Friday Wish-List: Required Reading

I have this friend who adamantly assures me that I fell through the cracks of the public school system and the reality is that she's probably right.

I never took Geometry or Government or Economics and I only took a year of Physical Education.

However, in her opinion, none of those things remotely compares to the grievous sin the schools committed in allowing me to not read some of the greatest literature of all time.

You see while everyone else in the United States was required to read Fahrenheit 451 or To Kill a Mockingbird. I was reading Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Birds and The Pearl (::gag:: I hated that book).

So today for my Friday Wish-List I'd like to shamefully add a few of the fundamentals to my must-reads.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

1984 by George Orwell

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Sometimes people tell me that I'm 'well read,' and I've never argued, but inside I cringe and think of all the great books I haven't assimilated into my synapses.

So tell me... which ones are worth it and which ones should I just skip over?


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Friday Wish-List is going meme. Next week we'll be adding a link up (and grab-box) so you can participate. So find your list and start typing making sure you link back to us (next Friday) so we can all find some new stuff to enjoy!


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Books:

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne

The Birds by Daphne Du Maurier

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

1984 by George Orwell

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Pearl by John Steinbeck

Friday Wish-List

Into the Forest by Jean Hegland has been praised as ". . .a truly admirable addition to a genre defined by the very high standards of George Orwell's 1984 and Russell Hoban's Ridley Walker." --Publisher's Weekly.

Again, I'm not sure how this book ended up on my list of books to read, but there it is waiting and again I'm even more intrigued when I start digging around for my Friday posts.

This is the story of two sisters struggling to survive after the world has ended or rather society has ended.

From the author's website:

"...when society begins to crumble, spurred by terrorism, a distant war, unpredictable weather, and an unstable economy, the little family hoards its resources and attempts to keep up its spirits as they wait for the lights to come back on, the phone to ring, and the lives they have been anticipating to return to them."

I've said it once, and I'll say it again... I'm not picky about my genre as long as the story sounds interesting and the writing is good.

When I find books that have ratings and praises like this one I'm always tempted to go out and buy it right away.

Even the reader reviews on Amazon are hugely positive:

"I found the premise of this book to be eerily fascinating and frightening. It hooked me from the first page and I could not put it down." -BeachReader

"This is absolutely one of the best... Every character, every behavior, every reaction is believable and easily explained within the context of known human behavior." --Tome Toad

I'm going to have to keep this one on my Wish-List. Maybe I'll get lucky and my husband will buy it for me! ::wink-wink, nudge-nudge::



Books: Into the Forest by Jean Hegland
1984 by George Orwell
Ridley Walker by Russell Hoban

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