<p>I was thinking about this thread while walking this AM, because I was mulling over how different the tastes in reading we're hearing about are... ANd I was reminded of something my D's 8th grade teacher said: "some people read for plot, others for setting, others for characters... and some writers are great on plot, others on settings, and others on characters. A good match between reader and writer is important."</p>
<p>So: Jane Austen for character (and very little plot); Clive Cussler or John Grisham for plot (and to heck with anything else); and I guess I rarely read for setting, since I can't think of anyone. (Maybe Annie Proulx? That book everyone liked a few years back that I put down halfway through and never picked up again.)</p>
<p>I enjoyed the read and the setting is spectacular, but IMHO Cold Mountain is not the sort of book that belongs on AP list... Not enough "to" it. Though I guess veteran teachers need to add in new stuff so as not to go nuts teaching the same canon....</p>
<p>Aahh, "Tess" DD had to read that this year, too. Her response to it was "There are some books where all the characters should just be taken out and shot". I told her to stay away from the Brontes. She read excerpts from Crime and Punishment, and liked that one.</p>
<p>Oh and despite being from the South, she thinks Faulkner should be shot, but then again he's already dead. Did I mention that she is quite opinionated?</p>
<p>Well your list looks pretty diverse and is filled with more traditional AP titles so I guess Cold Mountain works in this context...</p>
<p>I seem to remember we had Heart Of Darkness, The Scarlet Letter, Silas Marner... & other (mostly dusty) classics... You just need to know how to analyze what you read and recognize the literary devices that are used...</p>
<p>cangel: I didn't like Tess all that much either because the book was SO PREDICTABLE. I mean, we all know Hardy loves to use fate, but we get the point! I really don't like Faulkner at ALL, his use of interior monologue really bugs me, and his books are too dry IMO, but I guess AP people love him. Crime & Punishment was a great read IMO. Lots of deep philosophical themes but in written in dramatic story-like fashion.</p>
<p>SBmom: Yeah, I guess the good thing about the honors/AP track at our school is that they introduce us to classics from the start. Freshman year we had Lord of the Flies and a little bit of Shakespeare. Sophomore year was American Lit so that's where The Scarlet Letter, The Great Gatsby, Grapes of Wrath, and some transcendalist authors fit in. Junior year was my favorite, British Lit. We had a TON of poetry (which I didn't particularly enjoy much, but I must admit it has been very helpful. We read Heart of Darkness (ugh, so dry ;)), Wuthering Heights, and the big Shakespeare plays (Hamlet, Macbeth, The Tempest).</p>
<p>So coming into AP, we already have a nice repertoire under our belts so we're not in a mad hurry to cover every genre and all the "important" books. </p>
<p>Speaking of analysis and literary devices, I just took my AP Lit final today. One was a open ended question on choosing characters from the books we've read so far and the other was a poetry prompt on some Dickinson poem. It went pretty well... I wrote my usual essay: Analysis with some BS thrown in here and there to make it sound good ;). Ahh, AP Lit, such a wonderful class :)</p>
<p>Athlon, you sound so much like my daughter I'm chuckling - you're not headed to D'mouth by any chance? Her school does mythology and some grammar 9th grade, World Lit 10th, American 11th, and the non-AP classes do Brit Lit for senior year, while you know the AP Lit drill. You must be on block schedule if you are having finals now. They are slogging through Rosencrantz and Guild, have done Hamlet and Othello, will start Heart of Darkness maybe next week. Sorry, for her sake, to hear it was dry. She's never read any school required books, except maybe Tom Sawyer, that she liked as much as Les Miserables for fun, she always wonders why it isn't "literary" enough for literature class. Following the French theme, she also liked Candide.
She will agree with your description of the successful AP Lit essay, a good friend of hers has struggled this year with AP Lit, the friend is a concrete, forthright future engineer. My daughter says her friend just doesn't have the BS in her soul! Of course DD is Irish-Italian, BS is a state of being.</p>
<p>cangel: I'm actually on a regular schedule but we just have finals rather late. We had a schoolwide vote to move finals before winter break but that got shot down rather quickly.</p>
<p>I'm not 100% sure on where I am headed, but I will probably end up a little south of D'mouth in New Haven, CT ;).</p>
<p>Heart of Darkness is dry, but it's very short (~100 pages or so) so I don't think it'll be too bad.</p>
<p>Yes, I concur that BS'ing is such a great skill (comes in quite handy on these pesky AP tests). Even my AP Lit teacher admits it. Even with the ability to BS, I plan on doing a majoring in possibly engineering in college but I am also very interested in economics/finance (future IBanker hopefully ;)) so I'm not sure how I will use my acquired "skills" but I'm sure they'll come in handy at Yale.</p>
<p>Ender's Game is definately a fun read. I first read it in 9th grade and I just read it again and enjoyed it just as much. Anything by Steinbeck is probably good. Crichton's books like "Timeline" are pretty good and get a little pseudo-science involved. The other books in the Ender series aren't like Ender's Game, they are a little more tame and philosophical. Lord of the Flies was pretty good. Teenagers always like Salinger. I don't like Twain much, but then a lot of people don't like Steinbeck. Lord of the Flies was good. 1984 and Brave New World are both very good and on a similiar theme. That's about all I can think of at the moment. I should read more.</p>
<p>Some more good books that i have found kids will pass up their favorite TV show to finish are </p>
<p>Son of the Mob (a great mafia story from a kids point of view)</p>
<p>House of the Scorpion (a little wierd, but won many awards and a good read)</p>
<p>Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes (good for s. and d., a good story about treating everyone equally)</p>
<p>The Redwall Series</p>
<p>The Harry Potter Series</p>
<p>Bringing down the house (A story about MIT students counting cards and beating Vegas with Blackjack, not poker as i said earlier, thank you Just<em>Forget</em>Me)</p>
<p>The Dave Barry Books (Very Funny)</p>
<p>Ender's Game (A classic)</p>
<p>Shane (Wonderful western)</p>
<p>Also, Vampire High is a surprisingly good read for Middle Schoolers and 9th graders</p>
<p>Thanks Dropout - at least 2 of those sound like my 13 y/o son would enjoy them - The Mob book and the kids at MIT - I make my son sound like a juvenile delinquent?!
He loved Dave Barry, too. </p>
<p>Last summer the family was on the big college tour, and DS, 12 at the time, got very restless in the back seat. My husband bought him one of the Dave Barry paperbacks to keep him quiet. DS starts laughing and snorting, then he begins reading out loud. My husband begins laughing uncontrollably, red-faced, tears running out of his eyes until he can't see - all at 80 miles an hour on the New Jersey Turnpike. I finally had to get the book away from son, to preserve our lives - it was the day Dave Barry almost killed us on the New Jersey turnpike.</p>