AIBU to feel uneducated after coming across this list of 'Great Books' that HIGH SCHOOL students are meant to have finished??

[HopefulAnnie]

www.welltrainedmind.com/great-books/

Website is called Well Trained Mind as well haha!

I have read maybe 12 books here and have barely heard of the rest. I can't believe this is a high school reading list, I feel so thick but these books seem somehow advanced to me.

I'm going to try and start from the 9th grade and read a couple and work my way up.

How many of these books have you guys read?

I haven't read many of them but I feel I should now!

Is this an American list? I really wouldn't worry about it. Reading is about pleasure and I can assure you you will not get pleasure out of reading a whole load of books that hold no interest.

A book about spaniels or fingers would be more interesting.

I've only read about 30 of them and I have did English at uni!

American centered starting from “On American Taxation,” Burke (1774) onwards IMHO

It's very American though, I don't think the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin or the American constitution will ever make it onto our school reading lists.
I studied English language and literature up to a level, lots of shakespeare, dickens, Forster - put me off reading for life to be honest.
I do try and read the occasional 'classic' if they're free on amazon, but most of the time I prefer mindless trash.

When was that list produced? Only, in its list of books going up to the "present day", the latest seems to be dated 1982.

I sort of claim to have read 26 if we're not strict about the editions of Paradise Lost, Canterbury Tales etc. But there's an awful lot on that list which is laughable, and some gaping holes also.

Okay, I'm 55 and extremely well educated. Of the first list I have read ten books, 2nd)11. 3rd) 18 and 4th) 22.
Not bad, but by no means all of them. However, I think it's a stupid list and totally out of touch with reality. To expect year nines to enjoy and comprehend Ovid, Cicero and the like is unreasonable. These are books that most come back to when they are older. I allow that there are some exceptions, I read Virgil at about 14 and ds read Metamorphoses at 12, but we know we're unusual.
Even the sixth form list is out of touch, The Critique of Pure Reason? Really? Ridiculous. Although some are reasonable and certainly used at appropriate age here, for example The Lady of Shallot was on the GCSE English syllabus a couple of years ago.
I don't see the point in forcing young people to read 'worthy' books. If they enjoy reading, one thing leads to another and they'll come across them, in time.

too much bible and Mein Kampf, not enough actual literature IMHO.

QueenAnneofAustriaSpain I don't know if I agree that reading is about pleasure only, some books need to be read, don't you think?

Yes, it's an American home schooling classical education reading list, there are a few US centered ones, but I don't see the relevance to me in the UK, so I won't bother with them.

A very strange list even if it is American. I read Locke, Rousseau and de Tocqueville in my first year history degree at Oxford, so I think a real understanding of such texts would be beyond 99% of high school students and my God are they heavy going.

VeritataI'm interested in the gaping holes, what books are missing do you think?

It's not a literature reading list though, it is a list to provide a classical education to US high school students. It is pretty rare to have a classical education, so it's unlikely many people will have read many of them.

dawndonnaagain To expect year nines to enjoy and comprehend Ovid, Cicero and the like is unreasonable.

What makes you say that? Grade 9 in US is year 10 here I think, so 14/15 year olds, why not? I would have loved to have had a classical education!

A very strange list even if it is American. I read Locke, Rousseau and de Tocqueville in my first year history degree at Oxford, so I think a real understanding of such texts would be beyond 99% of high school students and my God are they heavy going.

Agree with mateysmum. The list is very odd in that the books are matched to to student's age by chronology. So there are some very challenging classical texts on the 9th grade list (Y10) while some more modern books that could be easily read and appreciated by much younger children, like Animal farm or Anne Frank's Diary, don't appear until the 12th grade list.

I also wonder whether, if pupils are reading all those books, they will find time to do there actual school work.

It looks very American and very odd. I'll work out later which I have read, which will be considerably less than half but can I mention for extra points I read Metamorphosis in Latin?

Beowulf isn't written in Modern English, so how are you supposed to read it?

Grading by difficulty would make far more sense than chronology. It's like Gove's daft history curriculum that has to be taught in the order things happened.

The intro says the ninth grade list is the shortest, the twelfth-grade list the most complex

But in an effort to make the ninth grade list short, they've left out most of the Bible. I'd have thought at least one of the Gospels would make it. If the aim of the list is an understanding of themes and references in later works, then an understanding of the Gospels is key to so much future art and literature - including a lot of the books on their list!

And, OP, if you start from the beginning of the list, you wouldn't really be working your way up, you would simply be working your way forward. The list would have been more useful if organised by level of difficulty. Trying to read most of the books from start to finish outwith any sort of context or background knowledge would be very challenging and frustrating. If you really feel you missed out on a classical education, you would be better off enrolling on a A level ancient history course.

I must be thick as pig shit. I couldn't even read the reading list without my ears bleeding.

That is such a wanky list.

I thought I was doing quite well, reading the ninth grade list, as I've read most of it (no clue who William Davis is, though, but I have at least attempted everything else). But, er, I did Latin and Greek A Level and have been teaching undergrads about Greek tragedy. Like fuck should high school students read all of that.

I do love that they randomly recommend the abridged edition of Thucydides- cos, of course, it'd be absurd to try the full version! That'd be strenuous and unrealistic like the rest of the list!

Anyway, then I got to the other grades and gave up. I will never be an educated high school student. Life is just far too short.

And they've mis-dated at least one of the medieval texts.

I am pretty well-read, but I have no problem dismissing a list so stuffed with rich white dudes and MEIN KAMPF, for heaven's sake!

Utterly daft list- most of the very old writings on there are fair enough to be aware of (ie to know they exist and roughly what they are about), but are by no means essential to read in the original. I might read them if I lived to be 403, but then again, I need to finish the internet first.

As I said, Hopeful there are exceptions.

Way too American based.

Bit of Genesis, Lady of Shallot, Animal farm and I don't care. It's a ridiculously pretentious list.