I was so very fortunate to have amazing teachers who helped shape my love of reading on top of all the bookworms in my family. I would read pretty much anything I could get my hands on, except for Crime and Punishment. I admit it! I read the CliffsNotes and I still feel totally guilty about this fifteen years later. If I had a time turner I would go back and read the damn book…and redo a bunch of other stuff. (Gosh, I really am an Albus Potter.)
The books below are the ones I’m so very grateful I was “forced” to read in school. They’re the books that showed me new worlds, tugged on my boundaries, and a few of the reasons why I would go on to study literature in college.
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Selected Poems by E.E. Cummings
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Late Wife by Claudia Emerson
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
XOXO
Mai says
May 15, 2018 at 4:12 pmI also am glad my teacher forced me to read Shakespeare! Only for the bragging rights, though….!
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Bonnie @ For the Love of Words says
May 15, 2018 at 4:38 pmIt’s funny, I’ve read all but 3 of these and most of these I only read recently because of you. 🙂 Need to work on those final 3.
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Jordan Rose says
May 17, 2018 at 10:30 pmI love your take on this topic! There are definitely some books out there that I’m glad I was “forced” to read in school. The only ones of these that I also had to read in school were A Tale of Two Cities and Romeo and Juliet, but I’ve read a lot of these otherwise and really enjoyed them. I’ve only heard wonderful things about Gabriel Garcia Marquez and would love to pick it up sometime. Great list!