I was in a Summer reading program at the local library my 6th grade year and read The Godfather and gave an oral report on it.At first the librarian didn't believe I'd read it and then she was like :eek:

Great Expectations.

I'll add the Great Gatsby. That was a great book to read.

We didn't read Moby Dick in high school, like some of you. I'm surprised teachers would even make kids read it, just because you have to get like 300 pages into it before it really gets going. I love the book but I would think most high schoolers would be bored by it.

I remember we were assigned a boom called, "Bless the Beasts and Children" and "Ordinary People". Both were depressing. I didn't even finish "Ordinary People".

Flowers for Algernon and Catcher in the Rye were definitely two of my favorites.

Alexandre Dumas' 'The Count of Monte Cristo.'

Almost forgot Fahrenheit 451...

Edit: Man, my memory is going to hell...it's getting hard to remember some of the stuff I read way back then, but it's slowly trickling back...

Siddhartha

Oops, another one just bubbled up:

Death Be Not Proud

not the John Donne poem, but a book written by a father about his teenage son's battle against a brain tumor, which he ultimately loses. It will absolutely rip your heart out.

A Lesson Before Dying was one of the few that I actually read cover to cover in HS. Enjoyed a few others as well. I remember like the Good Earth for some reason.

And that Mozart guy was a hack. WHERE'S THE DISTORTION??

I didn't "have to" read Moby Dick. We had to pick a classic to do a report on and I picked Moby Dick as a challenge. Not sure what I was thinking there.

It must run in the family, though, because last year my son picked Dante's Divine Comedy in a similar situation. :doh!:

I want to discount Shakespeare, just because they were plays and never meant to be "read."

In terms of novels, my favorite was Where the Red Fern Grows (*SNIFF*) or To Kill A Mockingbird. These are the books I feel like just about everyone read.

However, in college, reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man blew my freaking mind.

That is one of my favorites, but read it a couple of years after HS.

Tom Sawyer was a great book, we read it as a class in middle school.

Of Mice and Men is another fantastic one, but I think To Kill a Mockingbird was the best.

I also remember Rabit Hill, it started terribly slow, but the second half was great.

Les Miserables, For Whom the Bell Tolls

I think I first read it on my own in like 6th grade, but we read it in high school as well: Watership Down. I love that damned book.

I don't know about that, plays are read all the time. It's different than seeing one but it's still a good way to enjoy a play.

Slaughterhouse-Five
The Trial
Huckleberry Finn
To Kill A Mockingbird
Julius Caesar
The Lottery
Little Toy Dog
Catch-22
Stranger In A Strange Land
Lord Of The Rings
The Shining
Animal Farm
Childhood's End
The Sirens Of Titan
The Birds/Lysistrata
Antigone
No Exit
Waiting For Godet
The Bald Soprano
Our Town
Spoon River Anthology
Cat's Cradle
Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas/Fear & Loathing On The Campaign Trail '72
Beyond The Fringe

That's all I can recall off the top...high school years been a few minutes ago for me. With some research, I'm sure I could add more...

This. We watched the movie, too.