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What next for book-obsessed DD16 who has “read everything worth reading”

121 replies

NemoNerd · Today 08:49

Looking for some suggestions for summer reading for my book-obsessed 16 yo dd. She hardly read anything in y8 and y9 but in y10 suddenly became a voracious reader. It’s her biggest hobby now - she reads 3 or 4 books per week and no longer watches Netflix at all. I barely recognise her!

She does read fiction, and has tapped out the big hit classics like Pride And Prejudice as well as more recent novels like Madeline Miller’s Song of Achilles.

She really enjoys books about psychology, sociology, astronomy - for example she enjoyed reading an old 1999 book called The Calendar which is very dense but explains how religion and politics have changed how we measure and understand time. She has also read some of the self help books about improving your personal power and influence over others.

Anyway…she’s just finishing up “Man’s Search For Meaning” by Viktor Frankl which she chose for herself.

She’s pondering reading “The Man who mistook his wife for a Cat” next as she really quite enjoys medical/psychological weirdness (she was a big Stephen King fan in year 9!).

For her next read I recommended “Sapiens: A brief history of humankind” followed by “Thinking Fast And Slow” which I told her may be a bit of a stretch.

But for the summer I’d like something a bit lighter…

What else may she like?! When I was her age I read a biographIes and enjoyed them, but it would need to be something really engaging.

She proudly tells me she’s read everything worth reading and is “running out of books” which I found extremely cute. Help me build a reading list!

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Iaeve · Today 09:28

Station 11!!

Newforspring · Today 09:29

Sweetsalad · Today 09:27

Or Storygraph.

I’ve never heard of storygraph, is it good? I find goodreads quite intense sometimes so would love a good alternative.

Goodmorningeveryone26 · Today 09:29

i second many of the recommendations above! Particularly Middlemarch and the Brontes, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall in particular. Very interesting sociologically as well as just a great read! Portrait of a Lady (Henry James) similarly dense and absorbing
Then Also Evelyn Waugh (Decline and Fall is funny), George Orwell if she gets a taste for his stuff.
I Capture The Castle is lovely.

MageKing · Today 09:30

Invisible women - non fiction

What about trying sci fi? She might enjoy asimov or john Wyndham of the more old school/classic writers.

Sweetsalad · Today 09:31

Newforspring · Today 09:29

I’ve never heard of storygraph, is it good? I find goodreads quite intense sometimes so would love a good alternative.

It's fab! I much prefer it to Goodreads. you can import your goodreads list into it.

I love the bar charts /pie charts it produces

Morepositivemum · Today 09:32

Just because she liked Sapiens I’d say try Stephen Fry’s books

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · Today 09:33

Get her to sign up to the Goalhanger Book Club - a vast range of options on there

Thehorticulturalhussie · Today 09:35

How about, in no particular order
Kafka
Dostoevsky
Donna Tartt
Lionel Shriver
Primo Levi
Elif Shafak

Books
The Bonfire of the Vanities
Madame Bovary

Sweetsalad · Today 09:37

How about some dystopian fiction?
-JG Ballard
-Kasuo Ishiguro

Or has she read any books by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

or if she liked Sapiens she could read Nexus?

MyThreeWords · Today 09:39

You've got to pick her up on the "read everything worth reading". It isn't cute, it is naive and self-sabotaging. I'm sure she hasn't even scratched the surface.

If she's read all of Austen, I'd suggest Daniel Deronda and Middlemarch, as well as all of the Dickens novels (except Pickwick Papers - bleurgh.)

Also, Tolkien. I remember binging on the Lord of the Rings trilogy at the same age, and it was such a wonderful escape (especially blended with the real-life escape from school in the summer hol).

I'd second her choice of "The Man who Mistook is Wife for a Hat" (hat, not cat - that would be weird Grin). She would also enjoy Awakenings from the same author. Also, a bit left field, but the granddaddy of Oliver Sacks' style of readable case studies in human strangeness is Sigmund Freud. His case studies are extremely readable and fascinating, even if psychology has moved on from most of his views. And a lot of his writing is very literary -- "Civilisation and its Discontents", for example

HollyGolightly4 · Today 09:40

Jon Ronson- a lot of his books are in the style of Louis theroux- the men who stare at goats in particular.

Kate Atkinson- Behind the scenes at the museum (love or hate i feel)

Flowers for Algernon- huge hit with our y12 book club. Very interesting concept about intelligence and lab testing.

Sweetsalad · Today 09:40

Or how about Graham Greene's books? I loved them as a teen

Or Diary of a Provincial Lady - funny but also very clever /perceptive

BoredZelda · Today 09:41

TheCountessofFitzdotterel · Today 09:05

Honestly I wouldn’t be trying to make her a list, it sounds like she is at the point where she needs to develop her own skills in finding and evaluating books. I would be facilitating her going to libraries/bookshops/Amazon or whatever means of acquiring books works best for her, and helping her navigate the world of reviews/blurbs which overpraise mediocre books/strategising what to read next.

This. My similar aged teenager has curated her own book collection, she loves spending time in bookshops and libraries just browsing. It’s part of the joy of reading for her.

Xiaoxiong · Today 09:44

Terry Pratchett - funny but also political and social satire, and they should keep her going for ages.

I also enjoyed reading the master and commander novels by patrick o'brien at that age - jane austen on ships.

Historical fiction too - Mary Renault, Philippa Gregory, Rosemary Sutcliffe, Hilary Mantel...

BauhausOfEliott · Today 09:44

She’s 16 and you’re getting too involved in her choices. Just send her off to the library or Waterstone’s and let her pick her own books.

Sweetsalad · Today 09:46

BauhausOfEliott · Today 09:44

She’s 16 and you’re getting too involved in her choices. Just send her off to the library or Waterstone’s and let her pick her own books.

I loved getting recommendations from my parents about books. It felt like something we could share together. We still recommend books to each other now I am 3x op's DD age!

MyThreeWords · Today 09:46

So many great suggestions on this thread. Makes me wish I was 16 again and could read them all for the first time.

I didn't read "I Capture the Castle" until middle age. Hadn't even heard of it. I enjoyed it so much, but reading it aged 16 would have been very, very much better. It would have merged completely with the dreamily developing sense of self at that age.

99bottlesofkombucha · Today 09:46

Reader19 · Today 09:15

She might enjoy 'The Secret History' by Donna Tartt, if she hasn't already read it.

It sounds like she's willing to take on some more challenging reading, so as a sixth former she could try some novels of ideas - Hermann Hesse's 'The Glass Bead Game' might be good (but it's not lighter than her current reading).

Also, classic European novels. War and Peace is wonderful. It's long but not difficult for a good reader. She might also enjoy Dostoevsky, who is a particularly 'psychological' author.

If she enjoyed Austen, she could try Trollope. I would probably recommend 'Doctor Thorne'.

If she might like to branch out to something more (post)modern, Italo Calvino is great. 'The Baron in the Trees' is a good one to start with. 'If on a Winter's Night a Traveller' also great. They're really playful and fun, as well as offering some stimulating challenge.

The glass bead game is a great book.
if a teen of mine said they’d read everything I’d gently tell them they sound very young when they say that, because humans have been writing books furiously for hundreds of years, and she’s only been reading for not much more than 10 of them, and ask her how many books on project Gutenberg and how many in the library of congress.

Sweetsalad · Today 09:46

Philippa Gregory's "Normal Women" is a book I wish I could have read as a teen

MyThreeWords · Today 09:51

BauhausOfEliott · Today 09:44

She’s 16 and you’re getting too involved in her choices. Just send her off to the library or Waterstone’s and let her pick her own books.

I do kind of agree with this, though. The only time I had much success directing my son to a novel at that sort of age was when he saw me reading J.G. Ballard's "High Rise", and I told him "Please don't read this. It is much too bleak and will make you feel awful, despairing, disorientated."

I absolutely meant it. It wasn't an attempt at reverse psychology. But of course he went right ahead and read it immediately.

Sweetsalad · Today 09:51

Ooh - or Agatha Christie? I only started reading her books this year and they are such good fun

Sweetsalad · Today 09:54

A few non fiction ideas

  • Humankind
  • Difficult Women
  • House of Glass
  • how to win an information war
-The Choice /the Gift (both by Edith Eger)
Mycatmax · Today 09:55

Herman Hesse Siddhartha
Richard Bach. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull
John Fowles. The Magus

Floofle · Today 09:57

Older stuff is probably good because it won't be too explicit...
I'd recommend The Brontes - my faves are Agnes Grey, Villette, Shirley,
Then Thomas Hardy: Jude the obscure is brilliant, the mayor of Casterbridge
Mill on the Floss is one of my favourite books of all time too.
Dickens? Nicholas Nickelby is quite readable, and Great Expectations. I've almost finished (the audiobook of) Bleak House, which reminded me that some Dickens is unbelievably long-winded...