If you could require 5 books to be read (and tested) to graduate HS what would they be?

Animal Farm and 1984

You’re putting way too much faith in this generation to comprehend some of these books

Three required full courses on "The Black Book of Communism."

A Confederacy of Dunces

(John Kennedy Toole)

or of these two gems:

Once A Catholic ...

and

Always a Catholic

(Robert Byrne)

Gotta have some humor in there.

Animal Farm-

Meditations- Marcus Aurelius

Proverbs: Solomon

Band of Brothers

With the Old Breed

quote:

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1) The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien

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3 Books but I would have no problem with them being part of required reading since they're a great work of fiction. I actually did my senior term paper on him.

quote:

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2) Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand

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Right. Then these people would rather stab their own eyes out before ever reading another book again.

The richest man in Babylon.

/list.

Alas Babylon,
I am Legend,
Fahrenheit 451,
Do androids dream of electric sheep
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

Darkhorse: Enders Game

I do like the Lord of the Rings recommendations, I would also propose C.S. Lewis and the lion witch and the wardrobe series.

1. The Great Gatsby — F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925
2. Their Eyes Were Watching God — Zora Neale Hurston, 1937
3. To Kill a Mockingbird — Harper Lee, 1960
4. Animal Farm — George Orwell, 1945
5. 1984 — George Orwell, 1949

Additional-
Fahrenheit 451 — Ray Bradbury, 1953
Night — Elie Wiesel, 1960
Slaughterhouse-Five — Kurt Vonnegut, 1969
The Catcher in the Rye — J.D. Salinger, 1951
The Outsiders — S.E. Hinton, 1967
Lord of the Flies — William Golding, 1954
Never Let Me Go — Kazuo Ishiguro, 2005

1984
Animal Farm
Lord of the Flies
A Brave New World
The Pearl