What are you top picks for Brit Lit novels?...

[Michelle in GA]

My two dc will be doing Brit lit next year and I am trying to compile a list of 5-8 novels. The only absolute novel I have so far is A Tale of Cities.

 

Which ones do you think are essential to read? Which ones should I stay away from, i.e..which ones are a snore:) This is for a boy and a girl, so books that appeal to both sexes is a plus.

 

They have already read: 1984, Brave New World,Animal Farm, and Pride and Prejudice

 

Thanks!

[Hunter's Moon]

I would suggest Wuthering Heights.

 

Your daughter might like it because of the love.

 

Your son might like it because of the darkness of the plot.

 

It is just a beautifully written novel by a brilliant young woman!

 

I am taking British Literature next year also and will be using this book.

 

 

Also, do you plan on doing any Shakespeare? You might have already done so or might be saving Shakespeare for English but for Shakespeare suggestions: Hamlet, Macbeth, and Julius Caesar are all great books. Hamlet is the most boring of the bunch though, and the longest.

 

I definitely suggest Julius Caesar, Macbeth isn't too bad either.

Edited April 9, 2010 by BeatleMania

[Orthodox6]

I'm fond of Dickens, but I don't place Tale of Two Cities on my high school list. I share Dickens in order to share Victorian-era social culture, which "T of T C" does not do. My boys were very happy with reading Martin Chuzzlewit, featuring the inimitable Mrs. Gamp and Pecksniff.

 

The worst possible Dickens, we all felt, is Hard Times.

 

As a teen/young adult, I felt that Wuthering Heights was top-heavy with the "angst quotient", thus seemed almost irrational to me. So I don't teach that, either.

 

Don't miss a good translation of Beowulf, although it is an epic, rather than a novel.

 

Anthony Trollope is very good. If your dc read either The Warden, or Barchester Towers (second in the series), they then can enjoy the BBC film, "The Barchester Chronicles", which draws upon both novels.

 

Some people assign C. S. Lewis' sci-fi trilogy for high school.

 

Lord of the Rings (duh !)

 

Middlemarch by George Eliot.

 

(difficulty for me is to limit a list !)

[Faithr]

Beowulf is a must! I'd also suggest a few of the Canterbury Tales as well as some excerpts of Gulliver's Travels. Have they encountered Shakespeare yet? If I were to pick only three, I'd probably do Hamlet, Henry V and The Tempest. If you don't want to read another Austen (they are all delicious!) you might want to read The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith. None of the above is especially long. If you want to read Dickens I'd recommend The Tale of Two Cities or Great Expectations. My favorite is David Copperfield but that is very long! Silas Marner by George Eliot is lovely and not as long as her other books. That exceeds your 6 to 8 limits but as I said these are all fairly short. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is another short but powerfully written novella. I'd wind up with some Father Brown mystery stories by G.K. Chesterton.

 

Don't forget poetry! My kids loved William Blake, Burns, Coleridge, Tennyson, Yeats and G. M. Hopkins.

 

Also some wonderful plays to read: Playboy of the Western World and Murder in the Cathedral.

[Pam L in Mid Tenn]

What written assignments will you require ? OR Do you plan on a reading only course?

 

(I'm thinking about how I want to structure English 4 next year myself. :confused: )

[Pam L in Mid Tenn]

I'm thinking about using IEW's American History for my soon to be 10th grade boy next year. I can tie writing, literature, and history all together maybe. He is certainly NOT currently writing on a solid 9th/10th grade level so the IEW book would be a good fit.

 

How should I beef it up? Textbook readings along with literature?? I need a full credit.

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks!

[Cornflower]

I don't know if you can do a study like this without doing a Tolkien book.:)) Maybe towards the end of your study since he is fairly recent.

[Karen in CO]

Frankenstein - is a must. My ds loved it in high school then read again on his own this year.

 

Beowulf has already been suggested, but might I suggest you listen to this in audio format... the Seamus Heaney version - it is best listened to in winter by candlelight. And if you can find it at the library the illustrated version to go along with it.

 

Another great British Lit. story is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - there are many versions. We read Tolkien's version because we were reading other things by him.

[TravelingChris]

My dd did British Lit this year. Her novels or parts of novels were Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green knight (p), Canterbury Tales (p), Three Shakespeare Plays (one was Othello, need to look up others, and she had done a number previously), DOctor Faustus, Pilgrim's Progress, Paradise Lost (p), Gulliver's Travels, Silas Marner, Heart of Darkness, The Dubliners, and 1984.

[Michelle in GA]

What written assignments will you require ? OR Do you plan on a reading only course?

 

(I'm thinking about how I want to structure English 4 next year myself. :confused: )

 

Hi Pam,

 

Actually, I am still figuring that out. I am thinking of using a Brit Lit text as a spine, perhaps BJU. That will give us plenty of poetry, short stories, and other readings like Beowulf. Then, if I incorporate 5-8 extra novels to round it out, along with a few Shakespeare plays(probably Othello and Julius Caesar, as they have not read those yet), that will be a solid reading course.

 

As for writing, I am thinking that I can pull essay topics from Progeny Press guides, and Spark Notes, along with whatever textbook I will be using.

[Michelle in GA]

I'm fond of Dickens, but I don't place Tale of Two Cities on my high school list. I share Dickens in order to share Victorian-era social culture, which "T of T C" does not do. My boys were very happy with reading Martin Chuzzlewit, featuring the inimitable Mrs. Gamp and Pecksniff.

 

The worst possible Dickens, we all felt, is Hard Times.

 

As a teen/young adult, I felt that Wuthering Heights was top-heavy with the "angst quotient", thus seemed almost irrational to me. So I don't teach that, either.

 

Don't miss a good translation of Beowulf, although it is an epic, rather than a novel.

 

Anthony Trollope is very good. If your dc read either The Warden, or Barchester Towers (second in the series), they then can enjoy the BBC film, "The Barchester Chronicles", which draws upon both novels.

 

Some people assign C. S. Lewis' sci-fi trilogy for high school.

 

Lord of the Rings (duh !)

 

Middlemarch by George Eliot.

 

(difficulty for me is to limit a list !)

 

 

This is very interesting about A Tale of Two Cities not being a typical Victorian novel. I had put ATOTC on the list simply because I love it so much:) Perhaps, I should take another look at Great Expectations.

[Orthodox6]

This is very interesting about A Tale of Two Cities not being a typical Victorian novel. I had put ATOTC on the list simply because I love it so much:) Perhaps, I should take another look at Great Expectations.

 

The novel is set during the French Revolution, although portions occur in England.

 

I don't teach Dickens' Barnaby Rudge, either, as it is set in the late 18th century.

 

My ps 9th grade read Great Expectations, and we all liked it reasonably so (at that age !). It only was when I was somewhere in my 40s that I discovered that there is more to Dickens than G.E., Oliver Twist and D. Copperfield !

[Lori D.]

For a very fun literature year, with the focus on older British works, what about doing the year-long Literary Lessons from the Lord of the Rings study? That would include the 3 books of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, plus: Beowulf; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; and a Shakespeare play (I believe Macbeth and Midsummer Night's Dream are mentioned in the study). And you could still do a few works of your own choosing in there as well.

 

I'm trying to figure out our British Lit. year for next year, and below is the list of British works I'm trying to narrow down; we have already read some of them. Best of luck! Warmly, Lori D.

 

 

Pre-1800s

- Beowulf

- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Spenser)

- The Canterbury Tales (Chaucer)

- Macbeth; Hamlet; Othello; Romeo & Juliet; Much Ado About Nothing; A Midsummer Night's Dream; The Tempest; Julius Caesar; Henry V (Shakespeare)

- Paradise Lost (Milton)

 

1800s - novels

- Jane Eyre (Bronte)

- Wuthering Heights (Bronte)

- A Christmas Carol; David Copperfield; Tale of Two Cities; Great Expectations (Dickens)

- Pride & Prejudice; Sense & Sensibility; Emma (Austen)

- Treasure Island (Stevenson)

- Silas Marner (Eliot)

- Lord Jim (Conrad)

- Heart of Darkness (Conrad)

- Ivanhoe (Scott)

- Gulliver's Travels (Swift)

- Far from the Madding Crowd (Hardy)

 

1900s - novels

- Picture of Dorian Gray (Wilde)

- The Man Who Was Thursday (Chesterton)

- The Screwtape Letters (Lewis)

- Lord of the Flies (Golding)

- A Passage to India (Forster)

- Heart of Darkness (Conrad)

- Lord Jim (Conrad)

- Lord of the Flies (Golding)

- Animal Farm (Orwell)

- Till We Have Faces; Screwtape Letters; The Great Divorce (Lewis)

 

1900s Novels set in other than modern times

- The Once and Future King (White)

- Till We Have Faces (Lewis)

 

Humor

- Life With Jeeves (Wodehouse)

- My Family and Other Animals (Durrell)

- All Creatures Great and Small (Herriot)

- Three Men in a Boat -- To Say Nothing of the Dog (Jerome)

 

Sci-Fi

- Frankenstein (Shelley)

- The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Stevenson)

- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll)

- Lilith (MacDonald)

- The Time Machine (Wells)

- The Invisible Man (Wells)

- War of the Worlds (Wells)

- Brave New World (Huxley)

- 1984 (Orwell)

- On The Beach (Shute)

- trilogy: Out of the Silent Planet; Perelandra; That Hideous Strength (Lewis)

 

Fantasy

- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland; Through the Looking Glass Carroll)

- Lord of the Rings (Tolkien)

- Watership Down (Adams)

- Peter Pan (Barrie)

 

Essays

- A Modest Proposal (Swift)

- A Piece of Chalk (Chesterton)

 

Short Stories - 1800s

- Sherlock Holmes mysteries (Doyle)

- The Open Window (Saki)

- The Monkey's Paw (Jacobs)

- The Golden Key; The Light Princess (MacDonald)

- Farmer Giles of Ham; Leaf by Niggle; Smith of Wooten Major (Tolkien)

 

Short Storis - 1900s

- A Child's Christmas in Wales (Dylan)

- Father Brown mysteries (Chesterton)

- Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries (Sayers)

- The Dead (Joyce)

 

Plays

- A Man For All Seasons (Bolt)

- Waiting for Godot (Beckett)

- Hamlet (Shakespeare)

- Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead (Stoppard)
- The Importance of Being Earnest (Wilde)

- Pygmalion (Shaw)

 

Poetry - 1800s

- William Blake

- John Keats

- Lord Byron

- Percy Shelley

- William Wordsworth

- Elizabeth Browning

- Christina Rossetti

- Samuel Coleridge (Rime of the Ancient Mariner)

- Alfred Tennyson

 

Poetry - 1900s

- William Yeats

- DH Lawrence

- Dylan Thomas

- T.S. Eliot

[Orthodox6]

Lori D., that is a good list ! Thanks for sharing it.

 

I had forgotten about Wodehouse. (Not sure how, as we love both books and tv adaptations !)

 

Personally don't care for A Passage to India (found it tedious), but needed the reminder about Forster. My list includes Howard's End and A Room with a View.

 

I love Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd ! I'm still disappointed that there is no U.S.-compatible DVD for the version with Paloma Baeza (misspelled?).

 

For "recess time" ( :tongue_smilie: ), offer at least one of the Rumpole of the Bailey books by John Mortimer. Not heavyweight schoolwork, of course, but great fun (along with Wodehouse).

 

Once again, the original question is too hard for me. (Only 5-8 ?! )

[Lori D.]

For "recess time" ( :tongue_smilie: ), offer at least one of the Rumpole of the Bailey books by John Mortimer.

 

 

Oh yes -- great idea! :)

 

 

 

Once again, the original question is too hard for me. (Only 5-8 ?! )

 

 

Alas. You have seen through my clever ploy. I thought if I shared my giant list, YOU would select the perfect works off of it, and then I could benefit by not having to agonize every time I cross a work off the list... :tongue_smilie:

 

Well, here is how I'll be going about whittling down my giant list to a more manageable size:

1. Are there any authors or books that are absolute MUSTS for us? -- put at top of list

2. Are there any authors or books we would absolutely hate? -- cross off list

3. Are we getting a variety of types of works (novels, novellas, short stories, essays, poetry, biography)?

4. Are we getting a variety of time periods covered? (in your case of 5-8 works, I'd shoot for: 1-2 things from before 1800; a play by Shakespeare; and then 2-3 works from 1800s, and 2-3 works from the 1900s)

5. Are we getting a variety of genre?

6. Can we squeeze in a few more authors if we go with shorter works (novellas or short stories)?

7. Can we read background material the day before, then *watch* a play, and then discuss it the day after, taking 3 days instead of 2-3 weeks for a play? (AND, plays really are meant to be experienced as a performance, not as just reading it like literature).

8. Try to take into account how long you need to spend on a work; for example: if Emma is twice as long as Pride and Prejudice, I might be tempted to go with the shorter work and give us more time for other works, or to be able to include some short stories.

 

 

Now, to apply those guidelines to myself, and start whittling down my list... :) BEST of luck! Warmly, Lori D.