Mumsnet Talk

Please help!

DS1 is 15. He is an avid reader - getting through around 12 books a week - but the teenage section in our (small) local library no longer has anything he hasn't read, and we are finding it difficult to find suitable books for him in the adult section.

He loves Terry Pratchett and has read everything he has written. As far as teenage novels are concerned, he likes Robert Muchamore, Anthony Horowitz, Eoin Colfer, Michelle Paver, Angie Sage, Derek Landy.

This sort of book is not really my style and so I am having difficulty recommending similar adult authors.

Can anyone make any suggestions please?

My ds greatly enjoys all the StarWars novels. They seem to be written by various authors but I can have a hunt for some if you think he would like that type of thing.

Has he read any Asimov or Bradbury?

He has tried some Asimov, but claims that he doesn't like science fiction.

I think that the stuff he likes is more fantasy fiction.

Futurama?
Paul Zindel, SE Hinton, Philip Pullman, Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, Robert Westall, Joseph Conrad, Jack London, George Orwell, Ursula Leguin.

Anything on this list?

I would recommend the Abhorsen series by Garth Nix. That should be up his street, though this is still more teenage than adult. Also the Keys to the Kingdom series by same author, though these have an even younger 'feel'.

Hi
Perhaps he especially loves those and has got into a bit of a rut.
Ds1 was on hols recently and loved -
One flew over the cukoos nest
The world according to Garp
Catch 22
and some of the James Bond books ( can't remember the titles.)

That looks a good list lljkk - he has read some of the books mentioned but not all, so I will email it to him.

Thanks!

Juwesm - thanks, he has read all of the Abhorsen series and the Keys to the Kingdom one.

Pagwatch - yes, I should try him on something different.
I bought him Catcher in the Rye for his birthday, and although he did read it, he was not too keen ('guy whines a lot')

Robert Rankin.
Gene Brewer - K-PAX trilogy

A friend who loves Fantasy books recommends the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan.

Douglas Adams of course!

Robert Jordan looks very suitable for him - will definitely recommend.

Read him the Douglas Adams some years' ago I am afraid!

I would go through the 'customers who bought this item also bought...' section for one of the Jordan books. That should pick up loads of similar series.

Have seen lots of David Eddings and Terry Goodkind on the same friend's shelves!

Juwesm - many thanks. Making long list of names now!

Iain Banks. Excellent for young men. He writes science fiction/fantasy as Iain M Banks.

Ooh yes - I hadn't thought of him. Very popular up here in Scotland!

Oh he's so right about 'Catcher In the Rye'!

Steven King? His Dark Tower series is great - more fantasy than horror.

Neil Gaiman?

I don't rate Dean Koontz much at all but I can see he might well appeal to teenage boys.

1984?

Sherlock Holmes?

If he's a 12-book-a-week 15 year old he doesn't need teenage books any more. He should be reading:

Raymond Chandler
Dashiell Hammett
Gorky
Solzhenitsyn (Day in the Life .. to start with)
Alain-Fournier (Le Grand Meaulnes)
F Scott Fitzgerald (perhaps, not utterly keen myself)
George Orwell (Down & Out in Paris & London/Keep the Aspidistra Flying - not 1984)
Jack Kerouac

(janeite - that looked like I was contradicting you on 1984 - in fact I hadn't noticed you'd mentioned it - I only said not it as it Gets Done At School and so people are often put off it. Also I was going for short sharp bright reads, not hefty ones!)

Message withdrawn

No prob Bink.

What about Day Of The Triffids / The Midwich Cuckoos etc? Sci-fi but not that awful cliched sci-fi with tight jumpsuits and galactic battlezones (gross generalisation, sorry).

I was absolutely thinking John Wyndham, I agree. I have it all stashed in my head ready for ds (who's 10) in, hmm, couple of years.

Many thanks for all the suggestions.

I am passing them on to DS1 as we go along.

Depending on his level of maturity I'd suggest Tom sharpe. Very similar humour to Terry Pratchett. If it's more fantasy Fiction rather than humour then I'd suggest some of the Stephen King stuff, Dark Tower series and of course Tolkien.

Hmmm. Tom Sharpe. I think I was reading him at around this age.
DS1 is probably mature enough (within the range of fifteen year-old boys anyway).