<p>which classic novels/novellas should i read for independent reading? </p>
<p>i'm thinking about reading lolita by nabokov or things fall apart by achebe, but those are so hard to get since my school won't carry them (i can see why for lolita but not things fall apart)...i don't want to spend money on a book since books are so expendable...the public library has all copies of the two books all checked out too</p>
<p>If you haven’t already, you could reserve them. =)</p>
<p>Also, you could check out the “favorite books” thread on High School Life. That probably will have some good suggestions.</p>
<p>The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams</p>
<p>There are more classics out there than any one individual will ever be able to read in a lifetime.</p>
<p>However, you might want to see which of the following your school has:</p>
<p>Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
Hamlet - William Shakespeare
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
In Search of Lost Time - Marcel Proust
The Stories of Anton Chekhov - Anton Chekhov
Middlemarch - George Eliot
Moby Dick - Herman Melville
The Divine Comedy - Dante
Ulysses - James Joyce
Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoyevsky</p>
<p>Many of these aren’t necessarily “classics”, but I do personally recommend:</p>
<pre><code>Ender’s Game - Orson Scott Card
Rites of Spring - Modris Eksteins (nonfiction)
Darkness at Noon - Arthur Koestler
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
</code></pre>
<p>The Restaurant at the End of the Universe - Douglas Adams
So Long and Thanks for All the Fish - Douglas Adams
1984 - George Orwell
Down and Out in Paris and London - George Orwell
The World’s Religions - Huston Smith (nonfiction)
Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
Notes From Underground - Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Stranger - Albert Camus
The Things They Carried - Tim O’Brien
Wiseblood - Flannery O’Connor
First Confession - Monserrat Fontes
Sula - Toni Morrison
Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami</p>
<p>If you don’t mind reading online, check out Project Gutenberg: [Main</a> Page - Gutenberg](<a href=“http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page]Main”>http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page)</p>
<p>It has free books that you can download as text files, html, or view and read online. I’ve read Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne, Anthem by Ayn Rand, Candide by Voltaire, and I’m reading Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky right now. All great books and highly recommended.</p>
<p>Otherwise, if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, download the app Stanza and download book from there. If you like actual books, go the library and check those out.</p>
<p>Aeneid, Plato’s Republic, the Prince is good, Metamorphoses, Things They Carried <–more social sciences but very very good. Also Blink and Guns, Germs, and Steel is a must read for everyone seriously, its dull but great</p>
<p>Lolita by Nabokov is my favorite book. </p>
<p>And, according to this graduate student’s research project from Stanford, students whose favorite book was Lolita had the highest average SAT score (about 1350 I think…)</p>
<p>Jane Eyre- Charlotte Bronte</p>
<p>Lolita is good. I just read Pnin by Nabokov, which isn’t really worth reading unless you love Nabokov, but if you do, check it out.</p>
<p>Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe (You already said it, but to reiterate, it’s amazing)
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
The Death of Ivan Illyich -Leo Tolstoy
The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Dead Souls - Nikolai Gogol
The Overcoat - Nikolai Gogol
Sorrows of Young Werther - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Novella - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The Scarlett Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
De Bello Gallico - Julius Caesar (way better in Latin if you can translate)</p>
<p>There are a million more that I can’t think of. If I recommended an author twice, it means I love him and think everyone should read everything he ever wrote. If I could recommend any book I haven’t read, it’d be Pale Fire by Nabokov, and I’m not sure why.</p>
<p>Oh, and since someone else recommended Murakami, I back up the rec for The Wind Up Bird Chronicle (incredible, seriously). but I wasn’t personally that into Norwegian Wood. I had been reading a lot of Murakami that week though, so myabe I was just tired of him. But to me, all Murakami is good, including Norwegian Wood.</p>
<p>lol, were reading lolita for AP lang right now. im just taking a break from annotating.</p>
<p>My Life - Bill Clinton</p>
<p>Catcher in the Rye!
Pride and Prejudice (hah, well it’s a good book)
The Great Gatsby
To Kill A Mockingbird
Anna Karenina</p>
<p>Crime and punishment</p>
<p>I really liked things fall apart.</p>
<p>Streetcar is an easy read</p>
<p>Animal Farm-George Orwell
Fahrenheit 451-Ray Bradbury
Night-Elie Wiesel (not a classic per se, but an amazing book and a very quick read)
Of Mice and Men-John Steinbeck (my personal favorite by Steinbeck)
The Crucible-Arthur Miller
To Kill A Mockingbird-Harper Lee</p>
<p>Not classics, but some of my favorites:
Memoirs of a Geisha-Arthur Golden
Tuesdays with Morrie-Mitch Albom
The Giver (super easy read, kinda for younger kids, but an awesome message)-Lois Lowry
Redeeming Love-Francine Rivers (more for girls, but still an awesome book)
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman-Ernest Gaines</p>
<p>Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy</p>
<p>wikipedia this. Dont read it.</p>
<p>HONESTLY, who SERIOUSLY reads Leo Tolstoy? And actually gets what he is saying?
I’ve tried to read him- He’s wayyy too boring for my taste.</p>
<p>^he’s…uh…subtle</p>
<p>I’ve barely read any classics, a handful of them (well, I haven’t read much in general, and I know you people are sick of reading this).</p>
<p>Stick with reading stuff that you like, honestly why forsake a decision in something like reading? </p>
<p>A couple that I know are 1984 and Catch-22, both of which were surprisingly good. Two of the rare few books I read from start to finish.</p>
<p>Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - this book is amazing to put it lightly.</p>