221 replies to this topic

[cward]

I enjoyed practically all of my English Literature.  

Favorites:  
Hamlet (Yes, I know it's a play)
Never Let Me Go by Ishiguro
Hard Times by Charles ****ens
Eugenie Grandet by Balzac
Midaq Alley by Mahfouz


Anybody read Never Let Me Go?  I adore that book.

[turkishgirl]

Catcher in the Rye was awesome, and i m in love with the Crucible.

[Calypso]

IBVeryStressed, on Oct 26, 2010 - 02:15, said:

The Picture of Dorian Grey. All of my friends hated it.

Agree totally!! It is such an addicting and "poisonous" book!
I found myself talking like Lord Henry all the time after reading it and had stop myself... My friends were getting super annoyed at my sarcastic paradoxes lol.
Oscar Wilde is a satire genius!

Has anyone watched the Dorian Gray movie with Ben Barnes (aka Prince Caspian lol)?

[Essovee]

The Stranger by Camus was really good, and even though it was kind of short I still really enjoyed A Doll House by Ibsen. I wish we could have read 1984 in our class, but we stuck with ones like Siddhartha which, no offense to anyone who really likes it, I hate.

Anyone do One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich? That one was pretty good too.

[wombat123]

I read All Quiet on the Western Front in pre-IB and absolutely loved it. I think my heart split in two when I finished it.

[frankinafishtank]

We're reading A Handmaid's Tale right now, and I think it's the best book we've read so far.

I enjoyed Brave New World too

[iMuffinsx3]

Death and the Maiden by Ariel Dorfman.
I actually liked this book a lot. It said a lot about the ambiguity of law and morals and whatnot.

[ms.s.peverell]

Grammar Girl, on Oct 23, 2010 - 04:21, said:

I loved House of the Spirits (Isabel Allende), The Age of Innocence and Ethan Frome (both Edith Wharton). I wish we could have spent more time on House of the Spirits. We only spent about a week going through it in class.  

Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits was basically the only book I loved. It was a long read, but worth it and I really enjoyed the story of the female characters of the family and their strength. I am looking forward to Hamlet, and I enjoyed Othello and Dionne Brand's poetry. I am hoping T.S. Elliot's poetry is good too.

[smartypants093]

Grammar Girl, on Oct 23, 2010 - 04:21, said:

I loved House of the Spirits (Isabel Allende), The Age of Innocence and Ethan Frome (both Edith Wharton). I wish we could have spent more time on House of the Spirits. We only spent about a week going through it in class.  

Yeah we're supposed to read that book too this year! My world lit teacher was like "yeah all of the kids last year loved it because there were ghosts floating around the living room!"
What else is it about?

[Ekinna]

Honestly, I haven't really liked any of them, but some were worse than others.

[ms.s.peverell]

smartypants093, on Dec 06, 2010 - 02:45, said:

Grammar Girl, on Oct 23, 2010 - 04:21, said:

I loved House of the Spirits (Isabel Allende), The Age of Innocence and Ethan Frome (both Edith Wharton). I wish we could have spent more time on House of the Spirits. We only spent about a week going through it in class.  

Yeah we're supposed to read that book too this year! My world lit teacher was like "yeah all of the kids last year loved it because there were ghosts floating around the living room!"
What else is it about?

It's about 4 generations of a family living through different periods in a country's history and how they respond to what's happening in the country and to each other. There are alot of quirky yet complex characters and they live in this big house that facilitates their daily activities. The book is about trying to forgive, restoring dignity, recognizing the past's mistakes and trying to stop these patterns. The characters are really REALLY weird, but it really is a good book and some of the characters do some cruel, disgusting stuff that makes you hate them. Allende crafts the book to manipulate you into cheering for some characters and judging others because of their terrible actions. My favourite chapter would have to be the last and my favourite characters were Clara and Alba (Clara is clairvoyant and that's where you get the spirits floating around in the rooms).  The writing is really nice to read. It's a long book, but if you take almost any passage in the book and read it the way you would for a commentary, it's hard not to appreciate the writing in my opinion.

[belen1234]

not a book but we analized The Wall, great movie !!!!!
and loved the acting skills from martha and george in who's afraid of virginia woolf

[TPCS1]

Grumps, on Oct 21, 2010 - 22:44, said:

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea. I originally thought it was just creepy but I learned to love it.

Mishima is a legend. Did a lecture on him recently. Strange man but fantastic writer.

From my IB course, Cyrano de Bergerac was a standout text. Great film with Depardieu too.

[Bishup]

Quote

Anyone do One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

Yep I do that for my Word Lit. Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Franz Kafka in one World Lit = tasteful literature.  

[Queenblurblab]

I found The Book Thief by Marcus Zuzak to be an extremely enjoyable book even before I read it for school. I've also read Maus and enjoyed that as well.

[cherrylemonade]

The only time I haven't enjoyed my English class was when our teacher subjected us to Moby ****... Worst ever. A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf was pretty bad, too. However, we're currently covering Latin American literature, and I am in LOVE.
Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo - Magical realism<3
Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Only book I have ever lost sleep/bawled my eyes out/thrown a brand new book/killed the margins with notes over. I've read it six times for EE purposes, and I'm still not tired of it.
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende - Though I grew to loathe Blanca (what a pointless character), it was a beautiful read. Allende is so articulate.
Other than the Latin American works -
Black Rain by Masuji Ibuse - It was absolutely riveting...a little graphic, but so raw.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte - It was one of my favorites way before IB, but the new insights really grew on me. I think I've read it nine times now. (: /nerd

I read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in tenth grade. Definately one of my favorites.

EDIT: Bahahaha auto-edit (: The great white whale = inappropriate.

Edited by Hailey Marie, Dec 19, 2010 - 04:16.

[rcrat]

frankinafishtank, on Dec 05, 2010 - 09:58, said:

We're reading A Handmaid's Tale right now, and I think it's the best book we've read so far.

I enjoyed Brave New World too

I find it funny how so many people like the Handmaid's Tale. I thought it was good but it freaked me and a lot of my classmates out because, as you can tell by my location in the U.S.A., the book depicted my country destroyed and in a freaky dictatorship.

My favorite books though have to be The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Spirits.

TPCS1, on Dec 09, 2010 - 17:45, said:

Grumps, on Oct 21, 2010 - 22:44, said:

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea. I originally thought it was just creepy but I learned to love it.

Mishima is a legend. Did a lecture on him recently. Strange man but fantastic writer.

From my IB course, Cyrano de Bergerac was a standout text. Great film with Depardieu too.

I played Lignère in a production of Cyrano de Bergerac at my school. It  was funny being a distressed drunk tripping around the stage.

[Julie]

Perfume by Patrick Suskind was my ultimate favorite, but I also fell in love with The Metamorphosis and the Handmaid's Tale.

[LeilaniG]

i thought 1984 was fantastic. We also read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which is rather good, but not to the usual IB book standards

[andreakate225]

I actually really liked "A Long Way Gone" by Ishmael Beah, despite the fact that it gave me nightmares.
I also have completely fallen in love with "The Importance of Being Earnest" by Oscar Wilde.