5 books a prospective English lit degree student should read and have an opinion on...

[shoppingbagsundereyes]

My niece is choosing her a level options. She loves English and says she wants to do an English degree. Other than her set texts she doesn't read though. I have an English degree and at her age read obsessively, working my way through Hardy, Lawrenc, Austen etc. every book I offer dn she says is boring.
So some suggestions please so that I can make her a book list.

Has your niece asked you for a book list?

If not I suggest that you give her two books 1) a book you loved at that age which she hasn't read and 2) a book you buy in a bookshop having browsed around which you would really really like to read only you also think she would like to read it too so you buy two copies and chat about it when you have both read it.

You may find this interesting from the Oxford University website

English Literature
Interviewer: Lynn Robson, Regent?s Park College

Why do you think an English student might be interested in the fact that Coronation Street has been running for 50 years?

First and foremost this brings popular culture into the mix and also shows that techniques of literary analysis can be applied to other media. It could also open up discussion about things such as techniques of storytelling; mixing humorous and serious storylines/ characters; how a writer might keep viewers or readers engaged; collaborative writing; the use of serialisation, and how writers/texts might move from being perceived as 'popular' (like Dickens, say) to be 'canonical'.

Interviewer: Lucinda Rumsey, Mansfield College

Why might it be useful for an English student to read the Twilight series?

There's several reasons I might ask this one. It's useful in an interview to find some texts the candidate has read recently and the Twilight books are easily accessible and popular. Also, candidates tend to concentrate on texts they have been taught in school or college and I want to get them to talk about whatever they have read independently, so I can see how they think rather than what they have been taught. A good English student engages in literary analysis of every book they read. The question has led to some interesting discussions about narrative voice, genre, and audience in the past.

If she genuinely doesn't read she is going to absolutely hate it (if she gets in).

But assuming maybe she does read/like to read and is just being awkward (or loves poetry rather than novels, or feels pressured, or whatever), maybe just get her a shedload of Waterstones vouchers and tell her to buy some stuff?

Or offer her tickets to go see some Shakespeare at the RSC or the Globe? Maybe she'd enjoy that more?

I have to admit, one of the best things about having an English degree (for me) is that people assume you've read the literary heavyweights and don't judge you quite so much when you read trash less erudite works. You don't have to love novels, necessarily.

Sorry, I was so busy pontificating I didn't answer your question.

The thing I most often wish people had read is the Bible - not necessarily all of it but the gospels/Luke at least, Genesis and Psalms. Otherwise they just don't understand what's going on in so much literature. If she doesn't like novels and prefers poetry/drama, I would guess this would be more important than if she does like novels.

She really shouldn't be doing an English degree if she doesn't read. She will hate it. In my first week of my degree I had to read Hamlet and write an essay on it - all in one week.

I teach English now and struggle enough to get the non-readers through A Level. Utter madness for her to do a three year degree in the subject.

However, if she is still determined to do it, I would suggest that she read some of the texts she may be asked to tackle on the course (depending where she goes):

Something from Canterbury Tales.
One or more books of Milton's Paradise Lost.
A Shakespeare comedy, tragedy and history.
Another example of Elizabethan/Jacobean drama - The Duchess of Malfi or Dr. Faustus.
Some Metaphysical poetry, some Romantic poetry.
Some Gothic Lit.
An Austen.
A Victorian novel - Hardy, Dickens, Eliot or similar.
Rape of the Lock by Pope; Gulliver's Travels by Swift (to make sure she is comfortable with satire).
Beowulf (modern trans. by Heaney); Gawain and the Green Knight (modern trans. by Armitage)

Universities would be expecting her to be reading the more modern stuff that others have recommended as a matter of course - for pleasure.

That sounds like a pretty heavy list, realistically - she's only choosing A Level right now, isn't she?!

The Simpsons is satire. Isn't there something to be said about enjoying what you do? I mean, if she's choosing her options now, she has a year and a half before she has to choose what subject to do at university and she could easily change her mind or get a better sense of why she's drawn to English Lit. It'd be awful to put someone off just because they weren't that drawn to, say, Pope or gothic novels (nowt wrong with Pope or Gothic novels, you understand, but heavy going for lots of people. As is Chaucer in the original, IMO.)

The point of the list, though, is to give her a realistic idea of what a traditional English degree would involve - and the whole point is that she should enjoy reading and thinking about some of these texts over the next two years if an English degree is what she wants to do: if they put her off, then it's not the right degree for her.

Having taught lots and lots of teenagers of her age who did go on to do English degrees - these were the kind of texts they enjoyed reading and discussing at sixth form. I suppose it does depend on what university she chooses and what course she opts for: I did a v. traditional English degree at a v. traditional uni, and most of my students have opted for similar courses, but there are courses out there which are more modern in their content which might suit her. When you mention The Simpsons, it makes me think that maybe she might be more attracted to Media Studies, or Film and Drama, or maybe a joint honours combining English with something else.

This is a detailed description of the course and the modules it offers at Bath Spa University which might give her an idea of the kind of choices she would have at university level.

And this is Aberystwyth's course.

I did and love my English Lit degree at a reasonably traditional uni, and can honestly say there are very few things off that list I enjoyed at uni, never mind A level! I would say I enjoyed parts of Canterbury Tales and found them quite humorous, but hadn't read them before uni. I have never read Paradise Lost. I enjoyed Shakespeare's tragedies, but wasn't at all interested in the comedies or histories. I didn't really enjoy the other jacobean plays, though some had interesting parts. I've never liked poetry, unless it is modern poetry. The uni approved "gothic" novel I read and enjoyed most was Ian Rankin's Black and Blue. The only Austen I enjoyed at the time of studying was Northanger Abbey. I have since stretched that to include Pride and Prejudice. I enjoyed only two Hardy novels, and very little else from Victorian era. I didn't enjoy Rape of The Lock at all, and have still not read Gulliver's Travels. I read Beowulf and Gawain, and found them both quite tedious, though I did enjoy pulling them apart during discussions!!

I think it's unrealistic to say you have to read and enjoy these texts. I was a very successful literature student, I graduated with a good 2:1, bordering on a first I am still annoyed to have let myself down on a couple of modules which dragged my overall mark down The topics and literature I enjoyed the most were unusual ones, from less expected areas of literature. I don't think it's necessary to enjoy the texts on that list - it is important to be able to read them and form a good argument as to why you did or didn't enjoy them, what you felt worked or didn't and to criticise them in the context of other works of that genre. I think they have to get you fired up one way or another so you want to discuss them, even if you didn't like them.

Yes, Hobs - I phrased that badly by using the word 'enjoy' and you have expressed it much better. It's the being interested in the concerns they explore and the contexts in which they are written and so on that is important. Your last sentence has it spot on! And that's what I meant: that students I have taught have enjoyed reading those texts in order to be able to think about and discuss them even if they didn't enjoy them for their own sake.

Hobs, I know exactly where you did your degree (although you didn't take any of my modules, so don't panic!). Hope you enjoyed your time here.

Hello, if she wants to do English she definitely needs to enjoy reading! Otherwise as someone said up thread the work load will overwhelm her.

My list would be middlemarch by George Eliot, perhaps the best english novel.
Some Shakespeare - any Shakespeare, frankly.
The sound and the fury or grapes of wrath - see what a modern American can do with language
sense and sensibility - sibling rivalry austen style

And the bible! Seriously, she shd try the king James - genesis, psalms, Ruth, job, john's gospel, Corinthians, and revelations, or bits of these. For a start it is a lot more fun than it sounds, for a second the kj bible is essentially the foundation of all English literature and if you don't know it you will miss so much, and thirdly interviewers will be properly impressed if she can talk with enthusiasm about it.

Wow. sherlocked, you must have some stunning students. Btw - just checking you got this straight - I'm not the OP; the fact I mentioned the Simpsons was just me thinking out loud.

They really enjoyed reading the Canterbury Tales in the original at 15? Wow.

I do think that hobs has it right here - there is a big difference between enjoying a text in class, and reading it outside of class. My take on the OP was she wanted books 'other than' the set texts?

I think there is too much emphasis on reading and not enough on performance here - I was thinking, if you don't fancy Shakespeare in performance, I bet you could get tickets for some more modern plays?

Btw, these are mostly very 'male' lists we're coming up with - could that be the problem? She might want to look at Virginia Woolf, or Mary Wollstoncraft, or Caryl Churchill, Wendy Cope? Or novels by AS Byatt, Margaret Atwood, Penelope Lively?

I think as sherlocked says, we need to know if you want to shock her with a syllabus or if you want to encourage her to read outside her own current syllabus (or both). Both will be expected of English Lit students, but in slightly different ways.

Btw ... this is a really tiny thing and I'm not sure it matters for her at 15/16, but ... 'the kj bible is essentially the foundation of all English literature and if you don't know it you will miss so much, and thirdly interviewers will be properly impressed if she can talk with enthusiasm about it'

No. Any interview who's studied medieval literature will immediately with to kill her. Sorry.

Suppose the enthusiasm doesn't have to be of a positive light. LOL

campergirls Eeek! I'm slightly and panicked about having outed myself over my place of study!! I guess from your post you're a lecturer there, rather than an ex-student? I very much enjoyed my time there, I'm just disappointed I couldn't cram in more modules over the years!!

All this talk of English Lit degrees is making me want to go back to uni again!!

As you don't name the set texts I'll go with:-

East Of Eden by Steinbeck. It's long but beautifully written. Steinbeck is one of those rare writers whose books seem to have had glue applied to the covers as I never seem to be able to put them down.

How I Escaped My Certain Fate-The Life And Deaths Of A Stand-Up Comedian by Stewart Lee. Complete transcripts of 3 of his stand up shows with full annotation. The footnotes and references are longer than the shows.

The Hitchikers Guide To The Galaxy series by Douglas Adams and Eoin Colfer. Wonderful flights of fancy.

Every Dead Thing by John Connolly. An occasionally grisly and funny psychological crime thriller with superstitious undertones.

Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh. Hard going at first as you get used to reading in dialect. When you do get it, you realise what a cracking story it is.

yes, lecturer - if you're still in this part of the world, why don't you come back and do an MA...? You might get a Distinction that would assuage your frustration with your near-miss 2:1!

If she doesn't read outside the set texts, she shouldn't do an English degree. Agree with everyone who's said that. If she's 16 and doesn't read, she's not a reader and will be wasting her time and money. It's not like an English degree is much cop in the real world. I have one myself and, believe me, there are a lot of them about.

campergirls, I would love to come back and do an MA, but with an 8 month old baby to care for and the MH issues I'm currently battling with, it's nor very practical at the moment. I would love to do it one day though.

OP, does your neice watch films? If so, and they are film adaptations of novels / plays, it might be worth encouraging her to read the novels/plays they were based on. This might encourage her to think critically about what she is reading, as well as encouraging her to read something she is already interested in.

If you want to encourage her with Sshakespeare, then the BBC Shakespeare Retold adaptations are well worth a watch. They did 'Much Ado About Nothing', 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', 'Macbeth' and 'The Taming Of The Shrew'.

Thanks everyone for this comprehensive list, which I found helpful. An avid reader, I want to know the ending so had to register. Did the niece get to love reading? Did she get her English A level? And what happened in the end?

My eldest daughter is hoping to study either English or History at university and she loves:
"Farenheit 451" - Ray Bradbury
"Brave new world" - Aldous Huxley
"1984" and "Animal Farm" - George Orwell
Anything by Oscar Wilde (especially the play "The Importance of Being Earnest")
Edgar Allen Poe short stories (your niece might like these as they are gothic and horror based)
"Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" - Robert Louis Stevenson
Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew"
Any and all Jane Austen!
I think it's a case of finding a case of finding a particular genre of contemporary writing which they really love and then encouraging them to read classics written in the same genre, for example my DD loved "The Hunger Games" so began to read some classic dsytopian literature and became hooked!

A combined English Lang/Lit degree would be OK, I did this and studied only one module of literature but I love language. Additional modules could include creative writing. Children's literature too.

Otherwise Shakespeare, Wordsworth, McKay, the bro the sisters, James Joyce, Voltaire, they all came up. Loads more though

There's the BBC big read 100, I expect she can google this with ease.

I would recommend authors rather than individual books.

Margaret Atwood
Daphne du Maurier
Louis de Bernieres
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Toni Morrison
Evelyn Waugh
F. Scot Fitzgerald
Angela Carter
John Fowles
John Updike
Margaret Forster
Penelope Lively
Dorris Lessing
Kate Atkinson
Sarah Moss

Look at the Man Booker long lists.

At secondary school, apart from set texts, the only books i read were point horror! I didnt even read two of the books on my a level course. Im not a good example.