Top five teenage books of all time

[Bink]

Here's mine:

Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and The Member of the Wedding [cheating by doing two]
Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle
Julia Strachey, Cheerful Weather for the Wedding
Jack Kerouac, On The Road
Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

Funny how many of these are American, whereas our children's books (on the other thread) are very Brit-centric.

(Otherwise, I've got a bet on how many times the Brontes come up.)

(partial to the whole flowers in the attic saga as well)

ooh yes john braine

I read The Chrysalids when I was about 13 at school - still one of my favourite books now.

I also remember reading The Thornbirds just before it became a mini-series and loads of books by R F Delderfield, Howard Spring and Susan Howatch because they all had books that were made into Friday evening drama series and I loved those sagas that stretched over decades.

Also scared myself stupid with James Herbert books and James Herriot (although they weren't scary obviously)

I used to get through several books a week -those were the days [sighs].

Ah, The L Shaped Room! Fantastic book.

My favourites were:

To kill a Mockingbird
Woman on the Edge of Time/Vida/Braided Lives (cheating like bink, these are all brilliant early Marge Piercy)
The Cement Garden - doomy early Ian McEwan
The Rachel Papers - my parents gave me this, the loons
Katherine - Anya Seton - the ultimate throbbing-bosomed romantic teen read. Alison Weir has just done the unthinkable and attempted a factual book about Katherine Swynford...

I was lucky enough to be doing Russian A Level and Tolstory and co were therefore Boring at that time and absolutely not to be read for pleasure...

Thought of some more (and am also mulling over my age 12/13 "shoulder season" category as somewhere below in this thread, which I am starting to think is potentially particularly interesting) -

• William Golding, Lord of the Flies and Pincher Martin
• not that I read them myself, you understand, but all of Georgette Heyer

and, may I just say FROGS we are waiting for youooo ...

Bink - which was your favourite? I loved Frederica. And Bath Tangle. And Sprig Muslin. And Devil's Cub. And Arabella.
But of course I haven't read that many.

For shoulder season, my generation were v fond of Jean Plaidy. We pretended we were learning history that way. And did anyone else read Forever Amber?

Rosa - I wish I'd had a favourite! - it was my SIL who read 'em all - I completely missed out. (I have a feeling they were gently discouraged - and I wasn't enough of a girly to feel the loss.)

Shoulder season: a book whose title I can't remember, but it's a sort of pair with I am David, about a Jewish girl sent to a Siberian labour camp with her extended family. Very marvellous book, I remember all kinds of powerful moments in it. Particulary superb ending, where she and her mother (I think?) have managed to make a life, after the camp, and have got to a stage where they doing all right for themselves, relatively (she has been able to get a pair of very sought-after felt boots) - and she is then taken away back to a "first world" environment where she suddenly realises that her felt boots are not the mark of prestige - but the very opposite. You all must know it. What's it called?

The Magus

The Magus

So good I named it twice

You could still read them now Bink (I have been known to curl up in bed with one when feeling unwell )
I don't know the book you are talking about but it sounds great. I loved I am David.

Rosa, I ploughed my way heroically through three shelvesful of Jean Plaidy at my local library. I think my parents found the paintings on the covers of the Robert Hale hardbacks more reassuring than the lurid 70s Pan paperbacks. I loved Forever Amber...but it was rather like scoffing a whole box of Turkish Delight at once...
Someone else who wrote lovely atmospheric historic fiction was Margaret Irwin. Still She Wished for Company was a delightful romantic ghost story.

hmmm, do you mean early teenage or late?

Early teenage has to be the Pullman trilogy now. And Malorie Blackman and Melvin Burgess.

And Salinger
And Carson McCullers
And Orwell - animal farm and 1984.

moving onto the existentialists
La Nausee
L'etranger
C & P
On the Road of course
and what we passed round in art lessons-
Carrie, Flowers in the Attic series, and that one that opens with a lesbian love-in bewteen someone called Ronnie and someone called Lacey, and Sweet Valley high.

I didn't "get" Jane Austen till much much later.

Flowers in the Attic was under-desk material in our school too. I did read Jane Austen but although I loved Sense and Sensibility at that age, I didn't really get Persuasion until much later.

Ha! Flowers in the Attic - we all bought/read them at school; My mum didn't read at all, but saw that I enjoyed them and bought one for her sister's daughter - my cousin when she was about 13.

But my aunt read it, was really shocked, and complained

the prime of miss jean brody

Oh YES notanotter, very good one

roisin - re your note on Catcher in Rye/Capture the Castle ... I have to agree with you. Catcher in Rye I think is just inherently sour & good for no-one; and Capture the Castle I put in because my sister loved it so - but really I would happily drop that from my list if I could have Miss Jean B. and/or Le Grand Meaulnes.

Oh, another one: L P Hartley The Go-Between

HE Bates, especially the ruder ones!

Gormenghast trilogy

Did anyone read the Chalet school books or Trebizon!? Loved those!

Love for Lydia, Fair Stood the Wind for France, A Moment in Time

Flowers in the Attic - barf. All round our school too, not to mention Love Story.