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My most hated RR in school was The Hatchet, a cold & heavy book about a woman's travels in search of her lost and suspected murdered shepherd husband. Now it's my most beloved bit of Romanian lit, a mix of travel documentary, murder mystery, and revenge thriller, like a wintery pastoral True Grit.

1984 - and it's pretty undeniably great to me. Arthur Miller's "A View From The Bridge". Wasn't into it. Thought it might have been my age, but no, I don't really care for it.

I loved all the Shakespeare, The Bell Jar, The Catcher in the Rye ( I seem to be alone in this opinion- but it spoke to me as a weirdo kid) Hated all the Hemingway and O’Henry.

I think the standout books were “All My Sons” by Arthur Miller and “Equus” by Peter Shaffer. But I enjoyed most of the books except Thomas Hardy’s “Far From the Madding Crowd”…

UK. O Level, late 80s. Macbeth, Jane Eyre, Great Expectations, some poetry anthology. Hated them all. Arms and the Man, Pygmalion, The Importance of Being Earnest. Loved these. There were many more, but as I can't even remember them it's safe to say they didn't make an impression.

UK. O level Eng Lit.'78 Loved: My Family and Other Animals. " Great Expectations. " Hobson's Choice (Play) Hated: Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man.

Great Expectations. Dickens. Memoirs of a Foxhunting Man. Sasson. Lucky Jim. Amis My Family and other Animals. Darrell. Play was Hobson's Choice by Harold Brighouse.

GCSE: An Inspector Calls, Romeo and Juliet, Journey's End/WWI poetry. Surely there was a novel but I don't remember. A level: Persuasion, Mayor of Casterbridge, John Donne, Antony and Cleopatra, Paradise Lost bks 3,4. Loved Milton, hated Hardy though even then I could see it was a good exam txt.

Loved: Portrait of the Artist Macbeth Hamlet R&J Catcher in the Rye Their Eyes Were Watching God All the Kings Men Of Mice & Men To the Lighthouse Jane Eyre Hated P&P at the time but love it now Appreciated: Brave New World Jude 1984 Hated: Wuthering Heights Huck Finn Mill on the Floss Rebecca

I did English Lit up to age 16, passing my GCSE in 1990. Favourite texts: To Kill A Mockingbird, Romeo & Juliet Most hated book: Lord Of The Flies

Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon - a wonderfully written story (keep going through first couple of chapters to get used to the Scots language). The book I have reread the most. Shakespeare - did not enjoy any of it!

Wuthering Heights was so awful that I’ve still not read the full thing. Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Frankenstein were *way* more fun.

I loved this. Dylan Thomas, TF Powys, Hemingway. Loved the Katherine Mansfield story about a young woman’s first Ball. Patrick O’Brian’s Samphire. Top stories!

Loved my A level English books, Middlemarch by George Eliott, The Dubliners by James Joyce, the poems of Robert Frost. Hated Milton Paradise Lost (O level)

@tenebrouspress.bsky.social My GCSE English Literature texts were Far From the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy. Didn’t like it at the time but really love it now. Macbeth, William Shakespeare. Good fun whenever. A collection of 19th and 20th Century verse. (1/2)

As for set books I hated... Very hard to say. Browning left me cold/bored, but there was little I really detested! "The Lord of the Flies" and "Animal Farm" both scared me so much I could never revisit them beyond a certain point in each (Piggy's glasses; Boxer's death), but I admired them hugely.

We read E.M. Forster, "The Celestial Omnibus & Other Stories." Loved it so much I read all of Forster at 13/14 (incl. his home-erotic pieces, innocently recommended by the local library 😂). Loving "A Passage to India" got me through my Cambridge interview :) Loved Milton's Samson Agonistes, too.

From most loved to least loved Snow Crash Angela's Ashes Alas, Babylon Their Eyes Were Watching God Persepolis The Giver Animal Farm A Doll's House Flowers for Algernon Jurassic Park Julius Caesar Death of a Salesman

Favourites were Ash on a Young Man's Sleeve, Romeo and Juliet and the Selected Poetry of RS Thomas. Worst was Persuasion.

Loved: A Hundred Years of Solitude, Beloved, Hamlet, Walden, Moby Dick, La Dama del Alba, poems by Lorca and short stories by Borges Indifferent or worse: The Crying of Lot 49, The Painted Bird

Ugh... I had to read stuff like "Kes", and "Silas Marner" which just switched off my brain entirely. It improved when I got to read William Golding's "Lord of the Flies" though at least!

Sunset Song, by Grassic Gibbon. I remember it was engaging, but wish I'd made the connection to my Grandfather's generation at the time (he fought in WWI and was a tenant farmer in NE Scotland. Recently went back to read the full Scots Quair, plus Nan Sheperd and Neil Gunn.

I remember liking Of Mice And Men, The Bloody Chamber, Wuthering Heights, The Crucible. Really didn't like Wuthering Heights. Such a depressing and mean-spirited book. There's a reason most adaptations only do the first half. Enjoyed the others. I much prefer Charlotte Bronte's work.

The ones that stick out for me, for good (+) or bad (-): The Stranger (+), Rebecca (+) A Tale of Two Cities (++), MacBeth (++) Huckleberry Finn(+), The Theban Plays (++), Orestes (+) Great Expectations (- -), The Scarlet Letter (-)

The Tempest, Of Mice and Men, Macbeth, Great Expectations, Wuthering Heights, Death of a Salesman, Emma, Pride & Prejudice, Mansfield Park, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Life of Galileo, Mother Courage. Hope I'm remembering that right, @firhillista.bsky.social.

I remember my reading being The Bell Jar, The Poems of Seamus Heaney, Othello, The Wasp Factory and we skimmed over the Handmaids Tale as well. We had a wicked pair of English Teachers.

I remember reading a handmaids tale but the teacher made it out to be this entirely out of touch wasteland novel that had nothing to do with the current world…

Liked: MacBeth, Hamlet, The Great Gatsby Loathed: Madame Bovary, Ethan Frome, The Scarlet Letter Fine but certain I don’t ‘get it’: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Most hated: The Pearl. Just an irredeemably depressing novel to assign to 13 year olds. I do not know what they were thinking. I can't really say I loved much. Ethan Frome stuck with me enough that I read some Wharton of my own volition later. But "depressing" definitely seemed to be the theme.

Loved Animal Farm as a kid, then we dissected every little piece of it as we read it line by line over the course of an entire excruciating year in class. Have not been able to read it since.

A Farewell to Arms. I didn't finish it, read it as an adult, and the last ten pages put me through the wringer like nothing else I had ever read. I hated Hemingway for doing it to me, still I had to admire the Hell out of him. You couldn't pick a better book to convince teenage girls not to have sex

A FAREWELL TO ARMS was, but I was a slow reader and never finished it. Never really required to read many books in high school. I read it later. If you are looking to discourage teenage girls from having sex, you couldn't do better than this book. The last ten pages really put me through the wringer

As a UK person, some highlights were Shakespeare (A Midsummer Night's Dream, Macbeth, Hamlet), Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice, Emma), A Streetcar Named Desire and Larry's Party. Lowlights included The Duchess of Malfi, Of Mice and Men, and an incredibly depressing anthology of war poems.

Loved the Shakespeare (Romeo & Juliet), ambivalent about Steinbeck (Mice and men), didn’t enjoy the Dickens (Great expectations), and was put off poetry for life (an anthology of 20th century American poets). Not sure it was the books per se, but the way we were forced to analyse them line by line…

Off the top of my head, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, The Waste Land, a selection of War poets... there were probably more books but those are the ones I remember.

The only non-classic book I had to read (two years in a row!)was The Outsiders. Teachers were obsessed with that book but I absolutely hated it.

Texas in the early 00s: Loved The Odyssey, A Separate Peace, Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Their Eyes Were Watching God (technically this was for the lit competition) Loathed A Farewell to Arms, David's story from The Bible, All the King's Men

Not every book, but I remember Katherine Anne Porter's Ship of Fools being a pleasant surprise (genre wise it wasn't my thing at the time, now it is) and Catcher in the Rye being an absolute slog - not a difficult read, I just have feelings on Holden Caufield.

The Go-Between, which I remember as being good, but have had no interest in reading it again. I'm slightly perturbed by how few I can remember... -Chaucer, the Prologue and The Pardoner's Tale (Canterbury Tales) -Measure For Measure -First World War poetry -North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell

We had to read The Hobbit, Lord of the Flies, Macbeth. Probably more, but I remember these for being a hard slog and not my cup of tea at all. (Plus I process the written word slowly, so that might also have had something to do with it!).

Lots of Shakespeare, including Macbeth for O'level and Hamlet/King Lear for A'level. Jane Austen: P&P, Emma, Persuasion. Hardy: Mayor of Casterbridge. T S Eliot: The Wasteland. Miller: Death of a Salesman. Sean O'Casey: 3 Irish plays. Wilde: Importance of being Earnest. Asorted poetry.

We did Pride and Prejudice (hated then, love now), Macbeth (loved), Far from the Madding Crowd (hated) and can’t remember the other one.

None. We got to pick what flavor English & I picked Creative Writing, How to do a Term Paper, Grammar (we had to do that a semester) and something like that. I'd have taken AP English 12th grade but I dropped out (to go to college early).

I remember having a strong negative reaction A Separate Peace and Ethan Frome. Effing loved John Steinbeck, though. Still do.

Sorry I'm late to class, Sir: Macbeth, Othello, Ant&Cleo, Julius Caesar, The Miller's Tale, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, 1984, A Farewell to Arms, Sons and Lovers, Heart of Darkness Poetry: Plath, Ed.Thomas... ... and others I can't even remember being on the list!

I remember loving Glass Castle a lot. I'm like 80% sure this was high school and not middle school.

Hamlet (loved it, still my fave Shakespeare) Othello (loved) Doctor Faustus (loved) Of Mice and Men (it was fine?) So much WW1 poetry (still vaguely traumatised) Twelfth Night (hated the teacher, hated the play)

Thought I would hate Jane Austen, but loved Emma. Surprisingly enjoyed Wreck Of The Deutschland. View From The Bridge and All My Sons was life-changing. Loved Robert Frost. I suspect I’ve forgotten the things I hated.

Y11: Romeo and Juliet, The Return of the Native, Juno and the Paycock, Nine Modern Poets (a book I bought again as an adult). Y13: don’t remember anything other than Richard II, Antony and Cleopatra and Tess of the D’Urbervilles - the book that made me vow never to read another Thomas Hardy novel.

Z for Zachariah

Speaking as an Oklahoman, we never read an entire book. Just excerpts. We got close with To Kill a Mockingbird.

The only things I remember are One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich, and the poetry of Edward Thomas and Seamus Heaney. Denisovich I liked. And today I love poetry but… not those two.

I loved Frankenstein, The Outsiders, Rumble Fish, A Comedy of Errors, Children of the Dust & Keats. And absolutely hated The Hobbit. It was actually the only book I didn't read during high school.

Listings I recall them: Catch-22 - loved Great Gatsby - hated Catcher in the Rye - meh Great Expectations - couldn't get into, got by on spark notes Tale of Two Cities - Loved Lord of the Flies - liked To Kill a Mockingbird - liked Of Mice and Men - liked Romeo & Juliet - liked Hamlet - liked

Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon for Higher English in the 80s. I absolutely loved it - you could hear a pin drop in class as we were all so absorbed in it. It inspired my sons' names and my career choice.

O-level: Macbeth, Scottish poems, Great Expectations A-level: Romeo and Juliet, Anthony and Cleopatra, Thomas Hardy’s poems, Saint Joan, Passage to India, CT Prologue and Franklin’s Tale

Lord of the Flies showed up on my 7th, 8th, and 9th grade required reading lists. I hated the book the first time I read it so I never read it more than once.

Of Mice & Men, tore right through that. Brilliant. Jonathan Livingston Seagull. 🥱 perhaps a reread. The Chrysalids. 🫥 Total blank on the plot. Old Man and the Sea . 🥱 at the time but deserves a reread.

Of Mice and Men The Long and the Short and the Tall Kes They are the only ones that come to mind but there must have been more.

Most hated was 'Venture to the Interior' by that fraud Laurens van der Post. Most loved was 'Ten Twentieth-century Poets' which introduced me to Auden, Eliot and Yeats amongst others. I still have a copy and read it.

Sons and Lovers. God, I loathed it. On and on and on about bloody Clara's bloody shoulders. Never got near finishing it. I can't remember being given anything that I was interested ested in or connected with.

Hated Lord of the Flies, The Prelude and The Rainbow. Adored Bleak House, Hamlet, Othello and Chaucer’s Wife of Bath.

Shakespeare -> Loved Hamlet/Othello, loathed Twelfth Night. Loathed Canterbury Tales initially but enjoyed it in the end - can still quote it ;-)

Ethan Fromme and Moby Dick loom large in bad memories of material that didn’t suit the audience at all

This is interesting. In Australia (not that you asked), I don't remember a ton of them, although I can tell you what we have at our school now. We had Gatsby. I hated it. Old Man and the Sea. Loved it. Tomorrow When the War Began. Loved it at the time. Less so now. Strange Objects. Still do.

Under Milk Wood, A Christmas Carol, Heroes (Cormier, 1998). I think maybe also Holes though we might have done that in Y9 rather than Y10-Y11. Romeo and Juliet. A poetry anthology.

It was the 1970s,I loved Death of a Salesman, Arnold Wesker's Roots, and T S Eliot, Prufrock and the Waste Land I wasn't that keen on Animal Farm, but there was nothing I loathed. Loved La Peste for French A level too.

I renember having to read Shakespeare's Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet and after that we moved onto John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. I also read Homer's Iliad, Odyssey and Virgils Aenead. Loved Macbeth, The Iliad and The Odyssey. Liked Of Mice and Men and Virgils Aenead. Disliked Romeo and Juliet

Not a complete or accurate list: The Great Gatsby, Dubliners, Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, Dandelion Wine, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, To Kill a Mockingbird… The only one I have fond memories of is The Grapes of Wrath.

Great Expectations, A Wizard of Earthsea, Canterbury Tales, Mayor of Casterbridge, Shakespeare (Caesar, A&C, Macbeth), Of Mice and Men. Wizard of Earthsea really stood out as a deep riff on life that really connected with us as kids.

UK - Wilfred Owen came up relentlessly from age 10 to 18, it became just like wallpaper. Years later I borrowed a war poetry anthology from the public library - in that context, reading Owen was like having my fingers stuck into an electrical socket. He was extraordinary.

I loved To Kill a Mockingbird and the Crucible, and all of the Shakespeare we read. I didn’t quite love but was okay with Death Comes for the Archbishop. I hated Slaughterhouse 5, Lord of the Flies, and Kon Tiki.

I'm still angry about having to read Silas Marner. Doesn't even have an ending. Absolute waste of eye energy. Lord of the Flies helped me discover colour coding for quotes, so that was quite good. Piggy was pink.

U.K. here. O-level: Brave New World, Wuthering Heights, To Kill A Mockingbird, Macbeth (yay!), Julius Caesar (ugh) and others I’ve forgotten. A-level: Silas Marner, Emma, Dr Faustus, King Lear (yay), Paradise Lost (boo). I think the Millers Tale cropped up at some point too.

I had Medieval, American & World Lit classes so here's an edited list: Anna Karenina Scarlet Letter 1984 Animal Farm Odyssey Chanson de Roland Once and Future King Beowulf Lord of the Flies Various poets Detested Anna Karenina & Scarlet Letter Loved Once and Future King, Animal Farm & the poets

I'm old enough that we had to read Huckleberry Finn. What a gift that was. Later, we read Martian Chronicles by Bradbury. My least favorites were Old Man and the Sea and Catcher in the Rye. I actually liked Scarlet Letter and Lord of the Flies.

Vanity Fair, King Lear, Volpone, To The Lighthouse, Coming Up For Air, Much Ado About Nothing, Auden, Owen, Sassoon . . . don’t remember what else but loved them all.

I disliked The Picture of Dorian Gray. I LOVED The Cherry Orchard.

I loved Heart of Darkness, hated The Scarlet Letter. Loved Twelfth Night, hated Romeo & Juliet (NOT a friggin' love story).