The Stranger is a pretty easy/short read.
I knew I would one day have to read it because of this:

[img][401:400]http://members.tripod.com/~openend/KillingAnArab7inch_FrontCover_UKSmallWonder.jpg[/img]

I also read Kafka's "Metamorphosis" at the time---another good & short read.

I like so much, and still haven't read many of the things you all are saying are favorites...

I will say that the one book I go back to every couple months is The Little Prince. It's a kid's book, I know. But I love it.

1. How can the Odyssey relate to anyone after 300 BC?
2. I usually make judgments about the worth of a book by reading only the preface.

We spent three weeks plodding through The Scarlet Letter in 10th grade. Believe me, I have plenty of exposure to the text--its ponderous, dry style, its near-total lack of plot, its crap character development, etc. I make my judgement on a helluva lot more than the preface.

How can one relate to The Odyssey? It's an adventure story, with an underlying philosophical message. Scarlet Letter--religious zealotry, group-think, and hypocrisy are bad--not much else there, and not anything we didn't already know.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Don't find the Scarlet Letter dry... if anything my objection is that it is a prose that is too intricate and flowery.... Hawthorne isn't my favorite, but he is fucking Hawthorne who created Melville who created the American novel we know today.

Relevance? Yeah a story about religious bigotry controlling societal norms and the creation of the moral Other to exile in order to frame our safe world of uncritical smugness doesn't need to be known in W's america.

All good points. My contention is that you should get kids to READ IN THE FIRST PLACE, and then walk all this back.

Not give them a boring over long dry piece of shit and tell them it's GREAT ART.

It's like making "Farewell to Arms" the intro to Hemingway. Sun Also Rises or even For Whom the Bell Tolls would be MUCH better.

More exciting, more vibrant.

i agree 100%
i didn't realize that i liked reading until i took a Science Fiction class in high school my senior year. It was the only class in all my years of school that i read EVERYTHING that was assigned.

Yeah, that's kinda my thing with the whole Harry Potter thing. I personally have no use for it but at least it gets kids to read.

oooh. me too! love it!

a whole generation that knows the book is almost always better than the movie.

I took a Sci-Fi class my senior year, and it was the only time I'd ever gone on the the "suggested reading" portions in a lit class. also, my teacher was an alcoholic and he recommended some pretty crazy stuff.

No argument at all. One of the most successul reading strategies in HS for kids who have hard time reading at all is "self-selected reading." Cars, music, pop culture... spend a period of a day reading to get information about something you are interested in...

Now I am off to see a group of cholo gang-bangers do Shakespeare... relevance is a moveable feast.

harry- the winner and STILL champion

That's up there. It's just a bit short.

I think the only one that I really don't like is Zooey. He's just a boring character.

I thought 'The Stranger' was pretty decent. Enough to make me interested in reading more by him.

my favorite book would be candide by voltaire.
i like fitzgerald and vonnegut. haven't read enough by him (fitzgerald) but i loved the great gatsby and this side of paradise. this side of paradise especially.
wuthering heights is also one of my favorites
i'm currently reading a portrait of the artist as a young man, which is really good sofar. i plan on finishing it tomorrow on the ride to DC. i'm taking one of the following books to read if i finish poaaaym: northanger abbey-jane austen, notes from underground/the double-dostoyevsky, the orestia-aeschylus, or candide & other stories-voltaire. i want to read zadig and the other stories featured besides candide, in this volume.
i also keep hearing about faust by goethe. i want to read it. i loved tales for transformation.
i have so many books to read it's driving me insane.

anyone read the forsyte saga by galsworthy? for some reason i really want to read it and it's sitting on my shelf. but i'm not sure if it's worthy of being put before every other book i plan on reading.