What's the 'worst' classic book you were forced to read in school?

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Was talking about this over some beers at the sports pub this past weekend. It seems with all the great books that are out there, high schools always pick the worst ones for required reading lists when you are in school. In fact, I blame this partially for some people being completely turned off by reading. I used to always joke that 'classic' meant the longest and most boring book known to man.

Anyhoo, even after all these years, one book stands out head and shoulders above all the rest when it came to my hatred of required reading...The Grapes of Wrath.

Want to get a POW to turn over information? Just force them to read that POS book.

What are your nominations?

[Hal-9000]

:oops:

I ended up reading some classics on my own before they became required reading....I enjoyed most of them.










:coat:

[Teh One Who Knocks]

:facepalm:

[Hal-9000]

Old Man and the Sea
Death of a Salesman
Catcher in The Rye
Tale of Two Cities


They're all classics for a reason...I liked them :lol:

[Hal-9000]

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..

[Hal-9000]

Heart of Darkness
Catch-22
Lord of the Flies

all good :thumbsup:



I can't recall one that bored me to tears......

*accessing moldy memory*

[Teh One Who Knocks]

There are some good ones out there, don't get me wrong, but there are some horrible ones too :lol:

[Hal-9000]

bingo..

I've tried both Moby Dick and War and Peace....never finished either.They could be awesome stories for all I know...

[Godfather]

In fact, I blame this partially for some people being completely turned off by reading.

I think a lot of that has to come down on parents. I was made to read some books I didn't like in school but I fell in love with reading long before then because my mom started to take me to the library at a very young age to find books I loved. Bottom line is that there are going to be people who hate any given book in every classroom. But reading a bad book is only truly torture for those who never wanted to read anything in the first place :lol:

I wasn't allowed to stay indoor and play computer games or watch TV a ton, reading was always encouraged. Now I read almost every day before I fall asleep at night.


To answer the question, my least favorite book was probably Great Expectations, but I was just too young to care. I'd read it again.

[Hal-9000]

Gee...the net has some opinions on this subject :lol:

I've never tried Wuthering Heights, The Great Gatsby or Emma.....Emma seems to win a lot of most boring and overrated awards.

[Hal-9000]

The Old Man and the Sea is one of my favorites.Lit professors like to talk about the symbolism and writing techniques, to the point where they dissect the book until it bleeds...

To me, it was a good story.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

The Old Man and the Sea is one of my favorites.Lit professors like to talk about the symbolism and writing techniques, to the point where they dissect the book until it bleeds...

To me, it was a good story.

I liked that one too :thumbsup:

[Hal-9000]

Unbelievable.People on the net are rating Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and Similarion as the most boring and overrated ever.

Granted, they're not easy reads but both stand out as some of my most cherished reading as a teenager, early 20's guy.

[Hal-9000]

I liked that one too :thumbsup:


It's funny how a lot of people think Apocalypse Now was a great idea, ground breaking Vietnam movie.Heart of Darkness came out in the early 1900's (brb)....1902 to be exact and it is THE story :lol:

[Hal-9000]

I guess anything by Jane Austen gets the nod from me for this thread :thumbsup:

[Godfather]

Did you guys have to read The Outsiders in elementary school!? I must have read that book half a dozen times. So good. Stay Gold Ponyboy :thumbsup:

[Hal-9000]

Did you guys have to read The Outsiders in elementary school!? I must have read that book half a dozen times. So good. Stay Gold Ponyboy :thumbsup:

I'm looking at that paperback right now :lol:

[Noilly Pratt]

Did you guys have to read The Outsiders in elementary school!? I must have read that book half a dozen times. So good. Stay Gold Ponyboy :thumbsup:

I loved that one. It kept me reading when in other years I was ready to say forget it...as a Canadian we read a lot of Margaret Lawrence...I really disliked her writing style and really didn't empathize with the characters she'd created. The Stone Angel with the character Hagar Shipley. Ugh! Do kids really want to read about the bleak prairie winter and the hardships, really? Now that I'm older I know why I hated it so much...I saw much of that life when growing up.

I remember the teacher defending the novel while I put it down unmercifully...she tried to tell me that it'd be good if I knew how cruel the prairie could be...I asked her if she'd ever lived in a 18' trailer on the prairie in the winter at 38 below...I had and I hated being reminded. My parents for their 25th anniversary exchanged quarters...no lie. That's how bleak it was. What was described in that novel was nothing compared with what I knew. I viewed it for the bullshit that it was.

Anyway, I'm ranting....back to normal mode...

I remember one novel we read "When the legends die" about a rodeo star who isn't top of the bill anymore. It hit home because my dad was not able to work anymore because of a car accident and it gave me an insight of what he must have been feeling.

I was really into poetry at an early age, and into Lewis Carrol type stuff that really had a lot of wordplay and imagery in the words like Jabberwocky. I've shown my 8 year old daughter all that stuff and I can't get her to stop reading...she views it like I did, as a ticket to high adventure.

My dad turned me on to stuff like the Rubiyat of Omar Khayaam and very unusual stuff, so when it came time to read the school-assigned reading, most of them seemed so pedestrian and ordinary, like Margaret Atwood.

I wish we could have studied stuff like Gordon Lightfoot's lyrics...talk about imagery. He's Canada's answer to Bob Dylan, but he can sing as well! :)

[DemonGeminiX]

Overall, I'm really into classic literature. I'm the only guy I've ever met that actually enjoyed reading Milton's Paradise Lost. With that being said, there was never really anything on my mandatory reading list in school that bothered me or gave me a hard time.


I've tried both Moby Dick and War and Peace....never finished either. They could be awesome stories for all I know...

Moby Dick is a horrible read. It's ok up until he starts talking about all the different kinds of whales for 30 pages. I just can't get through all of the damned whales. But I was never forced to read it.


Unbelievable. People on the net are rating Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and Similarion as the most boring and overrated ever.

Granted, they're not easy reads but both stand out as some of my most cherished reading as a teenager, early 20's guy.

Tolkien's Silmarillion is a hard read. It's like reading the Old Testament.

Neither The Lord of the Rings nor The Hobbit were difficult for me.

[Muddy]

Man I cant remember ANY books I read in school.. That was like 200 years ago! :lol:

[Teh One Who Knocks]

The Grapes of Wrath :x

[DemonGeminiX]

The Grapes of Wrath :x

:hand:

Moby Dick is worse.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

:hand:

Moby Dick is worse.

Wrong :slap:

[MrsM]

The Great Gatsby - I didn't like that one

Heart of Darkness - wasn't bad - but was painfully descriptive so it seemed really slow

[Joebob034]

anything by Shakespeare

[Yt Trash]

Did you guys have to read The Outsiders in elementary school!? I must have read that book half a dozen times. So good. Stay Gold Ponyboy :thumbsup:

Read this in 8th grade, I remember every girl who signed my year book that year wrote Stay Gold Ponyboy or that poem from the book.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Grapes of Wrath! :x

[DemonGeminiX]

Ok, Lance. What did you hate about Steinbeck's masterpiece?

[Hugh_Janus]

one good thing about only being one step above the remedial class was that I dun never had to read no crap classic books :dance:

[Hal-9000]

The Bible










:shock:











:coat:

[Noilly Pratt]

The Bible










:shock:











:coat:

Editor's Note:Our apologies, but while typing this up it seems that Hal has just mysteriously exploded in a cloud of sulfur. If I had to venture a guess, I'd say that he was literally dragged into Hell on the spot for this--the powers that be were simply not content to wait for him to die for his punishment.

If it helps to satisfy your curiosity, we have it on good authority that he was going to give it "six out of 10 boners," and that he has not procreated, so his genetic line will end here.

[JoeyB]

Ok, Lance. What did you hate about Steinbeck's masterpiece?

It was about poor people. Lance hates the poor.