I similarly have read a Separate Peace several times. The first time as a 14 year old at Philips Exeter which is the school Knowles modeled the Devon school after.
I couldn’t walk down a set of marble stairs without a moments pause and a bit of reflection thinking of Phineas. The next book I read was Slaughter House Five. Two books that embedded a great deal of self awareness in a young person.
And so it goes…
Since I only had to read a couple of books in high school for required reading, I started thinking about what I read in college.
I only took two English classes. The freshman 101 class that I took was on Eudora Welty. I do not remember anything of those books. I also took a 300 level English class on Moby Dick. I wanted to read it and knew I wouldn’t on my own, so I took the class.
I also read The Illiad, The Odyssey, Paul Bunyan, and The Invisble Man all as part of my political science major. I had to read The Invisible Man again in grad school in a church history class.
1984
Frankenstein
The Good Earth
The Scarlet Letter
An American Tragedy
And I am so sorry, I misread the OP. All of mine weren’t required, just books I read and stayed with me.
The Illiad, The Odyssey, The Bible, Shakespear’s Hamlet and a history of western civilization were the only good books I recall reading in high school.
An avid reader since my early days, I’ve read a lot of books that have stayed with me over the years, but don’t necessarily remember whether I read them in high school or later.
The one book that I do remember from high school that had a big impact on me was Black Like Me. All these years later, I still have the paper I wrote after reading it.
If feel this way about most of our required reading. We’d often muse that we didn’t think many of those books would sell at all if it weren’t for English teachers.
But there were those few I liked… and am curious to see what others liked to compare. I’m now contemplating finding a copy of Brave New World as I’m not familiar with that one and it’s been repeated a lot. I’m wondering about A Separate Peace too.
I loved that book too, but can’t recall if I read it for high school or on my own. I know when I read it though - 10th grade - because I was in FL for that year and read it there. Then I made sure that book returned to NY with me. It’s stayed with me ever since and at least a couple of my boys read it decades later too.
I read Black Like Me on my own in middle school. It was eye-opening.
@creekland, when I read it, the book wasn’t an assigned reading. I was in an AP English class. We had a writing assignment and that was the book I chose to read and write about. I don’t recall exactly how I came to choose this book. I was probably influenced by the fact that I have a Bi-racial (half-Black) sister who was adopted as a baby into our all-white family.
All the King’s Men
It Can’t Happen Here
Lord of the Flies
Black Like Me was a big influence on me but not a required reading. Likewise The Good Earth, which I listened to again in the car a few years ago.
For some reason, I did multiple book reports on The Agony and the Ecstasy and got high marks … probably as a reward for choosing such a lengthy book.
So many of you list Brave New World. It was the answer on Final Jeopardy! last week and only 1 of the 3 contestants knew it.
It’s hard to remember!
Great Gatsby
Black Like Me
The Chosen
A Separate Peace
The Diary of Anne Frank
I read a lot (still do) but most of the books I read were on my own. My school did not have a lot of required reading and AP classes might have existed then (early '70’s ) but not where I lived. Reading definitely provided a window on the world for me as I lived in a small town on the rural midwest with very little diversity.
I taught HS chemistry and we used to joke that the job of the English dept was to make kids who like to read hate reading. We had such battles over choosing a book for the whole school to read over summer. We would suggest books like The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and get dismissed and derided, in favor of some book that was a slog to get through, but had “gravistas” as one English “scholar” among us was fond of saying.
The Old Man and the Sea
The Fountainhead
Animal Farm
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Gulliver’s Travels
The books that I remember most vividly (of assigned readings) were:
The Jungle
Nicholas & Alexandra
Grapes of Wrath
Raisin in the Sun
Of Mice and Men
Brave New World
Slaughterhouse Five
Night (by Elie Wiesel)
The Great Divorce
To Kill a Mockingbird
Brave New World
1984
A Separate Peace–One of my eighth grade teachers favorite books. I liked it at the time but have since listened to the audio version more than once and get more out of it each time. Another of her favorites was “The Hobbit” which while not required everyone read at her suggestion (which of course led to another 2K pages of the trilogy)
Shakespeare–we did a LOT of Shakespeare in Brit Lit. Our teacher banned the textbook version of Hamlet when he realized it had censored all the good parts and made us get our own copies. That was a great class–we acted it all out including sword fight scenes that I still recall today. We did Beowolf (don’t remember much from reading it) but I do remember the teacher reading parts aloud which I still remember. Having a teacher so versed in the history of the settings and customs of the times really made a difference.
And no required reading since not an English class but my eighth grade Algebra teacher would have “bubblegum and storytime hour” every Friday. We’d do 15 min of math and then he’d read to us. He was a great story teller. “Ransom of Red Chief” sent us to O. Henry. He read a couple selected chapters of Catch 22 (which of course then we all had to read) and chapters of other books he liked (I think I read all of Kurt Vonnegut because of him). He read chapters from Huck Finn and Mark Twain short stories. It was pretty eclectic.
Walden Pond though has to be the most complete waste of paper ever. You can’t convince me otherwise.
It took a while for me to recall five required books:
1984
Animal Farm
The Good Earth
The Scarlett Letter
How Green Was Our Valley
In one way or another, all of these presented some challenges for the nun who taught the freshman and sophomore honors English classes. There were several boys who especially enjoyed getting a rise out of her.
Other books of my own choosing that I later reread:
Gone with the Wind
Hawaii
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
I’m Okay, You’re Okay
To Kill a Mockingbird
Diary of Anne Frank
Maybe I’m Dead
Winesburg, Ohio
Of Mice and Men
Animal Farm
The Bible—Genesis
Light in August
AP English class inspired my love for Flannery O’Connor when we read “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” I have read and reread her complete collection of short stories.
I had read Of Mice and Men when I was in fifth grade, eighth grade, and then for class in eleventh grade since my sisters and I are all 3 years apart, and we all had to read it. As you can imagine, each reading provided new insights. I have reread it as an adult. Such a stunningly complex novel in seemingly simple language.
Lord of the Flies - the images of the pig’s head on a stick and Piggy’s broken glasses stick with me 30+ years later
Catcher In The Rye - I re-read it every few years and think about who the current phonies are
Romeo and Juliet - 8th grade? The first “serious” thing we read in English class.
The Great Gatsby - I can still see the green light at the end of the dock
Animal Farm - some animals are still more equal than others