson about the virtues of keeping my mouth shut. Especially painful because it was better received (and graded better) than most of the essays on books I had read.

We had to read Grapes of Wrath for summer reading before 11th grade, and I detested it. Luckily my 8th grade class wasn't one of the ones that read The Pearl, so that was the only Steinbeck I ever read. We also did Huck Finn in 11th, which I didn't much enjoy. I like shorter Twain, but I'm not a huge fan of either Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn. Or at least wasn't in middle/high school ( ... )