Recommend some books to a 13yo girl who's passionate about literature!

[franch]

This is heaven for me - reliving my discovery of literature through a friend's DD! She's very mature and is reading 'grown up' fiction (White Teeth, Birdsong, etc) - so far I've come up with:

Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
J D Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
L P Hartley, The Go Between
Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway
D H Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

Please add to my list - I'm sure I've left off some really obvious ones.

I'd also like to recommend some biography/non fiction to her but wonder if 13's a bit young for A Child Called It, A Piece of Cake etc. I think she's keen to have her eyes opened in the way these books do though - anyone read anything that might be more suitable?

I read Orwell at about 13.

I love Barbara Trapido too, althoguh I found Stankie and Frankie really disappointing. I must re-read the novels actually.

oh, and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World

frogs-I adored Don't lets go to the dog's tonight.
What is the sequel called?

It's called Scribbling the Cat. Not in the same league, and really not suitable for younger ones -- contains some graphic scenes of war-time atrocities.

Agree about Frankie and Stankie -- such a shame, I'd been looking forward to a new Barbara Trapido for ages.

McDreamy, that's the one! Haven't read them for years, quite tempted to explore my mother's attic and see if they are still there now.

Would also suggest Terry Pratchett although not starting with the first two - try Equal Rites.

Thank you thank you thank you everyone.

Another Barbara Trapido fan here!

... tho I remember being quite disturbed by the rape scene in Temples of Delight, so probably one for later.

Frogs: I've got Don't go down to the dogs on my bookshelf. Been there a fair while, but never had time to read it.

I shall promote it to the pile by my bed that I also don't have time to read lol

oh god mars, just to warn you that book haunts me and I read it when it came out (four years ago?) I still thin kabout it most days

I get haunted by books too. There are some I never mention because just allowing them to re-enter my mind sets me back 3 years!

Don't go down to the dogs is indeed a haunting book.
I think about it a lot too.
The girl who wrote it was in school in Malawi with my cousins.

Cats Eye, Margaret Atwood
A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
The Great Gatsby, Scott Fitzgerald
Candide, Voltaire
anything by Anne Tyler or Elizabeth Berg
The L Shaped Room, Lynne Reid Banks
Poor Cow, Nell Dunne
Fried Green Tomatoes, Fannie Flagg
Anything by Patrick Gale - very appealing, alternative characters with sympathetic child characters
KM Peyton - specifically the Pennington trilogy
Agree 1984 and Brave New World - strong stuff though

some (most) of these have sexual stuff in, is that ok?

Not sure about sexual content - Sons & Lovers type stuff ok IMO, but don't want to cross any boundaries the parents aren't happy with - will stick to books I've read, to be on the safe side - which means I'd better start on the ones on this thread that I haven't read yet!

taylormama, Jane Eyre is my favourite novel too!

What about Margaret Attwood - Cat's Eye, The Robber Bride.
V Woolf: would say Orlando rather than Mrs D (I liked the weird stuff at that age)
Austen: Emma (I read P&P first and hated it)
RL Stevenson, Kidnapped (still a favourite)
Def Jane Eyre
William Boyd: The New Confessions
Evelyn Waugh: Brideshead Revisited, Handful of Dust, Decline and Fall
DH Lawrence: would say the Rainbow (tho perhaps more when sse's a bit older)
Muriel Spark: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Oscar Wilde (the plays)
Joyce: Portrait of the Artist
John Wyndham: Day of the Triffids, the Chrysalids

Such a good age for reading - you'll pick up anything to try it! Wish I was as enthusiastic about reading new stuff now

Some great ideas here for dd (13 as well) - favourites with her recently have been On Beauty (Zadie Smith) though like me she was a bit disappointed by the ending and Allende's Zorro. Like Pirates but better. We saw Being Jane recently so she's reading P and P - I often buy the same book as her so we can read/talk about it together. She also reads loads of tat by the way!

At that age, I loved The Belljar and would recommend it to any thinking 13 year old girl. I think she'd also like Margaret Atwood's first novel, The Edible Woman. You could also try Mrs Gaskell's Cranford. The Mitfords are good value - I would suggest Jessica Mitford's Hons and Rebels, and Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love. I loved Thomas Hardy at that age - I find it a bit too gloomy now! Also The Mill on the Floss for a wonderful young heroine. You could try MIddlemarch too - again, more great female characters to identify with.
Agree that Barbara Trapido is marvellous - but how could you not have enjoyed Frankie and Stankie? It was fantastic but it was completely different to her fiction.
If your young friend likes autobiography, she could try My Grandmothers and I by Diana Holman-Hunt, and Eleanor Farjeon's A Nursery in the Nineties.
I will keep thinking and post again - I was a voracious reader as a teenager and my only regret about having a DS rather than a DD is that I doubt he will share my literary tastes (although having said that there is not guarantee that a DD would either ..)

Marge Piercy - Woman on the Edge of Time and Vida, although these both have sex in them (but tbh nothing I'd be too worried about an intellectually curious teenager reading)
Anya Seton - Katherine

and am assuming she has already gone right through Philip Pullman? In which case she might also like Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White?

Has she read Anne Frank's Diary, or even The Silver Sword?

Oh and Jamila Gavin's Coram Boy

I know Why The Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou
Pride and Prejudice
The Bell Jar

The girl in question has suffered from depression/suicidal tendencies and is very sensitive about being labelled 'a psycho'. Would love to recommend the Bell Jar but am worried she'll either absolutely love it or take it as some kind of insult - what do you reckon?

Somerset Maughan's Of Human Bondage really struck a cord with me as a teenager.

Cry the Bloved Country
To Kill a Mockingbird
I know why the Sweet Bird SIngs

But am I the only person who thinks you have to be a bit careful about offering very grown up books to someone so young? Particularly one who has been depressed? Or am I being over cautious?

How about something funny - I loved PJ Wodehouse and Three Men in a Boat at that age.Or are they too old fashioned (I am extremely old!). Cold Comfort Farm?