The Mensa Reading List for Grades 9-12
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Read what you like, not what is on a list. There is room to guide and suggest, but fixed lists to tick off are absolutely horrible.
What good pacing, characterization, plotting looks like, how to convey a great idea to the reader, without sounding preachy or bore him to tears. And most importantly, how to weave all these elements together into a cohesive whole, as most masterpieces do.
This way they can have a somewhat more critical eye of the more mainstream fiction they'll likely consume in much greater quantity.
I find that most mainstream SF or fantasy books consist of the same foundational elements - but add fantastic concepts or spectacle to the mix, which might grab a certain amount of interest, but must get these foundations right in order for the novel to remain compelling
I think the act of writing is a lossy transformation - someone raised on a steady diet of only sci-fi novels is bound to be only be capable of writing a lesser sci-fi novel.
In order for a writer to reach at least the level of mainstream fiction, the writer must bring some extra from his own - either coming from non-fiction literature, life experience, the rare spark of original genius, or well-executed fundamentals in books like the ones mentioned on the reading list.
I think they also broaden the mind, because they make people imagine how other societies could function, how technology could change things, what could exist in the universe we do not know etc.
Historical fiction, and even more actual old writing, has some of the same impact, but is limited to what has happened, rather than what could happen.
> I think it's useful for young people to be exposed to what's widely regarded as some of the best-written books out there, so that they might get an idea of what a really well-written book looks like.
I agree entirely, but a list you have to complete is not the wat to do it.
Lately I've been consuming more of it than I would admit in polite company - LitRPG, Military SF, YA stuff,. - and quite a bit of it is aimed at a younger audience.
A lot of this stuff is well written and engaging, but highly derivative, and is patterned on classics.
> The list doesn’t coddle, like the American mind has become.
"Coddle" is a verb. Minds do not "become" a verb. The sentence needs a rewrite.
I thought it was a very well-written article.
Thanks for the recommendation on Christopher Nguyen's "Value Capture".
Where we may agree is that Mensa isn't in the business of measuring education, but instead of horsepower.
And the reading way toward maximizing a developing child's base ability to think is to read as much as possible, which will necessarily be what piques their fancy much of the time.
But literature education and recreational reading shouldn't mean one doesn't engage in the other. Every high performing child does both, at least to meet the the standards with which I'm familiar.
Still I'm unsure as to why Mensa feels the need to cobble together a basic prep school reading list, if wildly uncurated.
To your point, something more in line with their rasion d'etre might be to provide short best of lists for recreational, slightly advanced reading in age appropriate genres.
> By signing below, we attest that _____________________________________ has read a complete and unabridged version of all the books as recorded on the Excellence in Reading 9-12 grade list above, and that this record is true.
If it was a list of "good books you might enjoy reading", I would have no problem with it. it is the idea you must read them all, even ones you dislike, that I think is wrong.
In the case of the plays it is preferable to see them than to read them.
Although I read A LOT as a kid, I skipped most of the classics. (Meaning: anything not sci-fi, fantasy, or non-fiction.)
Around 30yo, I got Gulliver's Travels as a gift. Wow. I loved it. Provided context for so many common clichés.
So I started to check other classics off the list (as able). I wish I'd started earlier. Face palm slap.
Good, bad, or indifferent, being exposed to the origins of ideas expanded my worldview and gave me appreciation for what followed.
> Around 30yo, I got Gulliver's Travels as a gift. Wow. I loved it. Provided context for so many common clichés.
Another writer whose works are just a bunch of clichés. I was disappointed to find Shakespeare was the same. (that is supposed to be a joke, BTW).
I do not think it such a disaster to read those at 30. better to read them a bit later and enjoy them, than to read them earlier and not. What you enjoy does change over time.
I think the most important thing is to get kids to read, then to read anything reasonably good.
You do have some different definitions attitudes to mine which may account for part of it. For example:
> It took me a while to realize the point of the whole exercise of the Mensa list. It’s not to become well-read. That’s a side effect. The point is to lose your smugness. To get knocked off balance by something older, stranger, smarter than you. To stop assuming you know it all.
I would say those are not two different things. If you have not been affected by things that are "older, stranger, smarter than you" you are not well read!
But this is all guessing.
Appallingly, it's alphabetized by title.
While we're at it, just listing that information for each title would also be very valuable, even without reordering the list.
Aside: The rating and date for reading is just strange for this level of reader, also the having an adult sign off on it. It just seems so juvenile for anyone that is really reading Don Quixote, Lord of the Flies, or many of the other books in the list. Something like a 4th grader would need to do, not a 17 year old. I get that it's mostly following the formula from the earlier grade levels, but still, it should be revised.
Honestly, that could be the tagline for MENSA as a whole.
As for the list, it's basically a "Great works of Western literature" list that you'd expect to see in the 1970s. The concept seems to be that you must slog through the official important books (including The Fountainhead!) to prove your Mensan superiority, rather than encouraging a joy of reading.
The list: https://www.mensaforkids.org/achieve/excellence-in-reading/e...
The Fountainhead seems like a good place to start...
“ Franklin argues that the power of the narrative was achieved at the cost of literal truth, and that to insist that the work is purely factual is to ignore its literary sophistication”
“
Wiesel wrote in 1967 about a visit to a rebbe (a Hasidic rabbi) who he had not seen for 20 years. The rebbe is upset to learn that Wiesel has become a writer, and wants to know what he writes. "Stories," Wiesel tells him, " ... true stories": About people you knew? "Yes, about people I might have known." About things that happened? "Yes, about things that happened or could have happened." But they did not? "No, not all of them did. In fact, some were invented from almost the beginning to almost the end." The Rebbe leaned forward as if to measure me up and said with more sorrow than anger: That means you are writing lies! I did not answer immediately. The scolded child within me had nothing to say in his defense. Yet, I had to justify myself: "Things are not that simple, Rebbe. Some events do take place but are not true; others are—although they never occurred."[68]“
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_(memoir)
It was the same year that I read this crap book that they forced me to read Lolita by Nabokov. I realized that year that “classic literature” was decadent and degenerate - and often so were my teachers!
Forcing kids to read stuff only makes them hate reading.
I'm picking up some SF and fantasy in my 40s but I feel the fire is gone somehow. There are few books that I'm willing to burn candles. It would be a lot more fun to read them when I was young.
Ah, wish I could claw back that feeling when I burnt candles to read the Dragonlance chronicles when 20.
- Candide
- A Peoples History...
- Manufacturing Consent
- Dharma Bums
- Naked Lunch/Western Lands
- Infinite Jest
- Something Thompson, Campaign Trail '72 maybe.
In general, these books are categorically different. The provided list isn't missing them. They'd just be on a different list.
Ulysses is only good because Joyce was a coomer.
Candide is actually good and more people need to read it.
The others you listed are post modern neo Marxism or drug abusers which will teach your kids to hate your teacher and the whole idea of education. Why not just throw on “pedagogy of the oppressed” to put the final nail into the coffin of your kid giving a fk about what your teacher teaches (“sorry, I’m not doing your homework you colonizer shitlord, I refuse to participate in the banking model of education”.
Also reminds me of philosopher John Senior's "Thousand Good Books" as a counter to the "Great books" -- heuristic that if you've heard of the book and it's old enough, then it's probably worth reading and studying. https://thelifetimereader.substack.com/p/the-thousand-good-b...
Other good sources include the list of books in the back of Mortimer Adler's How To Read A Book for a Western Canon and Wm. Theodore de Bary's The Great Civilized Conversation: Education for a World Community and Finding Wisdom In The East Asian Classics for East Asian Canons.
Just peruse the ones that look interesting to you, then move on to the next list.
It actually gets them to enjoy reading -- while thinking about society (and technology), and stoking their ambition.
I learn so many more things so much faster today because of the new AI tools.
The big divide among students in the future will be between those who use AI to learn faster and accomplish more, vs those who use AI to avoid working or thinking
Which could allow more time for recreational reading . . .
Doing both has got to be better than only one.
>those who use AI to learn faster and accomplish more, vs those who use AI to avoid working or thinking
Could be already underway :\
btw not my downvote, corrective upvote actually
When I was in the early teens (so quite a bit older than the kid in your case), I got my hands on a book about set theory, and it absolutely blew my mind. The concept of countability, axiomatic definition of functions and so on really gave me a completely different perception of math. Up until then, math seemed to be something that follows nature, so to speak, three plus two makes five because if I have three eggs and two eggs its five eggs or whatever primary school taught me. I remember back then that I'd wish that some teacher would have made me aware earlier of a more formal, axiomatic approach to math and all that, that there is a more fundamental basis to it than "that's just what it is". It really furthered my interest in math, and while I ultimately eventually moved over to CS, it definitely had quite a fundamental impact on me back then.
The particular book I've read was in German (I still have it) and unlikely to be ideal for a 5 year old; just wanted to give this little personal anecdote somewhat related to your question.
Science-fiction can be stimulating in that regard, someone who likes science in addition to math might be the one to turn some of it into science-reality someday :)
Eventually I came to the conclusion that the better math textbooks had more than just math. One of the most enlightening math books I had was a late 19th century antique text "Progressive Higher Arithmetic" which was never in one of my courses, but was given to me when I was an old teenager and it could be an interesting reference in any century. Not only the differences in the way teaching has been done in the past, but a nice leather-bound volume with numerous blank pages among those adjacent to the front & back covers, covered with poetry written by the original owner. With a pen and common inkwell, in beautiful handwriting there is one that I can not forget:
Remember me when death shall close
My eyelids in the last repose
And evening breezes gently wave
The grass above your school-mates grave.
If you could find a collection of the Mathematical Games articles from Scientific American, those were entertaining and required little background knowledge, but conveyed the fun of math.
Geometry is a good subject because it doesn't have very many prerequisites other than basic arithmetic, and the older textbooks were mostly about proofs. (Note I'm biased, proofs are what made math come alive for me).
As a recommendation set between friends ("you must read Borges and Sebald! You'll love them"), fine.
But lists give the vibe of someone desperately trying to preserve The Culture, whatever that is. And of course once such a list becomes encoded in the school board or university course curriculum, it instantly becomes calcified and a chore, even if some of the entries on the list are appealing to some of the readers. Pity the teacher who has to teach /Catcher in the Rye/ for the tenth year, and pity their students.
So the real challenge is how to communicate The Culture through reading, without killing the joy. I wish I knew the answer. Perhaps it boils down to teachers being allowed to innovate. Maybe we need more teachers with big theater kid energy. I dont know. Id be interested to know what happens in non-Western cultures too...is this problem universal?
My early reading history, in order:
- a few childhood stories read by my father, - textbooks from school, - comic books! I didn't have money to buy them but found that if I went into the store while the staff were busy (before and after school) serving customers, no one noticed that I was blasting thru the latest Superman.
I paid attention in class, made good grades but didn't study much, nor did I read books unless absolutely forced to. I probably read fewer than 4 books before college. I was conscripted by my father to assist him in carpentry and auto repair (which taught me a great deal about how the world works).
I credit DC Comics for giving me a high reading speed, the ability to concentrate (possibly I should say "to attend"!8-)) and consequently, any "high IQ" that allowed me to score well on tests, win awards, make good grades and join Mensa years later. I also credit being my father's apprentice.
tl;dr Reading books on a list, even a Mensa list, will not likely make you smart.
They all pretty much sit within a European/American spectrum of "worthy" works - there is a dominance of caucasian male thinking embodied within this list: it's not very broad, even with the odd hat tip to a Bronte sister and Maya Angelou. Nothing from 80% of the World's population, all rooted in a classical Western school of writing theory. Dull.
I also have a concern that they aren't a great foundation for a young person approaching adulthood trying to understand their place in the World and their own beliefs and values about themselves and the World they live in.
As you would expect of adult literature, some of them have sex and sexuality as themes that are explored by protagonists, subplots and subtexts. While this is something we should expect literature to play a part in, and it is of course healthy for adults to consider their own feelings relating to sex and sexuality based on their own contexts and needs through art forms like literature, I'm not sure throwing that at a 9th grader feels quite right. Maybe it is. I think it depends on the child.
The worst crime here though, is that this list is composed of books that are only considered good by the "educated" literarti.
There aren't many page turners that will keep a younger mind engaged and excited. There's only a few that stand out as an opportunity to let a curious reader explore their changing selves through the context of an interesting imagined World - the only real point of literature - in a way that will stimulate and excite their curiosity for the World they are actually growing up in.
And y'know, I'm a huge Shakespeare fan (I live in London, regular attendee of Shakespeare productions from all the usual companies), but this is leaning into some weird material. All 154 sonnets? Much Ado, Hamlet & King Lear, but no Romeo & Juliet or Macbeth? Huh.
Also, I see you, Ayn Rand fans. I see you. No. The Fountainhead is not a good book, she isn't a good writer, and the philosophy she espoused is not justification for you behaving the way you do. Don't try and get grades 9-12 into your little weird cult, you unsympathetic self-absorbed weirdos.
>I also have a concern that they aren't a great foundation for a young person approaching adulthood trying to understand their place in the World and their own beliefs and values about themselves and the World they live in.
Is your concern valuable because your opinion of a standard literature list is that the books are mediocre or provide a mediocre education? Why should we care that you, specifically, are concerned? Or why you, specifically, see the list as mediocre and dull?
You seem to be implying that literature has to socialize kids to values (those that you prefer, I assume). You seem to be perturbed that everything that a child reads may not cater to that goal.
What I see is an essay whining about how standard English lit material isn't teaching kids political material that the writer prefers.
Ironic to the post-author's role as a literature critic, the post is too indirect and employs too many words toward expressing that complaint.
That's because in the past showing that you're "educated" by virtue signalling a particular experience with a particular type of education would allow you an inside track to social groups and employment of value.
If there is anywhere in the World where we should question the value of that, it's on a forum dedicated to helping entrepreneurs build new things and to disrupt the World away from that kind of thinking.
> You seem to be implying that literature has to socialize kids to values
Literature does socialize kids to values, whether you or I like it or not. It socializes adults too: that's the point of literature. We're all just stochastic parrots. Literature - and all other art - shapes what we parrot.
I think that when choosing a list of eminent reading material for 9-12th graders, you're implicitly choosing a set of values for them. It should require thoughtfulness as to what you're hoping to achieve with it. I'm questioning the values presented in this list in terms of breadth, depth and appropriateness.
And yes, I also happen to think a lot of it is very dull writing liked by fusty old men in universities, rather than being a list of material that makes a person of impressionable age take something of it to use for themselves as they go out into the World. It's a missed opportunity. It is therefore dull and mediocre, in my view.
I'm allowed to share my view on this mater as a comment, on a site dedicated to people sharing their opinions as comments. I'm sorry that my doing so seems to have upset you.
What I see in your reply is a monologue expressing how you are affronted by someone saying things you disagree with for reasons you can't explain other than you seem to find it tiresome, and you're not quite sure why that's allowed to go without comment, so here, here's your comment on it, but why on Earth did that person post that comment that is just so... so... commenty... ?
As such it's entirely valid to question both the selections themselves as well as the purpose for creating the list in the first place.
As an example, I find it very difficult to imagine the world being improves in anyway whatsoever by requiring people to read fountain head.
Education isn't virtue signaling, and it's value isn't because it is virtuous. It's value is that it provides a deeper understanding of the foundations of civilization and language. Speaking solely of literature education.
>If there is anywhere in the World where we should question the value of that, it's on a forum dedicated to helping entrepreneurs build new things and to disrupt the World away from that kind of thinking.
Just because you write the words "should question" and "disrupt" doesn't imply that either of these actions are ultimately correct.
>Literature does socialize kids to values, whether you or I like it or not. It socializes adults too: that's the point of literature. We're all just stochastic parrots. Literature - and all other art - shapes what we parrot.
I disagree with your generalizations. Some literature might have that effect in a significant manner, some in a moderate manner, and some in an insignificant manner. The point being that traditional literature education doesn't hijack the curriculum to effect that primary goal, whereas your values are apparently so abandoned and otherwise unattractive that you feel the need to hijack literature education in order to force them on students. Who gets a vote as to what values will be taught, exactly? I assume that you'd be uncomfortable with that. It's better to keep explicit partisan politics and political grooming out of the secondary classroom.
>And yes, I also happen to think a lot of it is very dull writing liked by fusty old men in universities, rather than being a list of material that makes a person of impressionable age take something of it to use for themselves as they go out into the World. It's a missed opportunity. It is therefore dull and mediocre, in my view.
I think that your view is dull and mediocre. Lots of students love the material of the traditional curriculum, for good reason.
>I'm allowed to share my view on this mater as a comment, on a site dedicated to people sharing their opinions as comments. I'm sorry that my doing so seems to have upset you.
It doesn't upset me. I'm just not letting it stand as an assertion of facts.
>you are affronted by someone saying things you disagree with for reasons you can't explain
Don't gaslight me. I can explain my views perfectly, and was clear.
In contrast with you obviously and necessarily needing to be cagey with your full views. Like exactly what you want to see taught and replaced, down to the book. And why.
Whereas I correctly discerned and stated that you have partisan political motivations and want to see a shift toward student indoctrination with your preferred political principles. As a primary goal of the literature classroom.
Just like any sneak who can't bear to the thought of leaving the overt task of values to parents, education to teachers, and whatever you are peddling to less impressionable adults.
If your preferred values are so attractive then they students can become better acquainted with their explicit curriculum as adults. And make reasoned decisions about them.
All the while being more prepared and confident due to their better education.
What else did you want to know?
With 100 books a year, I’m averaging two books a week. It took me three full months to make it through that slog; hoping to find one fucking redeeming factor for it.
Let me tell you: there is absolutely no reason anyone should read that novel unless the intention is to make one hate reading.
Can we please stop making kids read books that fucking suck while telling them it’s somehow good for them to do so? We wonder why reading is seen as a slog and few do it; instead focusing on their phones or Netflix watchlist.
> By the time he was finishing up the last installments, Tolstoy was in an anguished state of mind and, having come to hate [the book], finished it unwillingly.
The folks I know who read a lot more than average tend these fall into camps:
The ones who seem to have the best recall for the material they’ve read - like recalling very specific things from any given book they’ve read. They read about 12-16 books a year.
Then you have the ferocious readers, some of which I can personally attest read anywhere from 30-60 books a year, maybe even more. They however don’t have the same strength of recall. They can often give good synopsis of information they’ve read, but will struggle to recall specifics without looking it up or having to find a book in question and re-skim it for more relevant information etc.
Now achievement wise both groups have done fine but the methodical 12-16 books a year folks seem to make more knowledge gains over time - forgetting less stuff, basically.
I’m not sure which is better, or even if there is a better, but this is something I’ve noticed about volume vs time taken to digest books slower.
Do you feel like you retain things from all 100 books?
10 pages per day gets you 10 books per year, 50 for 50, 100 for 100, etc.
Pages read is a more useful metric in general. A process goal that leads to the outcome.
Some of my favorites over the last year:
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Most of Joe Abercrombie; particularly the First Law series.
God of the Woods by Liz Moore
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Life We Bury by Allen Eskens
Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots
Our daughter counted AK as her favorite book for years, though now I suspect she'd choose Little Women or any of the last five William Gibson books as her fav.
She's read many of these books multiple times. Of course, she's never had a reading list to do, so I'm sure it helps that she chose them on her own. She also read Langston Hughes self-collected "Best of" treasury he released towards the end of his life. And, she has just bailed on other books, like effing Wuthering Heights, ick!
Groucho's quote "I'd never be a member of any club that would have me as a member."
And one of our favorite Columbo episodes (all free on Tubi) that features a murder in a very Mensa-style club, titled "The Bye-Bye Sky High I.Q. Murder Case".