Reading requirements aside, what books actually influenced you.

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>Aside from the books that were probably shoved in your face, what books really shocked you or made you think differently or were just plain bliss to read? I guess it can be one that you did in class if you really loved it, but I'm looking for the less mainstream lit classics like the Great Gatsby which are amazing books, that I think 90% of high schoolers would rather use as tinder than read.</p>

<p>Or does anyone have a sequence of lit classes that just delivered enthralling read after read?</p>

<p>I've read just about every classic in order to be the MVP of our quiz bowl team, build my CR skills, and write well, but I can count on one hand the ones that actually seemed interesting and really enlightening and magical.</p>

<p>So, am I just weird, or what books are you enjoying outside of class?</p>

2

<p>It's not a book that changed my thinking, or a book that was required for school, but I read The Three Musketeers and it was excellent. Perhaps my favorite book, even.</p>

3

<p>Fight Club.</p>

4

<p>I loved the great gatsby! now the scarlet letter...thats something to despise...</p>

<p>and i want to read fight club so bad haha the movie was amazing</p>

<p>The English Patient
Girl, Interrupted
Memoirs of a Geisha
Candy (Kevin Brooks)
Atonement
Night</p>

<p>and i really want to read The Kite Runner and The Other Boleyn Girl
I've heard Catch-22 is really good</p>

5

<p>Catch-22 is good if you get the humor. If you don't then I imagine it'll be a pretty mediocre book.</p>

<p>I'd say my most influential book was How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. It really made me think about how I handled things in day to day life and definitely made me realize how unhappiness in one aspect of life would spill over to other parts, and the importance of not letting one worry cause others.</p>

<p>My favorite author has to be John Steinbeck, though. Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, Tortilla Flat, and Cannery Row are all among my favorites.</p>

6

<p>Memoirs of a Geisha (mmmhhhmmm amazing)
Girl, Interrupted
What Girls Need (I think that's the title... It was a forbidden book because of 'mature themes' so I had to hide it from parentals... Made it alll the better.)
Harry Potter books, no lie.</p>

7

<p>Fahrenheit 451
Angela's Ashes</p>

8

<p>East of Eden pretty much changed my outlook on life.</p>

9

<p>anything by kurt vonnegut. i highly recommend timequake and mother night. i wasn't particularly fond of slaughterhouse five though.</p>

10

<p>I liked the Scarlet Letter, even though reading parts of it felt like slogging through mud with a gorilla on your back.</p>

11

<p>Night
Angela's Ashes</p>

<p>... </p>

<p>Westlife - Our Biography (It's just fun and I love a success story... Oh, ok, and I'm a huge fan of the band and their music :P )</p>

12

<p>Ella Enchanged
Atlas Shrugged
The Fountainhead</p>

13

<p>America by E. R. Frank. It was just a really touching novel and was so realistic that it was eerie.</p>

14

<p>1984, Fahrenheit 451, and Catch-22 were the best I've read. They influenced what I am writing.</p>

<p>The Sun Also Rises and The Scarlet Letter aren't real pieces of literature; thus they should be destroyed. I couldn't stand either of them.</p>

15

<p>My SIsters Keeper
water for elephants - really good
Night
Neanderthal - just thought it was cool</p>

16

<p>Atlas Shrugged, or anything else by Ayn Rand.
Dune
1984</p>

17

<p>^Pshh...Ayn Rand is just annoying.</p>

<p>Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson is an amazing book.</p>

18

<p>Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Smack by Melvin Burgress
Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh</p>

19

<p>I hate fiction.</p>

20

<p>I hear there's this category of books called "nonfiction," but I don't know if anyone else is aware of it.</p>