So what was it about James Fenimore Cooper? I read him as a young lad instead of the boring high school assignments, and the next time I heard his name was when Christopher Buckley started the famous feud of faxes with Tom Clancy, after naming him the most popular American bad writer Since JFC.
Well, in school, I hated ANY book I was FORCED to read. I would deliberately substitute Dostoyevsky for “Cheaper by the Dozen”, “A Separate Peace”, and “Goodbye Mr. Chips”. The mere fact that I was being forced to read these books was enough to make me NOT want to read them. But I always substituted a much more difficult (and LONG) book, so the teacher wouldn’t get mad at me. That was when i read, Dr. Zhivago, The Brothers Karamazov, et al.
It was just me. I was a rebel and hated school, but got all A’s.