Today’s topic for Hype or Like Friday is Books That Made Me Want To Read.
Hype or Like Friday is a weekly meme created by Jill @ Rant and Rave About Books, Larkin @ Wonderfilled Reads, and Britt @ Geronimo Reads.
Here are seven books that I read in school that inspired me to read more.
Click on the title to go to Goodreads.
- The Crucible by Arthur Miller. The Salem Witch Trials come to life in this play. As a kid, I doubt I understood the McCarthyism undertones. I’d like to re-read this one now that I’m older!
- The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. What a powerful short story this is. Everyone should read this.
- The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hester Prynne. The letter “A”. Here’s another one I’d love to re-read sometime.
- All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. Set during World War I, this is one of the most powerful books I’ve ever read about warfare.
- The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe. Such a haunting short story.
- The Fisherman’s Lady by George MacDonald. I need to re-read this and continue on reading all of George MacDonald’s works.
- A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. My favorite Dickens book, and it stands up to multiple re-reads.
So those are the books that I read in school that inspired me to read more. They all seem to be a bit dark and twisty. I read happy books in school too, but I just didn’t gravitate to those as much as these ones here.
And come back for next Friday’s topic: Hyped Books I Was Forced To Read In School
How about you? Which books did you read in school that inspired you?
luvtoread 
I love that you mentioned Remarque… I also read ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ in school first and have been a huge fan of his books since then… Love this book and Remarque!
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All Quiet on the Western Front is such a powerful read! I keep meaning to read more of his works, that’s the only one of his that I’ve read.
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Other books by him are really good too… I do recommend 😀
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Oh good – I need to look into them! Thank you!
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I read The Crucible back in school as well, but I really didn’t appreciate it much back then. So I’m planning to re-read this as well 🙂
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I definitely think I’d appreciate it much more now than when I read it in school. I did really love it then, and wonder if I’d feel the same now! 🙂
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Wow, those are some pretty heavy titles that got you reading!! But whatever works!! You must be a high level reader.
I was more persuaded by Lois Lowry and Stephen King, I’ll admit. ☺️
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I didn’t really read any contemporary books for school until I got to college! Looking back now, that seems a bit odd… but it just happened to be what the teachers taught us.
I need to read Lois Lowry – I haven’t read any of her stuff. And Stephen King is I think a bit too scary for me 🙂
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Yeah, I can’t read him now…I can’t handle the fear. Because his books ARE scary! But Lowry? You gotta read Number The Stars or The Giver: both are excellent. And The Giver is now part of a four book series!
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Thank you for the recommendations! I’ve heard really good things about The Giver 🙂
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I think you’ll like it…and especially since the series is finished now…versus the 10 year series hiatus!
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Heavy classics! 🙂 I admire that, I’ve never been very good with classics. I wish there was a key to enjoy them more
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I don’t know what the key is – I know a lot of people don’t enjoy the classics, but I love them. Nowadays when I read a classic, I usually just read one on my lunch break and keep the classics in small doses. And I really look at them as being classics for a reason, and I’m always trying to figure out what that reason is (characters, plot, writing style, etc). It’s funny how sometimes you can read a classic and then come across a quote or a scene that you’ve heard of for years but never knew where it came from! 🙂
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I haven’t read any of these. Scarlet Letter and Dickens have been on my list for a long time.
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Oh they are so good. Classic characters and plots. The short stories I listed (The Lottery, The Tell Tale Heart) are really excellent – you might really like them! I think you can find them for free to read online on different websites – they are both really short and are classic short stories.
And this comment went into spam 😦 so I tried to set you free!
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That’s good to know I can get some for free. Oh, no! I’m still a spammer. A few bloggers couldn’t even find my comments. It’s so weird what’s happening with the spam. Thanks, Ami! 🙂
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I like The Tell-Tale Heart! It’s good. 🙂
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Isn’t it great?? So creepy!!
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Yeah. And even if it is kinda short, you can feel the emotions on it.
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For sure! Poe was such a master – I really love his work.
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The first that I really remember beyond the scores of books read in elementary school, is Little Women which I read by choice in middle school. For some reason this really resonated with me and gave voice to the spiritual side of me who like Jo, yearned to be good and conquer her shortcomings (for her it was her temper). The next important read for me was Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. It opened my eyes to British literature and the wonderful worlds of Dickens, the Brontes, Elizabeth Gaskell and more. But I think why I love to read is because we always had books to read at home and my friends and I in the summertime would do the reading program through our local library. There used to be a small library near enough to my home so that my friends and i could ride our bikes there. 🙂
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Love that story about biking to the library – what a fun memory!
And your classic reads are all wonderful books!! 🙂
I don’t really remember reading books in elementary school. I remember reading Babe for school, but that’s really it…
I need to re-read Little Women, and then go on to read the rest of the books in that series. There are so many classics out there that I need to read!!
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Really great list of classics. I read the Lotterty and was literally blown away by the story. Also Tell-Tale Heart was scary good. I think I read all of those books in school.
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Thanks! The Lottery is written so well, and is so memorable. And The Tell-Tale Heart was just so creepy. I don’t usually read short stories, but these two have stuck with me!
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Quite a few classic titles there. For some reason, its the serious/sad ones that stay for long in the mind, no?
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Yeah, I agree. There’s more to them than just a happy book it seems. I don’t really remember reading non-classics for school. I must have in elementary school, but I can’t remember any! I remember a bunch I read outside of class…
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My school library also had classics mostly. Old, hardbound books with frazzled edges. They do inculcate a love for reading in the reader.
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Yeah, there’s so much history there! And the plots are so wonderful.
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