Book recommendations for 17 year old ds please.

[BertrandRussell]

Ds has asked me to come up with 5 books he hasn’t read for the summer holidays. He’s a reader so all the obvious ones are gone. I’ve come up with Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog and The Kite Runner. Any ideas?

Does he want fiction for pure enjoyment, something to stretch his mind, insight into other cultures? It's kind of hard without knowing what has after.

Also Life of Pi. I know everyone is rude about it these days but it's good.

And James Herriott.

Forbidden City by William Nell. About the Tinnamon Square protest and massacre. Maybe intended for a little younger than him but one that really moved me when I was considerably older!

And of course Sherlock Holmes and Wilkie Collins..
And I agree Shardlake.

Porterhouse Blue?

I am creating a fabulous list for both of us!

Just so people know- the Shardlake audio books are wonderful. Up until very recently we did a lot of long distance driving and Shardlake kept us all entertained.

But I think the 5 I am going to suggest to start with are A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog, The Master and Margarita, Tales of the City,Scoop and The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist. Now thinking about the next 5.

So wish my almost 17 year old DS would read! And he’s doing Eng Lit for A level! Currently struggling through Jane Eyre. Did Atonement too but hasn’t actually read the entire book!

I might try getting him to listen to some audio books though.

Why is he doing A level if he doesn't read, Cider?

Honestly, many of ds's friends have only read the books on the curriculum!

I can't recommend audio books highly enough.

Ds's class (he says) is full of boys who read everything and anything and it's the girl who are winging it.

Yes, ds listens to audio books, too. So, if they're studying one Jane Austen, he might read 2 more and listen to two more on audio.

(I can't do audio. It literally doesn't go in.)

A Brief History of Time if he hasn't already read it. Then, if he's got his geek on, Roger Penrose's The Emperor's New Mind.
James SA Corey, The Expanse series. Good old fashioned hard SF.
Greg Bear, Blood Music and Darwin's Radio.
Jane Eyre. Best of the user manuals about teenage girls, and a gripping yarn in its own right.
Charles Stross, particularly Accelerando (free online).
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.
Irina Ratushinkaya, Grey is the Colour of Hope.
Fear and Loathing in Last Vegas.
PG Wodehouse, the Jeeves anthology.
Scorn edited by Matthew Parris. One of my favourites when I need 10 minutes of invective.
A Lifetime of Mountains, Harry Griffin.
Mountains of the Mind, Robert MacFarlane.
Touching the Void, This Game of Ghosts, The Beckoning Silence.

My entirely unscientific study suggests to me (sadly) that boys who choose English are usually making an active choice so are probably more likely to be readers while girls often choose it as a default subject. Doesn't apply to everyone, of course!

I think you're right, Bertrand.

Plus, ds happens to be in a year group where all the cleverest girls are scientists, mathematicians and musicians, and the cleverest boys are artists, historians and drama/English bods.

Down and Out in Paris and London. Perfect before either university, a gap year or a crummy job..

Dostoyevsky : Crome and Punishment?

Or a bit of Tolstoy or Chekhov?

Ulysses - James Joyce?

Can highly recommend John Irving- The World According to Garp and A Prayer For Owen Meany

John Irving is fantastic - A Prayer for Owen Meany is my favourite book of all time: laugh out loud funny and heartbreakingly sad at the same time. His other books are all fabulous as well.

I adored Nancy Mitford at that age: Love in a Cold Climate etc.

DanglingMod - I have no idea! He is also doing history and wants to do history at university. I keep pointing out that he needs to read for both subjects. He is also doing economics and has a reading list for that. I don’t get it as I love reading and always have a book on the go.

Christopher Farnsworth - The Presidents Vampire
The Unwind Series - Neil Shusterman
Depends what kind of books he likes of course..

Not sure if I missed this but how about:
A Time of Gifts? Patrick Leigh-Fermor ?

Bel Ami or anything by Guy de Maupassant
Edgar Allan Poe
James M Cain especially The Postman always rings twice.

Also Saturday night Sunday morning by Alan Sillitoe

Any interest in comics or history? If so, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon (although I’d recommend it even if he doesn’t).

Also, several of the earlier Chuck Palahniuk books - Survivor and Diary in particular. Slightly disturbing in parts but nothing I’d think unsuitable for a 17 year old (unlike some of his later books)

This is a good list! Everything I’ve come up with has been suggested so far, except Salman Rushdie and 100 years of solitude.
I don’t really get reading books like the once and future King or the lord of the rings in parts, really they are just one book I think.

Great suggestions on here - will read some myself! My ideas have already been suggested. Your lucky DS!

Wow. This honestly feels like I've stepped into a parallel universe!
I have a 20yo DS and, other than school essentials, I think the last book he read cover to cover was Diary of a Wimpy Kid . I wish he was a reader, but I just didn't seem able to cajole him to enjoy it past the early teen years.

So long as he's not in the middle of an English degree, Jock?