Books for an intellectual teenager

[Mr Larrington]

And have him read the "an apology" thread on this very board

[Robh]

When I was a teenager, and about to start 'A' Level English Lit, I was concerned that I hadn't read enough, so I asked a cool adult (he taught me in a Saturday morning art class) for a reading list. It turned out to be one of the best gifts anyone ever gave me. I kept it for years, slowly working my way through it, and I wish that I still had it. It included many of the names already mentioned above, but also included JG Ballard (The Atrocity Exhibition), Beckett (one of the novels, I forget which), JL Borges (The Aleph & Other Short Stories), Dickens (Hard Times), and Herman Hesse (Damian, I think it was, possibly Steppenwolf).

[mrcharly-YHT]

Conrad (Lord Jim is good but depressing, Heart of Darkness is compulsory reading)

One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest

Julius, by Daphne du maurier (seriously, read it. It is not a romance, more of a horror story)

For something lighter, but really worth it, the Neuromancer trilogy by Gibson.

[Dibdib]

Might be worth nosing through the list of Penguin Great Ideas books. All little 100-ish page paperbacks, a fiver each new or mostly a penny (plus £2.80 p&p) used on Nozama.

Penguin Great Ideas is a series of largely non-fiction books published by Penguin Books. Titles contained within this series are considered to be world-changing, influential and inspirational. Topics covered include philosophy, politics, science and war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penguin_Great_Ideas

[ian]

I would recommend my august and intellectual tomes, but I've yet to finish them. Thou shalt not mock vampire librarians. My wife is reading it. She won't sit next to me now. Or travel in the same train carriage.

[Mr Larrington]

I would recommend my august and intellectual tomes, but I've yet to finish them.

Omnes: Get on with it, man!!

[citoyen]

And have him read the "an apology" thread on this very board

Maybe I'll get him a copy of Captain Corelli's Mandolin

[Mr Larrington]

I sense a disturbance in the Force detour to Shepherds Bush in your future.

[ian]

You know, I was wandering down Uxbridge Rd the other weekend and I neglected to check if that tome was still mouldering in the front garden.

As a teenager and beyond I read everything good and bad, I think I lived in the local library. A note for young persons hereabout: libraries were places where they used to keep a selection of books for borrowing. They were, I think, recently replaced by something called the Amazon. These days I mostly pretend to be a philistine, but I still try to be eclectic with varying effect, including the Dan Brown thing (all true!). I'm reading something by James Herbert at the moment – nostalgia for things like Rats which I read as a teen, possibly for the sex bits on p73, 134-135, 234, 337-339. It's hard going tbh (and tumescent in all the wrong ways), it's like an hackneyed prose vending machine, I think the lead chap has been in a drive to a castle for about fourteen chapters now (and still hasn't got any nookie, my teenage self is disappointed). I could have walked to Scotland quicker.

I would recommend my august and intellectual tomes, but I've yet to finish them.

Omnes: Get on with it, man!!

Be careful what you wish for. I have to type up the corrections courtesy of my pedantic spouse (I think she's actually paid to be writer and editor for her day job, I get her services for free) before I decide what to do with them. It was more of an intellectual adventure. I'm busy creating the an utterly terrible graphic novel, one that combines my dislike of Powerpoint and the teeming undead, in Alice & Jess vs. Zombies, which I have to finish as a Christmas present for my wife. She'll love it even if she has trouble finding the precise words to express her feelings on the matter.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Enjoying Orwell is just weird. It's dull dull dull.

Altho' anyone who enjoys Orwell will easily survive a reading of the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.  A very clever piece of writing whose characters are alive to this today.

Conrad was also a keen observer and for a bit of optimism I still like to read 'Youth'.  Greene's 'Travels with my Aunt' is entertaining and compulsory medicine for anyone showing signs of wanting to become a small town professional and join the Rotary Club.

[Moleman76]

Dracula

The Man Who Planted Trees

[Torslanda]

I am a cultural wasteland.

It's a statement, not required reading...

[hillbilly]

When I was late teens, I worked my way through lists like Booker Prize winners, best 100 books of all time etc.  A lot of the books or authors have been listed below by others.  My own favourite at the time was Hemingway.

Some specific suggestions:

Murakami - Norwegian Wood
Huxley - Brave New World
Kundera - unbearable lightness of being

Then there is a whole raft of mid 20th century sci fi. Dune, Flowers for Algernon, the forever war, Hypernion, etc etc.  Nowadays a lot of these are wrapped into the Gollanz Classic sci fi series. That era combined politics and high ideas, and resulted in some really engaging fiction.

[Juan Martín]

The Border Trilogy: Cormac McCarthy

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

I am a cultural wasteland.

It's a statement, not required reading...

Ah yes, 'The Wasteland'.  I'd forgotten about that one.  Very intellectual..

[Bledlow]

I'd add The Comedians to the Greene list.

Travel books & other eye-witness accounts, perhaps, for varied perspectives. Perhaps Travels in Arabia Deserta, by Charles Doughty, The Silk Road, by Sven Hedin (his fascism doesn't colour it too much), & In Patagonia, by Bruce Chatwin, for a bit of fiction mixed in (as with Paul Theroux's travelogues). I'd definitely recommend The Conquest of New Spain, by Bernal Diaz - who was there.

I recall that The Prince was on every would-be-intellectual teenager's reading list when I was one.

I also liked The Evolution Man, by Roy Lewis.

Looking over my bookshelves for more varied perspectives, what about The Interpreters (Wole Soyinka), Diary of a Mad Old Man (Junichiro Tanizaki), Kill Me Quick (Meja Mwangi), Silence (Shusaku Endo) A Woman in Berlin, or A Diary of the Plague Year (Defoe)?

[citoyen]

I recall that The Prince was on every would-be-intellectual teenager's reading list when I was one.

I believe he has already read that one.

Maybe I should just get him a black polo neck sweater and a packet of Gauloise for Christmas.

[mrcharly-YHT]

A Moment of War by Laurie lee.

I actually don't rate 'cider with rosie' all that highly. It is light and fun.

A Moment of War has real grit and pathos.


Oh - and have we had For Whom the Bell Tolls and Farewell to Arms?
On that theme, The English Patient (book not film) is good. Also for geeky teenagers, Cryptonomicon

[Kim]

I am a cultural wasteland.

It's a statement, not required reading...

+1

Being an intellectual teenager sounds like hard work.

[citoyen]

Being an intellectual teenager sounds like hard work.

It's a phase. I expect he'll grow out of it.

[Andrij]

I would recommend my august and intellectual tomes, but I've yet to finish them.

Omnes: Get on with it, man!!

Monsieur le Maire, one is fairly certain there is another valued member of this august forum who has been tasked with putting quill to parchment to enlighten the masses as to Everything that is wrong with this world.¹  If only one could remember who . . .

¹ Other titles are available.

[bikenrrd]

Some great suggestions, especially Cormac McCarthey and Daphne du Maurier.

I'd also suggest some John Le Carre - Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy and the Spy Who Came in From the Cold are the obvious ones, but I think the Honourable Schoolboy is even better.  Plus The Constant Gardener or A Most Wanted Man if he wants something a bit more uptodate and not Cold War based (although we are heading that way again).

Philip K Dick - The Man In the High Castle, also excellent, as is Ubik.
Thomas Pynchon - Gravity's Rainbow.  This one is a test.  If he can make his way through it on the first reading then he's got perseverance.  Tell him to keep a notebook and draw flow charts.  It helps.

[Pickled Onion]

While it's always good to have read the classic must-reads, nearly all the suggestions above are a bit... old.

Although not completely up to the minute, but still with relevancy to the current political situation, I would recommend Kurkov's Death and the Penguin, and also the sequel Penguin Lost. One of the Shallots, who is seemingly on a mission to read everything, just gave Death and the Penguin 5/5 which, from her, is high praise indeed.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

I've a cousin who was an intellectual teenager.  He wrote his own book.  It's so arcane that not only is it unfathomable to me but I don't even understand the Amazon reviews on it.

[SteveC]

Don't be afraid to give him something which might stretch him. For my eighteenth, I was given a copy of 'The Glass Bead Game' by Hesse. I tried it at the time and got nowhere. Two and a half years later during my final year at uni I read it straight through. I have to admit I've not re-read it which (back then) was fairly unusual, but my 'reading for pleasure' took a bit of a hit after my finals and took some years to reappear.