Classic books for a 20 year old who has started reading?!

[unfortunateevents]

A miracle seems to have occurred and 20 year old DS has started reading books! He is first year uni and I think a year of online learning and hours upon hours of being stuck in his flat with no socialising has driven even him away from screens. He is currently reading On the Road (Kerouac) and before that read a biography of Patti Smith and something about Picasso. I am buying him Catcher in the Rye for his birthday but wanted a few more books of a similar genre, maybe relating to music, art or the 50s/60s which he might enjoy and am drawing a blank - even though I read lots his taste turns out to be very different to mine. Does anyone have any thoughts?

Morning
It's not a classic but one of my all time favourite books is Shantaram.
I wish I'd read it when younger, and everyone I know who has read it thinks it's fabulous

Catch 22
Animal Farm
Fight Club
Brave New World
American Psyco

I’d have a look on HMV online books. They stock arty/music biog/vintage and modern classics and mostly 2 for £6.

The Great Gatsby

100 Years of Solitude

Atonement by Ian McEwen

Midnight's Children

Brideshead Revisited or may be try the loved one by Waugh instead its short and entertaining, not as good as Brideshead.

Trying to think of enjoyable literary or classic books I read when I was a teen or 20 but a lot would be more girl oriented (Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen, Margaret Atwood, Hilary mantel, Louis de bernieres, anything in virago modern classics remember enjoying Lolita but would hesitate to recommend that to a man now! )

Surely hes best to look up his own books not have stuff forced on him.

Theres also books you read as pretentious teen that I dont remember enjoying but read anyway, like on the road and catcher in the rye!:
L'etranger (the outsider)
The unbearable lightness of being (think I enjoyed this)
Crime and punishment

Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr. (harrowing but certainly a cult classic if that's his thing)
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (every young man I know who's read this has found it funny)
Christy Malry's Own Double Entry by BS Johnson (funny, off the charts experimental but also very easy to read)
The Plague by Albert Camus (a classic and also very relevant to the current situation, politically and pandemically)
Just Kids by Patti Smith (esp if he enjoyed the biography - this overlaps heavily into art as well as music)

This is what I'd suggest, all very very good, but no idea whether he'd like them:

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein, a classic describing the Paris arts scene (Picasso, Matisse etc.)

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates, 1950s follow your dreams vs adult responsibility

The Lonely City by Olivia Laing, about the arts scene in NY, loneliness and the aids crisis (focused on artists),

The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster,

The Granta Book of the American Short Story (or another anthology of short stories, but this is a good one) a good way to find authors he might like to read,

Not from that era, but Brighton Rock by Graham Greene. Brilliant.

Mentioned already;
Brave New World
American Psycho
Also:
1984
Slaughterhouse 5
Any Ian Banks (my fave is The Crow Road)
The Motorcycle Diaries.
The Beach

JPod by Douglas Coupland, and maybe some of his other GenX books

Margaret Attwood - especially the science fiction

If he thinks he might like science fiction then point him at Iain M Banks (also recommend his non sf books), also Hyperion by Dan Simmons and you cant go wrong with Asimov and Philip K Dick. Oh and Neil Gaiman (American Gods is great)

Random others - 1984, Catch 22, Holes (Sachar), The Secret History (Tartt), Curious Incident of the dog in the night time, and any of Terry Pratchett.

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins- the first (disputed) proper Detective novel in English and written well with absolutely hilarious characters.

The Quiet American- Graham Greene- and also watch the Michael Caine movie version (with Brendan Fraser - the perfectly executed film of a book).

The Plague Albert Camus. :)

The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
The day of the Triffids - John Wyndham
Tom Jones - Henry Feilding

Oh yes! Plus The Chrisalids by John Wyndham. Love that book.

Classics that he might like...
To kill a mockingbird- Harper Lee
Wasp factory- Ian banks
A room with a view - em Forster
Cold comfort farm-Stella gibbons

Beat poet/original hipster novels from the 50/60s
The electric acid koolaid test- Tom Wolfe
One few over the cuckoos nest - Ken Kesey
The rum diaries-Hunter s Thompson

Popular novels that are worth a read

Captain Corellis Mandolin
A fault in our stars
The room
Girl on a train

Albert Camus! God yes!!

Atomised by Michel Houeebecq
Oryx and Crake byMargaret Atwood- one of the best books ever!

The Beach by Alex Garland
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
I am Legend by Richard Matheson (i.e. book not film)
Any George Orwell

Great suggestions already... I'll add more current reads:

The Hunger Games trilogy

Lord of the Rings trilogy

Into Thin Air and Into the Wild, both books by Jon Krakauer (I love his books!)

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

As I walked out one midsummer morning ~ Laurie Lee

A Time of Gifts ~ Patrick Leigh Fermor

H2G2
Any Neville Shute
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Do you mean a similar genre to Catcher in the Rye or more like art and music biographies?

I second the recommendation for To Kill a Mockingbird. Also second Catch 22 and The Great Gatsby.

Steinbeck is usually popular with people who liked Kerouac. Of Mice and Men is great but short.

The Bell Jar. The Poisonwood Bible. Rebecca. The Man in the High Castle.

He might like some P G Wodehouse stuff - more irreverent and funny.

At 20 I loved Pride and Prejudice but if he has not read many novels then 19th century classics might not be so great to start with.

If he is in the mood for humorous novels then these are not old classics but he might enjoy Good Omens or some other Terry Pratchett stuff. Not funny or a classic but I also recommend The Kite Runner.

On the mid 20th century American music and art track, there is:

Minor Characters: A Beat Memoir
How I Became Hettie Jones
The Holy Barbarians

Which I have heard recommended specifically around the Beat Generation but I have not read them. Then of course there are the actual books/essays/anothologies from the era e.g. The Naked Lunch, Turtle Island.

Oh wow, thank you everyone. Loads to choose from here. Some of these he has actually read, (Hunger Games, Orwell and some were covered in school like Steinbeck) so I guess he's not completely uneducated! But there are some great new suggestions here and some I might even like to read myself which would be great - I remember having good conversations with my boys when they were younger and we were all reading Hunger Games or Harry Potter at more or less the same time. Thanks again!

I'd also recommend the Five Books website for more inspiration, particularly on non fiction - and to the point about letting him decide what interests him, that could be helpful. The navigation lets you choose the topic area, then there are lots of lists which are really precise in their focus.

Seconding the Iain Banks suggestion - The Crow Road as suggested up thread (also my favourite) has an early 20s student as the main protagonist. Espedair Street is also great and the main character is a musician, so that could be a good connection!

Haha Op I came on to say Catcher in the Rye - tho beware, he may hate it (my reading-lover dd did).

Some great suggestions here already. I was also going to say PG Wodehouse vv light and easy but funny.

Some other ideas:
Sherlock Holmes stories (not novels)
Agatha Christie novels (not short stories haha)
Le Grand Meaulnes is a great book (not sure how it is usually translated)
Bit more up to date:
Nick Hornby is a great writer; Funny Girl is set in the 60s I think and High Fidelity is about music
David Lodge (literary/Catholic/university)
David Nichols (One Day, Us)

Thanks Clary - to be honest, I am buying him Catcher in the Rye against my better judgement as I hated it years ago (read it twice just to be sure and didn't like it second time round either!). Bu the world would be a boring place if we all liked the same things!