What book/novel helped you expand your vocabulary?

Question

So thanks to many of your answers, reading! reading! reading! is my source to expand my vocabulary and help me express myself and/or find the proper words. Now, I would like to find the right book that will help me. I enjoy non-fiction, educational and interesting books. Nothing too complex, I do not want to spend the majority of the time with the dictionary next to me. I will begin with moderate books and move my way up. Please recommend! THX a bunch!! I'm excited!

Answer 1

The Catcher in theRye- J.D. Salinger

it was really good, and it had good vocabulary



and by the way, if you're in high school, and you need a list of books to improve your vocabulary, there is a list of 100 classics that you're supposed to read before college. its on collegeboard.com



ill paste you the list: (it has authors's name first!!)



-- Beowulf

Achebe, ChinuaThings Fall Apart

Agee, JamesA Death in the Family

Austin, JanePride and Prejudice

Baldwin, JamesGo Tell It on the Mountain

Beckett, SamuelWaiting for Godot

Bellow, SaulThe Adventures of Augie March

Bronte, CharlotteJane Eyre

Bronte, EmilyWuthering Heights

Camus, AlbertThe Stranger

Cather, WillaDeath Comes for the Archbishop

Cervantes, Miguel deDon Quixote

Chaucer, GeoffreyThe Canterbury Tales

Chekhov, AntonThe Cherry Orchard

Chopin, KateThe Awakening

Conrad, JosephHeart of Darkness

Cooper, James FenimoreThe Last of the Mohicans

Crane, StephenThe Red Badge of Courage

DanteInferno

Defoe, DanielRobinson Crusoe

Dickens, CharlesA Tale of Two Cities

Dostoyevsky, FyodorCrime and Punishment

Douglass, FrederickNarrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Dreiser, TheodoreAn American Tragedy

Dumas, AlexandreThe Three Musketeers

Eliot, GeorgeThe Mill on the Floss

Ellison, RalphInvisible Man

Emerson, Ralph WaldoSelected Essays

Faulkner, WilliamAs I Lay Dying

Faulkner, WilliamThe Sound and the Fury

Fielding, HenryTom Jones

Fitzgerald, F. ScottThe Great Gatsby

Flaubert, GustaveMadame Bovary

Ford, Ford MadoxThe Good Soldier

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang vonFaust

Golding, WilliamLord of the Flies

Hardy, ThomasTess of the d'Urbervilles

Hawthorne, NathanielThe Scarlet Letter

Heller, JosephCatch 22

Hemingway, ErnestA Farewell to Arms

HomerThe Iliad

HomerThe Odyssey

Hugo, VictorThe Hunchback of Notre Dame

Hurston, Zora NealeTheir Eyes Were Watching God

Huxley, AldousBrave New World

Ibsen, HenrikA Doll's House

James, HenryThe Portrait of a Lady

James, HenryThe Turn of the Screw

Joyce, JamesA Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Kafka, FranzThe Metamorphosis

Kingston, Maxine HongThe Woman Warrior

Lee, HarperTo Kill a Mockingbird

Lewis, SinclairBabbitt

London, JackThe Call of the Wild

Mann, ThomasThe Magic Mountain

Marquez, Gabriel GarciaOne Hundred Years of Solitude

Melville, HermanBartleby the Scrivener

Melville, HermanMoby Dick

Miller, ArthurThe Crucible

Morrison, ToniBeloved

O'Connor, FlanneryA Good Man is Hard to Find

O'Neill, EugeneLong Day's Journey into Night

Orwell, GeorgeAnimal Farm

Pasternak, BorisDoctor Zhivago

Plath, SylviaThe Bell Jar

Poe, Edgar AllenSelected Tales

Proust, MarcelSwann's Way

Pynchon, ThomasThe Crying of Lot 49

Remarque, Erich MariaAll Quiet on the Western Front

Rostand, EdmondCyrano de Bergerac

Roth, HenryCall It Sleep

Salinger, J.D.The Catcher in the Rye

Shakespeare, WilliamHamlet

Shakespeare, WilliamMacbeth

Shakespeare, WilliamA Midsummer Night's Dream

Shakespeare, WilliamRomeo and Juliet

Shaw, George BernardPygmalion

Shelley, MaryFrankenstein

Silko, Leslie MarmonCeremony

Solzhenitsyn, AlexanderOne Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

SophoclesAntigone

SophoclesOedipus Rex

Steinbeck, JohnThe Grapes of Wrath

Stevenson, Robert LouisTreasure Island

Stowe, Harriet BeecherUncle Tom's Cabin

Swift, JonathanGulliver's Travels

Thackeray, WilliamVanity Fair

Thoreau, Henry DavidWalden

Tolstoy, LeoWar and Peace

Turgenev, IvanFathers and Sons

Twain, MarkThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

VoltaireCandide

Vonnegut, Kurt Jr.Slaughterhouse-Five

Walker, AliceThe Color Purple

Wharton, EdithThe House of Mirth

Welty, EudoraCollected Stories

Whitman, WaltLeaves of Grass

Wilde, OscarThe Picture of Dorian Gray

Williams, TennesseeThe Glass Menagerie

Woolf, VirginiaTo the Lighthouse

Wright, RichardNative Son

Answer 2

You're going about this wrong. Just read what holds your interest, expand to things that might hold your interest, and don't be put off by the size of the volume or the particulars of where it is shelved.

Read the encyclopedia. Not cover to cover, but one or two articles every time you can-- once a day if you have an encyclopedia, once a week or so if you are using the libraries.

Start by picking a subject you are interested in, follow that with something suggested in the first article. Encyclopedia articles are generally well written and easy to read, but don't usually hold back or dumb down their vocabulary.

Answer 3

Dictionary! Trust me, it works. I have gotten so far. Also it comes to you. If you are highly good at reading and vocabulary, it comes to your mind with no explanation. I am in fifth grade and an excellent reader, getting 169 for reading and vocabulary on MEAPS, mostly because of the dictionary. Well, probably not most of it, but some. I was just born a natural reader, I guess. No means to brag...

Answer 4

Twilight taught me many interesting words, such as exuberant. Also, Once Upon a Marigold. But, it's different for everyone, some people just don't find interest in the type of language used in the books.

Answer 5

something that intrests you, since you like educational books, try something more informative than always stories. informative pieces can help you expand your vocabulary and learn a thing or two, also. i know this might not be your "thing," but poems are definitely a GREAT way to build vocabulary, too. it also helps people build interpreting skills. it helps people discover the meanings of various poems and metaphors people use in life. have fun =)

Answer 6

There is no such a book. A single book won´t do it. Read books you like for fun and enjoyment. Your vocabulary will expand gradually without noticing it in a way you didn´t notice growing taller.

Answer 7

You may not believe this, but I am an avid reader, and when I read Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, I had to have a dictionary on hand and opened on almost every page.

And I thought I was smart....

Take a look for yourself to believe.

Answer 8

The Sweet Far Thing. It is based in 1895-1896 so I pretty much developed their way of speaking and vocabulary....haha

Answer 9

confusing stuff. browse over google and yahoo. this may help!