Top 5 Wednesday: Favorite Required Reading

And it is Wednesday which means it is time to do top 5! For this topic I chose two books that were required for a literature class in high school and three books from my college studies.

If you are new to this, Top 5 Wednesday was created by Lainey who can be found on YouTube as GingerReadsLainey.

The books below are not organized by how much I like them. Rather, I list college reads first and then go into the two high school requirements.


1. The Once and Future King by T.H. White

I had to read this book for my college writing class. I always loved books and stories about King Arthur, so when we were assigned this novel, I was super excited. It is a fantasy and explores the human nature, and struggles for justice and power. It is a great book. I should definitely re-read it sometime.

2. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

This is an extremely powerful and poignant short story. Aside from the genius of Poe (discussed below), this is probably one of my favorite short stories. I had to read it for my English composition class and ended up choosing it for my fiction essay paper. The basic premise of the story is that a group of people who are individually very decent, kind and hardworking, act completely out of character as a group. In this work, villagers hold a lottery the object of which is to choose one among themselves for stoning. The story is so shocking that you cannot help but get engrossed in it and start drawing parallels with how we as a society or a group "stone" certain individuals through gossip, bullying, etc. The effect of a herd is very well examined here.

3. Edgar Allan Poe

Yes, all of Poe! I had to read various short stories and poems of his for various college classes. And I love everything he ever wrote. Nothing else to say here.

4. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I read this book in high school for my Russian Literature class. I know Dostoyevky has the bad rep of being a difficult author. But truly, he is not. In this novel, the main protagonist decides to kill an old woman in order to prove to himself that he is a "somebody". He has this twisted theory that he sets out to prove about justice and the right to bestow it. However, after committing the crime he finds that the guilt and remorse he feels are simply unbearable. Dostoyevsky also explores the idea of redemption through suffering. It is a very powerful book. I highly recommend it.

4. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

This is another book that readers are often intimidated by purely because of its size - the novel has 4 volumes. However, this book is amazing. First of all it is set in the imperial Russia during the war with Napoleon (early 1800s). This book has everything: history, war, romance, several different family stories, etc. Tolstoy's characters are always complex and interesting. You will undoubtedly have favorites and root for them. I read it twice and highly recommend it.