Top Ten Books I Read in College: Number 7

So is this going to come down to a battle between YA lit and more conventional literature? If so, have fun with this one. I read it in YA Lit and World Lit. (In fairness, I was only required to read the cliffs-notes version for YA Lit.)

In descending order, my favorite books (and by books I mean fiction-novels) from four years of study at Dixie State College:

7. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

A heart-breaking tale of post-colonial Africa about a respected tribesman who finds adjusting to life under the rule of the British to be unbearable. Okonkwo accidentally kills a boy in his village and is forced to spend 7 years exiled to the village of his mother's family. When he is finally able to return home, he finds that the British have arrived in order to civilize everyone. Okonkwo is disgusted at how his fellow tribesmen could allow such a thing to happen and tries to return his tribe to their traditional roots. His futile efforts come to a very tragic, and poignant, end.

As I thought about it, I realized this was the first novel I was assigned to read in college. I was in my first literature class, and I was terrified. When I chose to become an English major it was because I wanted to help future generations of kids be more effective writers; I had no idea reading was involved. Luckily, as annoying as it was having a professor telling me what to read, I was enthralled by this story. I'd never really connected to literature that was outside my own culture before. Achebe's novel is amazing at connecting the tiny world of an African tribesman with my own.

For opening my eyes to a world beyond my own, Things Fall Apart captures the number 7 spot on my list.