My daughter is turning 13 in August, and I got to thinking about the books I read when I was around that age. I just finished rereading Stranger at Wildings by Madeleine Brent which was one of my favorite books at the time. Actually, at that age, I read and loved all the books by Brent.

So, my question is: What books did you love or influenced you greatly when you were in your teens?

Well, in my adolescent years, I loved to read Stephen King and Michael Crichton. But during that period, I'd say I would never forget Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom. I love the different messages each Person gave.

Right now (since I still have a "teen" in my age), I can never forget The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub, Instruments of Night by Thomas Cook, and Hero by Perry Moore. I love 'em!

Oh gosh, I can't get over these awesome smileys!!!!

In my teens? Well the first book that comes to mind is The Origin of Species by Darwin. Then there was a book I found in the Carnegie Library where I lived when I was about 14. It was an archaeological book with big colour plates. That was the first time I saw the Venus of Willendorf. It made me realize that somewhere in that time I had a relation who lived and breathed and I wondered if she ever thought about me - one of her descendants - and how I lived. And there was Abbotts's little book called Flatland. That started me thinking about dimensions and the nature of reality.

I loved Judy Blume. Her themes were sometimes religious-based, but she was definitely ahead of her time.

Teens like to read about other teens, in situations that are dysfunctional and not perfect... at least it made me feel better about my own life.

Well, there was A Catcher in the Rye, probably first of all. Hamlet was also a big influence. Then there were the dystopian novels such as 1984, Brave New World, One[i/], and [i]We. I used to imagine myself as a hero in such a novel, the last one to resist the evil totalitarians.

When I was a very young teen, two books that I still remember well are Sweeney's Island and Animal Farm.

When I got into high school, I was an avid reader, and read alot of classics that I didn't know were classics at the time. These include Grapes of Wrath, Anna Karenina, Doctor Shivago (spelling?), The Brothers Karamazov, An American Tragedy, Sister Carrie, Gone with the Wind, Moby Dick, Jane Erye, Rebecca, and all of Jane Austen's books.

I would recommend all except maybe the Brothers Karamazov, as for some reason, it was difficult to get through.

A few stand outs for me would include, "The Bell Jar", Sylvia Plath, "The Metamorphosis", Franz Kafka, and the play "No Exit", Jean Paul Sartre.

I have two kids in HS, and their summer reading lists are shocking to me. Two years ago, "The Di Vinci Code" was one of their options. I asked the school if my daughter could read "Pride and Predjudice" and was told no. She read "The Lake House", Patterson, and hated every second of it.
Some HS require selecting something off the New York Times best seller list. I don't get it. What happened to the love of reading, and reading good, thought provoking books? Also, what happened to vocabulary? No dictionary needed for "The Lake House".

I understand that reading something is better than nothing, but a bad book can be torture for a strong reader.

I was going to post about the same books Will did!

Brave New World, 1984, Hawkmistress, Stormqueen!, The Brothers Karamazov, The Possessed, Darkness at Noon, Gateway, The Left Hand of Darkness, every single Star Wars/Star Trek book in print(exaggeration),The Gods Themselves, The Darkness that Comes Before, and Tigana.


I found Brothers boring for the first 60 or so pages I believe but after that it went by like a flash...

My favorite book as a teenager was The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker.

I read a number of influential books when I was in HS:

Hamlet - Shakespeare

The Prince of Tides - Pat Conroy

Girl, Interrupted - Susana Kaysen

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

Stephen King

There were so many fantasy ones that I can't count.....

On the road by Jack Kerouac showed me a different world of literature.

After that I read his letters, which basically shaped my book choices for the next year or so:

Bonfire of the Vanities - Tom Wolfe
In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevski
Eugine Onegin - Pushkin
My Name is Aram - William Saroyan
Number One - Dos Passos
Look Homeward, Angel - Thomas Wolfe

Whenever I read kerouac's letters or diaries it reminds me of the versatility of language and the possibilities of literature.

I'm still a teen, but I have a few books I know I will treasure forever.

I have read A Wrinkle In Time around ten times.

I can complete sentences from any part of The Lord Of The Rings.

The Circle Series blew my mind.

Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow and their sequels sparked my imagination like nothing else.

Although it's not a really... outstanding book, "Enchantress From The Stars" was I think the first book that I realized could tell a great story while asking questions about the way the world works.

I can't really say a particular book was influential or a favorite. When I was a teen I got hooked on an author and then read everything I could get my hands on by that author. A few of the authors I loved were Hermann Hesse, John Steinbeck (especially Grapes of Wrath) and maybe most of all Ursula K. LeGuin. I had a thing for futuristic novels; that is until they all started to make me mad and that is another post entirely. Back to Ursula. I think the piece of literature that has stuck with me and may just be the most influential is one of her short stories. It's called, "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas", published in a collection entitled, The Wind's Twelve Quarters (I still have my first copy and somehow a 2nd copy). I first read this story when I was about 13. It is a utopia story with a hitch. In order for everything to be hunky-dory in this world, one child must live totally deprived in a closet -- one does all the suffering, so that the rest may live happy comfortable lives. It is mandatory that everyone must know about the child in the closet.

"The Mapmaker", the story of David Thompson's explorations in Western Canada. This book not only got me thinking about history, but also about the excitement of pushing the envelope of human experience; of discovering the new and previously unseen.