Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Was Forced to Read

I've decided to jump on board with Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week the topic is: books we were forced to read.

Mine are a combination of school reads, suggestions from other people, and plain old social pressures!

1. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand - after years of disliking almost all of school's required reading, I was set to loathe The Fountainhead. And it's a book that comes with a long line of fair warnings of such. But I did so enjoy it. Perhaps because I'd already voluntarily read two of Rand's other works. 

2. Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson - so it's short stories and it was a required read my freshman year in college. But oh, how I loved this book! 

3. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins - my sister read the trilogy before I did and harassed me to no end until I read them myself. Of course they were fantastic (I'd have gotten to them on my own eventually.)

4. A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton - while I can't say that this is the one that totally hooked me with this series, I can say that Kinsey Millhone quickly became one of my favorite characters. My ex's mother had the whole series and suggested I try them out. I read one a night (between 11 and 2) every night until I was caught up. 

5. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte - again one I'm sure I would have come to on my own but was required reading in college. While I didn't quite think I would hate this one, I did think that it would be more of a trial to read than it turned out to be. I zipped through it way before we were supposed to finish and loved every page!

6. Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld - no one actually forced me to read this one or even suggested that I do so. Instead, this was one that was doing so well in our store that I finally gave into my own curiosity and tried a few pages while shelving one morning. I soon realized I was sitting in the aisle wholeheartedly devouring pages and bought my own copy. 

7. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman - back in my bookselling days a marketing person with the publishing company was actually shocked when I revealed I'd never read any Neil Gaiman. He sent me a reissued copy of this one and I fell in love with it.

8. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett - this book made its way around a group of my high school friends. I bought two copies for my husband before giving into his constant prompts to read it. 

9. Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin - the first time I tried this one, I gave up in chapter one. The first three books sat on my shelves for five years until I decided to give the show a go. So it was a combination of bookshelf guilt and binge watching season one that forced me to dive int. Now I'm a huge dork for the series!

10. Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier - I don't know how many times I picked this book up and put it back before I read it. In the end, I'd written it off as something that wouldn't be my cup of tea until an email newsletter I belonged to sent out an excerpt of the book. I bought the trilogy the very next day.