Lord of the flies is really good. Read it earlier in the year with my eight grade class. Right now we're reading To kill a mockingbird. I think it's overrated

semantics

10040 Posts

May 14 2010 02:29 GMT

#22

Depends what you like, i myself can't stand reading fiction unless it's a comic book. I only read books that tend to be learning, historical or persuasive.

Disregard

China10252 Posts

May 14 2010 02:37 GMT

#23

Lord of the Flies is the best novel I have ever read in high school.

WAAA

New Zealand291 Posts

May 14 2010 02:50 GMT

#24

I dont know who told you you cant dodge this subject any longer.. If you are a math/science guy you can get through life communicating only via graphs and diagrams. If people actually try and talk to you (lol unlikely amirite?) just bust some alien sounding jargon that only people in your (very specific) field of study could ever decipher.

Housemd

United States1407 Posts

May 14 2010 02:53 GMT

#25

My Favorites:

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Nothing But The Truth
Lyddie
The Giver
Number the Stars

these are great novels (not much of high school level probably 8th grade, but still good none the less)

godares79

9 Posts

May 14 2010 03:00 GMT

#26

If you enjoyed 1984, you may also want to try Fahrenheit 451. It's a similar theme. It's one of my favorite books.

Some other books you may want to consider (sci-fi heavy):

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
Dune
Moby Dick (if you can make your way through it... I had trouble lol)
Tau Zero by Poul Anderson (hard to find... it's hard sci fi, but doesn't get caught up in the science)

Other books people have mentioned here are good too.

rushz0rz

Canada5300 Posts

May 14 2010 03:01 GMT

#27

Read Animal Farm. It's short and simple. Also, just because you're going into science and math doesn't mean you won't need to be good at English. You will need to be able to clearly articulate your reasoning with other people.

NrG.Bamboo

United States2756 Posts

May 14 2010 03:03 GMT

#28

On May 14 2010 11:24 HazMat wrote:
Lord of the flies is really good. Read it earlier in the year with my eight grade class. Right now we're reading To kill a mockingbird. I think it's overrated

Funny, I thought LotF was overrated and mockingbird was definitely one of my favorites of all time.

DragonDefonce

United States790 Posts

May 14 2010 03:08 GMT

#29

Read scarlet letter, its awesome.... just kidding, that book is horrible

I recommend Huckleberry Finn or any Mark Twain books.

hyst.eric.al

United States2332 Posts

May 14 2010 03:11 GMT

#30

something that i wouldnt consider good, quality, literature, but is a really fun read is Battle Royale (not the manga). a book i found really entertaining for its sarcasm, irony, and wit is Catch-22 (not the user hehe).

Fyrix

United States8 Posts

May 14 2010 03:42 GMT

#31

Just finished up my lit degree in school, I highly agree with a lot of the above ^^
Interesting, short, and classic:
Catcher in the Rye
Animal Farm
Huckleberry Finn
The Giver
The Lord of the Flies -- definitely recommend this one
Frankenstein
The Great Gatsby
Red Badge of Courage

A little harder (in terms of theme and reading difficulty):
Catch-22
The Three Musketeers
The Grapes of Wrath
The Lord of the Rings

Very difficult, but still great:
Heart of Darkness
Anything long and Russian

For sci-fi
Dune
2001: A Space Odyssey
Neuromancer

For Short Stories
(there's a million greats)
Raymond Carver, John Updike pretty easy to read.
Chekhov is classic

hope this helps ^^

{CC}StealthBlue

United States41117 Posts

May 14 2010 05:40 GMT

#32

The Road, great book and an easy read.

The_Voidless

United States184 Posts

May 14 2010 05:49 GMT

#33

"Things Fall Apart" is pretty good and its consider to have literary merit, plus its a real easy read since the author's first language isn't English. Lord of the Flies is pretty good and simplistic also once you think you got the hang of it you can go on to Shakespeare just make sure to get a book with a lot of notes in it.

Kinky

United States4126 Posts

May 14 2010 06:11 GMT

#34

On May 14 2010 10:59 holy_war wrote:
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

+1 to this. Great book.

SolHeiM

Sweden1264 Posts

May 14 2010 06:35 GMT

#35

The Fountainhead & Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand are two pretty great books in my opinion. They're bricks though, so unless you're an avid reader it'll take you a while to get through them. I read both of them in about ten days.

MercerX

United States32 Posts

May 14 2010 06:43 GMT

#36

twilight,
harry potter,
big bear's adventure,
the big bad wolf,
satanism for dummies,
Redwall,
tom clancey novels,
the dictionary,
romance novel

University

United States263 Posts

May 14 2010 07:04 GMT

#37

If you are looking for ready-to-read literary titles that don't take a lot of background knowledge of a culture or society to understand, I would reinforce a few titles already mentioned in this thread:

Animal Farm, by George Orwell
The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde
Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
or The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas

And please, don't listen to anyone who tells who a classic isn't worth reading, or that it is "overrated." Every classic is worth reading. No classic is overrated. That's why they are classics. However, you just have to obey two simple rules when choosing a work from the classics for reading pleasure:

1) Is this book about concepts that I am interested in? This book deals with society, love, and the feminine individual. If I am interested in these concepts, then I should read this book.
2) Realize that to appreciate most classics, you need a heavy background knowledge in its historical, social, cultural, and anthropological context. The three I mentioned above are really accessible, however, and you should strive to find books that are open to you so that you don't have to do more research than reading. Reading something like the Iliad is a huge task. Greek works in general are going to be a huge problem without a lot of knowledge in the area. Likewise, reading Ovid's Metamorphoses will seem "boring" or like it is a "waste of time" unless you have a healthy education.

BONUS BOOK: I just read this tonight and I can't not mention it:

The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibrain

I don't think it is really what you are looking for in terms of narrative, but it is a tiny read.

jodogohoo

Canada2533 Posts

May 14 2010 07:21 GMT

#38

On May 14 2010 10:40 sgeng wrote:

-->The Illiad and the Odyssey by Homer--You've probably been assigned to read this in middle/high school, but more than likely you read the abridged version. The unabridged version I believe is worth going back and rereading.

I'm reading the Odyssey right now and its fucking crazy! its like a movie playing in the background with, fucking streaks of lightning tearing through the skies, accompanied by a symphony playing something like Carmina Burana

caelym

United States6424 Posts

May 14 2010 07:31 GMT

#39

Hemingway (Nick Adams stories, A Fairwell to Arms) and Twain (Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer) are two authors who have written a lot of easy to read and very engaging novels.

Some medium level authors would be jane austen (Pride and Prejudice, Emma) and Ian McEwan (Atonement, Saturday).

harder level authors would be faulkner (as i lay dying, sound and fury), Virginia Wolfe (Mrs. Dalloway), and Dostoyevsky (Notes from Underground, Crime and Punishment)

bonus: Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier, The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje. Cold Mountain is easy-medium. the english patient is medium-hard. Both are very exciting reads. And if you want some old literature, The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer is really good.

EDIT: How can i forget? James Joyce! Dubliners is about medium. Ulysses is hard.