Elsewhere Debby takes exception to some of the “well read” list posted below.
I think that a lot of the titles offered ought to be required (or perhaps suggested) college reading, but high school? In fact, I think to require high school students to read some of those titles would only turn them off to reading–perhaps permanently. It could even effect their self-concept (or GPA) in a negative fashion when they couldn’t muddle through the complexities of Karl Marx or the language of Plato, Aristotle and Sophocles. Of course they were polling a bunch of brainiacs and elitists (educators, businessman, politicians and journalists) 😉 and, in all fairness, not all of the titles got high marks.
One hundred years ago bright young people read Plato, Aristotle and Sophocles in Greek. Have we come so far that young people can’t even read them at all now for fear their GPA or self-image would be upset? Can’t education require effort on the part of the student?