My senior year in high school, my English teacher started the year by having us turn in a list of all of the books we had read. My list was much longer than most of my classmates. He then assigned us books to read and report on based on some criteria (hypothesis: books that would make us miserable). I got assigned two existentialist plays, “Waiting for Godot” and “No Exit.” I think those plays did permanent damage to my psyche.

(Sidenote: a classmate who didn’t read very much got assigned Virginia Wolff. She thought it very unfair that I only had to rea d couple of plays.)