On my own, The Peloponnesian War; in class The Canterbury Tales.
School Days, School Days
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
To Kill a Mockingbird- I still have my Highschool copy.
Animal Farm (it’s a great one for high schoolers because at that age most teenagers act out like the characters in the book).
On my own, the Second World War by Winston Churchill. For school, 1984.
I must cheat on the question a bit, since at 16, I quit high school and a year later joined the USN, but upon discharge, I went back and in my first HS equivalency night course, I had a super teacher and we lived in; “A Tale of Two Cities” which spurred me on to higher ed and a much fuller life.
Mac, I’m impressed at your “on my own” reading. Congratulations!
I can’t remember. That pretty much says it all.
Listing later-in-life vitals would be cheating.
At 91.8, it’s hard to remember…it would be either Aldous Huxley’s “Brave new World” or “After Many a Summer Dies the Swan” or maybe H.G. Wells “the Time Machine.” …all sci-fi.
Assigned: “Great Expectations”, which I hated, and that tells you all you need to know about my senior English teacher. Nice but useless. On my own, The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Twice. And five or six more times since then. 😉
The Old Man and the Sea.
I was born in Providence R.I. and spent the majority of my childhood on Lake Michigan. Beaches, sailing and snorkeling made up my summers. Hemmingway had my attention with this great tale.
Yes…an extra “m”. As you can tell, i didn’t spend enough time studying.
The spinal meningitis took me out of 1/3 of my schooling when I was 13 years old. I was held back a year due to my slow recovery. As you have had to suffer my poor grammar for years now, I wish to say thank you.
Thanks for being extremely kind to me. I do enjoy Donald’s labor of love, TAC, and hope i don’t i interfere too much with your conversations.
The first actual adult book I read in elementary school was Treasure Island. My favorite from school was To Kill a Mockingbird. Also in high school, from assigned work, Beowulf (if that counts as a book) also made a big impact and remained a favorite.
High school didn’t have us read many books one could call good. To Kill A Mockingbird was good enough that it managed to overpower even the horrible delivery and general nonsense that was attempted to be shoved into it, and kept most of us from hating the book, but….well, wrong generation for a lot of the impact to work on us.
The best that actually taught anything would be The Oedipus Cycle, for lack of any other options– it was great to feel the impact of things in a different culture, a different set of assumptions… hm, if I had the kind of sight then that I have now, I would’ve written an essay about the different impacts that they had, when one was attacking a culture and another embracing it, both looking at something alien to the kids reading it.
The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, for reading on my own.
As best interpreting what they mean by “best,” it’s pretty philosophical and you can chew on it a lot.
If we’re going by book that fulfilled its purpose most perfectly and changed my life, Exile by RA Salvatore; that lead me to Fallen Angels by Niven, Pournelle and Flynn, which let me know that there WERE people like me out there, besides a handful of people on the Star Trek message boards– people that admired the heroism and humor, had fun with words, talked about “weird” stuff– and that helped steer me into the Navy, meeting my husband, and generally having a good, mentally productive life. Massive contrast to what would’ve happened if I thought the closest to people like me was to be found in a College English course. For starters, not actively hostile to traditional morality….
I don’t remember ever reading a book in High School that I actually enjoyed as part of an assignment. I did read Brideshead Revisited as part of a college class and liked that one, and The Iliad in another class. Other than that College was a bust too for assigned reading.
In terms of what I was reading on my own in high school, the works of HP Lovecraft stick out the most. I remember being the most impressed with “The Unnamable,” “The Dreamquest of Unknown Kaddath” and “The Silver Key” and its sequel. While I liked HP Lovecraft more for his wonder and cosmic weirdness than for his horror, I remember “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” as being his most effective horror story.
I’m going to count Romeo and Juliet as a book. It’s not the best play, but it took away any hesitation I might have had about reading highly annotated works. On my own, I would have been in my Asimov phase.
Philip N., seriously, I never noticed your grammar, and I doubt that anyone else has either. These days, anyone who doesn’t write in emojis and “lol smh” words comes off like a retired college professor.
Pre HS: TREASURE ISLAND, mostly because my Dad had a hardcover edition that he acquired for a nickel at a library sale; but I loved that book.
Thank you PINKY for your comment.
I did use a emoji this am on TAC…
I couldn’t help it. The pro-bestiality Energy dept. placement brought about a vomit emoji. Couldn’t help it.
It’s a strange world. One that I have difficulty seeing with my own eyes.
Denial I suppose.