I'm with you on that one, Goof. My father tried so hard to get me to read books when I was a kid, and it wasn't until I picked up a Stephen King book that I discovered how wonderful reading is. Sure The Scarlet Letter, The Red Badge of Courage, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Pearl are all great stories that make you think, but they're not really books that a teenager is going to appriciate. When I read The Scarlet Letter, while I enjoyed the story, half the time I didn't know what was going on because of all the symbolisim. And Faulkner? You mean the King of the Run-On Sentance? There is a sentance in The Unvanquished that is two and a half pages long. I'm sorry, thats not good writing.
Give me Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, Christopher Paolini, heck, even a good fan-fiction writer any day of the week.