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Question: Good books for A-level English Lang & Lit!?
I will be starting my As/a-level English language & literature course at college in September and since I haven't been sent a reading list, I'm picking out books that I think might be useful to read prior to the start of the course!. I have already read Frankenstein, Atonement and Northern Lights at the moment which are apparently all good books to have knowledge of for A-level English Literature!. My cousin has let me borrow Sense & Sensibility, Persuasion, Canterbury Tales, The Dubliners, To The Lighthouse and Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing!.
What others should I consider reading and are these good titles to have read!?
also, would Peter Pan and the Narnia stories be at all helpful!?
Thanks!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
Hi
If you're doing a combined Lit/Lang course the texts you study may be connected by theme (e!.g!. Children's Literature) You will also have to study a pre!.20th century play and some poetry!. You seem to be trying to read quite widely, which is good, but don't torture yourself if you don't read EVERYTHING! I suggest you familiarise yourself with a couple of Shakespeare's plays (e!.g!.Much Ado, Hamlet) Read some pre!.1914 Lit (e!.g!.Great Expectations, Persuasion, Wuthering Heights,Sherlock Holmes) and some modern Lit (e!.g!.Atonement-I McEwan, Birdsong-S Faulks, The Handmaid's Tale or Blind Assassin-M Attwood, Capt Correlli's Mandolin-L DeBernieres)Select books with themes that you think you will enjoy, not ones you think you should read!. I would also suggest a good poetry anthology (Norton or Penguin) Finally (phew) Language Study - Bill Bryson is good and not too heavy( his humour is a bonus when it all gets a bit dry) David Crystal is always on the recommended lists!. Hope this helps! One final note on cost: Use a library, buy second hand, borrow from friends(please return though!) Penguin have re-issued a lot of the classics in cheap paperback!. Reading is addictive, but can be expensive!. Now go away and enjoy!!Www@QuestionHome@Com
Avoid To The Lighthouse!. Every pretends they know what's going on in that book but no one really does!. I was lost in the sauce when I read that!. But if you're in to British novels where no one does anything and that are littered with symbolism it's for you!.
Yeah I would definitely read some of Oscar Wilde's plays!.
You could try Vanity Fair, War & Peace or Walden!. Cry, The Beloved Country; Madame Bovary, and Anna Karenina!. I liked all of those!.
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I never read any of those in College Lit!.These are some that I had to read: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Oedipus Rex, The Odyssey, The Iliad, Othello!. The rest were short stories!. Like read stories from William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Shakespeare, and Homer!. Those are the main authores we focused on!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
The canterbury tales are really studied in lit class in grammar school!. but i know in american universities they assign joyce and woolf fairly frequently, and shakespeare is always good to have read!. try oscar wilde, too, if you've the time!.Www@QuestionHome@Com