Total questions: 1
In school's required reading, have there been any books that stand out in your memory, if so, why?
My early schooling was highly catholic. I read a lot of books about saints and produced book reports. No particular one of those stands out after all this time. I still have a general respect for saints as individuals because if there is one thing that it takes to be a saint (assuming the tales are significantly accurate) it's conviction.
In high-schoolish level I was assigned a book "geek love" and few books have ever caused a strong a reaction in me. It was sick and twisted, but not in any way that could be suspected to be an accident. No, the author was trying to take everything sacred and mutilate it; especially the bonds of family, rational epistemology, and the meaning of an individual's life's work.
My professor/teacher (I did most of highschool in a community college setting) said that it wasn't a waste of time because I learned that I could react so negatively.
Scientifically speaking the books I remember most are Statistical Thermodynamics, a textbook the exact variant of which I don't know but the real content was mostly drawn from Schrodinger's book. To exceed the scope of your question by including books that were not required reading but that I read at about the same time I was learning 200 level biology: Darwin's Blackbox and The Selfish Gene.