Welcome to Booking Through Thursday, a weekly bookish meme about books and reading for everyone who loves both. Booking Through Thursday was first hosted by Deb. With permission, I’ve restarted it in 2026.
This week’s prompt:
Whether it was middle school, high school, or college—or maybe even a book club—did you ever encounter a book from a required reading list that you dreaded, but ended up loving?
Or simply appreciating it, if love is too strong a word. Let us know in the comments below or on your own blog.
What book from a required reading list did you end up loving (or, at least, appreciating)?
How to play:
- On your blog: Copy the question/image for your blog, answer it there, and post a quick comment here with a link or trackback to your post so we can read it.
- On social media: Copy the image, answer the prompt, and post a quick comment here with a link.
- Right here: Answer in the comments and start the discussion here. No need to have a blog to play.
Note: If it’s your first time here, your comment may end up in moderation. (My spam filter is aggressive.) I’ll be in after my writing sprints to set it free.
P.S. The prompt is always open, and you don’t have to play on Thursday. Comment whenever you like!
Discover more from Writing Wrongs
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
High school: The Old Man and the Sea. Everyone told me how boring it was–even my mother who read pretty much everything. Our teacher sort of apologized for assigning it, if I recall.
I loved it! I was pulled in from the beginning and I cried at the end.
Hi Julie, terrific answer! I love it when a book exceeds expectations.
I loved it too! My teacher said she couldn’t even teach it – she hated it that much. I read it by choice and felt every moment of it.
For me, it was the survey of Russian literature course I took my first semester of college. I was already thinking of majoring in Russian, but after that course, it was a sure thing. I fell in love with Pushkin, Chekhov, and Bulgakov. In fact, one of my favorite books is The Master and Margarita.
And the only reason I have re-read The Master and Margarita is I can’t decide on which English translation to read. (Note: there’s a whole subreddit devoted to this; it’s a thing.) Maybe I should brush up on the Russian and read it in the original.
Browning’s “My Last Duchess.” Until I came across this in a high school lit survey, I never enjoyed poetry, and I hated the endless analysis of rhyme schemes and meter, especially for poems that, in the end, didn’t have much to say. Reminded me of the “boring” Dutch still life paintings with the inevitable wilting tulip to reflect on the inescapable fact of fading beauty and death.
“My Last Duchess,” with its twisting syntax that demanded it be read aloud — as any monologue ought to be — and its dramatic, horrifying conclusion, changed all that. This was a story! It was interesting! Could poetry really do that? I loved it! And from then on, I would ever be on the lookout for more.
Great prompt, too, btw!
What an intriguing answer! Now I’m going to have to go read Browning’s “My Last Duchess.”
In college, I took a course called “The Hero in Literature.” The hope was that we’d be reading Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings or something like that. The reality was reading The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer, and The Aeneid by Virgil. The surprise: I ABSOLUTELY loved them. Our teacher was super-passionate, and he just made the stories come alive.
That sounds like a great course. And an excellent teacher is always a plus.