As a child, I loved reading more than anything. The summer before fourth grade, I was required to keep track of each book that I read. I made countless trips to the library, and though I did read shorter books, I was proud to have read 53 books by the end of the summer. I was determined to keep up my avid reading habits, and have an even longer list the next summer; sadly, it fell to 35.

In the years after that, my motivation to read for fun fell drastically, until the summer before my junior year of high school, at which point I had essentially stopped. Between SAT prep, college applications, and a rigorous course schedule, I felt like I did not have the time, or the physical or mental energy to read any more than I already had to.

Surprisingly, the works that I was required to read in the following years captivated me. I had often found that just the nature of being "forced" to read something made it unenjoyable. But these works truly made me love reading again.

1. "A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess

I took a very long time (maybe even a month) to get through the first chapter of this book. I was taken aback because it is written partially in “Nadsat,” a language that combines English and phonetic Russian. However, once I managed to get into the book, I (as cheesy as it sounds) couldn’t put it down. I went to Nantucket, on a trip that I had long awaited, but spent more time engrossed in the story, under the shade of an umbrella on the beach, than I did in the water with my friends. This story follows a young delinquent named Alex, who plays a part in a cycle of cruelty, which explores the dark potentials of society and of the human mind. To this day, A Clockwork Orange is my absolute favorite book, and I wish that I could have gotten to study it even more

2. "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare

If you have not seen the Kenneth Branagh version of Hamlet, you absolutely must. Yes, it is a bit over four hours long, but it’s completely worth it. The acting is brilliant, the sets and quality are remarkable (especially considering the fact that it was made over twenty years ago), and it remains true to the original work. I am a huge fan of theater, but I’m not typically the biggest fan of Shakespeare. Watching this film helped me to understand Shakespeare in ways that I had not been able to in previous classes, and made me truly love and appreciate the play.

3. "Sirens of Titan" by Kurt Vonnegut

If there is anything that I learned from doing extensive research on Vonnegut for half of my senior year of high school, it's that pretty much everyone disagrees on pretty much everything about his writing. In the comedy "Back to School," a professor states that the author of a paper "doesn't know the first thing about Kurt Vonnegut." What she does not know, however, is that the paper was written by Vonnegut himself. It is clearly not easy to analyze and interpret a Vonnegut novel, but his ambiguity and unquestionably skillful writing leave you the freedom to focus on whatever you want! This book is extremely helpful to study for development of your critical reading and writing skills, tons of fun, and super weird (even for science-fiction!!). I keep a couple of old, torn out pages from my notebook covered in quotes from this book.

Many of the works that I have read for school over the years have disappointed or bored me. However, I will admit that I am guilty of forgetting that this is not because I am required to read them; it is simply because some works are suited to my tastes and others are not. I hope to avoid making that mistake again, so that I can study literature with an open mind, and find even more works to love.