Book recommendations for 17 year old ds please.

Imho think this thread should be nominated for classics! Too many wonderful suggestions to let it fall in to obscurity!

Ghost in the wire- autobiography of tge FBI’s most wanted hacker. Can’t remember the author, sorry!
Nothing to envy.
A Kim-Jung Il Production (interesting insight into another facet of North Korean life)
Sherlock Holmes
The Great Automatic Grammatizator (Roald Dahl)

Ooh and Gabriel Garcia Marquez - 100 years of Solitude!

Sorry posted too soon. I’m staring at my bookcase for inspiration but 90% of my books are packed up at the moment so it’s a bit sparse. And I’m on a massive sci-fi/ fantasy kick at the moment so it’s mostly that. Anyway, also:

Carrion Comfort, Dan Simmons

Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett

Ilium (and sequels), Dan Simmons

Bodies of Light, Sarah Moss (though didn’t the sequel was as good)

I don’t think he’s too young for Jane Austen but I’d start with Emma. Also maybe Evelyn Waugh, Scoop to start. I also went through a phase of loving Agatha Christie at around that age, especially the Poirots. Good light holiday reading!

The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula LeGuin

Red Rising (and sequels), Pierce Brown

Mistborn, Brandon Sanderson

The Way of Kings, Brandon Sanderson

Possession, AS Byatt

Well, I did think he sounded like a prat, but in the best possible way... "all those 17 year olds who think they know everything; just wait until they're 22 like me..."

Oh Mip how nice of you to say so! (I thought someone would come and tell me my son sounded like a real prat, if they reacted at all.)

Possibly the best post ever Clara

I asked my son what he liked to read when he was 16-18, and this is what he said. Sorry he is so sneery sounding- he is actually a very nice person, but now that he is 22, thinks 17 year olds are absurd (and he wasn't intending for me to quote him to you, I don't think).

"I don’t know -
I liked all sorts of crap
Popular economics books and histories of the Great Recession, introductory political philosophy books and that sort of thing
I liked ts Eliot, I think he is good for whiny self satisfied teenagers
What else
Borges
Also good for that crowd
They like to think they are discovering the modern condition
Gatsby is actually good for this reason
Teenagers all like that book
Or you could go the other way if they and read the Greek tragedies/epics
They like that too
They can feel superior"

DS has come home with Robert Harris, Munich, he just bought from Tesco.

We made an actual noticeable difference in boy's interest in books at ds's school by getting the male PE teachers to be seen reading. Such a simple thing, but it worked!

Fascinating, I must remember this. We have a gorgeous photo of my then 18mo curled up with a very hungry caterpillar leaning against my then 21 yo brother reading something Brandon Sanderson. A lot of the comments were oohs and aahs around seeing a young tradie guy reading a book (he’s an apprentice builder)

ANother author the older boys liked is Haruki Murakami. Norwegian Wood was one of DS1's favourite novels.

I haven't read th full thread but at that age my boys were reading -

Malazan Book of the Fallen
Thomas Covenant
Anything written by Neil Gaiman
Doystoyevsky
Solzhenitzyn
The Secret History of the Mongols
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
SOng of Ice and Fire
Anythng by Brandyn Sanderson
WHeel of Time
Sword of truth

You are very straight down the line, with feminism, education and books.

you occasionally give glimpse of your personality when talking about your DC.

But then we come to BertrandRussell Galloping round on a hobby horse like a little 7 year old child

Another couple of ideas;
Puppet on a chain - Alistair MacLean
Red Dragon, Silence of the lambs, Hannibal rising etc by Thomas Harris.
The rats trilogy by James Herbert

Lanark by Alastair Gray

Blackden by Duncan Mclean.

Metamorphosis by Ovid

Seeing by Saramago

Not fiction, but

Poverty Safari sorry can't remember the author name. Real life account and analysis of poverty in Glasgow. Extremely educational and fairly readable .

Has anyone suggested

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Perfume by Patrick Suskind
Under the Skin by Michelle Faber
Call of the Wild by Guy Grieve

My son enjoyed David Lodge and Nick Hornby at this age, also loved Jane Austen.
I think High Fidelity, How to be Good, About a Boy, Nice Work, Changing Places, etc- he read them all
He also read Down and Out in Paris and London, and the Road to Wigan Pier
Lots of others I have seen already mentioned, too, so won't repeat those. I will ask him what else he particularly liked around this time

Really long books; the likes of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Pynchon, Moby Dick, or other long or particularly complex and experimental books he's interested in - there's less time at uni and when working to read these, and most will not be as easy to concentrate on in noisy houseshares or on a commute compared with lighter but still long novels. Even if planning to do Eng Lit it's great to have a head start.

that or you've been hacked

are you going to go for jumping competitions or dressage?

this gives a whole different perspective on you BertrandRussell