Rating Every Book I’ve Read for My English Degree
- Bailey Tolentino
- Feb 25
- 7 min read
Inspired by a Jack Edwards YouTube video, I decided to look back on all my old notebooks from first and second year to reflect on all the books I read in that span of time. It was a fun trip down my academic memory lane.
Here are my honest opinions on each book I had to read for my English sub-honours classes. To be fair, some books were great reads but annoying or boring to attend the lectures (and vice versa).
I’ll be giving two different ratings (out of 5 stars) for each book. There are lots of books, so the reviews will only be one or two sentences.
★ – interesting to read
☆ – interesting to study
EN1003 - Culture and Conflict: An Introduction to 19th+20th Century Literature
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë ★//☆☆
A massive letdown. I thought it would have a ‘dark academia’ feel and be great to mood-read in St Andrews, but it was even more boring than a dead night during exam season.
- Great Expectations by Charles Dickens ★★★★//☆☆☆
Exceeded my expectations! It’s on the longer side, but the narrative was easy to follow, and the analysis points were obvious (and thus good for essays).
- The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson ★★★//☆☆
The OG campaign for the male loneliness epidemic? Brilliant concept with eternally relevant themes (which the lectures dive into from various different angles).
- Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf ★★★★★//☆☆☆
The best representation of the Victorian novel standard, making beauty out of the mundane using extensively detailed prose. (Female loneliness, this time.)
- The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot ★★//☆☆
I may just be dense, but I was shocked by how much of a drag this book was, despite its short length. It was confusing and the lectures were hardly enlightening.
- A Passage to India by E.M. Forster ★//☆
There are some great prosaic moments, but the narrative and lectures could not be less interesting. I wish we just read Maurice instead because the colonialism topic is exhausting.
- The Lonely Londoners by Samuel Selvon ★★★★//☆☆☆☆
The Hyde Park 10-page, stream-of-consciousness, run-on sentence changed my life. This uniquely and effectively captured London as a wasteland from an immigrant perspective, without being a drag.
- Trumpet by Jackie Kay ★★★//☆☆☆
A mildly uncomfortable read, but that is the point. Beautifully poetic storytelling, but the characters are not very likeable.
- 40 Sonnets by Don Paterson ★★★//☆☆☆☆☆
Nothing could have prepared me for the lecturer to reveal that he is the author. Such a privilege to learn about a poetry collection from the writer himself.
EN1004 - Empires and Revolutions: Literature 1680-1830
- Oroonoko by Aphra Behn ★//☆
I can’t remember anything about this book. At least it was short and hardly mentioned throughout the course of the module.
- Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift ★★★★//☆☆☆☆
A genuinely hilarious read with lots of action in the plot, so it’s engaging. The lectures were equally so.
- The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope ★★★//☆☆
Honestly, if someone cut off a lock of my hair at a party for no good reason, I’d also compare the event to the Trojan wars. The lectures are not as interesting as the book itself, but they are not intensely boring.
- Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake ★★★★★//☆☆☆☆
I mean, obviously, this gets 5 stars. These are some of the best poems ever written, and the history behind the collection is very interesting.Great lectures if you’re into history.
- Lyrical Ballads: 1798 and 1802 by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge ★★//☆☆
Don’t worry, they don’t make you read the whole collection. I was confused by many of these lectures, but it may have been another Waste Land situation, where I was the problem.
- Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen ★★★★//☆☆☆☆
This novel tries a little too hard to be gothic, but it’s certainly an improvement from its predecessors in the sense that it is not a drag to read (or learn about).
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley ★★★//☆☆☆☆☆
I don’t love this book as much as most other English girlies do but I loved learning about Mary Shelley. Chaotic queen.
- The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg ★//☆
Another forgettable book with even more forgettable lectures (as they landed somewhere around May Dip and all…).
EN2003 - Mediaeval and Renaissance Texts
- The Dream of the Rood (and its modern translations) ★//☆
I’m still not sure I even read the correct translations/adaptations, and the tutorials did not help clarify anything. I’ve never felt more impostor syndrome in my life; and felt wronged, as I did not sign up to study what is practically Latin.
- Old English: An Introduction (the riddles) by R. Kerry, J. Key, C. Rauer ★★//☆
This is only getting more than 1 star because some of the sexual innuendos were almost funny. Again, however, my brain did not register any of this as English (but God bless you if you find it fun to solve translation puzzles).
- The Canterbury Tales (‘The Nun’s Priest’) by Geoffrey Chaucer ★★//☆☆
At least I can now say I’ve read The Canterbury Tales… In fact, that is all I have to say.
- The Cock and the Fox by Robert Henryson ★★★//☆
This was a step up as Middle Scots is a lot more comprehensible than Old English. It is also the only time that I found the topic of adaptation (which consumes about half of the entire module’s content) to be thought-provoking.
- Poems by Wyatt, Surrey, Sidney, Donne, etc… (from The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Vol. B: 16th-Early 17th c.) ★★★★★//☆☆☆☆☆
Now, this is where it gets good (plus, carrying the massive textbook around makes you look smart). These poems are beautiful, and it was intriguing to learn about how the poetic canon developed from Petrarch and how imitation permeated its way through England.
- Paradise Lost by John Milton ★★★★★//☆☆☆☆☆
Hands down, something every person should read before they die; as it is the Bible of English poetry, and you cannot study literature without knowing it. That being said, it is exhausting to study because everyone in the world already has something to say about it so it’s not easy to come up with your own individual reading/analysis.
EN2004 – Drama: Reading and Performance
- Antigone by Sophocles ★★★★//☆☆☆☆
The original girlboss (other than Dido). The tutorial was practically a Creon hate club (and I enjoyed that).
- The Tragedy of Mariam by Elizabeth Cary ★★//☆☆
Forgettable in every way, but not particularly bad. Easy to follow, at the very least.
- King Lear by William Shakespeare ★★★★//☆☆☆☆☆
Embarrassed to admit that I did have to watch a 3-minute animated video summary to understand the storyline; but I honestly recommend doing that so you can focus on the prose rather than the plot points. 5 stars for the lectures/tutorial because with the amount of research done on him, Shakespeare is fun and interesting to learn about.
- The Busybody by Susanna Centlivre ★★★★//☆☆
A very entertaining read on society in England. I don’t think the lectures added anything to my understanding, though.
- The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde ★★★★★//☆☆☆☆☆
An absolutely genius satire where in every single sentence, plot point, and character arc flips itself on its head (even the title of the play is an ironic in-joke). I love Wilde so I found the lectures about him and his Irish perspective on England to be invigorating.
- Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett ★★★//☆☆
I spent the whole time waiting for the point to make itself known, but (spoiler alert) that’s the whole point. It never comes (and we spend 3 lectures talking about how it’s purposely nowhere to be found).
- Vinegar Tom by Caryl Churchill ★★//☆☆☆☆☆
A very unique case where I did not enjoy reading the play, but the lectures were so intriguing that I was eventually enlightened. The themes are scarily relevant today, and I think it’s an essential read for feminist literature.
- Further than the Furthest Thing by Zinnie Harris ★★//☆
I appreciate the University’s commitment to introducing us to Scottish literature as I’m sure universities in England do not get as much exposure to it. That being said, I cared for Middle Scots more than this modern stuff — and that’s saying a lot.
- Dream on Monkey Mountain by Derek Walcott ★★//☆☆
The dialectal English used in this play is not easy to get through, and neither are the lectures, as most of them are spent talking about said dialect. However, the themes of this play are easily comparable to the above play, which is helpful for essays/the exam.
- stoning mary by debbie tucker green ★★★★//☆☆☆☆
I was surprised by how much I liked this play; it is very impactful and I’m sure it would be even more so to watch live on stage. The discussion in tutorial was intellectually stimulating as I could feel the difference between studying a playscript versus studying a book/novel in this instance, as aspects such as staging really affected the meaning of this play.
I am much happier in honours classes now, where we read things that we actually care about. Good luck out there, though, kids. You’ve got to get through the basics before picking a specialty.
P.S. If you happen to like Old English, sorry for all the mean things I had to say; I don’t understand it, but I do admire your niche interest.
This was a hilarious and interesting article. Especially when there is a disparity in ratings between the read and the lecture. Great guide for underclassmen.