Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Was Forced to Read

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish.

Each week they will post a new Top Ten list that one of their bloggers over at The Broke and the Bookish will answer. Everyone is welcome to join.

The topic for this week is: Top Ten Books I Was Forced to Read 

Some of these are from high school but most are from university. I completed a psychology degree and as a part of my course I had to take one non-psychology subject each semester. I did a few business classes and two Italian subjects but mostly I chose literature courses – they looked like the most fun. So I’ve accumulated quite a few books that I’ve had to read as a part of my schooling. Here are some of the most memorable…

So here a just some of the books I’ve read for school…

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey – I never finished this one. I got up to where they went on the fishing expedition and just… couldn’t take any more. So I spark-noted it up and bluffed my way though the assessment item which was an interview with the teacher about the themes and whatnot. My only A in year 12 English.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee – I love this book. I can understand why it’s still popular so many years after it was written.

The Gathering by Isabelle Carmody – HATED this one. It was strange… and I remember getting quite upset with the plot at one point… But Yay for Aussie Authors!

The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay – One of my favourite books. It’s about a young boy growing up in South Africa. It made me cry and have so many feelings. Read it as a part of Religious Education – one of my favourite classes because I’m not sure what the point of it was. RE was where they didn’t know what to do with us. So we watched movies like Flatliners with Julia Roberts, 10 Things I Hate About You, and birthing videos as part of sex ed. But don’t let that turn you off this book. It’s brilliant. READ IT!

48 Shades of Brown by Nick Earls – Before there were fifty shades of grey, there were 48 Shades of Brown.  Main character is in love with an older woman who he will never get… his aunt that he’s living with is also in love with the same girl. And there are lots of references to the fish tank scene in Baz Luhrman’s Romeo + Juliet… that just made me NOT want to watch that film…

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest To Kill a Mockingbird The Gathering The Power Of One (Puffin Young Readers) 

Dracula by Bram Stoker – I had to read this book for three different classes. And it’s another one that I haven’t finished. But because I turned up to lectures for one of those three classes and took copious notes – actually did alright with each of the assessments for it. I wonder if watching Hugh Jackman as Van Helsing also helped… or maybe just gave me justification to watch him trapse around with a cross bow….

The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde – I’m an Oscar Wilde fan from his plays and I was excited about reading this one. It’s clever but does have a moral. (Also – the movie for The Importance of Being Earnest with Rupert Everett and Colin Firth is fantastic!)

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte – I love to hate this book. I think it’s admirable that the author managed to write a book with characters who are so utterly unredeemable. So perfectly hideous. I love how much I hate these characters. They’re vile but in a vivid real kind of way.

Sense and Sensibility & Northanger Abbey BOTH by Jane Austen – read for two different classes, I enjoyed them both for different reasons. Northanger Abbey is very different from Austen’s other novels – it was written first but published last. It’s a mystery and the heroine is a touch silly but still fun to read. The Dashwood Sisters from S&S are some of my favourite Austen characters and I really enjoyed this book

The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli  – This one made me think. It’s surprising how relevant I found this book to modern life.

  Dracula The Picture of Dorian Gray Wuthering Heights Sense and Sensibility Northanger Abbey The Prince

 That’s my list for today and as if starting to become fairly regular for me, I cheated and slipped in an extra one. I really should go back and read the ones I never finished… Please feel free to share some of the books you were “forced” to read! 

 

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12 Comments

    • It took me nearly 10 years to read Pride and Prejudice… I just couldn’t get into it when I started it at 13. But now I’m a fan. I read Persuasion and fell in love with Captain Wentworth 😛

  1. I also have The Picture of Dorian Gray and To Kill a Mockingbird on my list. I love Dorian Gray but in school we spent two years reading and re-reading TKAMB so I could never pick it up after that.

  2. School “forced” me to read To Kill a Mockingbird too (it was the only book I actually enjoyed in school), but I ended up loving it! It just completely drew me in and landed on my favorites list. 🙂 Now you’re making me curious about Northanger Abbey, I’ll have to put that one on my TBR list.

    Alice @ Alice in Readerland

  3. What a great list! I read ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ in school too. I liked it and it’s a wonderful book, but being forced to read it over and over (plus watching the film over and over and analysing every bit of it) kind of makes me deter from it quite a bit now. I’ve only ever watched ‘Cuckoo’s Nest..’ in school and found it all sort of odd. I think I was 15/16 at the time, so that may have been a contributing factor. I never finished ‘Dracula’ but have always been meaning to too!

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