FF Friday: In Which Books Are Forced Upon Me

Feature & Follow is a weekly blog hop hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read.

This week’s question: Is there a book that you were required to read in school that you actually loved?

Answer: Nothing ruins a book faster than being forced to read it (and then write about it). Luckily, now that I’m in graduate school, I get to choose the majority of my reading list. I usually like the books that I pick for myself, so writing about them is tolerable.

While I was getting my bachelor’s degree in English literature, I wasn’t so lucky. Most of the books that I had to read were torturous. However, there were two that I really loved:

The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien

They carried malaria tablets, love letters, 28-pound mine detectors, dope, illustrated bibles, each other. And if they made it home alive, they carried unrelenting images of a nightmarish war that history is only beginning to absorb. Since its first publication, The Things They Carried has become an unparalleled Vietnam testament, a classic work of American literature, and a profound study of men at war that illuminates the capacity, and the limits, of the human heart and soul.

Interpreter Of Maladies – Jhumpa Lahiri

Jhumpa Lahiri's stories show the lives of Indians in exile, of people navigating between the strict traditions they've inherited and the baffling New World they must encounter every day.  

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The follow part: If you are a book blogger and you leave a link to your blog in the comments below, I will follow you on Bloglovin’. I’d love it if you also followed me. If you want to be friends on Goodreads, Twitter, BookLikes, or G+, that would be awesome, too. Click the links to go to my pages on those sites. I’m looking forward to “meeting” you.