Worst book you had to read in school?

[Nick_T]

English 101.

Nick T

 

[howl]

In high school it was Les Miserables......

The last day we worked on that one, I ripped my copy in half and threw it in the trash by the teacher's desk.

 

[Mtber1172]

Of Mice and Men

 

[Axios!]

The Pearl, by John Steinbeck.....hated every frickin' page of it!

 

[jcountry]

Foucault's Pendulum

God-

I still wretch and involuntarily think of that load of pretentious pseudo-academic horse sphincter every time I see the word "avuncular" used in any fashion.

I would rather feed my nuts to fire ants than read that horrible literary crapfest ever again!

(That book is the best example I know of something people will read to try and look smart. When you ask them what it was about, they have absolutely no idea.)
*My conclusion is that the author sat down with a vast thesaurus and engaged in a lengthy session of trying to pick up a turd by the "clean end." The result:

FOUCAULT'S PENDULUM=Worst Book Ever Printed!

 

[mjrgt03]

Dante's Inferno. One of the few books I actually had to get the Cliff's Notes on. And even then, I couldn't understand it.

 

[sabrev65]

Catcher in the Rye..

 

[mountainmoped]

One of the books my high school Lit/Comp class read last year was John Steinbeck's Travels With Charley. It detailed his adventures traveling the southwest in his travel trailer with his dog Charley. Steinbeck apparently knew firearms well (he was in OSS during WWII). In one chapter he describes his encounter with two coyotes. His description of his scoped 222 leaves no doubt that he was very familiar with it. Many of my students were hunters. I retired in June.

 

[Rome1756]

My nephew called me today fussing and moaning about the "dumb literature" class he's having to take and how the teacher is making him read "The Red Badge of Courage". It got me to thinking back in high school about books we had to read that were extremely boring, but had to push through.

The worst one for me was "Pride and Prejudice". BLECK!

I hated "The Red Badge of Courage" the first time I read it. It made me angry that they forced us to read books that were so boring. I thought about it more and I became confused that a "classic" like that book could be so bad. So I read it again. This time on my own. After the second, third and forth time it became my favorite book. There is always a difference in doing something that you choose and doing something that you are forced to. It is one of the main reasons our school system is failing. You can not force a person to learn. They must to be open to it or else you are speaking to a wall.

 

[USMC - Lock and Load]

Of Mice and Men

Rump raiders? You think?