Book recommendations

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

A lot of older books tend to be like that, with long passages talking about how some little piece of the world works. Which makes sense in an era before electronic media. Les Miserables sure as hell comes to mind, with its great sequences shoved in between gargantuan piles of paper just talking about this kind of factory or that sort of church or this particular historical battle or that group of college kids' hours-long argument or DAMMIT HUGO SHUT UP.

A full chapter devoted to the Paris sewer system, though that comes around in the next chapter where you have some idea of what the characters are traveling.

[snuffbox 0]

I've long found Hemmingway to be good but overrated.

 

I'm a big fan of Don Quixote.

 

I've really been enjoying Richard Brautigan over the last year or so.

[vivalaultra 0]

On Friday, I used Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" in my 10th grade Pre-AP Lit. class. Those kids hadn't the foggiest idea what was going on. So, anyway, here's the booklists for my classes. I think I did a pretty good job selecting books. Any opinions?

 

8th grade:

 

Coraline by Neil Gaiman

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

'The Diary of Anne Frank' (play)

The Painted House by John Grisham

 

I'm either going to plug Lord of the Flies, Farenheit 451, or something else in to round out the year.

 

10th grade:

 

Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck

Sula by Toni Morrison

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

'Hamlet'

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

'Dream Country' (graphic novel) by Neil Gaiman

 

I might have to plug something else in there to fill up the year or just do some short stories somewhere along the way.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

I've noticed a trend in middle and high schools, where recent bestsellers have slowly been supplanting the "classics" that usually glut reading lists—goodbye, Nathaniel Hawthorne; hello, Jodi Picoult. I'm not completely opposed to the notion of not forcing kids to choke down stuff they're gonna hate (rare is the person who liked The Scarlet Letter when they were 16), but I don't think giving them Grisham or someone like Picoult is a good alternative.

 

The Road is a good, recent choice, though. McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses would be good, too, but I wouldn't venture any further with that author, for obvious reasons. (Speaking of which, do your kids have to sign a permission slip to read The Road? What with those graphic depictions of cannibalism and whatnot.)

[PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH! 0]

When/why did The House on Mango Street become a part of the middle/high school canon? I had to read it in, like, 11th grade and it really seemed out of place amongst the likes of The Great Gatsby and Brave New World.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

The House on Mango Street is fairly simple to read, contains little-to-no controversial content and teaches the reader about a culture he or she likely knew very little about beforehand.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

I read Beloved in high school 8 years ago, and that was as recent as we got. If your parents didn't sign a permission slip, you had to read Invisible Man.

 

viva: As much as I like Gaiman and think comics are viable study for college students, you might have a hard time getting your students to take them seriously. I imagine most parents (of 8th and 10th graders both) are gonna be confused when they have to buy their kids a comic for English class.

 

The only thing I thing I would firmly knock on there is Grisham; every bit of my experience with him says that he's a hack writer not worth teaching. I just looked up A Painted House, and since it's a coming-of-age story set in the mid-20th century that appears to deal with themes of race, class, and child's point of view, I don't know why you wouldn't pick the still-wonderful To Kill a Mockingbird, which is pretty much the perfect 8th grader book, to cover those themes and devices. Having Cisneros and a graphic novel on your syllabus is edgy enough for 8th grade.

[justsoyouknow 0]

The Road is a good, recent choice, though. McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses would be good, too, but I wouldn't venture any further with that author, for obvious reasons. (Speaking of which, do your kids have to sign a permission slip to read The Road? What with those graphic depictions of cannibalism and whatnot.)

 

This would be assuming that the parents have read The Road and can make an informed decision on it. They'd just say, "It's on Oprah's list? That's fine".

 

Also, what Norman Mailer would you recommend? I noticed Ellis make a reference to a "spider the size of Norman Mailer" in The Rules of Attraction, then recalled that you made a note to check out some of his work.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

Get on The Armies of the Night: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Armies_Of_The_Night

 

The book works both as journalistic account of a particular Vietnam protest Mailer had participated in AND a trip in the mind of the man himself (though far more self-deprecating than his usual non-fiction work). The story is frequently funny, and, in parts, surprisingly moving. The Executioner's Song is a close second, but its 1,000+ page-length might be a little off-putting.

 

Not really important, but Jim Morrison was supposedly a fan of Mailer's The Deer Park. It's a good, if trashy, book, made somewhat unintentionally humorous by the way the author circuitously writes about sex and drugs. (It was published in 1955, so you have adjust for standards of the time.)

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

The Road is a good, recent choice, though. McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses would be good, too, but I wouldn't venture any further with that author, for obvious reasons. (Speaking of which, do your kids have to sign a permission slip to read The Road? What with those graphic depictions of cannibalism and whatnot.)

 

This would be assuming that the parents have read The Road and can make an informed decision on it. They'd just say, "It's on Oprah's list? That's fine".

All it would take is one child to reveal to his mom that there's a scene where the main characters walk into a basement where people, naked and chained, were being held captive for an eventual meal, and that one of them was missing his legs but was still alive, AND the other scene where the father and son stumble across some savages by a campfire, where they are quite clearly roasting a human infant...all that would send that mom into a tizzy and demand that the teacher be reprimanded for making his students read such depravity.

[justsoyouknow 0]

You're also assuming that children communicate with their parents.

[vivalaultra 0]

Hm. I hadn't even considered the ratio of classic novels to more contemporary novels. I didn't eschew the classics on purpose; it just...kind of happened, I guess. Ah well.

 

Re: The Painted House. I originally had To Kill a Mockingbird on my syllabus, but they already had it last year in 7th grade, so I made a last minute substitution with the only Grisham novel I've ever read (and enjoyed a bit). I thought the book fit in with the general themes of my other novels (coming of age, facing challenges, cultural awareness, etc.).

 

Re: The House on Mango Street. There's a large Hispanic population at my school, so I had to include a novel about Hispanic coming of age and this one was the winner. And, as was mentioned, it's easy to read, has good literary value, and good educational/cultural value.

 

Re: The Road. I've already covered my ass on the content of the novels. I sent a letter home with my syllabus. Before we start 'Of Mice and Men', I'm gonna have my students write personal letters to their parents and guardians letting them know that they will handle the content of all of the novels maturely and resonsibly, so I should be good on that front. I really wanted to do a McCarthy novel, if only because I want to make people more aware of his work and this one is the easiest to do. I personally found All the Pretty Horses more difficult to read than this one, and this one has all the hype with winning the Nobel Prize and being down with Oprah and I can use some of the Oprah stuff on McCarthy to show to students. And the 10th graders at my school are pretty morbid, so they'll enjoy the cannabalism.

 

Re: Gaiman. The main reason I wanted to do a graphic novel was to stress the point that there's more to literature than just a standard book and that you can read things like 'comic books' or 'graphic novels' and appreciate them on a literary level. The students were kind of clueless as to what this would be all about when we went over the syllabus, but I brought in my copy of it and then they got the general idea. I'm hoping that when they see the quality of writing and the literary value of the stories, they'll appreciate it as more than just a comic book. There's a big focus on art and graphic design at my school, so I think the graphic novel will go over pretty well. And they have swearing and naked pictures of Calliope in it, so that's cool.

 

Yeah, but now that it's mentioned, I'm really starting to notice the lack of 'classics' in each of my classes. My 8th graders have one out of four and my 10th graders have 'Hamlet' and 'Of Mice and Men'. But I guess that has been the general trend lately in schools. I don't have anything against the classics. At least, I think I don't...

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

I really wasn't criticizing you over the lack of canon in your courses; I was more concerned over, in its place, the increasing use by teachers of decidedly, um, non-literary works. I know it's been happening in schools around here, and I've read about it occurring elsewhere. It's not easy, I realize. You're dealing with a lot more limitations than you would on a college-level. I could never teach high school.

 

(By the way, Cormac McCarthy hasn't won the Nobel. Not yet, anyway.)

[vivalaultra 0]

Eeek. I meant Pulitzer. It was a long, long day at school. Some girl in my 8th grade Pre-AP class called this one boy a 'queer' right in the middle of my lecture on literary elements. She now has to write me a ten page essay on the Stonewall Riot including citations and bibliography. Hopefully that does her some good.

 

As far as teachers using 'non-literary' works in high schools, I agree. When I was considering my book list and getting together some sort of yearly lesson plan, I checked out a lot of syllabi and I was surprised at how many current/popular novels I saw being taught. I saw Eragon on just about every middle school booklist. I don't see the point of doing something like that over teaching say...Tolkein or some other fantasy book. I even saw (ack!) The Da Vinci Code being taught in one upper level AP class. I'd like to think that although my books are mostly relatively current, they have good literary value. Nothing by Dan Brown shall ever enter foot into my classroom. I should put that in my class guidelines or something.

[snuffbox 0]

On The Road should be required in more high schools.

[PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH! 0]

No it shouldn't.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

 

My 11th grade US History Honors class is reading this (and Sinclair's The Jungle).

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

She now has to write me a ten page essay on the Stonewall Riot including citations and bibliography.

 

Awesome. You're hardcore.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Here are my reading lists, FYI:

 

General World History

-school textbook

-various primary source excerpts (so far we've done the Code of Hammurabi, speech by Pericles & a Spartan King, text by a bishop on torture & persecution of early Christians in Rome, the Magna Carta, & an excerpt from The Prince)

 

US History Honors

-school textbook

-The Jungle

-The Things They Carried

-primary source documents (so far we've read letters by the Klan intimidating black politicians during Reconstruction, excerpts of Black Elk Speaks, letters from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in the late 1800s, writings by Chief Joseph, & Bryan's Cross of Gold speech)

 

European History AP

-primary text: A History of Modern Europe by Merriman

-supplementary text (for social history): A History of Western Society by McKay

-A World Lit Only By Fire

-The Prince

-Candide

-The Gods Will Have Blood

-The Dress Lodger

-Germinal

-The Long Walk

-a veritable shitstorm of primary source documents (for instance next week we'll be covering the Reformation so they'll be reading documents by Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, More, et al.)

[snuffbox 0]

On The Road should be required in more high schools.

 

Disregarding almostcandenza's mindless post, here's a few reasons why I think it should be reuired reading more often.

 

-It is the rare kind of novel that actually has the kind of power capable of making a person realize potentials they might have no idea they actually have. With its contagious exuberance it can carry a high schooler without a pre-set lifeplan towards greater things than the usual traps of adulthood such as permanent factory/restaurant/etc employment or worthless fringe existences (drug/alcohol-based lives, etc). While On The Road might seem to not be the kind of novel that can lead a teenager away from a meaningless future based on drugs/alcohol/nothing at all it actually often can. By creating passions to explore, to meet diverse new people without attachments of prejudice, it can lay a foundation for college success, happier lives in new communities, and potential artistic growth that might not otherwise have been followed.

 

-With well-led discussion it might provide very useful lessons on human relationships, responsibilities, trappings of both excess & conservatism.

 

-It illuminates social classes often left ignored...the homeless, the addicted, the restless, the bottom-end working class, the unpublished poets, the insane, homosexuals, etc.

 

-Also, it can be read as history. While the Leave It To Beaverness & McCarthyism of the Post-War generation are often taught in high schools the constantly moving & desperately creating counterculture of that era is largley ignored. Beyond the primary history of its own time, On The Road also catches a vivid moment that has been repeated many times since & will continue to do so for generations to come. And that, the past & its impact on future, is supposed to be one of the key points of history education.

[Guest Soriano's Torn Quad]

Whenever I see Zwingli's name mentioned, I think of when he was somebody's avatar here, captioned with "Zwing from my nuts." I'm sorry.

[vivalaultra 0]

On The Road should be required in more high schools.

 

Disregarding almostcandenza's mindless post, here's a few reasons why I think it should be reuired reading more often.

 

-It is the rare kind of novel that actually has the kind of power capable of making a person realize potentials they might have no idea they actually have. With its contagious exuberance it can carry a high schooler without a pre-set lifeplan towards greater things than the usual traps of adulthood such as permanent factory/restaurant/etc employment or worthless fringe existences (drug/alcohol-based lives, etc). While On The Road might seem to not be the kind of novel that can lead a teenager away from a meaningless future based on drugs/alcohol/nothing at all it actually often can. By creating passions to explore, to meet diverse new people without attachments of prejudice, it can lay a foundation for college success, happier lives in new communities, and potential artistic growth that might not otherwise have been followed.

 

-With well-led discussion it might provide very useful lessons on human relationships, responsibilities, trappings of both excess & conservatism.

 

-It illuminates social classes often left ignored...the homeless, the addicted, the restless, the bottom-end working class, the unpublished poets, the insane, homosexuals, etc.

 

-Also, it can be read as history. While the Leave It To Beaverness & McCarthyism of the Post-War generation are often taught in high schools the constantly moving & desperately creating counterculture of that era is largley ignored. Beyond the primary history of its own time, On The Road also catches a vivid moment that has been repeated many times since & will continue to do so for generations to come. And that, the past & its impact on future, is supposed to be one of the key points of history education.

 

I agree completely that On the Road should be taught more in high school. After I finished my syllabus and sent it to my Dept. Head for approval, I really wanted to revise it to include On the Road. All the reasons you mentioned (minus the history aspect, which I'm not extremely up to date on besides all of the tertiary matters, so I don't think I could do it justice) are reasons I wanted to put it in. I think the 'willingness to engage w/o prejudices' and the marginalized social classes and everything would be really good ways to approch the material on a high school level, and the story's really good and can be appreciated on that level. Next year, unless I get moved to like...7th grade or something, I plan on including it.

 

[Guest Tzar Lysergic]

What's something short and absurdly gory?

[justsoyouknow 0]

So, the fact that Kerouac wrote On the Road while on a meth binge is going to deter kids from doing drugs.

[snuffbox 0]

No.

 

If a teacher were to do a a few weeks of study of On The Road s/he could point out all the physical problems suffered by Kerouac (phlebitis, etc) and his contemporaries as well as mention how he, Neal Cassady, and others died young, painful, drug/alcohol-related deaths. The writing and lives of Kerouac etc provide a far better reason to not get too far into drug use than any dumbass PSA or high school health class. Even more of use for this particular lesson would be the writings of William Burroughs.

 

And, besides, Kerouac took several years re-writing and editing On The Road after his initial coffee-fueled (he denied drug use during the famous writing explosion) effort.

[snuffbox 0]

What's something short and absurdly gory?

 

Under the Southern Cross/A Feeling of War by R. Bruce Johnson fits the bill but is pretty hard to find.

[Jingus 0]

Just grab Bentley Little's short story collection. Don't remember the name of it offhand, but it should be in any standard bookstore.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

I recently bought Samuel Delaney's Dhalgren, which I picked up because it is usually mentioned in discussions of sci-fi books for more "literary" types who aren't into sci-fi. This is a subject I shall be treading cautiously in, so, if anyone can help me out here, feel free. I already have Gene Wolfe and Octavia Butler on my to-do list. I suppose I should add William Gibson while I'm at it.

 

In other news, I'm only about 30 pages into Denis Johnson's thick new novel, Tree of Smoke, and I may already be in love. Vietnam may not be an exhausted subject, after all.

[Copper Feel 0]

Yeah Ed, you missed the boat completely when it comes to identifying with the kid. You have to be 13-16 and angsty. Still though, it's the kind of thing one can rip through in a sitting, so why not? Kill a couple hours at the library.

 

I think I am going to read this when I finish with my current to read list (this meaning Catcher In the Rye).

 

My to read list is:

 

Fyodor Dostievskey - Crime and Punishment

Plato - The Republic

E.M Forster - A Passage To India

Max Arthur - Forgotten Voices of the Great War

 

For educational purposes:

 

Thomas Hardly - Selected Poetry

Michael Frayn - Spies

Shakespeare - Much Ado About Nothing

 

Your thoughts on these books? Edit: aimed at any user of this thread, not Agent in particular.

[snuffbox 0]

I enjoyed Crime/Punishment when I read it in high school. I kinda doubt I'll ever find time to re-read it again, though.