“Martin Fierro” by Jose Hernandez. Me and all my classmates thought it would be the most boring book. We were surprised. And it was full of teachings for soon-to-be adults.
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged.
"One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world.
“The other, of course, involves orcs.”
[John Rogers, Kung Fu Monkey – Ephemera, blog post, March 19, 2009]
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I can see you re-read it after. Hope you had a chuckle.
Yeah, it was stupid and I immediately deleted it.
The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark - Carl Sagan
George Orwell - 1984
Was offered this in high school. I read Brave New World and Island by Aldous Huxley instead. I’d say those.
Same here, Canada?
I love Brave New World, but couldn’t get into Island at all. I still have it though, I should give it another go.
The way into Island is really buying into the paradise that it would be and being willing to learn the ways of the Palanese. Oh, and a healthy disdain for the world you’d leave behind.
I figure that’s only gotten easier with time.
Ha, yes, certainly got plenty of disdain for the world. I’ll give it another go 👍
The novel that never stops being relevant.
It’s a great book. It really awakened me in high school. I think kids should be forced to read it.
There’s something deeply ironic about saying people should be forced to read Orwell…
That’s the joke. From the sitcom Community S3E13 “Digital Exploration of Interior Design”
Ah, I see. Unfortunately online one has come to expect people saying things like this seriously, especially when people discuss anti-authoritan ideas.
if only they can read that. they should be reading non-fiction works and doing an essay on that.
If I had read 1984 in school and had to write an essay on it, especially these days, I’d write the essay as a compare and contrast between the dystopian predictions in the book vs actual current events and mass surveillance as things are today. So in that sort of way, it would actually be covering real world events as well as the book at the same time.
Anne Frank’s diary. There is the historic relevance, but apart from that it is the inner world of a teen girl. I read it as a teen as well, and I remember it greatly resonated with me. She was of course in a unique and threatening situation, bit she also was just a teen, struggeling with typical teen issues. You know how it ends, but over the book you learn so much about her, her family and how they are trying to make tge mkst of it. You start rooting for her. And despite you knowing how it ends I felt quite empty when it did.
Also, a well written sex ed book. I have no specific one in mind, but a medicly accurate book explaining the female and male hormone cycles, menstruation, pregnancy (control including abortion) and menopause! And yeah, goes into how to actually have sex, that it’s important to talk about boundaries etc.
Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank, was required reading where I lived in the US, in the mid-90s. I was in Arkansas. My daughter went to school in Missouri and California (2010s) and I don’t remember her having to read it. Not sure if it’s regional or if the decade made the difference.
I can speak to my experience in the Midwest during the 2010s. Had to read it in 8th grade.
Make sure to get the uncensored version where she goes into great detail about masturbation.
I gonna add one that I actually read in school and actually Am very grateful I read it.
Its “Der gute Mensch von Sezuan” (The good human from Sezuan) by Berthold Brecht.
The story is, that the gods try to fund a good human in the town Sezuan and disguise themselves as humans seeking shelter. No one wants to give them shelter except a prostitute name Shen-Te. As a reward for being a good person they give her gold in return, which she uses to open her own shop. However, her buisness is not very succesfull, since she wants to help as many people as possible which means a big financial burden. To help her out of this she invents her cousin (?) Shui-Ta who is cold and regularly saves the buisness by not helping people and demanding things. This way the buisness stays open and Shen-Te can continue to help her community.
Basically the book is an analogism for why capitalism can not work, since the force to make a profit forces you to fuck over other people and it is not possible to not take part in this system on an individual level. I hated all other books we had to read in school, but I Am quite great I read that one. It also definitely played a role in my path towards becoming a communist.
Another upside of it is, that its rather short and can be easily read in about 2-3h.
Animal farm
Personally one of my favorite books
Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan. If nothing else, it might help some people learn to recognize scams.
I found this in a bookstore end-cap near the fantasy/sci-fi section. Thought it was going to be a novel when I picked it up. Can’t remember if I read the jacket before I left with it.
Destroyed my faith in religion. I highly recommend.
Going against the grain here a little, I don’t like required reading in schools.
I really loved reading growing up, always had a book (sometimes more than one) that I was reading, read well above my grade level, chose books that challenged myself, etc.
My high school really pushed reading, lots of classes assigned books for us to read, I think even some of the math classes had novels they were supposed to read. For our homeroom period once a week we had to do mandatory SSR (Sustained Silent Reading) where we had to be reading something, we couldn’t do homework or go see our teachers for help, or anything of the sort, we had to be seated at our desks reading silently. I often was juggling 2 or 3 assigned books along with my other school work, activities, and hobbies, which didn’t really leave me much time for the books that I chose to read for myself.
And the pacing was terrible, we’d often spend weeks on a book, analyzing it to death, doing packets of worksheets, writing reports, doing that accursed “popcorn reading” in class, etc. for books that I could have read in a matter of days if not hours.
I think we spent nearly a month on Of Mice and Men, it’s only around 100 pages, it can be read in an afternoon.
The whole experience really killed my love of reading. I resented a lot of the books I was made to read, and now almost 2 decades later I’ve never quite been able to get back into the same kind of reading habit I used to have.
I’ve made an effort since then to go back and reread some of those assigned books I hated back in school, and the wild thing is that, overall, they were really good books, strong stories, well-written, solid lessons to teach, different points of view to consider, etc. I totally understand why they were assigned reading.
But when I first read them I was just going through the motions, I just wanted to get the damn books out of the way so that I could read what I wanted to read.
And I think the key is to make kids want to seek out those books. Don’t assign them 1984 (for example,) make them want to go out and read 1984 for themselves.
I don’t know what the best way to do that is, but it’s not just telling them to read those books. If anything, it might be telling them not to read them. I can only speak for myself, but I know that personally seeing a display on “banned books” at a book store or library always made me way more interested in those books than any amount of recommendations from friends or reviews online or any other form of marketing.
So how do you study literature without having the class all read the same book? Can’t really have a discussion on the themes of a work if the class isn’t all reading the same thing.
This is important. My first solution reading the comment was to just focus on number of books and let the kids pick their own to get the love of reading. However this would be very difficult for a teacher to maintain if they wanted to do any analysis.
So maybe have a short list of a variety of books, and the material could be prepared to discuss themes. Maybe also having students present/teach others what they learned?
There would have to be one or two books at least in a year that were an assigned read for the whole class to get deeper into the text.
I happened to enjoy most of the assigned books. I’d have the same issue in class with the amount of time given on each book, but I’d use it to my advantage. I’d usually just read each book twice on my own, chill out and more or less slack off while in class, and still answer any questions or do the work better than anyone else because I knew the subject matter better than any other students. I’d ready something like the oddesey a couple times over a weekend and then have a month where I didn’t have to use any effort at all in that class.
I give my grandma props to my reading. I went over to Grandma and Grandpa’s a lot and from the age of like 1 she would read me childrens picture books. Many times I’d ask for the same one again and again and shed lovingly read it to me. I could follow along looking at the words (she’d point with her finger at each word as she read) long before I learned sounds each letter would make. I could just recognize a word by what the word looked like in the book. I could read at a 5th grade level in first grade, and by 5th grade I tested out to its max of 12+.
Thanks, Grandma. Miss you.
Totally fair experience. I was also a voracious reader growing up and hated assigned reading. But I certainly wasn’t required to read as much as you! In fact, one of the things I hated about the classroom reading is I would have to stop reading the book (if I enjoyed it) and wait to discuss or do worksheets on it when all I wanted is to just continue reading it!
But what we have to remember is there’s kids out there from families that don’t encourage reading. Or even ones that actively discourage reading! If not for assigned reading, they might never read a single book from their adolescence onward! At least this way, they actually get the knowledge from a few books in them. But really, I don’t know what the answer is either…
Reading might actually be bad for you. The psychic equivalent of footbinding. Leaves you deformed and incapable of seeing leprechauns.
The Jungle - Upton Sinclaire
Book changed my life in college, but for reasons lemmy will hate.
Never had a shred of work ethic. Reading that book stunned me. “If this man can persevere through that, why am I such a wuss?”
Worked hard at every job since, moved up if there was the opportunity to do so. I soon realized that if you kick ass at your job, you can write your own ticket. Even if it’s not much more money, or a fat promotion, the least you get is a better schedule, acceptance of fuck ups, or whatever it is you want out of the place.
Gain skills and experience, quit, acquire new job, rinse and repeat.
When we moved to Florida 20-years ago, my two friends and I had no family, no jobs, no other friends. One guy started at an oil change place, way below his skill set. He’d work at a place for 6-months or a year, quit when they quit giving him more money, got a better job, rinse and repeat. He finally chilled after 10-years or so and settled into a job as a service manager for a major car dealership, $100K+, probably $150K today.
1984
Just because someone reads a book, doesn’t mean that they understand it, and if they’re forced to read something they probably won’t enjoy it.
I think catcher in the rye is a good book for boys of that age to read. The main character is insufferable because he holds views similar to incel culture. Problem is some people identify with Holden.
I was forced to read Animal Farm in early high school and didn’t like it or really try to understand it. I re-read it as an adult just because I wanted to and I loved it. Any time there was a reading project with a list of books to choose from rather than a single forced choice, I enjoyed it way more. The choice really does make a difference
Catcher in the rye was a forced book for me and I didnt like it because I thought Holden was insufferable lol. Why do you think it’s a good book to read?
I’d actually add the bible. A lot of people would be more atheist if they actually read through it. It would also be hilarious to see teenagers struggle with that long ass boring shit
Lmao, are you gonna be tested on the genealogy in Genesis 5
How to Read a Book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Read_a_Book
Because people severely lack media literacy. People say read Orwell… and alt-right was saying it for years too.
There’s someone in this thread saying kids should be forced to read Orwell. Which I think illustrates the issue perfectly…
Have you tried reading the books from the list recommended by Adler? I am just starting to get (deeper) into classic literature, and have looked for recommendations regarding book chronology.
I mostly see 2 camps:
- read what you enjoy, which I find hard to determine beforehand; and
- read some specified list in some order, which seems doable - there’s just so many different lists one could start with…
Any insight is appreciated!
I read some Plato and philosophical works but my focus has been more on Indian and Buddhist philosophy.
Unless you are an avid reader, I don’t think it’s a good idea to try to read everything as listed. Figure out what your genuine questions about life are and read the works that attempt to provide answers. That’s why having HTRB on the background is highly useful. Don’t read just to say you did, seek to gain understanding, which is easier when you can make the books relevant to your life.
Thanks for the thoughtful response!
I am an avid but slow reader. I think the main appeal for me to read many of the classic (western) books is so that I can get a better understanding of each author’s inspirations, which would hopefully finally help explain how we got to where we are today. But I think your answer is pulling me in the direction of starting with the books I want, and moving backwards in time for each book I want to delve further into, and then moving forwards when questions can’t be answered by the past.
I read more about HTRB today and it seems totally fine to just skim a full book briefly, and decide it’s not for me. So I think I’ll use that as well.
Thanks for mentioning HTRB!
Welcome! Hope you enjoy.
If you steer close to questions about metaphysics and spirituality, I highly recommend stepping outside the western paradigm. A lot of our philosophy is saturated with Christianity-influenced background assumptions, way, way more than people realize. Reaching all the way to modern psychology. It was very fascinating to recognize (and discard) them in my own thinking - and I was a basic intellectual atheist with what I incredibly naively thought was 0 Christian influence in the way I viewed the world.
Yeah what you’re explaining is what I want to experience. If I want to know where to go, it would help to know where I came from.
Any books you recommend from the non-west?
These are more accessible modern works that point you to more classical works if you’re interested:
Tantra Illuminated by Christopher Wallis
Roots of Yoga by Jim Mallinson
Three Pillars of Zen by Philip Kapleau
The World of Tibetan Buddhism by the Dalai Lama
People like to recommend the Heart Sutra and Pali Suttas, and Bhagavad Gita but I’d say it’s better to get some intro first so you can at least become aware of any prior assumptions you have about the world and realize those works come from a wildly different experience of being.
Bonus: Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe The Hermetic Tradition in African Philosophy by Theophilus Okere Spell of the Sensuous by David Abram
This is amazing! Thank you so much:) will look into these!
