I like to buy my eldest daughter something decent to read now and again but I’m a bit out of touch. Can anybody in a similar situation recommend me a book?
Ta.
Sparkle

proper modern classics.

Dianna Wynne Jones or Malorie Blackman. (according to my daughter’s bookshelf – can’t ask her, she’s at university)

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder.

My two (14 and 16) just devoured ‘Thirteen Reasons Why’ by Jay Asher.

Gorkiy Park.

An instance at the fingerpost by iain pears

If she’s watching C4 on a Saturday night then she could try ‘The Pillars of the Earth’ by Ken Follett. I couldn’t put the book down & It’s easier to follow than the series.

Hemmingway – The Old Man and the Sea

Ulysses

Depends what she’s into reading…..but….

Sabrina Fludde by Pauline Fisk
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

Books By:
Charles deLint
(for Fantasy/modern mythology) Especially- Yarrow, Angel of Darkness, or Svaha
Toni Morrison
(for ‘modern classics’) Especially- Bluest Eye, Sula, or Beloved
Garth Nix
(if she’s not already gone there, but while the characters are really well written they are a bit childish (but depends if she’s reading DWynneJones as they are similar to her)
Virginia Woolf
(More modern classics, but slightly older) Mrs. Dalloway, The Waves, Orlando. If you do Mrs. Dalloway I would really encourage you to also get Micheal Cunningham’s The Hours as they are related (but the latter is more modern you might remember there was a movie not long ago) and it’s especially good too.

I could go on…

Just bought my 15 year old niece The Road, I hope she isn’t too freaked out..

How comes everybody’s kids are bright? Never met anyone who says their kids are thick – there must be some dumb ones in the world.

It’s because the kids are bright compared to the parents. It’s all relative.

Lolita

Mortal Engines Series by Philip Reve.

Also The Knife of Never Letting Go – Patrick Ness.

It’s because the kids are bright compared to the parents. It’s all relative.

What you saying about MrSparkle?
Besides the kids brain power must have something to do with the parents intelligence genes.

Well when I was that age I was reading everything I could get my hands on, most of it too old for me, and bit of a hippy beatnik phase. Jack Kerouac, Hunter Thompson, Tom Robbins. Balanced with a bit of Jane Austen. OK – everything by Jane Austen. And quite a lot by Jackie Colins, plus the complete works of Nevil Shute cos I think my dad signed up to buy them by accident and they arrived at the house every week. And Robert Heinlein and moved on to Sci Fi phase.

Sorry not sure if that is helpful – just don’t assume her taste is girly and about ponies or vampires.

How comes everybody’s kids are bright? Never met anyone who says their kids are thick – there must be some dumb ones in the world.

Hey, I only said my eldest daughter was bright. Never mentioned the other two kids!
Thanks to all for some great suggestions there.

Any of the books by Catherine Webb/Kate Griffin. (Catherine Webb’s her actual name). A Madness Of Angels and The Midnight Mayor are actually her adult books written as Kate Griffin, and are superb, gritty stories of Urban Magic, where demon Hoodies can be held off by quoting as ASBO at them, and monsters of congealed fat crawl out of drains. Her young adult books are very mature, especially as the first one was published when she was 14.

Books make a great gift don’t they. +1 for the old man and the sea. As we’ve discussed before I love The Road but depends on the person it is a bit scary. Currently Reading Blood Meridian once more. Just read a bit of twighlight saga reaserch for an illustration project, I was appauled at how tacky it was. I knew I wasn’t in it’s target Market but really opened my eyes to how lucky I was as a teenager that my parents kept a good selection of books.

Books make a great gift don’t they. +1 for the old man and the sea. As we’ve discussed before I love The Road but depends on the person it is a bit scary. Currently Reading Blood Meridian once more. Just read a bit of twighlight saga reaserch for an illustration project, I was appauled at how tacky it was. I knew I wasn’t in it’s target Market but really opened my eyes to how lucky I was as a teenager that my parents kept a good selection of books.

Bright? 15 year old?

Gotta be Carrie then.

IGMC

Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London
Not Ulysses but anything by Flann O’Brien is a good kick off into hilarious Irish literature

Diary of a Young Girl, By Anne Frank.

If she is bright don’t get her books aimed at teenagers.

Anne Frank is a great book and changed my life, but more for 11/12 years.

At 15 I think most adult fiction is suitable.

At that age I was working my way through a friend’s a level contemporary fiction list.

Brave new world
Memoirs of a geisha
The wasp factory
The hours
Catcher in the rye
Captain corelli’s mandolin
Generation x
Etc

Anne Frank is a great book and changed my life, but more for 11/12 years.

I dunno, i’m ‘enjoying’ reading it now, at aged 30. very moving, but equally i felt i needed to read it.

^

She’s in the attic!!

i got my misses a set of books by Lauren Kate she loves them and is very mystic minded(angels,vamps,wolves kind of things)
the one i remember is fallen angels but theres a few of them.

Our daughter is currently raving about ‘Looking for Alaska’ (John Green).

I was keen on waugh at that age, and am still haunted by the beauty of Brideshead Revisited.

The Master and Magherita by Mikhail Bulgakov. Genius magic realist satire of Soviet Russia.