Top Ten Tuesday – Books I Was Assigned to Read in School
When I decided to share today’s Top Ten Tuesday last Sunday, I thought the topic would be a little easier. Today’s topic is Books I Was Assigned in School. I thought I’d easily think of ten.
Admittedly, in the last two days I’ve only been able to recall six. It probably doesn’t help that I went down the English language route rather than literature. Even so, I have some good classic books to talk about in this post.
Let’s take a look!
Books I Was Assigned at School
Stone Cold
Looking at these in chronological order, I remember reading this when I was about 11-12 years old. It’s a story about a homeless teen who makes a friend who then goes missing.
It’s been a long time since I read this book but I remember enjoying it at the time. At the same time, it’s probably not one I’d go out of my way to read again though…
Frankenstein
Reading and having to analyse books for school goes a long way to contributing to my initial experience. As you’ll see in a lot of these, I didn’t enjoy them first time round. The first of these experiences was reading Frankenstein around age 13.
I was not a fan of Frankenstein in school. In fact, I dreaded picking this up. Picking it apart really killed whatever good there was.
As with a lot of books I read in school, I’ve since read it again as an adult. The experience was completely different. Whilst I didn’t 5 star love it, the book got a solid 4 star rating in 2018.
1984
1984 probably has the greatest turnaround of all the books on this list. I hated 1984 in school. I was around 14 at the time and I didn’t enjoy any aspect of it.
However, I read this again as an adult (but pre-blog) so I’m not sure exactly when. The contrast between my school reading experience and that of my own time is a complete 180°. I really enjoyed this book second time around. Honestly, I’d read it again too!
Of Mice and Men
I didn’t enjoy Of Mice and Men when I picked it up for my GCSE studies. I found it quite hard to get into. The book did pick up a little once I’d got so far into it, but I didn’t love it.
In 2017 after re-reading the book as an adult, I gave it 5 stars! It’s fair to say that a degree of maturity with my reading took place in between. That, and I could actually enjoy the book rather than pick apart and overanalyse the narrative to within an inch of its life…
Anthony and Cleopatra
I struggle with Shakespeare. I always have and always will. For that reason I’ve never really taken to any of his works.
I had to study Anthony and Cleopatra for my GCSE’s at school, which wasn’t fun anyway. What didn’t help more is we didn’t have a permanent teacher whilst we were learning it either. I think I scraped by on the assignments and exam for this part of the curriculum, but I didn’t love it.
I have Shakespeare works on my Kindle but I can’t quite psyche myself up to try them again. I’m not convinced, but I guess if I don’t try I’ll never know.
Power and Conflict Poetry
The only other book I remember picking up was a poetry anthology called Power and Conflict. Even then, I don’t think we read all of it but rather cherry-picked poems from it to, you guessed it, analyse.
Broadly I’m not a big fan of poetry, so this isn’t one I’ve gone back to. Neither do I plan on either.
Summary
I’m gutted I could only recall six books for today’s Books I Was Assigned in School post. But, I suppose a shorter post is better than a non-existent one right?
What did you read at school, and what was your experience? Have you re-read any books like I have?
