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?

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.)

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..."

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

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!

Ooh and Gabriel Garcia Marquez - 100 years of Solitude!

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)

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

The Handmaid's Tale - I'm worried it will be seen as a girl's book so I'm taking my chance to suggest it to a boy while mine is still too young for it.

The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. Or Insomnia (in my opinion just as good as the usual favourites of IT or The Stand). Also IT. And The Stand. Maybe Buick 8 because that has a boy of 17 or so as one of the main characters.

If he wants something a little odd and not in the usual book format, Discovering Scarfolk by Richard Littler is good. It's about a man whose twin sons go missing in a dystopian town called Scarfolk, which seems to be stuck in the 1970's but with everything a little skewed. A lot of the story is based on a file of evidence that includes old 70's posters and leaflets and references to things. It's very hard to describe but there is a website that will give you a good idea of the content of the book.

Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham, if he hasn't read it already.

I was speaking to a 17 year old boy yesterday and he was saying he's reading and loving the series of books about Hannibal Lecter. I think Red Dragon is the first, obviously Silence of the Lambs is one of them. He was very enthusiastic about them.

If he wants some really well-written military/adventure/mystery (humorous) sci-fi then may I recommend Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga? The best book to start with for a 17-year-old boy is probably The Warrior's Apprentice - which starts when the hero, Miles Vorkosigan is 17.

A Mnetter introduced me to them, and I have read them all and loved them - and I never thought I would read and enjoy a book with a spaceship on the cover.

Buick 8 really upset me because of the way the dog does. But I'm a wuss!

@MipMipMip - I don't like that bit either. SK has a way of writing upsetting things about dogs and I always worry when one appears in his books. I got a bit worried about the gerbils as well. I still love Buick 8 though, people don't seem to like it as much as some of his others but I think it's very good.

I have a pet theory that the Buick has something to do with Booya Moon from Lisey's story. I don't think anybody else agrees with me though but I get the same feeling from Buick 8, Lisey's Story, and Duma Key so to me they are all connected.

Duma Key is a good but odd one actually. I read it when it first came out but then I had absolutely no memory about it except I remembered the dog (another upsetting bit) and that the man started painting stuff. When I reread it I felt like I was reading it for the first time. The villain is one of my favourites now though.

Not read Lisey's Stoey - when i do i shall think about cars now!

I love Duma Key. Possibly my favourite of his. Although I can't remember a dog.

I do agree anout SK having it in for dogs. Cats are fine but dogs not. Stopped reading Needful Things because there is yet another and it just feels unoriginal now. Which is extraordinary because I don't know any other writer with his range of plots and styles.

I've decided after also not finishing The Shining (I thought at the time it was purely style putting me off to go on a SK break. But as I've brought lots recently I don't know how long until I will crack.

Sorry for all the typos - typing while dog walking does not lead to good proofing!

Hi bertrand : as a teacher of A level, you'd think I'd know! But boys doing A level English is a dwindling thing and those that do it eitehr don't talk about what they read or don't read

However, I cna say those who do liked White Teeth, The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared and non fiction stuff like White Teeth. As far as set texts go , some of them liked God Of Small Things and Atonement was popular with the boys.

Boys often like non fiction and Sapiens was a hit.

I recently read This Thing of Darkness ... it's amazing and definitely would eb enjoyed by a clever boy, especially if he likes science , ethics and/or history, too.

Lots of good books about politics and Trump, too, at the moment!

The Secret History is one of my A Level class's favourite books. I found it overwrouhgt , but pretentiousteenagers seem to like it.

I shall keep thinking about this because I love the idea of a reading boy!

Also, Muncih (mentioned above). My 17 year old DS nearly read that book, so it must be OK.

Do you have or like cats? I think boys should read gentle books sometimes and The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa is the loveliest, softest book : but it is really about being a man who represses emotion. My 14 yo DS and me both loved it.

Btw , my experience of boys who do A level English is that they do it because it is 'useful' and a'facilitating subject'. I reckon they must be secret Mumsnetters!

They like to think they are discovering the modern condition
Gatsby is actually good for this reason
Teenagers all like that book

Ohhhh - is that why I couldn't bear it in my forties? I can't even remember whether I finished it or not...

and non fiction stuff like Whit Teeth

Sorry : I have no idea how that sentence was actually meant to end!

Ooh, has he found Fowles yet? I reckon 17 is the perfect age for The Magus...

The Universe Versus Alex Woods is terrific. It includes discussions on assisted suicide though, just in case that might upset him.

A lot have already been mentioned above, but pretty much anything by:

Dan Brown
Lee Child
Andy McDermott
Clive Cussler
Stephen King
Neil Gaiman
Terry Pritchett
James Patterson
Anthony Horowitz
JRR Tolkien
Michael Crichton
Jo Nesbo
Robert Galbraith
Richard Chizmar
Dean Koontz

Just a few there

Piggy - absolutely not the case with ds and his male A level lit friends. They're all super nerds, arty, classics and mythology minded, history geeks. At his school, it's the girls who are focused on career goals and money and the like and the boys who waft about quoting poetry (yes, it is a private school...)

Ps. I have This Thing of Darkness on my shelf, unread. Sounds like I should push it ds's way.

I think, sadly, that might be the difference. Numbers of A level English are dwindling in state schools. It's not seen as 'important' enough and very much felt by students that they 'should ' be doing sciences. The very clever ones soemtimes take A level to supplement the sciences, but then drop it when they discover they no longer need 4 subjects. It's very sad. MFL, of course, is in an even worse pickle.

I am cheered to hear that there are reading males!

Don't get me wrong: there are fewer lit, theatre and MFL candidates by far than STEM, just like in state schools, but the sexes taking them are really reversed. Loads and loads (M and F) do art though; all is not lost.