<p>To my shock, my 18 year old son recently expressed interest in “reading for relaxation.” I’d like to get him a few books for Christmas, and I’d also like to nurture this part of his brain. He’s an analytical sort and recently, he’s read mostly school assigned books - he usually reads non-fiction and technical stuff. He likes mystery/suspense/humor (clever humor/wit, not silly). Hates fantasy/sci fi. I don’t want to turn him off to reading with anything boring or really strange. Any suggestions?</p>
<p>Try some funny stuff like Neil Gammon or the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe series</p>
<p>Try author Bill Bryson: non fiction but funny.</p>
<p>I gave my son (about the same age as yours at the time) A Walk in the Woods. He not only liked it but bought another book or two by Bryson.</p>
<p>Also, author Candace Millard: River of Doubt. If he likes that one, she also wrote Destiny of the Republic.</p>
<p>Gourmetmom, forgive me if I am reading this wrong but my S likes mystery type books and reads a ton. He likes David Baldacci (he has a new book out [The</a> Forgotten: David Baldacci: 9780446573054: Amazon.com: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-David-Baldacci/dp/0446573051/ref=la_B000AQ0STC_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1356018150&sr=1-1]The”>http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-David-Baldacci/dp/0446573051/ref=la_B000AQ0STC_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1356018150&sr=1-1)
He also likes what we call the Connelly brothers (even though they aren’t), Michael and John.</p>
<p>I like Erik Larsen, he wrote wrote The Devil in the White City and In the Garden of Beasts. He writes non fiction but they read like fiction.</p>
<p>You might try a classic or two as well to see if you can spur him to get into the material deeply. One of my favorite books still is a collection of all Sherlock Holmes. </p>
<p>There is a reason people read Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler and why those made great movies. The Big Sleep is just as good as a movie fan thinks.</p>
<p>I suggest digging up the wikipedia list of top 100 mystery or crime novels and making some choices. Much of this is personal so it’s more about realizing how much is out there and how easy it is to get into this vast pool of reading material. I love Josephine Tey but am not a big fan of Dorothy Sayers (whose upper class detective hero gets on my nerves). These are both from the “golden age” of British detective novels. I love much of Ngaio Marsh, but others might not. If you move into spy novels, I love Adam Hall (Quiller Memorandum) and was never a LeCarre fan. </p>
<p>As a sort of odd recommendation, if you son likes wit, try some Wodehouse. There are several veins since the guy wrote over 90 books, but the true genius is in the Bertie Wooster / Jeeves novels and stories. There is something remarkable in the way he puts you in Bertie’s head and makes you feel at ease there and then how he reveals how Bertie has been an idiot. That he pulls this off in your own head without making you feel bad is an achievement. And the writing sparkles with humor and wit.</p>
<p>If he likes technical, he might enjoy Tom Wolfe’s “The Right Stuff’” the story of the first astronauts. [The</a> Right Stuff: Tom Wolfe: 9780312427566: Amazon.com: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/The-Right-Stuff-Tom-Wolfe/dp/0312427565]The”>http://www.amazon.com/The-Right-Stuff-Tom-Wolfe/dp/0312427565) It’s not really fiction but is extremely clever and fascinating. Also, when DS was that age, he loved Dave Barry for humor.</p>
<p>Our boys like the Vince Flynn books. Tom Clancy might be something he likes as well.</p>
<p>The Right Stuff reads like fiction and is fascinating - great suggestion! For a guy, classic noir detectives from the 30s might be fun. I just finished reading a bunch of Dashiell Hammet’s which I’d only seen as movies. My younger son likes Tom Clancy.</p>
<p>I don’t know if he’d like autobiography but Feynmann’s *Surely you’re joking Mr. Feynman *and the followup What Do You Care What Other People Think? are delightful. Feynman talks about his early days working on the Manhattan project (and breaking into safes) and also about figuring out the O-ring issue on the Challenger Commission. Roald Dahl’s stories about his English boyhood and adventures in the RAF in Boy and *Solo *are great and explain a lot about where his kids’ books came from. Finally Winston Churchill’s autobiography My Early Life is a great read especially the parts where he’s a captive during the Boer War.</p>
<p>Is David Sedaris too silly?
Jeeves & Wooster is a good suggestion, then he can watch the version with Steohen Fry & Hugh Laurie. ( although Sedaris isnt any sillier than Bertie)
[A</a> Primate’s Memoir : NPR](<a href=“http://www.npr.org/books/titles/138066966/a-primates-memoir]A”>http://www.npr.org/books/titles/138066966/a-primates-memoir)
[Walter</a> Isaacson’s “Steve Jobs” Is a Great Lesson In Economics - Forbes](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/sites/johntamny/2012/11/13/walter-isaacsons-steve-jobs-is-a-great-lesson-in-economics/]Walter”>http://www.forbes.com/sites/johntamny/2012/11/13/walter-isaacsons-steve-jobs-is-a-great-lesson-in-economics/)
Also agree with Bill Bryson, my D loved In a Sunburned Country.
For mystery writing, definitely Sarah Caudwell.
<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/06/nyregion/sarah-caudwell-60-lawyer-and-author-of-mystery-novels.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/06/nyregion/sarah-caudwell-60-lawyer-and-author-of-mystery-novels.html</a>
I like Raymond Chandler more than Hammett, although I enjoyed The Dain Curse.
( More mysteries)Aaron Elkins has a protagonist that is a forensic anthropologist and another who is an art historian.
Tina Fey is pretty funny in BossyPants.
[The</a> House of Silk,a Sherlock Holmes novel,](<a href=“http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2011-11-16/entertainment/35284014_1_sherlock-holmes-mary-morstan-amateur-mendicant-society]The”>http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2011-11-16/entertainment/35284014_1_sherlock-holmes-mary-morstan-amateur-mendicant-society)approved by the estate of Conan Doyle.
Its hard to know what else to recommend without knowing more about his interests.
Fore a couple more non fiction books.
[Books</a> | ‘The Tiger’: John Vaillant’s mesmerizing tale of a man-eating tiger, vengeance and survival | Seattle Times Newspaper](<a href=“http://seattletimes.com/html/books/2012722614_br29tiger.html]Books”>http://seattletimes.com/html/books/2012722614_br29tiger.html)
And just published this year, [Book</a> Review: Buried in the Sky - WSJ.com](<a href=“http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303822204577466953130459274.html]Book”>http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303822204577466953130459274.html)</p>
<p>Neil Stephenson’s Reamde, if he likes a huge long book. Cory Doctorow if he doesn’t. </p>
<p>Also, Connelly’s The Gates is hilarious and interesting, but maybe too fantastical. Both the Connelly’s are great suspense novel authors.</p>
<p>Nate Silver’s Signal and The Noise.</p>
<p>And super-ditto Erik Larsen. It’s fiction, for people who prefer nonfiction.</p>
<p>David McCullough’s The Great Bridge also reads like a novel. </p>
<p>The Road by Cormac McCarthy</p>
<p>I just bought the book “Sutton”. Here is the amazon description:
Born in the squalid Irish slums of Brooklyn, in the first year of the twentieth century, Willie Sutton came of age at a time when banks were out of control. If they weren’t taking brazen risks, causing millions to lose their jobs and homes, they were shamelessly seeking bailouts. Trapped in a cycle of bank panics, depressions and soaring unemployment, Sutton saw only one way out, only one way to win the girl of his dreams.</p>
<p>So began the career of America’s most successful bank robber. Over three decades Sutton became so good at breaking into banks, and such a master at breaking out of prisons, police called him one of the most dangerous men in New York, and the FBI put him on its first-ever Most Wanted List.</p>
<p>But the public rooted for Sutton. He never fired a shot, after all, and his victims were merely those bloodsucking banks. When he was finally caught for good in 1952, crowds surrounded the jail and chanted his name.</p>
<p>Author is a Pulitzer Prize winner and it sounded like something my 24 year old S would like.</p>
<p>Ebeee, your son might also like Doc, about Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp.
[Doc</a> by Mary Doria Russell - Washington Post](<a href=“http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2011-05-03/entertainment/35232472_1_cleft-palate-doc-holliday-mary-doria-russell]Doc”>http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2011-05-03/entertainment/35232472_1_cleft-palate-doc-holliday-mary-doria-russell)</p>
<p>Kiddie- did you mean Neil Gaiman?
I would have recommended him except that OP said that her S doesnt care for fantasy or science fiction.
Which is too bad, because Good Omens is awesome.
[Good</a> Omens by Terry Pratchett](<a href=“Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett | Goodreads”>Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett | Goodreads)</p>
<p>Dennis Lehane’s Any Given Day. Or anything by him.</p>
<p>One of my favorite mystery authors is Tana French. Her books take place in Ireland, and they are wonderful. I think they’d appeal to a young man because there are strong male characters.</p>
<p>I also recommend The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Ms. Lacks was a gynecological cancer patient who was treated and Johns Hopkins at the time when scientist there were trying to develop a cell line for research. Her cancer was unusually aggressive, and her cells became the basis for the ubiquitous HeLa cell line. The book is about the lives of Ms. Lacks and her family, the scientists who developed the cell line, and the effort to obtain recognition for Ms. Lacks. It’s fascinating.</p>
<p>Hitchhiker’s Guide?</p>
<p>Erik Larson’s Thunderstruck is terrific - the story of Marconi and wireless.
Dennis Lahane - while his series is great, The Given Day which takes place in post-WWI Boston is a truly interesting (fiction) combo of historical, baseball, Irish immigrants, police.
Blind Man’s Bluff - the story of cold war submarine espionage
My husband enjoys M Connolly, Lahane, Jeff Abbott, Peter Robinson, Barry Maitland, Harlan Coban</p>
<p>I also mostly like non-fiction, although I am not in school so I can read what ever I like!
( I just realized that the rest of my family is the same way, real life is at least as interesting as fiction, although when we read fiction, it is often fantasy/science fiction)
Mary Roach is not an author that I have read, but oldest especially recommends Stiff.
[Stiff:</a> The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers: Mary Roach](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Stiff-Curious-Lives-Human-Cadavers/dp/0393324826]Stiff:”>http://www.amazon.com/Stiff-Curious-Lives-Human-Cadavers/dp/0393324826)</p>
<p>There are so many great writers, its hard to know when to stop! 
A couple more vintage classics.
James Thurber, [My</a> Life and Hard Times](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Life-Hard-Times-Perennial-Classics/dp/0060933089]My”>http://www.amazon.com/Life-Hard-Times-Perennial-Classics/dp/0060933089) & E.B. White[A book of essays by E.B. White](<a href=“The Wonder and Wackiness of Man”>http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/08/03/lifetimes/white-tree.html</a>)</p>
<p>Because I can’t stop recommending authors.
[Persepolis:</a> The Story of a Childhood: Marjane Satrapi](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Persepolis-Story-Childhood-Marjane-Satrapi/dp/037571457X]Persepolis:”>http://www.amazon.com/Persepolis-Story-Childhood-Marjane-Satrapi/dp/037571457X)
A series of graphic novels, but it crosses the genre of science fiction.
[Y:</a> THE LAST MAN VOL. 1: UNMANNED | Vertigo](<a href=“http://www.vertigocomics.com/graphic-novels/y-the-last-man-vol-1-unmanned]Y:”>http://www.vertigocomics.com/graphic-novels/y-the-last-man-vol-1-unmanned)
</p>
<p>I also have to recommend David Sedaris even though some of his humor is straight from the mind of what I imagine a 13yr old boy’s to be.
[David</a> Sedaris mixes the grotesque and the genuine in Holidays On Ice](<a href=“http://www.avclub.com/articles/david-sedaris-mixes-the-grotesque-and-the-genuine,89998/]David”>David Sedaris mixes the grotesque and the genuine in Holidays On Ice)
Several cities now produce Sedaris’s The Santaland Diaries as a staple holiday show.</p>
<p>Wow! What a well-read group here. I knew you guys would have lots of great suggestions. I’ve already ordered the new Baldacci book and “Any Given Day,” along with a biography of Carl Gauss that I just realized he’d love. He’s actually read several of the books suggested - “…Henrietta Lacks,” 'The Right Stuff"…I like the idea of introducing him to classic mysteries, although I think he’s better off with contemporary writers to start. I’ll keep Wodehouse, Hammett, and Chandler in mind for his birthday. Sherlock Holmes is another great suggestion, especially because he loves the BBC program. </p>
<p>He’s reading “Middlesex,” right now - and I’m interested to hear what he thinks of the very unusual (to say the least) story line. I also think he may like the humor of Oscar Wilde - “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” which he never read in school. It’s one of my D’s favorite books, and I think he should give it a try too. Thanks very much for all the wonderful suggestions.</p>
<p>If he liked Middlesex, the author (Jeffrey Eugenides) has a newer book entitled The Marriage Plot. I thought it was excellent–well written, interesting plot. Main characters are college students at Brown when the book opens. Story deals with mental illness.</p>
<p>Jon Ronson - lost at Sea, the men who stare at goats and all other titles.</p>