Top Ten Tuesday: Back To School Freebie - Books We Wish Had Been Required Reading in University and Best Required Reading Books

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Each week bloggers post their top ten on a previously suggested topic. This week's topic is top ten back to school freebie. I chose 5 books/authors I wish had been required reading in university and 5 of my favourite required reading books. I studied English and Spanish literature and linguistics and I feel there should have been a lot more required reading than there was.

1. Shakespeare plays

I had a Shakespeare course but it only focussed on his comedies with the exception of Romeo and Juliet which we had studied the before as well. If there had been other Shakespeare courses to make up for this gap, I would not have minded because I really enjoyed his comedies, but now I feel I don't have a broad view on his entire work (his poems were often discussed but still).

I would have liked to study his tragedies and historical plays as well. In particular, I'm sad to have missed out on Othello and Hamlet. Thankfully, we did briefly discuss Macbeth in my first year.

2. Works by Charles Dickens

We were required to read no Dickens at all, and barely discussed him in other classes.

3. Works by the Brönte sisters

I wasn't required to read any of their books. I did read Wuthering Heights on my own during high school though.

4. Moby-Dick

I had only one American literature class in which we had to read a lot of short snippets and the horrible Absalom, Absalom! by Faulkner and a wonderful Toni Morrison book, A Mercy. I would have liked to read this classic as well.

5. Elizabeth Gaskell

They did not even mention her in overviews of English literature. I love North and South, so it came as a shock to not study anything about her.

Now on to the books I was required to read and really enjoyed!

6. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

7. Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

Actually all Shakespeare plays I've read could fit here, but I particularly enjoyed Twelfth Night.

8. Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain

I absolutely loved my First World War English Literature class! I went on to write my thesis on Richard Aldington's Death of a Hero and Mulk Raj Anand's Across the Black Waters.

9. Estrella Distante by Roberto Bolaño

Latin American literature class.

10. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway




Which were your favourite required reading books? Or which books do you wish you had read in school/university? Leave your thoughts down below!

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