Books are becoming a lost pasttime in this ever-sped-up society of video games and television reality shows. My brother's 13th birthday is on Thursday and it's got me thinking about what I read when I was a teenager; what changed my world view, my confidence, my imagination when I was coming of age. The following is a list of literature - nonfiction and fiction alike - compiled by my boyfriend and I as we thought about what we would want a young boy to read and learn from as he passes through his teenage years.
In no particular order (Isaac - ask if you want to know what they're about.):
"A People's History of the United States" - Howard Zinn
"To Kill a Mockingbird" - Harper Lee
"Catcher in the Rye" - J.D. Salinger
"A Separate Peace" - John Knowles
"Animal Farm" & "Down and Out in Paris and London" - George Orwell
"The Jungle" - Upton Sinclair
"Call It Sleep" - Henry Roth
"The Red Badge of Courage" - Stephen Crane
"The Outsiders" - S.E. Hinton
"Siddhartha" - Herman Hesse
"The Alchemist" - Paulo Cohelo
"Night" - Elie Wiesel
"Slaughterhouse 5" - Kurt Vonegut
"Warriors Don't Cry" - Melba Beals
"Farenheit 451" - Ray Bradbury
"The Last of the Mohicans" - James Fenimore Cooper
"Robinson Crusoe" - Daniel DaFoe
"La Morte D'Arthur" - Sir Thomas Malory
"Diary of a Young Girl" - Anne Frank
"Cry, The Beloved Country" - Alan Paton
"The Pearl," "Of Mice and Men" and "East of Eden" - John Steinback
"A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" - Betty Smith
"Dracula" - Bram Stoker
"Two Years Before the Mast" - Richard Dana
"Hound of the Baskervilles" - Arthur Conan Doyle
Anything by Mark Twain!
"Heart of Darkness" - Joseph Conrad
"The Odyssey" - Homer
"Native Son" - Richard Wright
Bullfinch's Mythology
"Blackbriar" - William Sleator
"Are you there God? It's Me, Margaret" - Judy Blume
"Bloodletters and Badmen" - J. Robert Nash
"Catwatching" - Desmond Morris
"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" - Robert Pirsig
"Life in a Medieval City" - Joseph Gies
"The New Book of Lists" - David Wallechinsky
"Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History" - William Safire
"Brave New World" - Aldous Huxley
"Black Like Me" - John Howard Griffen
"Cosmos" - Carl Sagan
All of these books shaped who John and I are and will be. Books are so important for our imagination and life. As Isaac grows I hope that he can read and learn through anything he picks up, and that he will devour books as if they are his sustenance. Happy Birthday Bro.
Feel free to add to this list by commenting. I would love to know what books changed lives for other people.
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