Book Poll

julie37619

What books meant a lot to you or do you have good memories of reading in college?

RevJen

Anything by Shakespeare left me with a desperate longing to be able to elevate my writing.

dmlk413

All Quiet on the Western Front.  I read it right as my brother was being deployed for the first time and it really hit close to home.

booknerd226

Lol. I've started to realize that I'm probably one of the youngest posters here. I'm still in graduate school and I just graduated from college in May 2012.

But other than my yearly HP rereads, I remember discovering Nora Roberts around the time DH discovered Stephen King. I read so many of her books in 2010 and 2011.

I mainly remember learning about Amazon and going to used book sales and library sales every month with MIL or my cousin. Previously, I only purchased from B&N, Borders, or Books a Million, all new. Now I'm mainly using Amazon or used book sales.

sassypants527

Interview with the Vampire, but only for the reason that the movie came out during my freshman year and I had never read any Anne Rice before, but the trailer to the movie and all the controversy about casting Tom Cruise intrigued me, so I wanted to read the book before I saw the movie.  Up to that point the only vampires I loved were Kiefer Sutherland and Jason Patrick (Lost Boys) and Dracula.  This opened up a whole new world for me on a genre I love and also an author I came to love.

taylormillgirl

Oh, that's easy. Jane Eyre. I didn't read it until sophomore year in college, and it remains my all-time favorite novel. 

EliStar

I was an English minor and took like five or six Shakespeare courses - college is one big blur of Shakespeare to me. The ones that stand out in my memory are Titus Andronicus, The Merchant of Venice and Hamlet. 

I took classes on Dante and Spenser so both of their works also instantly remind me of college. 

jenndawnp

Harry Potter, I went to see the Chamber of Secrets with my roommate (now BFF) because she was obsessed and didn't want to go alone.  I immediately got hooked, watched the first movie and then devoured the 4 books that were out.  I remember I was up until 4 AM reading the Goblet of Fire and my friend woke up and was like what the F are you doing still reading.  

Lauren620

I remember staying up one night to read A Walk to Remember. I read a lot of Nicholas Sparks while I was in college.

As far as reading for school, one of my marketing teachers picked great books for us to read- Brave New World, The Caine Mutiny, On the Road.  It was a different experience reading classics outside of English or Literature classes.

ThisModernLove

Probably for me it was White Noise by Don DeLillo, The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, Faust, Madame Bovary - Flaubert, and the collected poems of Emily Dickinson

Can you tell my BA is in Lit? Ha ha..

Adjudi-Kate

The poems of Pablo Neruda really touched me.  I was finally getting good enough at Spanish to read them in that language and I felt super cool about that.  Also enjoyed Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits, which I read for a Latin American History class.

RiverPlate

The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould

Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold

I didn't read all that much for fun while in college.  I think these 2 were for an ethics of science class.

jlq2005

I don't remember ready any books other than textbooks while in college. I know I read for fun, but nothing sticks out to me. I was a physics major...most of my spare time was spent studying or drinking to forget terrible grades. haha. 

I only took a couple English classes, and I don't remember reading anything good for them. We read Death of a Salesman in my one class, I remember that. 

Menrandes

I read a lot of social commentary and anthropological books in college.  I can't remember most of them though.
Ishmael and My Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse by Jared Diamond
Our Babies, Ourselves by Meredith Small

I don't know why they meant a lot to me, but they did.  I think they helped shape a lot of who I am.

Of course I also remember working at Borders during the night for the midnight release of The Half Blood Prince.  Good times.  That one and The Deathly Hallows meant a lot to me in college.

j*&p*

Other than textbooks I think I read a lot of chick lit in college: Bridget Jones etc. and maybe Michael Crichton. 

One book that really stood out for me that I read for a class though is Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning written by a holocaust survivor. The professor made us memorize a passage and it's stuck with me to this day: 

"Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time as you're about to act now." 

jackiback

I read GWTW for the first time and fell absolutely in love. A dude on the bus screamed at me that I was a racist if I enjoyed it and I almost physically fought him.

I also read Atlas Shrugged and thought I was a genius and that it was the most revolutionary thing ever. Ha. 

PhoenixRising11

I discovered Anne Rivers Siddons in college, and this began a love of books set in the Lowcountry. 

Jliongrrrl

The only books I had the pleasure of reading during college were the ones assigned to me. Thankfully, one of those was Huxley's Brave New World. Such a thought provoking book.

InLovewSB

Whew - I read almost nothing for fun in college, just work work work and assigned lit.

I have good memories of reading bits of Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt series in between classes now and again.

sweetrhythms

I read nothing for fun in college. I was too burnt out on reading for class to be able to sit down and enjoy a good book just for entertainment.

For class, I enjoyed reading Emma, The Tempest, The God of Small Things, Reading Lolita in Tehran, a lot of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Samuel Johnson, Jonathan Swift and their contemporaries.

I wish I had taken more Shakespeare classes. Being an education double major held me back from taking a lot of good lit classes bc they wouldn't fit the asinine ed schedule my college had. If I could go back I'd seriously reconsider being an ed major at all!

SacGeoLover

jlq2005 said:

I don't remember ready any books other than textbooks while in college. I know I read for fun, but nothing sticks out to me. I was a physics major...most of my spare time was spent studying or drinking to forget terrible grades. haha. 

Haha, this. I was a geology major. All I remember are textbooks...Any actual book reading so was done in my spare time, so not a whole lot . High school was where everything interesting got read.

I also took the AP English test before I got in so I only had to complete one class to graduate. The only book I can clearly remember reading is Three Junes, which I'll just say was not a particular favorite of mine. Meh.

booknerd226

jackiback said:

I read GWTW for the first time and fell absolutely in love. A dude on the bus screamed at me that I was a racist if I enjoyed it and I almost physically fought him.

I also read Atlas Shrugged and thought I was a genius and that it was the most revolutionary thing ever. Ha. 

Whaaaaat??

jackiback

booknerd226 said:

jackiback said:

I read GWTW for the first time and fell absolutely in love. A dude on the bus screamed at me that I was a racist if I enjoyed it and I almost physically fought him.

I also read Atlas Shrugged and thought I was a genius and that it was the most revolutionary thing ever. Ha. 

Whaaaaat??

Huge Fat Bus Man: What are you reading?

Jacki: Gone with the Wind.

HFBM: Do you like it.

J: I love it.

HFBM: Are you a racist?

J: Um, no.

HFBM: If you love that book you are a racist. Slaves were not treated that way. Margaret Mitchell was a racist and wrote that book to spread racism. Glad to see it is still working.

J: It's a novel. 

HFBM: It was written so that small minded people would read it and believe that slavery wasn't bad. When we reinstate slavery, it will be because of people like MM who have changed our idea of history.

J: It's a NOVEL. I am not reading it as a history book.

and on and on until he finally got off of the bus. 

Grr. 

booknerd226

jackiback said:

booknerd226 said:

jackiback said:

I read GWTW for the first time and fell absolutely in love. A dude on the bus screamed at me that I was a racist if I enjoyed it and I almost physically fought him.

I also read Atlas Shrugged and thought I was a genius and that it was the most revolutionary thing ever. Ha. 

Whaaaaat??

Huge Fat Bus Man: What are you reading?

Jacki: Gone with the Wind.

HFBM: Do you like it.

J: I love it.

HFBM: Are you a racist?

J: Um, no.

HFBM: If you love that book you are a racist. Slaves were not treated that way. Margaret Mitchell was a racist and wrote that book to spread racism. Glad to see it is still working.

J: It's a novel. 

HFBM: It was written so that small minded people would read it and believe that slavery wasn't bad. When we reinstate slavery, it will be because of people like MM who have changed our idea of history.

J: It's a NOVEL. I am not reading it as a history book.

and on and on until he finally got off of the bus. 

Grr. 

UGH.

Passanie

The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles. It was an English/women's studies class. It had a similar affect on me that The Awakening did. Just a reminder/realization that you don't have to fit into the norms that society sets up for you.

aggiebug

I couldn't read during the semesters or I wouldn't get school work done. I would hi he read over vacations. Mostly I read books like Nicholas Sparks, Dan Brown, and oprajlha books club selections since I never stayed up on good books then. Man I am glad I have found you, and found better books since graduation.

The books I was assigned to read were all terrible imo.

fabk

The Fiery Cross came out during first year. I remember not doing anything school related when it came out.
Also lots of outdoorsy memoirs and first nation books. Some for school and some for fun.

Kate&Mark

The only thing I really remember reading in college were Richard Paul Evans's books. I still enjoy them.

I didn't read a lot for pleasure during college because I was so burnt out from required reading.