Help me choose best books!

[naturalmom]

I'm trying to choose which of these books to cover next year. We'll be going through history 1700-1900, using Notgrass American plus Spielvogel and/or Western Civ. lectures from TTC. Which are essentials, which should really be studied, and which could just be read and discussed?

 

Frankenstein

Strange Case of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde

Tale of Two Cities (or Great Expectations?)

Jane Eyre

Heart of Darkness

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Silas Marner

Count of Monte Cristo

Pride and Prejudice (already read many times, but maybe a PP study)

Last of the Mohicans

Les Miserables

 

 

We plan to only read the following:

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Up from Slavery

Arguing about Slavery

 

I have also thought about getting the Lightning Lit guide for late 19th Century British lit (already have early 19th). With what I have now, I could do Frankenstein, Jane Eyre and add a short story by Thackeray. With the late 19th Century guide I could do Tennyson, Lewis Carroll and Oscar Wilde, plus Silas Marner and Dickens. They wouldn't be as in depth as Progeny Press, but we could do light study of more books!

 

Thanks so much!

[Faithr]

These are all good books. Why don't your let your student decide which books to read?

 

One of the LL British books also includes Thackery's parody of Ivanhoe. We read Ivanhoe and then read the parody and it was quite fun!

[Musicmom]

Wow... what a great list! We haven't read them all, but I think all of them would be excellent choices.

 

For books to really study, I'd definitely suggest Tale of Two Cities and Uncle Tom's Cabin (because of their historical significance and influence) and probably Frankenstein (some really challenging ideas in there). Silas Marner also seems to be a fairly significant book--ds's literary analysis course spent 3 lessons on it, and it was one I did in high school AP English. Ds also REALLY enjoyed studying these four.

 

Ds has also read but not studied in depth: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (in 8th; I think he liked it), Pride and Prejudice (last year; also a real winner with him), and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Dd is reading Jane Eyre this summer (really enjoying it so far), and ds never got to it, so this is another one that will not get indepth study.

 

Anyway--the 4 above are just the ones I can recommend because we're familiar with them and studied them. Some of the others on the list could be just as significant and I just don't know about it! :D

 

HTH! :001_smile:

[kate in seattle]

why don't i make it more difficult by suggesting "The Scarlet Letter" (written in 1850) and "Bartleby, the Scrivener" written near the end of the 19th century.

 

If they have read Pride and Prejudice many times why not another Jane Austen

 

The other choices are all excellent; except I can't speak to Silas Marner as I have not read it. I would chose Scarlet Letter over Last of the Mohicans, I think there are more interesting themes in it.

 

So hard to whittle down and refine!!

[naturalmom]

kate in seattle - we're going through Scarlet Letter right now with a Progeny Press guide - so that's a nice confirmation that it's a good choice:) I haven't heard of "Bartleby the Scrivener". I'll do a search online to find some info on it - thanks for the tip.

 

Musicmom - three of the four you mentioned have Progeny Press guides, so that would make those easy. Which literary analysis had Silas Marner in it? I am currently reading it, and like it a lot. I read it during AP English as well! Unforunately, most of the books I read that year are all a blur. I'm not sure if it's because we read so much in one year, or because so many years have gone by since then!

 

Jane Eyre could be done lightly with just the LL guide.

 

Faithr - That's the LL guide that I have - I'll definitely put that in the plan. We read Ivanhoe last year, so I'm sure they'd enjoy the parody.

 

Thank you so much for the responses! We may skip Last of the Mohicans. It doesn't appeal to me as much. Ds really wants to do Count of Monte Cristo, since he read it last summer for fun, and would like to go through it more in depth. He also read through Jekyl and Hyde. I was thinking of Deadliest Monster by Jeff Baldwin (?) that contrasts Frankenstein with Jekyl and Hyde. I also found when I read it a year or so ago that it presents a good picture of the fact that opening ourselves up to sin is quite a dangerous thing. I can't remember if Progeny Press had a guide or not.

 

Any input on study materials for any of these would be great - if there's a guide you've used that you especially liked, let me know!

[Musicmom]

Musicmom - three of the four you mentioned have Progeny Press guides, so that would make those easy. Which literary analysis had Silas Marner in it? I am currently reading it, and like it a lot. I read it during AP English as well! Unforunately, most of the books I read that year are all a blur. I'm not sure if it's because we read so much in one year, or because so many years have gone by since then!

 

 

The bad news is the literary analysis we did that had Silas Marner in it was Stobaugh's Skills for Literary Analysis (which I can't recommend because of the lack of teacher guidance and the poor sample essays.) The good news is the 3 lessons on Silas Marner were among the better ones in the book--they were on plot (coincidence), tone (irony and sentimentality), and themes, and there were some interesting questions to discuss. Ds's love of the book went a long way too.

 

I've found the online Glencoe Literature Guides helpful, but I just checked and they don't have Silas Marner. One option to consider might be Cliffs Notes. I haven't used them recently, but I remember we did make use of these in AP English (that was a long time ago for me too--all a blur--but I remember enjoying the book!)

[chai]

I don't have a high schooler, but I just read Les Miserables for myself. It is so thick and meaty, that I've decided that we won't do it for high school. It is a wonderful book but it would be a huge time commitment.