<p>Wow, I read Canticle for Leibowitz about 50 years ago. It affected me profoundly, but I’ve lost track of it over time.
I’m glad to hear it’s gathered a following.</p>
<p>My son liked many of the books already mentioned. Cat’s Cradle is our favorite Vonnegut, and yes, we’re all Catcher in the Rye fans.</p>
<p>I would add
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Phillip K. Dick
White Noise Don Delillo
Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad
This Boy’s Life and In the Pharoah’s Army Tobias Wolff
The Things They Carried Tim O’Brien
The Beach Alex Garland
Into Thin Air John Krakauer</p>
<p>I’m also fond of short stories, both on their own merits and to ease into the reading process. A few contemporary short story masters that I’d recommend (in addition to Tobias Wolff and Tim O’Brien)
George Saunders
Flannery O’Connor
Jim Shepard
TC Boyle</p>
<p>SouthernHope, Give us a few titles that your son enjoyed, so we can come up with more like those.</p>
<p>I’m a seventeen year old girl who has been reading cereal boxes and Charlotte’s Web voraciously since age four, so this ma or may not be helpful.
I personally love love LOVE Douglas Adams. HGTTG is fantastic, but not given enough love is Dirk Gently. Absolutely hysterical, some of my favorite books ever. I could read them thirty times in a row.
I also love Terry Pratchett. While the quality of the newer books has been going slightly down, the series as a whole (there are about 40 books) is great. If that seems intimidating, start with Mort or Guards, Guards! and work through their respective story arcs.
I also agree with the proponents of nonfiction. I really love reading Malcolm Gladwell’s articles, which I nearly shelled out money to read in book form before realizing that they’re all online. His books I’m not crazy about (and yes, I’ve read them all besides David and Goliath), but he’s an incredibly gifted writer who can make the history of hair dye marketing riveting and explain why there’s only one dominant brand of ketchup before you even have time to realize that the question never even struck you.
Most of what I read, actually, is nonfiction along with classics (I’m in the middle of a major Sherlock Holmes read-through, up to The Red Circle), and while some of them may be off-putting to someone who hasn’t liked reading for a while, starting off with the kind of nonfiction that explains something he’s interested about in a really vivid, entertaining way can really help make reading exciting. I personally love science, and while I haven’t read one recently I love Sam Kean’s books. (I actually just finished a different science/medical book, The Doctor’s Plague, which I’d recommend [as the story of how doctors realized that they needed to wash their hands] had a seventeen year old guy not handed it back to me with a disgusted look on his face after reading three chapters.)
I personally don’t think that it’s enough to recommend the latest best-sellers off the Barnes and Noble shelves- figure out what topics he likes and find the best, funniest, most relatable books in that genre. </p>
<p>I found series to be very attractive at that age. I often ate them up within the matter of days.</p>
<p>Among my favorites: Alex Rider, Pendragon, the Inheritence series, and Percy Jackson</p>
<p>I second the John Krakauer recommendation. My son, daughter and I have read several of his books and enjoyed them all.</p>
<p>Another suggestion Carl Hiassen. He can be a little raunchy, but very, very funny. I was listening to Skinny Dip while driving my oldest on college visits and he was chortling away with me.</p>
<p>Non-fiction that my D2 enjoyed at about the age of 16 was “The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic–and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World”. About tracking down a cholera outbreak in London, author is Steven Johnson. Sparked an interest in epidemiology in D2… she has moved off to other career interests now, but it would not surprise me if she came back to this one someday. I read it and also thought it was really good.</p>
<p>^^
That’s a book that D is reading in preparation for her summer program. I think I’m going to steal it from her when she’s done. </p>
<p>Several people have suggested it, but my daughter was upset by Into Thin Air, in which the protagonist dies from starvation (as I remember) after living on his own in a remote spot for some time. Any kid with instability and a notion that solitude in nature could be healing might be vulnerable reading this book!</p>
<p>You are thinking of Krakauer’s book “Into the WIld”. Although “Into Thin Air” isn’t for the faint of heart, either (expedition gone wrong on Everest). Nor is the book about the cholera outbreak, and probably others that have been listed here. It depends on the kid – my oldest might have been bothered by some of these at 15, while the youngest would have loved them.</p>
<p>We were talking about my daughter’s summer reading list at the dinner table last night and my son mentioned that he really liked The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. </p>
<p>If he likes fantasy, you might want to try Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass, part of a trilogy (though each book stands on its own) called His Dark Materials. One of my son’s (and reluctant reader’s) very favorite at that age. </p>
<p>The book that really got my son going (as a reader that got tired of YA books and stopped reading) was The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. Fabulous books, great story line, complex, not aimed at kids but not inappropriately adult in subject matter (that’s a tough balancing act, IMO). </p>
<p>Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s Good Omens is a very good book, too, funny and thought-provoking at the same time (also well done on audiobook). (Although warning: it’s not for the fundamentalist. It’s not anti-religion, at all, but it makes fun of sacred cows, rather like many of Christopher Moore’s books.)</p>
<p>My son recommends Neil Gaiman’s other books, as well.</p>
<p>Also Brandon Sanderson.</p>
<p>Brandon Sanderson might be a little long-winded for someone just coming back to reading. 
My boyfriend loves his books though, so that’s a solid recommendation if your son is into fantasy </p>
<p>I’m wading through Brandon Sanderson now because my son loves him, but I do not love his 1000+ page books! LI like them enough to read them, but often find them hard going. </p>
<p>Another recommendation on the sci fi front is The Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness - first book is The Knife of Never Letting Go. Todd Hewitt lives on a world where all the women have died and men (and animals) can hear each other’s thoughts. The first thing you learn about dogs is “they ain’t got much to say…”</p>
<p>^wow great idea – just to warn SouthernHelp though, Chaos Walking isn’t for the faint of heart, especially volume 2 (torture) and 3 (civil war), but the writing is fantastic and should interest a 15 year old boy. It’s still classified YA so it’s not like Stephen King Horror.</p>
<p>Oh, yes, nearly forgot- I LOVE LOVE LOVE Good Omens. Hysterically funny (and I’m very religious- not Christian, though, if that makes a difference). Combining two awesome authors just made something even awesomer.
Same goes for Neil Gaiman’s other books, like Neverwhere. Fantasy that doesn’t feel like fantasy, but rather real life that happens to involve the impossible. </p>
<p>My 15 yr old does not particularly like fiction and I am determined to get home to read fiction. He does like discussing big ideas so here are a some he has “not liked” but discussed endlessly</p>
<p>Gate to women’s country by Sheri temper
I, Robot by Asimov
Parable of the sower by Octavia butler
World war Z be max brooks
Oedipus Rex (we read that one out loud together and had a great time)
Watership down (from his sister)</p>
<p>I’m reading World War Z myself right now, and loving it. It reminds me of Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson, another great read.<br>
Also, if your son joins Goodreads.com and enters the names of some books he has enjoyed, he can get recommendations for other books that he may like.</p>
<p>I wanted to give a bit of a different take. Consider getting him an e-reader.</p>
<p>Let me explain. I have always loved school/learning, and my parents truly read a lot (we had a whole library in our very small apartment - literally a floor to ceiling book case). My mom read a lot to me when I was little too, so by all rights, I should have loved to read. But I never read a lot, other than what I was assigned in school. I just had no real interest in reading for pleasure.</p>
<p>Then, in my 20’s, I got a Kindle Paperwhite for my birthday (I asked for it but was planning to use it just for travel). That changed everything for me. It made me WANT to read. The first year I had it, I read over 40 books, whereas before, I would read 1 or 2.</p>
<p>This is not an add for a Kindle, by the way, a different e-reader may work as well(Sony? Nook?). Personally, for me it has to be a dedicated e-reader - I have no interest in reading on a computre or a tablet or a phone - no Kindle Fire or the like for me.</p>
<p>But, if it’s something he is interested in, it may be worth a try.</p>
<p>By the way, read World War Z and LOVED it! Devil in the White City was also fantastic.</p>
<p>I get a lot of inspiration just from browsing Goodreads and letting things catch my interest.</p>
<p>For those that love “World War Z” - try “Dead of Night” by Jonathan Maberry. A real page-turner!</p>