Challenging and interesting adult books for a 15 year old book worm please

[itchyandscratchy]

One of my students (male) devours books and his parents have asked to me recommend a book list for him. They feel that they might be out of touch with more modern texts but they don't want set texts from exams necessarily; just books he can enjoy and be stimulated by. Any ideas?

kurt vonnegut - slaughterhouse 5
ken kesey - one flew over the cuckoo's nest
harper lee - to kill a mockingbird
cormac mccarthy - the road
paul theroux - millroy the magician

John Wyndham - not read thread yet

I wouldn't have wanted to read The Road - Cormac McCarthy at 15 - found it disturbing enough at 44

oh dear... i gave it to one of my pupils to read and he said he loved it... but maybe i've damaged him!

Teenagers often way more 'tough' over reading matter than women (especially once they've had children).

nah, he'll be fine. I was damaged by watching Threads at that age though.

Not particularly literary, but Bernard Cornwell is good for a voracious reader who likes history as he has written loads and they are historically accurate and very readable - the Sharpe series but also his Viking and Arthurian sagas.
Also, in the same vein, Conn Iggulden's Emperor series about Julius Caesar.
For literary fiction, Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy is absolutely brilliant (although there are some very graphic sex scenes in the middle one).

DP suggests Stephen Baxter, 'Evolution' and the graphic novel 'Watchmen' (I can vouch for that one).

"London Fields" by Martin Amis might go down well. Amis' "Koba The Dread" biography of Stalin and Stalinist Russia could be good, too. If he does like history, I'd strongly recommend Mark Steel's "Vive la Revolution!" about the French revolution - it's very well written and takes an interestingly different take on what happened.

I'd also recommend Terry Pratchett as his books are very readable and fun as well as being quite a bit cleverer than they at first appear.

Finally, slip him a copy of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" - everyone should read it at least once...

Definitely Terry Pratchett, also Neil Gaimen - in fact they co-wrote a book called 'Good Omens' which I absolutley love!

1984 is fab, also maybe a bit much for a 15 year old.

How about adventure style thrillers - eg. Frederick Forsythe, Wilbur Smith, Tom Clancy etc.

Pretty much the whole of the current Carnegie Medal shortlist.

Two Steinbeck novels I read at his age and loved are Of Mice & Men and East of Eden. Would agree re. Robert Harris and Iain Banks, but also Ian McEwan. Garth Nix and Phillip Pullman also both wonderful but he may have read them if he's a prolific reader.

Birdsong is another good one and also things like Any Human Heart and Restless by William Boyd good too.

The short stories of Saki - I loved them at that age (still do!)

The Knife Of Never Letting Go on the Carnegie list is v good indeed. I also enjoyed Ostrich Boys - although if he's a big reader they may feel a bit 'young' for him.

Has anyone suggested Conan Doyle - the Sherlock Holmes stories yes but also Lost World.

This is really hard, perhaps more so with pre-teens rather than a 15 year old, as you have to balance the prose and the content.

It's certainly not modern, but the Sherlock Holmes books are a fantastic read - also a well written biography about someone you are interested in can be a fantastic read.

Hmm, fantastic twice in the same sentence, sorry.