Thursday, February 9, 2012

What books should I read starting college?

I'm still in high school. I still want some recommendations on a college level reading book. I'm interested in American Literature. I don't like those high school books such as Twilight and Harry Potter.

Thank you.What books should I read starting college?
You're going to end up reading The Odessey, The Iliad, Paradise Lost, Inferno, Beowulf, Madame Bovary, Antigone, Sir Gwan and the Green Night. Something you might want to try is going to a universities website and pull up a syllabus for English Comp I and English Comp II and/or Lit I and Lit II. If you're really ready to start and you have a few extra bucks buy a text book from one of those classes, you could probably even find an out of date one on Ebay for nearly nothing, the stories in it will be the same, you'll just save some money.



While the person above me and the person below me presented a great reading list, those are more high school than college.



You're not going to do much reading of American Lit. mostly

Greek Tragedies and Epics.
Niki G. listed HIGH SCHOOL level reading. For lower high school students.

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What books should I read starting college?
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by writer Jules Verne

The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Watership Down by Richard Adams
Oh, this is easy.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Dumas Key by Stephen King

1984 by Wells (my personal fav).

East of Eden by Steinbeck

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

Stiff by Mary Roach



Just to start off with. ;)What books should I read starting college?
Farenheit 451? 1984? Last time I checked, those were read in HIGH SCHOOL, guys.



I recommend some heavy theory, the real good college stuff:



History of Sexuality by Michel Foucault

The order of things by Michel foucault also

The structure of scientific revolution by thomas kuhn

Postmodernity by Frederick Jameson

Imagined Communities by Benedict Anderson

Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard

Representation by Stuart Hall

Wretched of the Earth by Franz Fanon



Of course, and the Manifesto by Marx and Engels.



All essential college classics!
One flew over the cuckoos nest by Ken Kesey was fantastic.

The night watch by sarah waters (histoical fiction)

The time travellers wife by Audrey Niffenegger

... if you want to get more literary then stick with the classics (some are bloody hard to read though!)

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (twisted love story)

Catch 22

A clockwork orange

Great Expectations

Shakespeare...
The Road - Cormac McCarthy

On the Road - Jack Kerouac

Frankenstein - Mary Shelley

The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger

Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand



i read these five books before entered college... i hope it helps
I'm in college and I love Harry Potter. So do alot of my professors because (especially the English and Literature ones) because we analyze it in class. I've had to write a couple of pretty hard papers on it.



You should definitely check out some of these books before you get to college (so you have a head start), but the best thing about college curriculum is that you can pretty much end up studying anything...some literature professors cover alot of old fashion/classic authors, some them focus on modern authors, and some of them even study just One author for the whole semester!



Some great novels for older audiences include:



Les Miserables....Victor Hugo

The Road......Cormac McCarthy

In the Woods.....Tana French

The Lovely Bones...Alice Sebold

Fear in Loathing in Las Vegas....Hunter S. Thompson

The Picture of Dorian Gray....Oscar Wilde

Jesus Son.....Denis Johnson

The Count of Monte Cristo....Alexandre Dumas

Uncle Tom's Cabin........H. B. Stowe

The Great Gatsby.......F. Scott Fitzgerald

Ethan Frome......Edith Wharton (i love this book!)

Native Son......Richard Wright

To Kill a Mockingbird.....Harper Lee

Lord of the Flies........William Golding

Animal Farm............George Orwell

1984.............George Orwell

Dr. Zhivago........Boris Pasternak

Jane Eyre ..........Charlotte Bronte

Wuthering Heights ...........Emily Bronte

Pride and Prejudice........ Jane Austen

Emma .............Jane Austen

The Scarlet Letter..........Nathaniel Hawthorne
Wow not many people gave you American literature :( Here's some:

Mark Twain - not just Huckleberry Finn, try buying a compendium of his works and check out "Life on the Mississippi" and "Roughing It." I think he is the best American writer!

Edgar Allan Poe - again, just get a "collected works" of short stories and poems.

Ernest Hemingway - a necessity of American lit! I have only read his short stories but I have been meaning to read some of his novels, they are classics! Another plus is that you can read "To Have and Have Not" and then watch the Humphrey Bogart/Lauren Bacall movie of it :)

F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby, you just have to read it sometime it your life :P

John Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath, again kind of a "rite of passage" book



And two not in the American lit "canon" but personal favorites, both authors who were born in other countries but wrote in and about the US:

Evelyn Waugh - especially "The Loved One," his style is great!

Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita is his most accessible, but all his work is quite rewarding!



I hope that helps!

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