Book suggestions for nearly 15 yr old boy who's had enough of the made for teens stuff

[duchesse]

I've posted this on Dadsnet as well, but would be very grateful for any suggestions.

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...)

George Orwell - 1984, Animal Farm
Fergus Fleming - real life stories of adventures at the south pole and north pole. Great stuff and really well written.
CS Forester - Hornblower series

I second Raymond Chandler.
PG Wodehouse, my best (male) friend introduced me to the joys of wodehouse when we were 15. Kurt Vonnegut was another favourite. What about jonathan Coe?

oh yes, Rotters Club !

Hmmm, at fifteen I suspect that he's probably ready to read most adult fiction. When I was that age I loved:

• classic thrillers like Alistair MacLean and Ian Fleming. Fleming in particular, is timeless and would doubtless appeal to any young man. Some of these will naturally flow into other arears, e.g. F Scott Fitzgerald, for me at least, sits pretty easily alongside Fleming.

• the more accessible boy-orientated classics, e.g. Three Musketeers, Count of Monte Christo, Moby Dick, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Robinson Crusoe, Dracula, Hemingway. Have a flick through the Penguin classics.

• biographies in areas he likes (I used to love sports biographies). You might feel some of are too old for him, but guys like Anthony Kiedis, Kurt Cobain, Howard Marks and Bill Hicks lead fascinating lives that would be great (and, ahem, enlightening) reading for any teenage lad.

The Godfather ?

anything by Orwell

ditto Stenbeck, especially Grapes of Wrath

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.

Must say I went through a Zola phase, then an Orwell phase, then a Huxley phase. I did thoroughly enjoy Zola (read the whole 20 something books in the Bete humaine series and thoroughly enjoyed them) I shall have to see if they exist in translation as his French is not good enough to read in the original language.

Overmydeadbody- he does go to the library, but it's quite hard to find any worthwhile literature (ie not purple prose) in the adult section of our local library.

pagwatch- I thoroughly enjoyed A Prayer for Owen Meany, but it has rather a shocking ending I found. He's not a very grown-up 15 (or maybe I am underestimating his ability to deal with adult themes)

Terry Pratchett is fantastic for teenagers.

My father thinks he should read Hemingway. I think he should make his own to Hemingway. At 17 I was revolted by the man's misogyny. My father says that he was simply of his time, but was a man of great courage. I think that plenty of liberal pinko men and some women went and fought in Spain without spewing out such claptrap. His persecptive does not detract from the fact that he is a great novelist, but I would rather my son did not start his life as a man feeling that macho posturing is th way to be a man.

I am perfectly willing to be convinced otherwise.

'All Quiet on the Western Front' is another good one.

I 'leave books lying around', rather than recommending them to DS, because he likes boooks better if he has discovered them himself.

A very good point, that, about leaving them lying around.

"liberal pinko" btw utterly tongue in cheek on my part. My father's term, not mine.

The Diana wynn jones books are good. Both for adults and children.

John Wyndham?
My friend's teenage son (at 13) liked Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea novels - I have two in old Peacock editions (Penguin's then teenage range but was often novels for grown ups that might appeal to younger people rather than older kids) and the others are in adult covers - I don't know what format they're easily avaialble in now.
A lot of Zola's novels have been translated into English - maybe Germinal would be worth a try
Hanif Kureishi, The Buddha of Suburbia (might seem somewhat historical now!)
War settings - Robert Graves' Goodbye to All That (WW1)

It sounds like your son has been reading above his age for quite some time. I think Dark Materials at 9 is very impressive as are the Orwell novels. Your DS is certainly prepared for the adult reading world.

My dd was never a great reader, but he liked a bit of humour. He loved the David Nobbs books, A Bit of a Do and the Reginald Perrin books. I loved The Wrong Boy by Willy Russell...it was just so funny and could appeal to a young teen boy.

How about autobiographies? DH has read loads he's loved. And maybe books from films he's liked would be good too? Though I guess that depends on his taste in movies and also on whether he's read them already.

If he likes his fantasy, Tad Williams is marvellous. He did a series called Otherland which was based in a virtual reality environment. Very engrossing and quite pertinent to our generation of computer game players.

John Wyndham books are wonderfully scripted and great for one bite books, rather than the protracted series of the average fantasy/science fiction writer.

I was also going to suggest Aldous Huxley as I loved Brave New World. I also read a little Russian literature when I was younger, very dark, but quite moving. A day in the life of Ivan Denisovitch was a favourite and I rather enjoyed the Boris Akunin books that came out recently.

Hope he finds a good source of material to keep him engrossed.

My DSs both enjoyed 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time'by Mark Haddon. Amusing and thought-provoking. A real insight into other ways of seeing the world.

Adrian Mole is good
as is Catcher in the Rye, James Herbert's Fluke is also good, the Chysalids by John Wyndham is great and is written from the point of view of a teenage boy. Brighton Rock and Our Man in Havana are good way to get into Graham Greene. At 15/16 i started on all the modern classics eg Orwell, Steinbeck, Kerouac,Virago works and even Stephen King for light relief! provided a good foundation for moving on to the older classics.
I read the 39 steps at 13 and thought it was great, never liked anything else he wrote though

My nephew has just finished The Highest Tide (thehighesttide.com/) and loved it - was about a boy who had a real love of oceanography - he kept discovering things in the bay where he lived.

My nephew is 13.

Crime & mystery - Harlen Coben or Michael Connelly are good.

Robert Harris or Michael Crichton?

Early Stephen King eg. Salem's Lot

Dickens - Oliver Twist or Tale of Two Cities

I'd second recommendations for the very fabulous Iain Banks.

Nothing at all wrong with plot-driven at this age.

"Let him find his own way to Hemingway" - yes, totally agree.

Actually it sounds like he's got the world of reading at his feet, lucky lucky boy. So in fact you might think about what he's like & sort of tilt him towards things which might give him new ideas - so, if he's sporty, intellectual challenges (Conrad good for that); if on the other hand he's a bit serious-thoughtful, funny stuff (Jonathan Coe, maybe even P G Wodehouse); if he's socially naive, Gorky's autobiographies are an eye-opener. As is Solzhenitzyn (she spells it without checking, in an airy way).

I'm guessing he's way beyond Conan Doyle.

Crime fiction - might he enjoy Christopher Brookmyre?