or dreaded reading and found surprisingly good for one reason or another.
My biggest surprise is probably How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive for the Compleat Idiot. You can probably guess why I had the book but the goodness is in the author's sense of humor and ease of the common language of the time (early-mid '70s). Hell, just read the Amazon Excerpt for linguistic style. There is something reassuring when what is commonly a dry, scientific and to a noob, very intimidating subject like auto repair starts out a procedure with, "So your VW won't start, no sweat."
Re: Books you had to read...
I thought for sure that I'd hate Romeo and Juliet. Sounded like a girlie story.
But damn did it rock!
"the only thing worse than a freeper is a blue state freeper that doesn't realize they're a freeper." -dhex
hoisted by their own waterboard!
-dhex
Re: Books you had to read...
I thought I'd hate the Great Gatsby, just because I generally hated books assigned in school. I remember we had to have it read by a Wednesday, and I started it on a Monday night, planning to read half one day, half the next. Wound up reading the whole thing in one sitting and loving it.
I don't think the world needs more proof that Objectivists make lousy boyfriends - Shem
I respect spite - tymac
Re: Books you had to read...
portrait of the artist in high school. i'd had a bad 10th grade english year (catcher in the rye, gatsby, some maya angalou, confederacy of dunces, etc) but this and oscar wilde basically made the year a lot better.
"Yeah, but my character would be all swav and deboner." - Warren
Re: Books you had to read...
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. My high school English curriculum my senior year was almost entirely "subaltern voices" shit, and I was so sick of Zora Neal Hurston and Toni Morrison, and honestly I was thinking "oh man, another book about black people." But it was awesome! Definitely one of my all-time favorites.
But, as Deepak Chopra taught us, quantum physics means anything can happen at any time for no reason! Also, eat plenty of oatmeal, and animals never had a war... who's the real animal?
=Professor Farnsworth
Re: Books you had to read...
Wow, that's a tough one. I've been surprised by books, but I haven't read anything I didn't want to since high-school. And even there it was not so much a case of dreading it before I read it, as loathing it afterwards (Catcher and Gatsby top this list).
Fundamentals of Physics by David Halliday and Robert Resnick turned out to be much better than expected. Probably the best text book I've ever had. And good for three semesters! I still take it off the shelf now and then.
Before that, I think you might have to go back to Treasure Island. I remember not expecting to like it (no pictures!), but of course I did.
seriously though, i think you're crazy on this. and you think i'm crazy. everybody wins! - dhex
Re: Books you had to read...
I thought I would hate Gatsby, but I really like it.
Whenever I catch so much as a glimpse of pr0n, I suddenly turn into a sex-crazed barbarian, slashing and clawing my way through whatever and whomever until I find something to put my weiner into. -- Taktix
Re: Books you had to read...
To be honest, I don't think I enjoyed any of the assigned reading I had in college. I think just the very fact that I had to read it within a certain time period when I was busy made me hate reading it. Ditto for high school. I think I read Gatsby in HS for a book report, and all I remember was that it was about some guy who said "old sport" all the time and some bitch named Daisy. I just remember having to read all that stuff in a terrible rush.
Now, in 6th grade we all read To Kill a Mockingbird and that remains one of my favorite novels of all time. Also around that time we read Death Be Not Proud by John Gunther (about his son getting a brain tumor) and that was a pretty good book also, despite the potential to be terribly depressing.
I liked Catcher in the Rye, and a lot of that may be due to the fact that it was not a school assignment -- my dad said he'd liked it as a young man and gave me a copy.
"My intellect is gigantic, monstrous, terrifying."
Re: Books you had to read...
I had to read The Great Gatsby in high school. Judging from what Stevo said, I don't think I'd like it, either. I never read it. I think that may have been the semester I got a D in English.
A revolution without dancing is a revolution not worth having. - V
UNDERPANTS HAWK
DOES NOT DESIRE YOUR TOUCH
I long for the day that a chimp will ghost-ride someone's boomcar into a lake. - tymac
Re: Books you had to read...
Why were you taking classes that you didn't want to learn the material?
seriously though, i think you're crazy on this. and you think i'm crazy. everybody wins! - dhex
Re: Books you had to read...
Warren: often they're required.
However, I took a sci-fi lit class, and while I wasn't exactly against any of the material, I probably wouldn't have discovered Clifford Simak any other way.
This is a personal problem. There are very few personal problems that cannot be solved through a suitable use of high explosives. This is not one of those exceptions.
Re: Books you had to read...
I majored in English with the intent of taking as many creative writing classes as I could. However, naturally this also involved reading a lot of assigned Olde English or Elizabeth or Victorian literature in too short a time frame to actually read it. Therefore I ended up hating the whole exercise.
"My intellect is gigantic, monstrous, terrifying."
Re: Books you had to read...
My senior year of high school, I was forced to read Far from the Madding Crowd. I figured it would suck, and it did!
I remember the English teacher saying something like "Every year seniors all over America read the same few books. I want us to read something different" then he proceeded to assign us the kind of book they make 10 part Masterpiece Theater series about.
College was much better. I remember reading Flannery O'Connor and Vonnegut (which was great because I had already read it).
Re: Books you had to read...
In my distance-learning British Lit class in high school (where I was the only student) the teacher suddenly had me read The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien -- Lord knows why, as it's a book about Vietnam soldiers by an American author; I think she had just read it and wanted to push it on everyone she knew. Anyway, it was amazing.
Re: Books you had to read...
Yeah, it and The Red Badge of Courage were awesome...and not in the way that I think the authors intended, because while it did open my mind to thinking about the psychological tolls/damages inflicted on the participants, it also made me respect the millitary even more for being so God-damned hard core and I really would have gone into either the Army or the Marines...or at least until my AS killed that.
Just awesome books.
I have a tank full of gentle cuttlefish.
Re: Books you had to read...
I enjoyed the hell out of MacBeth. For the most part, though, I believe that the most sure-fire way to ensure that a book will be hated is to assign it.
"Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind... I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions.."-Emerson