<p>I can’t imagine any boy spending the summer reading Jane Austen or even classics like The Great Gatsby.</p>
<p>My kids read mostly sci fi and fantasy, but if your kid would rather read thrillers or mysteries that’s fine too. Or maybe even non-fiction about sports or medical mysteries.</p>
<p>You’ve had some good sci-fi suggestions. Not mentioned, but my kids also liked David Weber’s Honor Harrington books and Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War books (military sci fi)</p>
<p>For fantasy my kids also liked Garth Nix ( especially the Abhorson trilogy). Diane Duane’s various series.</p>
<p>For thrillers, Tom Clancy, Alistair McClean, Michael Connelly, Robert Crais, Lee Child.</p>
<p>For autobiography - Surely your Joking, Mr. Feynman (very funny early life of a Nobel prize winning physicist). There’s a sequel too. Boy and Solo by Roald Dahl. Horrific childhood followed by adventures flying with the RAF in WW2. </p>
<p>For interesting essays: Freakonomics by Stephen Dubner. The Man Who mistook his Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks. (Many more collections if he likes that.)</p>
<p>Also he could try short story collections - not a genre I care for, but you could do worse than reading Edgar Allan Poe or Sherlock Holmes.</p>