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Top Ten Tuesday – Most Memorable Books I Read in School

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Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish and moved to That Artsy Reader Girl. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

This week’s topic is: Back to School/Learning Freebie

After reading “Books I Read at School” by Jordann @ The Book Blog Life and “Most Memorable Books I Read for School” by Jaime @ Books and Waffles, I got to thinking about all the books I read in school and which ones had the strongest memories associated with them.  And since I was thinking about it I figured I might as well participate in this week’s TTT!

Books I loved:

1) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

This is my only only non High School book on the list, but it is my most memorable school book! My 3rd grad teacher read this to us and it sparked my Harry Potter obsession and quite possibly had a large role to play in my love for reading

Stone

2) Pride and Prejudice

This ended up being my favorite book of all time!

PrideandPrejudice

3) A Tale of Two Cities

We had a student teacher and he got behind on the syllabus and wasn’t going to have time to have us read this whole book before the end of the year, so he decided we only needed to read the second half of the book.  I thought this was stupid so I read the whole book and I was the only person in the class who had any idea what was going on.

TwoCities

4) Wuthering Heights

I remember liking this book and I always think of Wuthering Heights when I think of  school reading but I don’t actually remember that much about this book.

Heights

5) All Quiet on the Western Front

I was required to read this book over the summer and I ended up liking it a lot.  I remember reading it in the car on the road trip we took that year.

All Quiet

Books I hated:

1) Old Man and the Sea

I HATED this book because our teacher tested us on all the religious symbolism but I wasn’t religious so I didn’t get any of the symbolism and it was the worst grade I ever got on a “reading comprehension” test!

OldMan

2) Lord of the Flies

I found this book super disturbing especially the death of Piggy.

Flies2

3) Crime and Punishment

Just before my senior year of High School my parents got their basement finished and I got to be the one to move into the basement room.  It was super exciting until I had to read this book in school and I would read it in bed before I went to sleep and it would creep me out and made the basement room not so fun.

Crime2

4) Picture of Dorian Gray

I don’t really have any memories associate with this one, but when I think of books I didn’t like in High School this one always comes to mind.

Picture

5) The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Same as the Picture of Dorian Gray, I don’t have any memories with this one, I just always think of it when thinking of books I didn’t like.

Dr

There you have it.  Those are the first books I think of when I think of school reading! What books do you think of? Let me know in the comments!

31 thoughts on “Top Ten Tuesday – Most Memorable Books I Read in School”

  1. Glad I could help spark your inspiration! I still need to read A Picture of Dorian Gray, but I’ve read Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, Crime and Punishment, and Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Crime and Punishment is the worst, though.

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      1. I never read Lord of the Flies, but I can understand how it might be worse. I think for me all the Russian names and just the psychological process of the main character put me off while reading Crime and Punishment.

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  3. Great list of books! That’s awesome that your teacher reader Harry Potter to you–that would be so fun! My favorite part of everyday in those early grades was when the teachers would read to us, haha. I’ve yet to read Wuthering Heights, but I really need to get to it. I really dislike Ernest Hemingway’s books so I was not a fan of Old Man and the Sea, either. I did enjoy Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, though.

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    1. Thanks 😀 that was my favorite part of the day too! I loved listening to my teachers read! I tried to listen to Wurthering Heights on Audiobook recently and couldn’t get into it, but I liked it in High School so who knows if I would have liked it if I tried reading it now!

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  6. I haven’t read any of these (except the first HP) so I’m clearly classics- challenged lol. I do think I saw a movie version of Lord of the Flies though? Although I don’t remember a lot. Hmm…

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      1. I know, right? I remember we did Romeo & Juliet, and Beowulf, and The Odyssey, and probably a few I’ve forgotten, but we didn’t read ANY of these lol.

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  8. I read HP for fun back in middle school – probably why it never made it to required reading since everyone else was reading it as well! I couldn’t stand A Tale of Two Cities though, but I completely understand the frustration with not reading the entire book… Why just the second half? O.o

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  10. I had a bit of the same deal with A Tale of Two Cities- we read the whole thing and I remember thinking I don’t see what the big deal is with this stupid book and then that very last page everything clicked for me. I disliked most of my school reading though!

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  11. This shows our age difference. I read a lot of Shakespeare and I think I like it more now than I did then. King Lear, MacBeth, Romeo & Juliet. Also 1984, Brave New World, Animal Farm. I can’t forget Catcher in the Rye and Death of a Salesmen. Of Mice and Men, Flowers from Algernon and I better stop now.

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    1. Don’t worry you aren’t dating yourself! I read King Lear, Julius Caesar, Brave New World, Catcher in the Rye, Death of a Salesmen, Of Mice and Men, and Flowers from Algernon! Plus many many more! 🙂 I know there were other classes that read Animal Farm and I read 1984 as an Adult!

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  12. I read a lot of Shakespeare in high school (Richard III, Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Tempest), but since my program did “world lit” rather than the classics I haven’t read any of the ones on this list other than Harry Potter. I do remember finding Great Expectations ridiculously hard to get through because of how dreary it was, though.

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    1. I was supposed to read Great Expectations in one of my college classes but it is the only required reading I skipped on 😂 I would have thought World Lit would cover classics from different parts of the world?

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  13. We did have to read Lord of the Flies sophomore year, and I remember liking it. 😀 Freshman year I remember Great Expectations (LOVED). Somewhere in middle school we read The Scarlet Letter, The Iliad, and the Odyssey and I loved them all. Honestly, it wasn’t until college lit classes (of which I’ve taken a lot, as a Lit major) that I remember hating any assigned reading. Watt by Samuel Beckett is the worst nonsensical drivel I’ve ever been forced to read. I’ve also been forced to read The Great Gatsby twice, and I only hated it a little less the second time (the prose is sublime, the story not so much). Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko was phenomenal! By far my favorite though was a class on Tolkien. We read through all of the LOTR world books (all rereads for me!), and watched all the movies and it was the best thing ever. Great post!

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    1. I enjoyed the Scarlet Letter! I read the Odyssey and remember it being ok, neither great nor bad. I would have LOVED to take a LOTR class! I have read all the books 🙂 That sounds like an awesome class! I was a math major so I only had to take 3 college lit classes. I took American, Woman’s and British lit haha.

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