[GOP_Party_Animal]

High school books I was forced to read, and still think are stupid in my adulthood:
1. Catcher In The Rye. Dumb.
2. Death of a Salesman. Pointless.
3. Grapes of Wrath. Depressing and pointless.

Books I hated in high school but now appreciate:
1. 1984
2. Animal Farm
3. Brave New World.
All three of these sensitized and prepared me for modern-day liberalism.

[Revolting cat!]

Beat ya by 0.000001 of a second!

[Tanniker Smith]

Did you read "A Separate Peace".
Hated it.

And I think I read it twice -- read it in college to see if it still sucked.

I really don't remember "Catcher in the Rye".

[Disambiguator]

2. Death of a Salesman. Pointless.

I hated that book as well. I'm not sure why that story appeals to so-called "intellectuals.". Do they glory in stories about futile angst? Does it make them feel superior?

You know it's bad when it's been made into a movie no fewer than FIVE TIMES.

[LongTimeMILurker]

I read at least 5 out of 6 of those, GOP.

After trying to read The Iliad and finding it unnecessarily confusing (too many nicknames that made no sense), I had to get a watered down version to get anything out of it, plus Cliff’s Notes. Same with The Odyssey.

The most overrated book I ever read is Moby Dick. If not for a two week teacher strike, I don’t think I could have done anything but use Cliff’s Notes. My teacher (who died late last year, rest his soul, and who had been run out of Birmingham by none other than Bull Connor) was great when school returned. He was extremely impressed that I had made the effort to read Moby Dick during the strike. Almost no one else bothered. He gave me the grade book to fill in zeros for many of the rest of the class. I declined that offer.

[VOA]

High school books I was forced to read, and still think are stupid
in my adulthood:
...
3. Grapes of Wrath. Depressing and pointless.

Yes, depressing and pointless.

Unless you have family members that lived in Depression-AND-
Dustbowl-Era Oklahoma.
(I'll not mention the economic devastation in Colorado, Kansas, Texas,
and other adjoining states as I have no family in those areas that
experienced the Great Depression and Dust Bowl eras.)

This is when about 50% of the population of Oklahoma left
OK in order to avoid impoverishment. Or even starvation.

I don't agree with all of Steinbeck's outlook in the book.
BUT, when you've worked hard for decades, your farm is repossesed
in an major economic downturn, and you have to hit the road in
1920-1930's used cars/trucks...
things might look a bit different.

As much as I disdain today's Democratic-Socialists...
and as ineffective/dangerous as some of FDR's programs were...
it's amazing the USA didn't blow up or turn into a North-American
version of the USSR.

[Revolting cat!]

3. Grapes of Wrath. Depressing and pointless.

Actually, it's much worse than that. It's an American version of socrealist art, or agitprop. Steinbeck was a Stalin sympathizer. John Gardner has a devastating (non political) analysis of it in one of his manuals on fiction writing. It is propagandistic trash from beginning to end.

[Fiji Hill]

1. Catcher In The Rye. Dumb.
2. Death of a Salesman. Pointless.
3. Grapes of Wrath. Depressing and pointless.

When I was in high school in the late 1960's, " young adult" books such as Catcher in the Rye and The Outsiders weren't assigned in English classes, as they are today, but many of my fellow students read them on their own. However, having some rather odd literary tastes for a teenager, I read books such as:

• Way of a Fighter by Claire L. Chennault, (New York: G. P. Putnam's, 1947), the memoirs of the commander of the US Fourteenth Air Force, which operated in China during World War II

• The Great Pacific War: A History of the Japanese-American Conflict of 1931-33 by Hector C. Bywater (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1932), the story of an imaginary war that eerily resembled the real one that broke out a decade later

• Up Ship by Charles E. Rosendahl (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1931), a book by the commander of the airships USS Los Angeles and USS Akron, which argued the case for building rigid airships. All of these books are now collector's items--Up Ship goes for $250-300 on the American Book Exchange website.

  Death of a Salesman isn't so pointless if you're a leftie like its author, Arthur Miller, but some conservatives also like it.

  I did have to read Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath in an English class, and I agree that it was overly depressing. I especially didn't care for its anti-conservative and anti-free enterprise bias. However, if it has stimulated in you an interest in the Okie diaspora in California, you might like Rising in the West: The True Story of an "Okie" Family from the Great Depression Through the Reagan Years by Dan Morgan (Dutton, 1992), a non-fiction story that provides a much more sophisticated and accurate portrayal of the Okie subculture tnan does Steinbeck's opus.

[airedale]

How about Miss Lonely Hearts.

[bootless]

ping

[Forgiven_Sinner]

My comments on your comments:

“High school books I was forced to read, and still think are stupid in my adulthood:
1. Catcher In The Rye. Dumb. “— I never identified with Holden Caulfield
“2. Death of a Salesman. Pointless. “Ditto
“3. Grapes of Wrath. Depressing and pointless.” Haven't read it, but have read Cannery Row and Tortilla Flat. Both are entertaining, but end on a down note.

“Books I hated in high school but now appreciate:
1. 1984 “ I found it the most depressing book I have ever read. Very valuable, when you realize he was depicting Soviet Russia.
“2. Animal Farm “ Another depressing book, in a more humorous vein. Again, the Russian Revolution in parable form.
“3. Brave New World. “ Extremely prescient, anticipating modern society and science.

I can't see the point of a “don't read” list. If the book's premise is crummy, or its writing is crummy, don't finish it.