Authors, Writers, Publishers, and Book Readers

Intellectually challenging books worth reading

These are recommended by the National Association of Scholars for college reading programs. Many of them are now in the public domain and can be found for free online at Project Gutenberg. If you're up to stretching your mind, this would be a good place to start looking for some brain food! :)

The two lists of 41 books in total are about a third of the way down he page.

http://www.nas.org/polArticles.cfm?Doc_Id=1545

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Permalink Reply by Viviana Arteaga on September 21, 2010 at 6:41am

In the 4th grade I already was reading at a 6th grade (way above the others whom were reading second to fourth) ,after two years of reading tutorials because I was horrible at it, I decided I'd tried to read a book about Concord and Lexington an old book way beyond my level. I was extremely confident of myself at that time. Haha I remember opening the yellowed pages and and just skipping over words I never even heard of. It took me a while to even process the first three pages, I even got a dictionary for some of the words. ( Back then when internet was not so highly used. Dictionary and thesauruses were still the main stream of research.) I was just sitting there in the living room floor just staring at this small but thick book, it made me feel so small and dumb. Made me feel like all my hard work to learn how to properly read was worth nothing. I got up and put it away feeling so defeated, I went back to one of my first chapter books, it was named something like sacred garden or something.
I still have it ,the book, I look at it smiling at my defeat sometimes. I've never tried reading it again though. But I still laugh at myself for being so cocky, and being put back in my place by a book. A thing that has no limbs or physical lips to speak. Its more of a book of my memory than the United States', it's like a little treasure.

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Permalink Reply by Kay Elizabeth on September 22, 2010 at 7:35pm

Great story! You should go back and read it, Viviana. You'll be surprised how the years fall away if you do and how much of it you remember.

Viviana Arteaga said:

In the 4th grade I already was reading at a 6th grade (way above the others whom were reading second to fourth) ,after two years of reading tutorials because I was horrible at it, I decided I'd tried to read a book about Concord and Lexington an old book way beyond my level. I was extremely confident of myself at that time. Haha I remember opening the yellowed pages and and just skipping over words I never even heard of. It took me a while to even process the first three pages, I even got a dictionary for some of the words. ( Back then when internet was not so highly used. Dictionary and thesauruses were still the main stream of research.) I was just sitting there in the living room floor just staring at this small but thick book, it made me feel so small and dumb. Made me feel like all my hard work to learn how to properly read was worth nothing. I got up and put it away feeling so defeated, I went back to one of my first chapter books, it was named something like sacred garden or something.
I still have it ,the book, I look at it smiling at my defeat sometimes. I've never tried reading it again though. But I still laugh at myself for being so cocky, and being put back in my place by a book. A thing that has no limbs or physical lips to speak. Its more of a book of my memory than the United States', it's like a little treasure.

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Permalink Reply by Viviana Arteaga on September 26, 2010 at 6:37am

The funny thing is two days after replying we read about Lexington and Concord in class. I giggled secretly to myself!

Kay Elizabeth said:

Great story! You should go back and read it, Viviana. You'll be surprised how the years fall away if you do and how much of it you remember.

Viviana Arteaga said:
In the 4th grade I already was reading at a 6th grade (way above the others whom were reading second to fourth) ,after two years of reading tutorials because I was horrible at it, I decided I'd tried to read a book about Concord and Lexington an old book way beyond my level. I was extremely confident of myself at that time. Haha I remember opening the yellowed pages and and just skipping over words I never even heard of. It took me a while to even process the first three pages, I even got a dictionary for some of the words. ( Back then when internet was not so highly used. Dictionary and thesauruses were still the main stream of research.) I was just sitting there in the living room floor just staring at this small but thick book, it made me feel so small and dumb. Made me feel like all my hard work to learn how to properly read was worth nothing. I got up and put it away feeling so defeated, I went back to one of my first chapter books, it was named something like sacred garden or something.
I still have it ,the book, I look at it smiling at my defeat sometimes. I've never tried reading it again though. But I still laugh at myself for being so cocky, and being put back in my place by a book. A thing that has no limbs or physical lips to speak. Its more of a book of my memory than the United States', it's like a little treasure.