h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Lord of the Flies, One Flew Over The Coocoo's Nest, To Kill A Mocking Bird... can't remember all of them in fact

But among them was the worst book I ever half read: The Collector
I only read half of it. I refused to read the other half. Mainly because it told exactly the same thing as the first half. It was terribly boring. And it *could* have been an interesting story. The writer made sure that it wasn't.

Oh, lord - what a horrible selection for high school students. No wonder you weren't thrilled.

Some of my Englih teachers read books that were popular in heir day, but didn't have any staying power. In Freshman year, we read "Act one," by Moss Hart. As a Junior, I read "A separate peace."

Another Freshman year book was "Bridge of San Luis Rey," which is not totally forgotten, but is hardly on everyone's lips.

Aha. I'll bet those books were big when she was in college.

Thornton Wilder is a good writer, even when he's not in fashion. But I've never read 'The Bridge of San Luis Rey'. Thanks for the suggestion!

Found it!

'It seemed to Brother Juniper that it was high time for theology to take its place among the exact sciences and he had long intended putting it there.'

This is gonna be good...

I hope you enjoy reading it, Dmitri.

So far, I am, thanks!

'...the scientist Azuarius whose treatise on the laws of hydraulics was suppressed by the Inquisition as being too exciting.'

No one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition? Especially since it roams here and there, far from its Spanish roots.

"because nobody would eat them, the tour people just packed them up and put them on every breakfast table from London to Milan. laugh"

Ah! Yes, I know 'the hard roll', too - I didn't like tea until I went on a tour of Italy and encountered 'the hard roll' and found I could eat it with a warm(ish) drink!

My favourite English teacher read To Kill a Mockingbird with us. She also introduced books by John Wyndham and Monica Hughes, so it was a good variety. I quite enjoyed reading a pamphlet called 'The Anthology', which was produced especially for our English exam - it contained excerpts from Shakespeare plays, Dickens novels and various poems - we got to write useful information in the margins, and then took it into the exam to help us write essays.

Hey, I like that idea of an anthology like that!

In the early 90s, I taught a course called 'the Great Books' - it was a requirement for all the students at the college, and different faculty members taught it, but the syllabus was designed by the English Department. I taught in the 'foreign language' department. Since there were so many books to deal with, I made my students a notebook of worksheets with guide questions and room for notes that they could use for exams. Other faculty members asked for copies, so we wouldn't duplicate effort.

It's good to think that somewhere, somebody might want the information years later, and have the notebook to refer to - with their own reactions, etc.

I mean, how else are students supposed to get through Machiavelli, Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness', Aristotle, a gospel, and Wordsworth, all in the same course?

PS Paul, that book was the most beautiful thing I've read in a long time. Thank you!

"I mean, how else are students supposed to get through Machiavelli, Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness', Aristotle, a gospel, and Wordsworth, all in the same course? "

How indeed?! - our Anthology was one technique, and your notebook sounds excellent, too Handy resources for future references indeed

I ran a book discussion group for 23 years. We were quirky. That may be a euphemism.There was one member who read almost exclusively junk mysteries by the likes of Helen Jackson Braun ("The cat who...), so one time I programmed the latest one from that series. the others probably enjoyed it, too, but here's the thing about book discussions: when everyone likes a book, you don't get as much discussion as you would if half of them liked it and half of them didn't.

And I hope I won't be called to task for caring if people "liked" the books. If someone hates *all* the books, after a while, that person will stop coming.

As a discussion leader, you might need to be capable of showing why a book that someone didn't "like" had some good qualities. Despite my often extensive preparation, I was sometimes not that person. Besides, in that time other people started other book discussion groups. My people tended not to go to those groups, they just fell away and the people who might have replaced them were going to my competitors. Oh, well.

I got paid to do this, and no one stopped me, and I sometimes had a wonderful time imagining what might be a good book to read.

One of my bombs that everyone hated:"The Skin of our teeth," by Thornton Wilder. We also did the Seamus Heaney translation of "Beowulf" (the only time in several centuries that "Beowulf" has been on the bestseller lit). We also did "Birthday letters" by Ted Hughes.

It's all water under the bridge now. I doubt that any of the ladiesi n my group are still alive. Oh, well.