Boring.books.in.schools...

btw
that's what Chuck Palahniuk said about the youngsters of today hating reading. kids don't like most books because they're boring to read. sometimes it's just painful to read endless descriptions of things that don't seem to really matter. you know, beating around the bush and never really getting to the damn point.
so what Chuck wanted to do was write in a way that was enjoyable to read and most importantly... NOT BORING.

so basically, it's all for the sake of the poor kids at school.

its funny because i get the same thing but i cant stand being forced to read. i like reading on my own. right now in class were reading romeo and juliet its so godddamn boring

karkamusi, you don't mean "Gulliver's Travels," do you?

I've a feeling (although I can't figure out from your profile) that your from a country where English isn't the first language (i.e. Italian?). If that's the book and you're reading it in translation, that's the problem. Because Gulliver's Travels is funny as fuck. Scathing political commentary very similiar to Chuck in a lot of ways.

I really have to go now. Really! Bye!

i have very un-fond memories of being subjected to Wuthering Heights in school. Then we find out, the year after we graduate- they had a Bladerunner/Brave New World comparative study.

yes, but there are some books that are good

the great gatsby
Anne Frank
Catchy in the rye
Of mice and Men

some good books.

The Great Gatsby was one of the assigned books in school that I actually enjoyed. Candide was good too.

Anyone ever have to read "A Separate Peace"? Yeesh.
'Catcher in the Rye' is a must-read for anyone a fan of Chuck, I would say.

I would say that Chuck in general - and Fight Club in poarticular - are direct descendants of Catcher.

I liked Candide & Gulliver. Seperate Peace was okay, but MY GOD, have you ever had to read "Ethan Fromme"? Jesus, the only book I ever read that was duller than "Scarlet Letter".

I agree totally on this subject. I am a Junior right now and there has not been a single goddamn book assigned to me that i didn't want to go back into time somehow and kick the author right in the frikkin' throat. We just finished reading the scarlet letter (actually I probably read a grand total of three chapters out of the entire thing before I felt an aneurism was comming on.)---We are reading The Great Gatsby later on this year, hopefully I will enjoy that.----I wish we could be assigned some of the books I thought we would be reading in highschool (Catch22, Slaughter-House Five, 1984, etc.) but since I am stuck in a basic English class and can't really pass any of the tests on 18th century realism bullshit I can't really move on. So I am ignorant, so be it, I really don't care about Shakespeare or Hawthorne. Also, was a Seperate Piece that mundane crap about the two kids who like to climb trees? Yea, I hated that too.

...I am babbling again so I will cut my speech on how much I love 18th century romantacism short.

Of Mice and Men was good.

The worst of all: Ethan Frome.

As standard a response as it is, "Catcher in the Rye" is stilll my favorite book in all the world, thirteen years after I first read it, and I've read it at least once a year since then.

i recently read an essay that claimed the reason so many schools assigned it was because it really enforced the idea of "stay in school and your life will be better", but I have NEVER gotten that from it. If anything, I've always thought that it stressed how school DOESN'T prepare you for real life.

I've gone off about it to more people than I can count, and of all the (material) things I've lost in my life, the first copy of "Catcher" that I ever had, complete with all sorts of underlinings, highlightings, and notes, is the one that hurts the most.

As an odd coincidence, I was actually making notes in it at the time someone made me watch "Conspiracy Theory". I was amused, they were annoyed.

catcher in the rye was probably one of the best books that i had to read for school. i've read it again every year since then. the great gatsby wasnt as bad as i thought it would be. i actually like shakespeare, and am probbaly the only one the my english class who does. a seperate peace was bad. ethan frome was far worse. quite possibly the worst book i've ever had to read. this year, i'm lucky. we get to choose our own outside reading.overall, i'd like to say that what shakespeare, tolkien and chuck are to books ive read recently are what marx, lenin and stalin are to russian communism.

I don't jave to read books for school. My teahers know that I have already read all the books they give me when I was 6, so they just tell me to continue reading whatever I'm reading (right now I'm reading Don DeLillo's White Noise).

I didn't like White Noise. It had a lot of good moments, but not
enough to save it.

I thought [u]The Crucible[/u] was funny as a motherfucker.

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by murderkitchen [/i]
[B]I didn't like White Noise. It had a lot of good moments, but not
enough to save it. [/B][/QUOTE]

Did you like the conversatiom between the main charector and Heinrich? The one about weither or not it was raining. And the way the main charector goes into another professor's room and everything the professor says about Elvis, he counters with soemthing about Hitler, and that something was always very similar to Elvis's life. I love those parts. They're awesome. I want to read Underworld.

The reason they have you read all those boring books in school is because those particular books were favorites of a past generation and have proven to be more than just "cereal box authorship". Personaly i think i enjoyed most of the books i read when i was in school, except Jane Eyre. Anyway, they don't have you read those books to necessarily enjoy them, but rather see where our culture has been, and if you'd like to apply that to chuck, see what has driven the idea of nihilist thought into the minds of people these days. but that's just my thought on the topic...

They are also nice to read thoughts. And were you directly speaking to me? The email I got said you were.

I've always felt that way about Dickens. He was the only school assigned author I didn't like. To this day I still don't care for organic plots.

i read underworld last year. i liked it, 'twas quite good. a lot of random moments, and it reminded me of a million different things. oh if only i had time to read...

I too like Shakespeare. [u]The Crucible[/u] was the awefulest book i've ever read. Godamn hilarious, though. [u]Lord of the Flies[/u] was stupid. Don't know why anyone likes that book. The ending was horrible.

I don't know about you guys, but right now i'm reading, for school, [u]The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn[/u] by Mark Twain. I enjoy that book.

But that's just me.

There is something to be said for reading the classics (Lord of the Flies NOT being one of them). My philosophy professor bitches about how they don't teach that anymore, how values are gone, virtues are nonexistant, etc... but it is a Nietzsche class.

Wait, I thought you were a professor?

Yep, but we get free tuition. I'm the Assistant Director at [URL=http://www.rwc.uc.edu/]Raymond Walters College[/URL] (University of Cincinnati) of the [URL=http://www.rwc.uc.edu/faculty_staff/academic_departs/media_services.htm]Electronic Media Communications Department[/URL] and teach classes in [URL=http://www.uc.edu/programs/viewprog.asp?CODE=28AAS-EMDT]Electronic Media Technology[/URL]. Although I'm looking to get out and move to New York. Academia is not my thing, not 'front-line' enough. Besides, I'm too young and the students too attractive. Anyone need a web developer in NY???

Aww, but teachers are awesome. They are two things you could do: One, Dennis lives in New York, but he has a web developer (I think). Two, come to San Fransico. Every one in the Bay Area needs a web develpor.

the WORST, THE WORST, book i've ever had to read is the original, unabridged Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe which is full of stooped discriptions of carving loges and so forthe compleat with the original olde Puritan misspellinges and Random Capitalisations. Oh, and it's racist, mysogynistic and filthy bloody imperialist too.

i wanted to claw my eyes out.

Lord of the Flies kicked ass.

i read the martian chronicles a few years ago, twas good, i liked it, but it wasnt for school. i just found it on a friends bookshelf

I think one problem is that school is making you read a book. There's no way that book could be good. It can be seen when people are surprised at being assigned a good book. I do see the point in assigning classics anyway, because they've lasted. We won't be seeing Danielle Steele or someone similar in 50 years on our kids' reading lists (at least I hope not).

I do sort of disagree with having kids read books that aren't interesting though, just for the educational purpose of it, like some classics. I think it's a little more important that people learn to love to read while they're younger, and then want to read classics on their own. A lot of the books mentioned in this thread, I've never had to read, but am looking into right now to read on my own. A lot of these books need an appreciation for the writing and process of reading, but kids still shouldn't start out on empty books.

I tried to read Catcher in the Rye a year ago, but couldn't get into it. I don't have any idea why. I really need to try again.

Anyway.

danielle steele should be burned. eugh.

it is important to learn to read, and to read classics, but i doubt it can really be taught. i'm the biggest bibliophile i know, and i taught myself. i think a love of reading is kind of a personality thing, and comes mostly from one's early childhood and parents reading to kids, etc.

before any child can learn to read they need to be taught patience. working in a library will show you that the reason they get videos rather than books is that they have no patience. and you can tell instantly what child is coming for books and what child is coming for videos because of their attitude and demeanor. children who come in at practically a run spouting off partial sentences and pretty much not standing still are definately not coming to grab a book.

videos and TV are the modern parents. ppl just plop their kids down in front of them and forget about them.

you know that commerical where the kid asks their parent what trees are? if parenting continues this on this trend, the kids won't even give a rats ass about trees.

seriously. they'll be more like, mommy? what's a vegetable? how come i can't go outside? why are men marching around outside with guns? why did the lady in the funny t-shirt get shot yesterday? look, that cloud looks just like a mushroom!!!"

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by trypdwyre [/i]
[B]before any child can learn to read they need to be taught patience. working in a library will show you that the reason they get videos rather than books is that they have no patience. and you can tell instantly what child is coming for books and what child is coming for videos because of their attitude and demeanor. children who come in at practically a run spouting off partial sentences and pretty much not standing still are definately not coming to grab a book. [/B][/QUOTE]

I'm sorry, but I can't agree with you at all on this.

I used to work in a bookstore, and while most of the kids that came in were pretty well behaved, the really hyper ones were, more often than not, just really excited to get new books.

my least favorite customer ever fit that mold. every fucking week he'd be in yelling at me three times normal speed for somethingorother, but i had to give him props for being so into reading.

Oh, yeah.

I taught myself to read when I was two or three years old.

Why?

Because I didn't like waiting around for someone else to have the time to read to me, and I wasn't about to spend a couple of years waiting for Kindergarten to come around so I could learn from someone else.

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Odd-Reigh [/i]
[B]I used to work in a bookstore, and while most of the kids that came in were pretty well behaved, the really hyper ones were, more often than not, just really excited to get new books.[/B][/QUOTE]
that's great, but you do realize the only reason people go into book stores is to read or buy books right? i work in a library, where they come in for any media material they want. so you're basing you're opinion on a very limited audience, which would be like me asking a bunch of women what it's like to have a penis. doesn't work out well...

[QUOTE][B]I taught myself to read when I was two or three years old. Why? Because I didn't like waiting around for someone else to have the time to read to me, and I wasn't about to spend a couple of years waiting for Kindergarten to come around so I could learn from someone else. [/B][/QUOTE]
good one on ya', but most kids do not have that kind of get up and go. my wife taught herself how to read also when she was young. i'm talking about average normal children, most of them do not have the ablility to teach themselves how to read. so Odd, thanks for the feedback.

[QUOTE]that's great, but you do realize the only reason people go into book stores is to read or buy books right? i work in a library, where they come in for any media material they want. so you're basing you're opinion on a very limited audience, which would be like me asking a bunch of women what it's like to have a penis. doesn't work out well...
[/QUOTE]

OKAY, boys...Kitty has worked at two libraries (one small one large, one suburban one metropolitan) and two bookstores (again one small one large, one corporate one hippie), so listen up!!!

the best way for a kid to learn to read is for their parents to read with/to them. even though i "taught myself" how to read at four, i wouldn't have if my mother hadn't read to me since i was practically a newborn.

there is an economic aspect to this no one has been addressing. yes, books at the library are free, but education and literacy are not. many adults don't have the "get up and go", wherewithal, interest, or experience in reading to see it as valuable. while more affordable than ever before, books and reading are still leisure/luxury items.

I haven't read any of the posts in this thread, but I'll have to say the worst stuff I've ever been forced to read in English lesson has been Shakespeare. I had to study it in year 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12. I am 17 now, and the reason I failed the English exams was because they gave me Shakespeare. They said they wantd me to pass, so why did they make me do it?

Suicide at it's best is a temptation, not a submission?!?!

Gary Gliter.

Pride and Prejudice was absolutely terrible, 1984 was really good but flew over too many kids heads, and Slaughterhouse Five was too historical for some kids in my school to comprehend. So they hate those books. Now they hate reading and watch reality TV shows like American Idol and Joe Millionaire and this is what is now standard for creativity, and these kids will one day lead our country..."pounding corn and laying strips of venison to dry in the empty carpool lane of an abandoned superhighway stretching eight-lanes-wide and August-hot for a thousand miles."...Chuck wrote that whole compelling speech because with this new idea of creativity that is passing through high schools, that speech may be more of a Nostrodamus prediction than just a brilliant, thought provoking monologue. Our country, our world, may crumble because of shitty books and shittier yet easier to understand reality TV series. Kids hate books. Boring books. The only reason I am making something of my life now is because my friend Ashley gave me a copy of Choke before my SAT's and said "read." I read Choke, my SAT score skyrockets 140 points. Now I am writing my own book and my friends noses are buried deep in the chapters I've written...cocaine snorting style if you need the visual, but they're reading and enjoying and giving me something to strive for now. And I used to hate reading before FIght Club, before Choke, Survivor, everything Chuck Wrote. It was a gateway.

If kids are forced to read Fight Club or Choke in school, this country would become a smarter place. It may seem like a stretch, but hey, the discovery of fire started with nothing more than a spark, and now look at the world.

Here, I think it's mad that your writing your own book from such a young age, good for you. Mind the publishing houses can be very brutal. I know someone who's been trying to get children's fantasy books published for 5 years now; I've read some of the chapters, and as far as I can tell there's nothing wrong with it, and I'd rather read all of her stuff than say, Harry Potthead & The Philosopher's Stones. No harm in trying though.
I think alot of these modernists like Chuck Palahnuik and Bret Easton Ellis (to a lesser extent) owe they're success in the 21st century to the film industry, and now there's a whole hive of people who are rying to equal them by writing about life inthe most digusting degrading form achieveable by pen of key boards. Fight Club wouldn't of been half as popular as it is now if say, it wasn't adapted by David Fincher, and the movie version of American Psycho interested that vegetarian hippie Roger Avary to adapt The Rules Of Atraction, and now he's planning on adapting Glamorama. Movie's do for books what lyposuction does for Sally Struthers, and commercialise the author's works in a way that couldn't be achieved through Billboards and signings. I was at the book store a month back, and this little brat was prattling on about how Lord Of The Rings is a great book, then went onto talk about the film. When I was about 12, I simply bought Goosebump books because it was a popular TV show, and I only read 1 out of 9 books. I'm not bad mouthing these people, but there's only a small majority of us who will be avid readers before reading all 6 of Chuck's books, idiots like me,a nd I'm only reading Invisible Monsters at the moment.

Feel the cult-- Michael Jackson

there are some really good books that school assigns.
1984
animal farm
all quiet on the western front
...

I fucking live in Pleasanton. It's so fucking pleasant here we would NEVER read good books in school.

the very first post on this thread made me laugh in a "the world is coming to an end way." karkamusi ranted about books he hated, got "Gulliver's Travels" wrong, and then his signature is "Don't criticize what you don't understand!"

Did that speak to anyone else in a very ironic way?

Anyway...the worst book I ever had to read for school was "Of Mice and Men," but I know the reason I hated it so much was because I didn't give it a chance. I read "Grapes of Wrath" in a bad place in my life and Steinbeck got kind of a bad association with me. The books I hated most, outside of school:

1. How Stella Got Her Groove Back
2. Angela's Ashes (hated it so very much)
3. Pretty much anything by John Irving
I do love to read, I taught myself when I was four, like Kitty. I used to always go around and tell people this was normal, cause that's what my mother used to tell me, that reading at four was normal. I was about 14 before I learned that this was not true.

I hate that goddamn [u]Awakening[/u] trash. It's stuff like that that makes me wish Bradbury's [u]Fahrenheit 451[/u] would come true.

omg, ap american lit, what will they think of next? ap serial killers. jee-sus. so glad i am not in high school. still, it might be better than j a i l !

What, praytell, makes AP Am Lit even closely comprable to serial killing?