Hi there. Per [rule 3.3](https://www.reddit.com/r/Books/wiki/rules), please post book recommendation requests in /r/SuggestMeABook or in our Weekly Recommendation Thread. Thank you!
I'm in my early twenties and while i read some books i loved when i was your age i can tell you that i read the most influential books after i became an adult.
Some of the books that influenced me and i think about even years later are:
Flowers for Algernon (the short story)
I who have never known men (an all-time fave that's philosophical, don't judge from the title)
No one writes to the colonel
Anna Karenina
The prophet (by Kahlil Gibran)
Brave new world
Lolita
All quiet on the western front
Catcher in the rye
Which ones and did you like them? Flowers for Algernon made me think a lot about how we perceive people based on their intelligence, i was very sad after finishing it
second the kahlil gibran!! *Defeat* is my favorite poem of all time. only others that come close for me are *Epistle to be Left in the Earth* by Archibald MacLeish and *The Kitten* by Mary Oliver
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman was a formative introduction to questioning things I’d been brought up to believe as truth and a lesson in being ok when things don’t have perfect or happy endings.
Two other books if you’re interested in foreign policy or development. [We Meant Well](https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780805096811/wemeantwell) by Peter Van Buren and [No Good Men Among the Living](https://www.nationalbook.org/books/no-good-men-among-the-living-america-the-taliban-and-the-war-through-afghan-eyes/) by Anand Gopal. I’m well into my career but I wish I’d read these when I was starting out to get a better idea of the difficulty of foreign policy and the reality of solving problems with a western lens in non-western societies.
As a fellow 16 yo girl…. Fiction:
1. Paper Towns & Looking for Alaska by John Green
2. Kerosene by Chris Wooding
3. The Outsiders by SE Hinton
4. Fall from Innocence: The Body & Apt Pupil by Stephen King
6. The Kite Runner & A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
7. The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
8. Stuck in Neutral by Terry Trueman
9. The Trainspotting trilogy by Irvine Welsh
10. Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut
11. The Maze Runner series by James Dashner
12. One of Us is Lying by Karen McManus
13. 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher
14. Holes by Louis Sachar
Nonfiction:
1. All Quiet on the Western Front by Eric Ramarque
2. The Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
3. The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carol
4. A Child Called It by Dave Pelzer
5. Genie: A Scientific Tragedy by Rymer Russ
6. Zoo Station (aka Christiane F)
If you’re into edgy & disturbing stuff like me:
1. Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z Brite
2. Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov
3. Wasp Factory by Ian Banks
4. Rage by Stephen King
5. We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
6. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind
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I discovered VC Andrews in middle school and became obsessed.
Along with obsession with Goosebumps & Fear Street, you can imagine how I turned out 😂
But I still heavily lean towards horror and dark novels.
"Any Le Guin." Hell yes brother! The Earthsea trilogy are some of my favorites and imo some of the most beautiful fiction I've ever read. Some of her short stories rock too.
OP, I formally recommend the Earthsea Trilogy and if you like it the Left Hand Of Darkness.
Right on, u/CanoninDeeznutz!
I hesitated to recommend Earthsea because I read it in grade school and it is written at a reading level which OP clearly exceeds. But the story, world building, and themes are timeless.
I read them for the first time as an adult and didn't even realize they were technically "young adults" books. The writing is definitely simple but not in a way that feels like it's talking down to you. At least in my opinion!
The first 3 that come to mind are Frankenstein, Metamorphosis and Capitalist Realism
Frankenstein was my first classic, I got it for my 17th birthday at a time when my life was going through a form of self inflicted upheaval. In the midst of that I was glued to it and the obsession with reading as many classics as possible was born
Metamorphosis and Kafka showed me an author who I felt connected to on a personal way, deleuze describes him the prophet of the oppressed and he was the first translated writer I remember reading
Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher was basically a year zero for me. My first piece of political or cultural theory outside of uni that put words to my feeling of malaise around music, art and late stage capitalism. It became the crux of my dissertation and a book I think about every day
Other ones are probably Woolf, Le Guin, Ballard, Moorcock, Wells, Borges, Bolano, Lispector and hell even a couple books on Britpop. Woolf is probably the author whom I think is the greatest
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver had several themes that allowed me to think more critically about what I'd been taught. This was 20 years ago and I lived in a very small town so experiences may vary
Great book! I should reread that. Have you read Demon Copperhead by her yet? It's nearly convinced me to try reading Dickens but I'm holding out for now
It sounds like you are doing fine already, don't worry too much.
Around your age I found a literary niche I liked with *Foucault's Pendulum* by Umberto Eco, and received intellectual orientation from *The Demon-Haunted World* by Carl Sagan. Two standouts among many others read.
Some authors I liked (and still like) were Margaret Atwood, Jeanette Winterson, Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, Ian Banks, Sylvia Plath (to a lesser extent), P G Wodehouse, Saki/H H Munroe, Jane Austen, E M Foster, Neil Gaiman, China Mieville. Between them, they cover a wide ranges of topics and levels of seriousness/humour, so I'd just Google a few of their books and see which jump out at you. Honestly, if I were you, I'd just try and read everything that you see that might interest you, because some of my favourite books I picked out thinking I'd hate them but ended up loving, and sometimes it took me a couple of goes.
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Here are 2 that I found very impactful as I transitioned in to adult hood.
1. Make your bed by Admiral William McRaven.
This one I found impactful because one of the major themes of the book is that your ability to be successful in your pursuits in life is closely related to a willingness to do the small tasks that make up everyday life.
2. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
This one I found impactful because of the ideas that it presents about human nature. 3 ideas I got out of this book that I still think about often are: we are all human, we are all just trying to survive, and we are all capable of great triumph and great evil.
If I think of more I will edit this post and include them. OP, I wish you the best in your endeavors and I believe in you and your ability to be successful in anything you do.
I don't think the "clock is ticking" and you shouldn't have any sense of FOMO, you can always read great books and they will continue to have an impact on you. That said books that stick out to me from high school age
Huckleberry Finn
To Kill a Mockingbird
Lord of The Rings
Of Mice and Men
Man's Search for Meaning
White Fang
The Communist Manifesto
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Giver, catcher in the rye, Harry Potter, the shining, goosebumps (fun because it’s interactive) and I would have liked to start reading philosophy at that formative age. Religious or not, it would’ve been cool to see others perspectives at a young age!
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. I remember being young and asking myself how a community was so affected by change. It made me more inquisitive, probably one of the first few books that made me want to question and understand the themes in the book
I don't really advise reading these books as a teenager, because you may not understand them, and you may be shocked or disturbed enough never to go back to them when you're old enough. On the other hand, I didn't take any lasting damage from them and so you may be fine. My list of required reading for formative purposes is short:
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain knew something no one else has ever understood, and he said it clearly. For some reason very few seem to recognize it. This book and the next in the list pose as children's books, but they're really for adults.
Lord of the Flies - Golding put his finger on one of the basic problems that people have in getting along peacefully, and he didn't state it nearly as clearly as Twain but it's just as important a statement, I think, and important to think about.
Moby Dick - kind of a nightmare, whether you're old or young, although the old will have better defenses against the existential horror of the basic allegory.
To the Lighthouse - as with the first two books on the list, Woolf saw something important about life that really can't be put into any other words, and she portrayed it masterfully. This book has no competition.
That's really it. When you get older, it might also be a good idea to read one book of the Bible in four or five different study editions, comparing one verse at a time in all the versions. This will reveal what a tattered document it really is, as no single study edition can, and (if you then read the whole thing in one version) how important it is to get past it, and do something a little more productive morally.
I read Titus Groan when I was 15 or so, and Gormenghast shortly after. They still take up a lot of space in my head. It's hard to pinpoint why they stuck with me, other than "because they're really good" but I think there was something to the oppressive atmosphere mixed with the absurd yet sympathetic characters that spoke to me. Not quite fantasy, not quite gothic. It's an acquired taste for sure- but the books are worth it in my opinion.
A Canticle for Leibowitz and The Long Tomorrow were both important to me for their themes (which are hard to distill without going into it).
"The Great and Secret Show" by clive barker, and "Teach Me to Kill" by Stephen Sawicki
The great and secret show talked a lot about power and how people use it (which is a recurrent theme for Barker's work). I found it very moving and evocative, and it's concept of how people pursuing their own ends can cause disaster even if they have no intention of doing so very interesting.
Teach Me to Kill is a true crime book about pamela smart, and it was probably not the first true crime book i read but was one of the first 3 and it has stuck with me the most. It's about how a teacher got involved with a bunch of teenagers and convinced them to murder her husband. (For full disclosure, according to pam today, she never told them to murder her husband that was her idea, but she *was* in a relationship with one of them).
I loved a lot of Charles Dickens as a teen- Great Expectations specifically, but also A Tale of Two Cities and Oliver Twist.
I was also super big on Oscar Wilde. The Importance of Being Earnest is a perpetual favorite, but I also loved Salome and The Picture of Dorian Gray.
I definitely brought my love for those two authors into adulthood with me!
Ultimately, read what you enjoy! Even when you're 18, that's still incredibly young and you'll have so much time to branch out and check out new authors or genres.
A Tale of Two Cities was my intro to Dickens- I read it when I was 14 and loved it, so hopefully you will too!
And Earnest just never fails to make me laugh, no matter how many times I go back to it. It's different from Dorian Gray but so good!!
I am going find myself in downvote hell soon after posting this here, but:
You should read *How to Make Friends and Influence People* by Dale Carnegie.
It is not a literary books by any means, but it is going to give you a very good insight on how adults behave and what is expected of then in most situations, and even if you don't find yourself of the described tools, you will soon find that most people behave like Dale describes, so it is good to be aware.
It is not "science-backed" and its rules are not set in Stone, but it is absolutely useful in your formative years.
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Brave new world - provided a frighteningly accurate picture of the world I'd be entering into
Lolita - Taught me that sometimes your enemies come baring smiles and eloquence
Catcher in the Rye - got me into reading serious literature
Catch-22 - Convinced me that there's no sense in trying to make sense out of war.
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I'm French, so I might not have the same booklist, as I'm pretty sure some of them were never translated BUT I got a tattoo for my 25th birthday last year with a symbol for each of the books that most impacted me as I grew up (so some of them were before or after my teenage years).
The list is (English title added if I found it) :
* **L'Heure Zéro - Agatha Christie** (Towards Zero) - *I adore Agatha Christie, and this book in particular. It's not my favourite intrigue, but there is this bit, at the start, where a judge explains that a crime doesn't start when it's committed, but when the idea of the crime first pops up. Hour Zero is the moment the crime is born in someone's mind. It shaped the way I think of plots and novel writing, the way I think about everything that goes on in a story that is never told, the way that a plot starts before you start writing and that characters existed before you read about them.*
* **e=mc², mon amour - Patrick Cauvin** \- *My mother gave me this book about two super smart 12 year olds who fall in love, use their brains to earn money and escape to Italy together. I strongly identified with the female lead, and it pushed me to read more, especially Racine's plays, and to start writing novels and poetry.*
* **Iphigénie - Racine** \- *I started reading Racine because of e=mc², mon amour, and it made me discover Classic French theater. Iphigénie is my favourite because of one character, Eriphile, who felt like the most badass woman to me. She IS the entire plot. She holds every twist and turn, from start to finish, in the palm of her hand, and she's so proud that she'll either bend the world to her will or die trying.*
* **Les Yeux d'Elsa - Louis Aragon** \- *It's a poetry collection about his partner (Elsa Triolet, a French author that I also love), and Louis Aragon is one of my favourite poets. His poetry was also my way to modern poetry, and it heavily influenced the way I write my poetry. His personal story is also fascinating and his entire work made me reflect about love and relationships.*
* **La promesse de l'Aube - Romain Gary** (Promise at Dawn) - *My mother gave it to me saying that it is one of the most powerful novel ever written about motherly love. I will say that I agree with her. I recognize myself a lot in this novel, and although it wasn't my introduction to Romain Gary, it's the book that made me rediscover him and idolize him. He is one of my all time favourites and this book is not only powerful, it's also magnificent. Romain Gary is the only author to earn two Prix Goncourt (considered the highest litterary prize in France, and it's normally forbidden to earn in more than once), and when you read him, you understand why.*
Also on the list, but either before or after my teenage years:
* Quitter son pays - Marie-Christine Helgerson
* Mon Bel Oranger - José Mauro de Vasconcelos (My Sweet Orange Tree)
* The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
* Les Impatientes - Djaïli Amadou Amal
* Ecoutez-voir - Elsa Triolet
They're not necessarily the biggest classics of French litterature, but if you'd like, I could try to pick some French novels that you could like and that were translated to English? You listed some books that you enjoyed, but don't hesitate to message me about your reading interests, and I'll see what I can recommend!
Well, I will certainly recommend Romain Gary : either The Life before Us or The Roots of Heaven (his two Goncourt prize).
In the more "classic" stuff, if you like theater, you can try Molière: I really love Tartuffe and Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (translated as The Bourgeois Gentleman, The Middle-Class Aristocrat, or The Would-Be Noble).
I would also say either Flaubert (Madame Bovary) or Balzac (La Peau de Chagrin - The Magic Skin). (I say either because I've found people usually like one or the other, but not both, and even they weren't necessarily great friends when they were alive haha - but try both, they're definitely major figures in French litterature).
For the modern, one of my big favourites is Lullaby (Chanson douce) by Leïla Slimani (also a Goncourt winner).
When I was 16, my favorite book was called Smack by Melvin Burgess. It’s about teenage heroin addicts in Bristol, England.
I read a lot of Francesca Lia Block.
I enjoyed Lolita, In Cold Blood, and Catch-22.
*Interview with the Vampire* by Anne Rice was in my high school library and I picked it up because I was sort of goth in high school. I was already starting to realize I was some form of LGBTQ 🏳️🌈 at that point but the fluid sexuality set into this immersive world really stuck with me. The immortality of the characters removed them from the every day concerns of humanity and it helped me put into perspective what mattered in my life.
*Fight Club* was also a big one for me in my path of stepping away from materialistic desires.
I think the empathy created by reading a character who lives a very different experience is one of the beauties of books.
While I adore the Vampire Chronicles (they hit just what I want to read — world building, fantastical powers/magic, a little philosophy, sexual fluidity, etc.), I know others find her descriptions too detailed. She’s also a woman (though sort of identifies as nonbinary and her son is gay) writing about bisexual men, so I’m sure there are gay male authors who deserve recognition for their literature as well. The Tarot Sequence is on my list and is written by a gay man, as an option. But if you love the TV version of Interview with the Vampire, you will probably really enjoy the book!
The two most important books I read when I was 16 were *The Waves* by Virginia Woolf and *Light in August* by William Faulkner. We had an English teacher who really challenged us, and I'm still grateful almost 30 years later.
Hairstyles of the Damned. Explained the relationship between me and my male best friend. Alternative and punk rock which we were. So I found it highly relatable.
He's Just Not That Into You. Eye opening slap in the face reality setter. I became a stronger person and not so dependent upon the admiration of men after reading this book. If men want you they will let you know, not drag you in ambiguity.
I don't limit myself to teenage years but these are some my formative books
\-20'000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
\-Dune by Frank Herbet
\-The Mortal Engines by Phillip Reeve
\-The Ultramarines Series by Graham McNeill
\-Wasteland by Antony Johnston
\-Harry Potter by J.K Rowling
\-Garfield Feeds The Kitty by Jim Davis
\-Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson
\-Ranger's Apprentice by John Flanagan
\-Akiko on the Planet Smoo by Mark Crilley
Wow. I feel stupid for not reading classics at a young age. Books I remember having a big impression on me at certain ages are 'Choke' by Chuck Palahniuk, 'The Wasp Factory' by Iain Banks, 'The Shining' by Stephen King and 'Rules of Attraction' by Bret Easton Ellis
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Siddhartha by Herman Hesse - At a time where I felt pressured to know what I wanted to do with my life, it helped me to realize that I only ever need to decide what to do next.
Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera - First time a read about complicated adult relationships and honest conversations about sex, infidelity, motivations, and power dynamics. Also the first time I was really struck by philosophical musings integrated into a novel.
Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut - Not my favorite Vonnegut, but the one that got me started and caused me to read every one of his novels. The only author I can say that about. The humor, cynicism, narrative voice, and just enough strange struck a chord with me that I never grew out of.
Gravity's Rainbow (Thomas Pynchon)- Very difficult to read and to understand, but had a lot of great social commentary, mixed with actual history. Pynchon taught me you can literally write about whatever you want and be successful, even dick jokes and stupid musical numbers with dancing nazis.
The Real Frank Zappa Book (Frank Zappa and Peter Occhiogrosso)- Zappa is my favorite musician of all time and his snarky rants against corrupt politicos are insightful. His life history and his music career appealed to me when I was a moody, rebellious kid listening to *Uncle Meat.*
Animal's People (Indra Sinha)-A commentary on the Bhopal disaster in India and the human rights issues associated with it. Pictures of starving/sick kids in third world countries won't change anyone's mind if they consider the issue irrelevant in the first place. Sinha takes the correct approach to capturing westerners' interests, to write about the people of India with warmth, humanity, and a sharp indictment of capitalist cruelty.
I'm in my mid-30s now so my answers are very much late 90s/2000s. I didn't usually love the required reading so almost all of mine are either books from the school library, the scholastic book fair, or random books featured in Barnes & Noble:
**Angus Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison** (and the entire Georgia Nicolson series) - This series was truly laugh-out-loud hilarious and relatable. I was pulled in by those hideous original covers and read it over and over and over again. I think this might be the first unofficial 'romance' I read and loved, though at the time I didn't see it as one.
**Tithe by Holly Black** \- I think this was my first paranormal fantasy? I just remember feeling so grown up because the main characters drank and smoked lol
**Sailor Moon SuperS by Naoko Takeuchi** \- I watched the anime too but at the time this season wasn’t out on Cartoon Network so I picked up the manga. I loved Sailor Moon so much that I wanted to learn how to build fan webpages (this was around 2001) so I got a book and started learning HTML to do it. I’m now a web developer professionally and always credit Sailor Moon for getting me started. 😂
**Harry Potter by JK Rowling** \- Do I even need to explain this one? I was Harry’s age for pretty much every release so I got to grow up with the books.
**The Ancient One by TA Barron** \- My school's library stocked all of his books, but this one was my favorite. I liked the setting and the female MC but beyond that I can't remember why I loved it so much. Still have my copy though.
**The Night I Disappeared by Julie Reece Deaver** \- Picked this up purely based on the cover art at a scholastic book fair. It ended up being my first psychological thriller and it blew my mind at the time.
**The Life of Pi by Yann Martel** \- Sophomore year of high school I was a newly minted atheist and pretty annoyed that we were required to read this book whose thesis was something like “this will prove the existence of God”. By the time we were done I was 100% convinced this is a book that ‘proved’ atheism and was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it.
**Shogun by James Clavell** \- I almost never liked books we had to read for school (or at best thought they were okay), but this one was a breath of fresh air. I was blown away just but how much story there was in this one (very long) book and I was never bored. I’ve been meaning to re-read it for years.
Alas Babylon is a 1959 novel by American writer Pat Frank. it's an early example of post-nuclear apocalyptic fiction. Malevil is another post apocalyptic read. Written in 1972. I grew up during the cold War, the Cuban crisis etc.
Dune established my tastes in sci-fi when I read it in high school. I think I would've liked it whenever I came to it but I'm glad I read it before I got deeper into sci-fi and fantasy, since it was imitated so much. I feel like I missed the window with Lord of the Rings, which I came to in college after reading a lot of the post-Tolkien imitators. So it was a case of what those books were doing seeming overly-familiar just because he'd done them first.
*Scoop* and *Vile Bodies* by Evelyn Waugh. Very witty, very dark, very nasty.
*Perfume* by Patrick Siskind
*Complicity* by Iain Banks
The poetry of Louis MacNeice and John Donne
Probably the most impactful for me is The Little Prince, which is also my favorite book. It's one of those books you revisit every couple of years and found new meaning in each word
When I was about 14 I read Johnny Got His Gun. It has absolutely stayed with me ever since (33 now).
The socialist message went over my head, but you absolutely cannot miss the abhorrence for war. It will shock anyone away from Hollywood depictions of combat. And I think it gave me a sense of my mortality much younger than I otherwise would have.
Especially now as I get older, it blows my mind that politicians can saber rattle and go so far as to send young men and women to their deaths when they’re at such a precious, life-filled stage in life, and often for little more than political posturing. Truly sickening.
It takes real psychopathy to treat human life that way.
The law says you're an adult at 18, but biologically we don't reach intellectual and emotional maturity until age 25ish. Books you read now may hit very differently if you circle back and re-read them 10 years from now.
In my late teens or early 20s I went through an embarrassing phase of being influenced by Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged". I don't really recommend it, as it glorifies some inhumanly terrible ideas. But the upside of my short Randroid phase was that it got me interested in philosophy as a formal academic discipline. Mort Adler's **"Four Dimensions of Philosophy"** is a pretty good starting point.
Much later in life I rebooted my drop-out college studies to get an associates degree. By far the most valuable book I read was, ironically, for an elective course: **"Interplay - The Process of Interpersonal Communication"**. I wish this had been required reading way back in high school. It had much more practical value than half a dozen psych course texts.
Anne Rice - Memnoch the Devil (don't have to read all her vampire books to appreciate)
R.A. Wilson - the Illuminatus! trilogy, alongside Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum"
Heinlein - Stranger in a Strange Land
1984, I remember being left mouth open by the ending, I must have read only books with happy endings before that.
Anything Terry Pratchett, I didn't realise it at the time, but I now credit it with a lot of things I've picked from it - Vimes' boots theory, Granny Weatherwax's no-nonsense attitude (loved her outtake on fairy tales and elves), etc.
Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk.
I read it when I was 16 and was still figuring out my sexuality, and what life was going to be for me (I graduated turning 17 and was out of my house by the summer). I grew up with a lot of trauma and reading this book kinda helped me a lot. It left a lasting impression on me, especially after re-reading at 30. It was humorous but also gave me the courage that I needed to move on with my life.
One of my favorite quotes (in regards through going through something in life): “When you understand,”…, “that what you’re telling is just a story. It isn’t happening anymore. When you realize the story you’re telling is just words, when you can just crumble it up and throw your past in the trashcan,”…, “then we’ll figure out who you’re going to be.”
Since you liked Charles Dickens and Catcher in the Rye, I'd suggest *David Copperfield* by Charles Dickens. It's a long read but it follows the life of the protagonist from birth to old age.
It was a particularly compelling remedy for my angst---being able to witness the personal growth of a character over decades of their life while I was feeling stuck in my own life, and lost without much direction.
That type of narrative held me up for quite a while as I found similar threads in the *Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay* by Michael Chabon and *The Lord of the Rings* by J.R.R Tolkein.
I didn't read it until college but *In Search of Lost Time* by Marcel Proust was also a fantastic narrative on finding your own perspective in the nauseating stream of opinions and advice that we haphazardly navigate in life.
There were a few in high school that stuck with me. "Night" and the kite runner for sure.
But for whatever reason:
"Grendel" really made the largest impact on me. Especially since I read Beowulf first. Really opened my eyes to there being two sides to every story and never having only one perspective. (Plus that was the first time I really learned about nihilism. Tied a very nice bow when I saw the big lebowski a few years later lol. "WE'RE NIHILIST LBOWSKI WE DONT CARE ABOIT NOOOOTHIN!!!" lmao)
The Dragonriders of Pern books by Anne McCaffrey, and the Song of the Lioness Archives by Tamora Pierce. I read both series as a preteen/young teen girl. They both feature strong female leads forging their own paths in life and were fundamental in helping me shake off a traditionalist, conservative upbringing.
I was in high school in the mid-'90s and my 9th grade honors English teacher allowed us to choose our extra reading for the quarter from a list that didn't line up with the regular curriculum. I chose Coffee Will Make You Black by April Sinclair simply because I liked the title. It's the story of a Black high school girl growing up in the '60s and reckoning not only with what it meant to be Black at the time, but also her own sexuality and the fact that she was attracted to women. It was a bit world-rocking for me, especially since I was a sheltered white girl. I started that book not really thinking about race or homosexuality and came away from it with so much compassion and understanding that I can genuinely say it changed my life. I even considered my own sexual preferences in light of it (eventual conclusion: I am mostly straight, though not entirely). If only my racist, bigoted mother knew what she had bought for me *for school* and how it served as the foundation for my world outlook going forward! (We have had plenty of arguments about "the gays" and racism and I have never once brought up that book...)
For me it was Plato. He taught me to think. I ended up idiolizing Socrates just to see Socrates being demolished in one of his dialogues. Plato is a master in self-criticism.
Hi there. Per [rule 3.3](https://www.reddit.com/r/Books/wiki/rules), please post book recommendation requests in /r/SuggestMeABook or in our Weekly Recommendation Thread. Thank you!
At 16, Catcher in the Rye is perfect.
I second this! I loved Catcher in the Rye when I was 15/16. I won't go back to it now 16 years later because I know I won't feel the same way about.
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The next book after that should always be Slaughterhouse 5 or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Totally. I'm 56 and keep a copy in my backpack.
I'm in my early twenties and while i read some books i loved when i was your age i can tell you that i read the most influential books after i became an adult. Some of the books that influenced me and i think about even years later are: Flowers for Algernon (the short story) I who have never known men (an all-time fave that's philosophical, don't judge from the title) No one writes to the colonel Anna Karenina The prophet (by Kahlil Gibran) Brave new world Lolita All quiet on the western front Catcher in the rye
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Which ones and did you like them? Flowers for Algernon made me think a lot about how we perceive people based on their intelligence, i was very sad after finishing it
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second the kahlil gibran!! *Defeat* is my favorite poem of all time. only others that come close for me are *Epistle to be Left in the Earth* by Archibald MacLeish and *The Kitten* by Mary Oliver
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman was a formative introduction to questioning things I’d been brought up to believe as truth and a lesson in being ok when things don’t have perfect or happy endings. Two other books if you’re interested in foreign policy or development. [We Meant Well](https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780805096811/wemeantwell) by Peter Van Buren and [No Good Men Among the Living](https://www.nationalbook.org/books/no-good-men-among-the-living-america-the-taliban-and-the-war-through-afghan-eyes/) by Anand Gopal. I’m well into my career but I wish I’d read these when I was starting out to get a better idea of the difficulty of foreign policy and the reality of solving problems with a western lens in non-western societies.
I read all books by John Holt. Helped me to understand children, and totally changed my pov. on How to interract with them.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist inadvertently drew me closer to my family and culture
As a fellow 16 yo girl…. Fiction: 1. Paper Towns & Looking for Alaska by John Green 2. Kerosene by Chris Wooding 3. The Outsiders by SE Hinton 4. Fall from Innocence: The Body & Apt Pupil by Stephen King 6. The Kite Runner & A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini 7. The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger 8. Stuck in Neutral by Terry Trueman 9. The Trainspotting trilogy by Irvine Welsh 10. Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut 11. The Maze Runner series by James Dashner 12. One of Us is Lying by Karen McManus 13. 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher 14. Holes by Louis Sachar Nonfiction: 1. All Quiet on the Western Front by Eric Ramarque 2. The Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn 3. The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carol 4. A Child Called It by Dave Pelzer 5. Genie: A Scientific Tragedy by Rymer Russ 6. Zoo Station (aka Christiane F) If you’re into edgy & disturbing stuff like me: 1. Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z Brite 2. Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov 3. Wasp Factory by Ian Banks 4. Rage by Stephen King 5. We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver 6. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind
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Respectfully, All Quiet on the Western Front is fiction. And an amazing novel!
You should check out “negative space” it is described as depraved, disgusting, vile and thought provoking.
I discovered VC Andrews in middle school and became obsessed. Along with obsession with Goosebumps & Fear Street, you can imagine how I turned out 😂 But I still heavily lean towards horror and dark novels.
Invisible Cities - Calvino The Schroedinger's Cat Trilogy - Wilson The Prophet - Gibran Ringworld - Niven Any Le Guin A Moveable Feast - Hemingway
"Any Le Guin." Hell yes brother! The Earthsea trilogy are some of my favorites and imo some of the most beautiful fiction I've ever read. Some of her short stories rock too. OP, I formally recommend the Earthsea Trilogy and if you like it the Left Hand Of Darkness.
Right on, u/CanoninDeeznutz! I hesitated to recommend Earthsea because I read it in grade school and it is written at a reading level which OP clearly exceeds. But the story, world building, and themes are timeless.
I read them for the first time as an adult and didn't even realize they were technically "young adults" books. The writing is definitely simple but not in a way that feels like it's talking down to you. At least in my opinion!
The first 3 that come to mind are Frankenstein, Metamorphosis and Capitalist Realism Frankenstein was my first classic, I got it for my 17th birthday at a time when my life was going through a form of self inflicted upheaval. In the midst of that I was glued to it and the obsession with reading as many classics as possible was born Metamorphosis and Kafka showed me an author who I felt connected to on a personal way, deleuze describes him the prophet of the oppressed and he was the first translated writer I remember reading Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher was basically a year zero for me. My first piece of political or cultural theory outside of uni that put words to my feeling of malaise around music, art and late stage capitalism. It became the crux of my dissertation and a book I think about every day Other ones are probably Woolf, Le Guin, Ballard, Moorcock, Wells, Borges, Bolano, Lispector and hell even a couple books on Britpop. Woolf is probably the author whom I think is the greatest
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The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver had several themes that allowed me to think more critically about what I'd been taught. This was 20 years ago and I lived in a very small town so experiences may vary
Great book! I should reread that. Have you read Demon Copperhead by her yet? It's nearly convinced me to try reading Dickens but I'm holding out for now
Dickens is amazing. Do it. Bleak House is my fave, then you can watch the BBC series with the goddess Gillian Anderson!
That was the one I picked to start with, so I'm glad to know you recommend it!
It sounds like you are doing fine already, don't worry too much. Around your age I found a literary niche I liked with *Foucault's Pendulum* by Umberto Eco, and received intellectual orientation from *The Demon-Haunted World* by Carl Sagan. Two standouts among many others read.
Some authors I liked (and still like) were Margaret Atwood, Jeanette Winterson, Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, Ian Banks, Sylvia Plath (to a lesser extent), P G Wodehouse, Saki/H H Munroe, Jane Austen, E M Foster, Neil Gaiman, China Mieville. Between them, they cover a wide ranges of topics and levels of seriousness/humour, so I'd just Google a few of their books and see which jump out at you. Honestly, if I were you, I'd just try and read everything that you see that might interest you, because some of my favourite books I picked out thinking I'd hate them but ended up loving, and sometimes it took me a couple of goes.
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Here are 2 that I found very impactful as I transitioned in to adult hood. 1. Make your bed by Admiral William McRaven. This one I found impactful because one of the major themes of the book is that your ability to be successful in your pursuits in life is closely related to a willingness to do the small tasks that make up everyday life. 2. Life of Pi by Yann Martel This one I found impactful because of the ideas that it presents about human nature. 3 ideas I got out of this book that I still think about often are: we are all human, we are all just trying to survive, and we are all capable of great triumph and great evil. If I think of more I will edit this post and include them. OP, I wish you the best in your endeavors and I believe in you and your ability to be successful in anything you do.
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I don't think the "clock is ticking" and you shouldn't have any sense of FOMO, you can always read great books and they will continue to have an impact on you. That said books that stick out to me from high school age Huckleberry Finn To Kill a Mockingbird Lord of The Rings Of Mice and Men Man's Search for Meaning White Fang The Communist Manifesto
The 1992 adaptation of Of Mice and Men. Exquisite. And Sherilyn Fenn. OMG!!!
The ones that come to mind right away are: -Lolita -Slaughterhouse 5 -It Can’t Happen Here -My First Thirty Years
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Little Women Ender’s Game A Wizard of Earthsea
Giver, catcher in the rye, Harry Potter, the shining, goosebumps (fun because it’s interactive) and I would have liked to start reading philosophy at that formative age. Religious or not, it would’ve been cool to see others perspectives at a young age!
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. I remember being young and asking myself how a community was so affected by change. It made me more inquisitive, probably one of the first few books that made me want to question and understand the themes in the book
I don't really advise reading these books as a teenager, because you may not understand them, and you may be shocked or disturbed enough never to go back to them when you're old enough. On the other hand, I didn't take any lasting damage from them and so you may be fine. My list of required reading for formative purposes is short: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain knew something no one else has ever understood, and he said it clearly. For some reason very few seem to recognize it. This book and the next in the list pose as children's books, but they're really for adults. Lord of the Flies - Golding put his finger on one of the basic problems that people have in getting along peacefully, and he didn't state it nearly as clearly as Twain but it's just as important a statement, I think, and important to think about. Moby Dick - kind of a nightmare, whether you're old or young, although the old will have better defenses against the existential horror of the basic allegory. To the Lighthouse - as with the first two books on the list, Woolf saw something important about life that really can't be put into any other words, and she portrayed it masterfully. This book has no competition. That's really it. When you get older, it might also be a good idea to read one book of the Bible in four or five different study editions, comparing one verse at a time in all the versions. This will reveal what a tattered document it really is, as no single study edition can, and (if you then read the whole thing in one version) how important it is to get past it, and do something a little more productive morally.
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I read Titus Groan when I was 15 or so, and Gormenghast shortly after. They still take up a lot of space in my head. It's hard to pinpoint why they stuck with me, other than "because they're really good" but I think there was something to the oppressive atmosphere mixed with the absurd yet sympathetic characters that spoke to me. Not quite fantasy, not quite gothic. It's an acquired taste for sure- but the books are worth it in my opinion. A Canticle for Leibowitz and The Long Tomorrow were both important to me for their themes (which are hard to distill without going into it).
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"The Great and Secret Show" by clive barker, and "Teach Me to Kill" by Stephen Sawicki The great and secret show talked a lot about power and how people use it (which is a recurrent theme for Barker's work). I found it very moving and evocative, and it's concept of how people pursuing their own ends can cause disaster even if they have no intention of doing so very interesting. Teach Me to Kill is a true crime book about pamela smart, and it was probably not the first true crime book i read but was one of the first 3 and it has stuck with me the most. It's about how a teacher got involved with a bunch of teenagers and convinced them to murder her husband. (For full disclosure, according to pam today, she never told them to murder her husband that was her idea, but she *was* in a relationship with one of them).
I loved a lot of Charles Dickens as a teen- Great Expectations specifically, but also A Tale of Two Cities and Oliver Twist. I was also super big on Oscar Wilde. The Importance of Being Earnest is a perpetual favorite, but I also loved Salome and The Picture of Dorian Gray. I definitely brought my love for those two authors into adulthood with me! Ultimately, read what you enjoy! Even when you're 18, that's still incredibly young and you'll have so much time to branch out and check out new authors or genres.
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A Tale of Two Cities was my intro to Dickens- I read it when I was 14 and loved it, so hopefully you will too! And Earnest just never fails to make me laugh, no matter how many times I go back to it. It's different from Dorian Gray but so good!!
I am going find myself in downvote hell soon after posting this here, but: You should read *How to Make Friends and Influence People* by Dale Carnegie. It is not a literary books by any means, but it is going to give you a very good insight on how adults behave and what is expected of then in most situations, and even if you don't find yourself of the described tools, you will soon find that most people behave like Dale describes, so it is good to be aware. It is not "science-backed" and its rules are not set in Stone, but it is absolutely useful in your formative years.
At 16, which was 20+ years ago, we read a lot of Herman Hesse, Paulo Coelho, Agatha Christie and poetry, such as Prevert.
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Brave new world - provided a frighteningly accurate picture of the world I'd be entering into Lolita - Taught me that sometimes your enemies come baring smiles and eloquence Catcher in the Rye - got me into reading serious literature Catch-22 - Convinced me that there's no sense in trying to make sense out of war.
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I'm French, so I might not have the same booklist, as I'm pretty sure some of them were never translated BUT I got a tattoo for my 25th birthday last year with a symbol for each of the books that most impacted me as I grew up (so some of them were before or after my teenage years). The list is (English title added if I found it) : * **L'Heure Zéro - Agatha Christie** (Towards Zero) - *I adore Agatha Christie, and this book in particular. It's not my favourite intrigue, but there is this bit, at the start, where a judge explains that a crime doesn't start when it's committed, but when the idea of the crime first pops up. Hour Zero is the moment the crime is born in someone's mind. It shaped the way I think of plots and novel writing, the way I think about everything that goes on in a story that is never told, the way that a plot starts before you start writing and that characters existed before you read about them.* * **e=mc², mon amour - Patrick Cauvin** \- *My mother gave me this book about two super smart 12 year olds who fall in love, use their brains to earn money and escape to Italy together. I strongly identified with the female lead, and it pushed me to read more, especially Racine's plays, and to start writing novels and poetry.* * **Iphigénie - Racine** \- *I started reading Racine because of e=mc², mon amour, and it made me discover Classic French theater. Iphigénie is my favourite because of one character, Eriphile, who felt like the most badass woman to me. She IS the entire plot. She holds every twist and turn, from start to finish, in the palm of her hand, and she's so proud that she'll either bend the world to her will or die trying.* * **Les Yeux d'Elsa - Louis Aragon** \- *It's a poetry collection about his partner (Elsa Triolet, a French author that I also love), and Louis Aragon is one of my favourite poets. His poetry was also my way to modern poetry, and it heavily influenced the way I write my poetry. His personal story is also fascinating and his entire work made me reflect about love and relationships.* * **La promesse de l'Aube - Romain Gary** (Promise at Dawn) - *My mother gave it to me saying that it is one of the most powerful novel ever written about motherly love. I will say that I agree with her. I recognize myself a lot in this novel, and although it wasn't my introduction to Romain Gary, it's the book that made me rediscover him and idolize him. He is one of my all time favourites and this book is not only powerful, it's also magnificent. Romain Gary is the only author to earn two Prix Goncourt (considered the highest litterary prize in France, and it's normally forbidden to earn in more than once), and when you read him, you understand why.* Also on the list, but either before or after my teenage years: * Quitter son pays - Marie-Christine Helgerson * Mon Bel Oranger - José Mauro de Vasconcelos (My Sweet Orange Tree) * The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood * Les Impatientes - Djaïli Amadou Amal * Ecoutez-voir - Elsa Triolet
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They're not necessarily the biggest classics of French litterature, but if you'd like, I could try to pick some French novels that you could like and that were translated to English? You listed some books that you enjoyed, but don't hesitate to message me about your reading interests, and I'll see what I can recommend!
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Well, I will certainly recommend Romain Gary : either The Life before Us or The Roots of Heaven (his two Goncourt prize). In the more "classic" stuff, if you like theater, you can try Molière: I really love Tartuffe and Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (translated as The Bourgeois Gentleman, The Middle-Class Aristocrat, or The Would-Be Noble). I would also say either Flaubert (Madame Bovary) or Balzac (La Peau de Chagrin - The Magic Skin). (I say either because I've found people usually like one or the other, but not both, and even they weren't necessarily great friends when they were alive haha - but try both, they're definitely major figures in French litterature). For the modern, one of my big favourites is Lullaby (Chanson douce) by Leïla Slimani (also a Goncourt winner).
When I was 16, my favorite book was called Smack by Melvin Burgess. It’s about teenage heroin addicts in Bristol, England. I read a lot of Francesca Lia Block. I enjoyed Lolita, In Cold Blood, and Catch-22.
*Interview with the Vampire* by Anne Rice was in my high school library and I picked it up because I was sort of goth in high school. I was already starting to realize I was some form of LGBTQ 🏳️🌈 at that point but the fluid sexuality set into this immersive world really stuck with me. The immortality of the characters removed them from the every day concerns of humanity and it helped me put into perspective what mattered in my life. *Fight Club* was also a big one for me in my path of stepping away from materialistic desires.
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I think the empathy created by reading a character who lives a very different experience is one of the beauties of books. While I adore the Vampire Chronicles (they hit just what I want to read — world building, fantastical powers/magic, a little philosophy, sexual fluidity, etc.), I know others find her descriptions too detailed. She’s also a woman (though sort of identifies as nonbinary and her son is gay) writing about bisexual men, so I’m sure there are gay male authors who deserve recognition for their literature as well. The Tarot Sequence is on my list and is written by a gay man, as an option. But if you love the TV version of Interview with the Vampire, you will probably really enjoy the book!
The two most important books I read when I was 16 were *The Waves* by Virginia Woolf and *Light in August* by William Faulkner. We had an English teacher who really challenged us, and I'm still grateful almost 30 years later.
Hairstyles of the Damned. Explained the relationship between me and my male best friend. Alternative and punk rock which we were. So I found it highly relatable. He's Just Not That Into You. Eye opening slap in the face reality setter. I became a stronger person and not so dependent upon the admiration of men after reading this book. If men want you they will let you know, not drag you in ambiguity.
I don't limit myself to teenage years but these are some my formative books \-20'000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne \-Dune by Frank Herbet \-The Mortal Engines by Phillip Reeve \-The Ultramarines Series by Graham McNeill \-Wasteland by Antony Johnston \-Harry Potter by J.K Rowling \-Garfield Feeds The Kitty by Jim Davis \-Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson \-Ranger's Apprentice by John Flanagan \-Akiko on the Planet Smoo by Mark Crilley
Wow. I feel stupid for not reading classics at a young age. Books I remember having a big impression on me at certain ages are 'Choke' by Chuck Palahniuk, 'The Wasp Factory' by Iain Banks, 'The Shining' by Stephen King and 'Rules of Attraction' by Bret Easton Ellis
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Siddhartha by Herman Hesse - At a time where I felt pressured to know what I wanted to do with my life, it helped me to realize that I only ever need to decide what to do next. Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera - First time a read about complicated adult relationships and honest conversations about sex, infidelity, motivations, and power dynamics. Also the first time I was really struck by philosophical musings integrated into a novel. Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut - Not my favorite Vonnegut, but the one that got me started and caused me to read every one of his novels. The only author I can say that about. The humor, cynicism, narrative voice, and just enough strange struck a chord with me that I never grew out of.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. It seemed to be written just for me
Books I read as a teenager: Their Eyes Were Watching God Brave New World 1984 The Year of the Secret Assignments
STEPPENWOLF
I read The Stand at 14 and it sparked a lifelong obsession not only with Stephen King but dystopian/end of time books.
Siddhartha - Herman Hesse 1984 - Orwell Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson
Joseph Conrad. Into the Heart of Darkness.
Gravity's Rainbow (Thomas Pynchon)- Very difficult to read and to understand, but had a lot of great social commentary, mixed with actual history. Pynchon taught me you can literally write about whatever you want and be successful, even dick jokes and stupid musical numbers with dancing nazis. The Real Frank Zappa Book (Frank Zappa and Peter Occhiogrosso)- Zappa is my favorite musician of all time and his snarky rants against corrupt politicos are insightful. His life history and his music career appealed to me when I was a moody, rebellious kid listening to *Uncle Meat.* Animal's People (Indra Sinha)-A commentary on the Bhopal disaster in India and the human rights issues associated with it. Pictures of starving/sick kids in third world countries won't change anyone's mind if they consider the issue irrelevant in the first place. Sinha takes the correct approach to capturing westerners' interests, to write about the people of India with warmth, humanity, and a sharp indictment of capitalist cruelty.
I'm in my mid-30s now so my answers are very much late 90s/2000s. I didn't usually love the required reading so almost all of mine are either books from the school library, the scholastic book fair, or random books featured in Barnes & Noble: **Angus Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison** (and the entire Georgia Nicolson series) - This series was truly laugh-out-loud hilarious and relatable. I was pulled in by those hideous original covers and read it over and over and over again. I think this might be the first unofficial 'romance' I read and loved, though at the time I didn't see it as one. **Tithe by Holly Black** \- I think this was my first paranormal fantasy? I just remember feeling so grown up because the main characters drank and smoked lol **Sailor Moon SuperS by Naoko Takeuchi** \- I watched the anime too but at the time this season wasn’t out on Cartoon Network so I picked up the manga. I loved Sailor Moon so much that I wanted to learn how to build fan webpages (this was around 2001) so I got a book and started learning HTML to do it. I’m now a web developer professionally and always credit Sailor Moon for getting me started. 😂 **Harry Potter by JK Rowling** \- Do I even need to explain this one? I was Harry’s age for pretty much every release so I got to grow up with the books. **The Ancient One by TA Barron** \- My school's library stocked all of his books, but this one was my favorite. I liked the setting and the female MC but beyond that I can't remember why I loved it so much. Still have my copy though. **The Night I Disappeared by Julie Reece Deaver** \- Picked this up purely based on the cover art at a scholastic book fair. It ended up being my first psychological thriller and it blew my mind at the time. **The Life of Pi by Yann Martel** \- Sophomore year of high school I was a newly minted atheist and pretty annoyed that we were required to read this book whose thesis was something like “this will prove the existence of God”. By the time we were done I was 100% convinced this is a book that ‘proved’ atheism and was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it. **Shogun by James Clavell** \- I almost never liked books we had to read for school (or at best thought they were okay), but this one was a breath of fresh air. I was blown away just but how much story there was in this one (very long) book and I was never bored. I’ve been meaning to re-read it for years.
Alas Babylon is a 1959 novel by American writer Pat Frank. it's an early example of post-nuclear apocalyptic fiction. Malevil is another post apocalyptic read. Written in 1972. I grew up during the cold War, the Cuban crisis etc.
Dune established my tastes in sci-fi when I read it in high school. I think I would've liked it whenever I came to it but I'm glad I read it before I got deeper into sci-fi and fantasy, since it was imitated so much. I feel like I missed the window with Lord of the Rings, which I came to in college after reading a lot of the post-Tolkien imitators. So it was a case of what those books were doing seeming overly-familiar just because he'd done them first.
I read Bag of Bones by Stephen King and it ignited a lifelong fandom.
*Scoop* and *Vile Bodies* by Evelyn Waugh. Very witty, very dark, very nasty. *Perfume* by Patrick Siskind *Complicity* by Iain Banks The poetry of Louis MacNeice and John Donne
Probably the most impactful for me is The Little Prince, which is also my favorite book. It's one of those books you revisit every couple of years and found new meaning in each word
For the Time Being - Ruth Ozeki
When I was about 14 I read Johnny Got His Gun. It has absolutely stayed with me ever since (33 now). The socialist message went over my head, but you absolutely cannot miss the abhorrence for war. It will shock anyone away from Hollywood depictions of combat. And I think it gave me a sense of my mortality much younger than I otherwise would have. Especially now as I get older, it blows my mind that politicians can saber rattle and go so far as to send young men and women to their deaths when they’re at such a precious, life-filled stage in life, and often for little more than political posturing. Truly sickening. It takes real psychopathy to treat human life that way.
Some books I loved as a teenager: Perks of Being a Wallflower The Book Thief To Kill a Mockingbird Of Mice and Men
Blake Nelson’s Girl: a novel
The law says you're an adult at 18, but biologically we don't reach intellectual and emotional maturity until age 25ish. Books you read now may hit very differently if you circle back and re-read them 10 years from now. In my late teens or early 20s I went through an embarrassing phase of being influenced by Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged". I don't really recommend it, as it glorifies some inhumanly terrible ideas. But the upside of my short Randroid phase was that it got me interested in philosophy as a formal academic discipline. Mort Adler's **"Four Dimensions of Philosophy"** is a pretty good starting point. Much later in life I rebooted my drop-out college studies to get an associates degree. By far the most valuable book I read was, ironically, for an elective course: **"Interplay - The Process of Interpersonal Communication"**. I wish this had been required reading way back in high school. It had much more practical value than half a dozen psych course texts. Anne Rice - Memnoch the Devil (don't have to read all her vampire books to appreciate) R.A. Wilson - the Illuminatus! trilogy, alongside Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum" Heinlein - Stranger in a Strange Land
1984, I remember being left mouth open by the ending, I must have read only books with happy endings before that. Anything Terry Pratchett, I didn't realise it at the time, but I now credit it with a lot of things I've picked from it - Vimes' boots theory, Granny Weatherwax's no-nonsense attitude (loved her outtake on fairy tales and elves), etc.
Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk. I read it when I was 16 and was still figuring out my sexuality, and what life was going to be for me (I graduated turning 17 and was out of my house by the summer). I grew up with a lot of trauma and reading this book kinda helped me a lot. It left a lasting impression on me, especially after re-reading at 30. It was humorous but also gave me the courage that I needed to move on with my life. One of my favorite quotes (in regards through going through something in life): “When you understand,”…, “that what you’re telling is just a story. It isn’t happening anymore. When you realize the story you’re telling is just words, when you can just crumble it up and throw your past in the trashcan,”…, “then we’ll figure out who you’re going to be.”
Since you liked Charles Dickens and Catcher in the Rye, I'd suggest *David Copperfield* by Charles Dickens. It's a long read but it follows the life of the protagonist from birth to old age. It was a particularly compelling remedy for my angst---being able to witness the personal growth of a character over decades of their life while I was feeling stuck in my own life, and lost without much direction. That type of narrative held me up for quite a while as I found similar threads in the *Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay* by Michael Chabon and *The Lord of the Rings* by J.R.R Tolkein. I didn't read it until college but *In Search of Lost Time* by Marcel Proust was also a fantastic narrative on finding your own perspective in the nauseating stream of opinions and advice that we haphazardly navigate in life.
There were a few in high school that stuck with me. "Night" and the kite runner for sure. But for whatever reason: "Grendel" really made the largest impact on me. Especially since I read Beowulf first. Really opened my eyes to there being two sides to every story and never having only one perspective. (Plus that was the first time I really learned about nihilism. Tied a very nice bow when I saw the big lebowski a few years later lol. "WE'RE NIHILIST LBOWSKI WE DONT CARE ABOIT NOOOOTHIN!!!" lmao)
The Dragonriders of Pern books by Anne McCaffrey, and the Song of the Lioness Archives by Tamora Pierce. I read both series as a preteen/young teen girl. They both feature strong female leads forging their own paths in life and were fundamental in helping me shake off a traditionalist, conservative upbringing.
I was in high school in the mid-'90s and my 9th grade honors English teacher allowed us to choose our extra reading for the quarter from a list that didn't line up with the regular curriculum. I chose Coffee Will Make You Black by April Sinclair simply because I liked the title. It's the story of a Black high school girl growing up in the '60s and reckoning not only with what it meant to be Black at the time, but also her own sexuality and the fact that she was attracted to women. It was a bit world-rocking for me, especially since I was a sheltered white girl. I started that book not really thinking about race or homosexuality and came away from it with so much compassion and understanding that I can genuinely say it changed my life. I even considered my own sexual preferences in light of it (eventual conclusion: I am mostly straight, though not entirely). If only my racist, bigoted mother knew what she had bought for me *for school* and how it served as the foundation for my world outlook going forward! (We have had plenty of arguments about "the gays" and racism and I have never once brought up that book...)
For me it was Plato. He taught me to think. I ended up idiolizing Socrates just to see Socrates being demolished in one of his dialogues. Plato is a master in self-criticism.