Books for a 17 year old boy?
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Any recommendations?
He's asked for books and I seem to rarely be able to find books for his age category...or it seems that way.
TIA!
The Outsiders
Lord of the Rings series
Eragon series
Rad Bradbury
1984
Lord of the Flies
Into the Wild
Marley and Me
Those are just a few off the top of my head. Really, at 17, any adult books would be fine. "Teen-aged books" are really more for middle school/jr boys as a general rule.
See Pam that's what I find. I never even thought of Lord of the Flies. That's a great idea!
Thank you!
I know most adult books would be fine and I let him read mine that are geared towards "male" type topics but he's getting bored of reading "mom's" books. LOL
17 - good grief, how he's grown!
If he is at all interested in science fiction, anythng by David Drake, but especially the Lt. Leary series. Lois McMaster Bujold, her Vor series, focuses on an oddball young man, Miles Vorkosigan. Both authors' stories have lots of space adventure, aliens, odd political and culteral societies, and are pretty much science fiction, not fantasy. Both authors have web sites with bibliographies.
All of Anne McCaffrey's Dragons of Pern series - check the chronology so he starts with the first book chronologically, Dragons Dawn, which is not the first book written. This is also science based fiction, exploring over several hundred years how a society develops when a colony ship is stranded on a planet and is able to develop intelligent dragons. The many books in this series tend to focus on how this society develops and interacts, rather than on science, and there is very little war/violence.
McCaffrey also wrote or co-wrote a series, Brain Ships, but that's a little tricky because the underlying premise is that the brains of children with severe physical handicaps but no mental handicaps are "built" into robots and become the thinking parts of spaceships and space stations. They are very good stories but the reader has to accept that the brain people are happy in their lives and enjoy being the brains of ships and space stations.
If he gets interested in science fiction, I would stay away from John Ringo, who wrote some good hard science adventure stories in the past, but his most recent 3-5 books have a lot of soft p**n, bondage, s/m, etc.
Eric Flint has written a couple of "alternate history" series. Ring of Fire has the most volumes, based on what could happen if a small West Virginia mining town, with all of its citizens and visitors, is transported whole to an area in Germany during the period of the Hundred Years War, and starts with the book titled "1632".
Marley and Me is great fun.
One of my favorite books to recommend to anyone of almost any age over 13 is Cold Sassy Tree. It is a "coming of age" story with the narrator being a young man in the American South, around the time of the Model T Ford. Very well written and a lot to think about.
To Kill a Mockingbird. Anything by Robert Heinlein.
If he is at all into stories that bring magic into the mix, anything by Mercedes Lackey. She goes back and forth - in some of her books the main character is female, in others male. There is a whole series set in a totally imaginary world, but also a series - Bards of Bedlam - which mixes modern times and elf magic, plus the Serrated Edge series, in which elves are race-car drivers.
Aaron Elkins writes a very good mystery series where the main character/detective is an anthropologist who becomes known as the "Skeleton Detective". Nicely written, easy reading, sense of humor, modern times. There is also a series written by Phillip R. Craig, with a male detective, set on Martha's Vinyard in modern times, also well written, some humor, a wry eye for human frailties. I like mysteries where most of the blood/violence is off-stage and the story is about the detecting (and not the love life of the detective).
Oh, if he likes history at all, Carson McCullough has written a great series about Julius Caesar, starting with his grandparents, in "First Man in Rome". Very good history, well written, about 8 volumes so far, I think. Sharon Kay Penman has written a good series of English history, starting with William the Conqueror.
Both authors are very good on their history, but these are thick books. Not "hard" reading, but long reading.
Terry Pratchett is another good one. Bill Bryson too. What are his interests?
video games, computer games, recreational hockey (playing), dragon boating and reading, he likes watching things like myth busters, stargate, csi, lost and "whatever is on" he says LOL
He's a pretty easy to please kid 
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