Book suggestions for nearly 15 yr old boy

[duchesse]

Calling all men out there who read a lot as children and teenagers.

Formerly bookworm son has waned a little in his enthusiasm for reading over the last year . I think it's because he's exhausted children's fiction and the made for teens stuff.

I just wanted to pick the brains of you dads out there about what you enjoyed/ were inspired by at this age, particularly if you were on proper grown-up literature.

My husband wasn't much of a reader at this age, and I was a girl, so not much use at guiding the reading of a boy. My father is attempting to guide him, but seems to favour cold war/ spy stuff (eg Island of Sheep, 39 steps etc...)

Recommendations gratefully received.

Sounds like he might like the His Dark Materials Trilogy from Philip Pulman as a very popular item.

and "Inkheart" from Cornelia Funke

and if he like a bit of very consumable philiosophy. "Sophie's World.." by a Norwegian name i entirely forget, and I also forget where my copy is to tell you!!

I'd say what I was reading at 15 but this was so long ago I totally forget that.

His Dark Materials is always a fine choice.

....when I was 15 my English teacher lent me a copy of Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut. I had never read anything like it, and revelled in every word. It remains one of my favourites.

.....Sophie's World is a fine choice too (though I was definitely older than 15 when it was published!)

It is by Jostein Gaarder, I think. Don't bother with the dull sequel though...

At 15 I was mostly reading the NME.

Ummmmmmmmm, then I got into '60's kitchen sink novels like Billy Liar and Saturday Night Sunday Morning, but I guess that was inspired by the bands I liked at the time. Prior to that I liked John Wyndham but no other sci fi - always preferred a strong element of reality. Might have read some George Orwell around that age, 1984 and Animal Farm.

Sorry, that's probably not very helpful.

Am not a Dad, but my 15 year old DS can't get enough of Robert Ludlum at the moment.
He really enjoyed the Bourne trilogy. I'll ask him for some other suggestions when he gets home later.

Am answering both threads at once, so apologies if some of this is not relevant to this thread.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far. quite a few there I hadn't thought of. He's read LOTR (which I personally feel is a pile a teenage bilge, but he enjoyed it at 9), His dark Materials also by age 9. Has read 1984 and Animal Farm, also pretty much everything written by Cornelia Funke. Will try him with Sophie's World. My father has given him some Conrad short stories and recommended Somerset Maughan short stories. I think he might enjoy Saki and Wodehouse, and Agatha Christie. I don't feel that he's emotionally developed enough to start on the French existentialists as he is still at the early stages of not reading only for plot iyswim.

A couple more: Raymond Chandler, Milan Kundera (he's sure to pull at school with 'Unbearable Lightness' in his coat pocket - do arty kids still do that?).

Murakami might be OK too.

Just found your other thread and see I am waaaay too late with the Chandler suggestion. Ah well...

I was going to try and recommend a few books; them I realised at that age I was mostly reading Terry Pratchett, Iain Banks and a bunch of comic books.

Try Art Speiglman's Maus. Neil Gaiman (he does prose fiction too) is good.

Ummmm... Neal Stephenson. Recommended him before on here, but Snow Crash was something I loved then. Ditto Crytonomicon (altho published later). It's 700 pages of interlaced WW2 and modern storylines but shouldn't be a problem if he's ploughed through Tolkein's uranium (heavier than lead, natch) writing style, it shouldn't be a problem.

Iain M Banks Algebraist might do it for him.