

Ask HN: Great books for teenager age 15 - tmaly

I am trying to supplement my nephew's education with books to expand his mind into other subjects. Public school is not cutting it.  Do you have recommendations for books that inspired or helped you during the teenage period of your life?  So far I have had him read Thinking as a Science by Hazlitt. How to win friends and Influence People by Carnegie. Also started him on the online inventwithpython.com programming book.
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drKarl
Let him explore his own interests. The most important is that he gets into the
habit of reading and enjoys the experience that books provide, so it doesn't
matter if he reads sci-fi, fantasy, philosophy, science books. You can of
course recommend him some books, genre or author, but it should be his
decision wether to read them or not. You could recommend him some divulgation
books like "A brief history of Time" by Stephen Hawking, "Parallel Universes"
by Michio Kaku, or "The Dragons of Eden" by Carl Sagan, they're all quite
enjoyable.

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ZeroGravitas
If he likes the Terry Pratchett books then the 3 "Science of Discworld" books
are surprisingly good (in both science and story) when I was half expecting
something along the lines of a cut-away diagrams of space ships that you might
find in a Science of Star Wars book from Dorling Kindersley.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Science_of_Discworld>

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bzupnick
i am 16 years old so i think that the main thing is not to shove anything down
his throat. if you do that, he will intrinsically hate that thing, most of the
time. and just have him read, think, be intellectual. and the rest has to come
from him

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nandemo
_Economics in One Lesson_ by the same Hazlitt is also a good one. Of course it
all depends on his interests.

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tmaly
I had him read the lesson, and the chapter on the broken window fallacy. He
likes business books

