Heh, that's exactly how I read Red Badge of Courage

I was trying to remember what we covered in senior year, I think it was AP English although I'm not sure if I took the test or not. Probably did, I think I took everything I could. But the only thing I remember reading for sure that year is King Lear, and I mostly remember that because I dragged my long-suffering mother to see Ran

My favorite high school reading assignment was Willa Cather's My Antonia.

I don't recall Austen being offered in high school but I do remember Wuthering Heights was an option for selection.

I was an English major in college but I mostly studied poetry. Year long class on Shakespeare (incredible professor), semester on the English sonnet (so...lots more Shakespeare), Romantic poets (loved discovering Wm. Blake, which whenever I see his name I now exclaim it like Susan Sarandon in Bull Durham), and an individual study on William Yeats with my favorite professor (she also taught the Sonnet class). I also did two creative writing classes, one on poetry and one on fiction. I put one of those to use and won a poetry prize at Kenyon my senior year.

But when I graduated and moved to Boston I read so many novels. I was hungry for them. Memorably read One Hundred Years of Solitude while temping a very slow desk job at Harvard Business School.

Favorite Junior High Reading Assignment: To Kill A Mockingbird.

That one thread on Bluesky that is the the best thing on the internet, for reference.

No Jane Austen for me until college, when I had to read Emma for Freshman Lit.

Thank you, Scola! Links are hard.

In school, Antonia was a book report. I took a class in the Brontes at the university, but I think my mom was the one that recced both JE and P&P first. Maybe Sense etc. was also a book report.

I know we talked about Willa Cather and My Antonia was mentioned but we didn't read it. Must have read something by her, though. Maybe an excerpt of something or other.

I told ltc I’d try to finish reading A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Friday when we’re supposed to watch the movie, but I find myself really not caring about Snow’s dramatic backstory. Someone encourage me to read it.

I read both prequels last year and heartily recommend both. Songbirds is not nearly good as Sunrise on the Reaping and falls off a bit at the end, but it justifies itself I think. Sunrise is a better prequel to the trilogy though.

We had a whole year of English Lit in high school (junior year) and I don't think Jane Austen was even mentioned. Or the Brontes. I do see people mentioning reading her in school, is that common?

We didn't read either. Since they don't really answer to anybody, prep school teachers make for very eclectic reading lists. British lit could be anything from Smiley's People to Moll Flanders. And I think everyone is aware by this point that I was assigned Mrs. Dalloway in high school. My favorite book from high school was probably Moby-Dick. Or maybe One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

I read Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre on my own (before high school I think). Can't remember when I first read Austen. But I took a night class on all her novels just for fun after college.

When that Guardian list came out a few months ago I was amazed how many of the books I had read (as a teenager) were not actually read in school.

My favorite high school reading assignment was Willa Cather's My Antonia.

Speaking of which, I'm glad they finally updated the list and put this gem (which sadly I did not read in school) at its proper place: [link]

I guess I need to update my spreadsheet.

There was no Austen or the Brontes for me until 19th century British lit in college. My high school teachers tried to assign things the boys would agree to read.

I don't think I was ever assigned Jane Austen in school. Would have preferred it to Thomas Hardy.(Got assigned Return of the Native and Tess of the D'Urbervilles, in a way that sucked any possible enjoyment out of them.)

I think we read Hardy but IIRC only poetry.

I should probably disclaim that we went through 3 or 4 subs at the beginning of the year before a permanent teacher was hired and every one of them had us read Beowulf (or an excerpt from, probably, the same excerpt over and over) so probably some of the later curriculum got cut for time. You would think I would know a lot about Beowulf after that but I absolutely do not.