Teen Fiction What Did You Read As A Teen

44leto

Hercule Poirot wrote: »

Douglas Adam's Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy of 5 - Arthur Dent is a legend!

Marvin the paranoid android was my favourite. To this day they are still the best books I ever read. They are great for a reread, you will be surprised at what you missed the first time round.

The film was pants.

Jimoslimos

Read some of Graham Greene's stuff in my teens, loved Our Man in Havana.

Tolkien - several times

Dahl - the kids stuff, autobiographies and my favourite, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar.

Guilty of digging out the old Enid Blyton books I should have kept consigned to my younger days!

A lot of classics, Thomas Hardy - Mayor of Casterbridge

Some Irish authors as well, the Run with the wind books and Cormac MacRaois's mythology series.

anything by anne rice & christopher pike when i was 13
discovered fantasy & scifi at 14 and havent looked back since

read all the enid blyton virginia andrews some goosebumps etc etc too but before teens

couldnt even begin to remember half the books i've read

Kovu

The King of Moo wrote: »

They were great, especially as I was big into nature, especially wild animals, as a kid, and had foxes living nearby.
The books were also quite dark at times: lots of death and starvation, but introduced in such a way that kids could deal with it without it being too sugarcoated.

Very true, I still have the whole series at home. May need to dig them out again. What was the old blond fox called? Was it Old Sage?

mikemac1 wrote: »

Marita Conlon McKenna

Under the Hawthorn Tree was about children in the famine trying to get across Ireland in desperate circumstances.

The Blue Horse was about an itinerant girl who was gifted at art

I loved those books. I would read books every week, means I'm a great skim reader now:cool:

I loved The Famous Five, Carrie's War, Goodnight Mr Tom, Horses of Half Moon Ranch was also a big favourite, as was the Thoroughbred series that started with Ashleigh's Wonder.

The King of Moo

Karen112 wrote: »

Very true, I still have the whole series at home. May need to dig them out again. What was the old blond fox called? Was it Old Sage?

Old Sage Brush, if I remember correctly. I think "brush" is the word for a fox's tail.

The only other name I remember Needlenine, who was a bit crazy and I think spent a lot of time caught in a trap in one of the books, which freaked me out a bit because of the graphic descriptions of it.

Tesco Massacre

Noddy. Ooh, he had such adventures!

- Mr. Plod comes for a visit.
- The time his little car breaks down.
- Big Ears comes to tea!

Hehehe, I used to love that crazy sh*t.

saralou2011

Sweet valley high totally loved them as a teen. (ah the shame)

The King of Moo

Thinking about it now, I really don't I read much teen fiction as a teenager. Most teen fiction and children's fiction I read till I was about thirteen, then I pretty much moved on to adult stuff.

I was the same with tv. I moved from cartoons to grown-up programmes, and never liked the live-action programmes aimed at teenagers, be they comedies or serious "edgy" fare.

I think I mistrusted anything aimed at teenagers as I think I always knew most teenagers were pretty vacant, even back then, and most of these things were written by adults with no idea of what teenagers are like anyway.

Kovu

The King of Moo wrote: »

Old Sage Brush, if I remember correctly. I think "brush" is the word for a fox's tail.

The only other name I remember Needlenine, who was a bit crazy and I think spent a lot of time caught in a trap in one of the books, which freaked me out a bit because of the graphic descriptions of it.

I remember being very intrigued at the way described to get rid of fleas.
Get a tuft of sheep wool, walk into the lake slowly until all the fleas move up towards your head, then slowly dip your head until only your nose and the sheep's woll is above water. Then all the fleas will move to the wool and then let go. Oh and the fox that was mated with ....Sheila? That kept forgetting where he buried the food and he had to give it to a cub one time who dug up a poisoned chicken.


Goddammit I'm getting those books out right now.

Jacksquat wrote: »

The Magic Faraway Tree, The Five Find-Outers.


Nostalgia overload...

I have to admit.......I went online not a month ago and bought them all:o
Then found this!!
http://www.goanwap.com/ebook-bly-list-0.html

EDIT- Just to clarify to anyone that may skip over it, it's downloadable books of Enid Blyton. I was not very productive at work once I found it!

44leto

The crazy thing about the most famous children's book writers, , Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl they were lousy and abusive parents.

RuailleBuaille

Ratwiddle!

Love the thread, really enjoying the nostalgia, I was always stuck in a book when I was younger and there are some great ones listed above (I remember reading 'Forever' while my mam was driving me somewhere and I asked her what a sheath was and nearly died when she told me!). The only one I can think of to add to the list is The Outsiders, I still know 'Nothing Gold Can Stay' off by heart. Ah, teenagers!

Simi

I read some good books when I was young, and loads of junk. I recall one apocalyptic novel about the aftermath of a nuclear war, mainly because it was so soul destroying. It was in the vein of 'a boy and his dog'.

Everyone died in a horrible fashion, including the protagonist. (Which doesn't really make any sense, because then who was telling the story?) The description of his younger brothers death and subsequent inadequate burial were particularly horrific.

But anyway rape cannibalism, infanticide, cold blooded murder were all par for the course. Think I was about 11 when I read it. No idea what it was called or why someone would write something so horrible for kids. (It was definitely intended for kids, the protagonist was in his early teens.)

44leto

I actually read Ulysses in my teens I am one of the rare ones that actually finished it. And its a piece of crap, dull to say the least its hardly a page turner. I quickly picked up a Wilbur Smith after it to restore my faith in reading and it did.

Dudess

Loved Flowers In The Attic and other books by that author. Trashy but good stories.

A bit of Stephen King.

Later I read Orwell and started getting really into dystopian/utopian/post apocalyptic fiction. Still am.

AngryBollix

Dravokivich wrote: »

I was still only reading picture books when I was a teenager. :pac:

Playboy or hustler?

midlandsmissus

The King of Moo wrote: »

Point Horror Books!

They were quite trashy and formulaic, but great fun, especially during the summer.
Generally they were just like slasher films, with pretty high-school teens being killed off by a (sometimes seemingly supernatural) killer.
There was always a nice good-looking guy the lead girl liked who'd get accused of the murders, and there always be an obnoxious jock who seemed like the obvious candidate, but then it'd turn out to be that character who was only mentioned a few times and didn't appear much.

There was also a Point Sci-Fi offshoot. I read a few but they were a mixed bag. I do remember one that struck me though: it was a funny and surprisingly philosophical and scientifically-literate book about a group heading off in a spaceship to find Eternity, with Schrodinger's Cat and a camel among the group.

There were also some great Irish fantasy/adventure novels based on Irish mythology.
Michael Scott wrote quite a few good ones. His De Danann Tales series stood out in particular: Windlord, Earthlord and Firelord, though he never got round to finishing the series with Sealord :mad:.

There was another series of a few books that were similar, written by a guy called Cormac MacRaois, which included Battle Below Giltspur, Dance of the Midnight Fire and, I think, another book.
Like The De Danann Tales, it was about modern kids getting transported to the land of na Tuatha De Danann and getting wrapped up in adventures with the ancient Celtic gods and Formorians and other monsters.


Oh, I just remembered the series of books about foxes by Tom McCaughren, former RTÉ News security correspondent.
They were like a more mature, gritty Animals of Farthing Wood, though I think I read most of them before I hit puberty.
You could probably say that about all the above books actually. I was a quite precocious reader and by the age of 15 I was probably exclusively getting books from the adult section of the library.

Forgot about Point Horrors! They were great!

I definitely read the babysitters club as a young teen, and the sweet valley high series. As an older teen I got really into the discworld series.

Snowie

read i umm looked at the pictures of any hot chicks from hello magazine to play boy my sole interest was hot chicks if it was a book

rainbowtrout

Read a lot of the stuff mentioned here, Dahl, Blyton etc in primary school.

Loved the Tom McCaughran and Marita Conlon McKenna books. There wasn't any sugar coating there.

Remember reading Joan Lingard's books too in secondary school, the Kevin and Sadie series: The Twelfth Day of July, Across the Barricades.

Set in Belfast in the 70s, he was a Catholic and she was a Protestant. There were five books in the series.

stoblerone

44leto wrote: »

I went to the cinema last night, the box office smash “The hunger games” which took a massive 190 million dollars at its opening weekend. I knew nothing about the film, but I was expecting it to be good on the back of its success.

It was horrendous an implausible plot, unintelligent dialogue and 2 dimensional characters. I actually left the cinema to have a smoke and when I got back I thought Jaysus is this still on. It was one of those films you wished you had a remote so you could fast forward it.

But I learned a bit about it now. It is from a set of books in a new genre called “teen fiction” other examples are Harry Potter, Twilight, Then there was one, its endless and they sell in boat loads. If an author gets it right they are multi multi millionaires. So the film wasn’t aimed at me.

The books I read as a teen seemed of higher quality or sophistication, Tolkien, AC Clarke, Douglas Adams or what my father was reading.

So what books did you read as a teen and why do you think this new literature genre is so successful.

Unfortunately I didn't read anything I didn't have to, but I am making up for that now. I can't read enough novels...:)

Where To

No one mention Watership Down or Day Of the Triffids yet?

I must have been a boring child :pac:

greenscene

I read cirque du freak, also a lot of Jackie collins, Harry Potter.

forfuxsake

Everything, everything Blyton wrote, Judy Blume(Are you there God? it's me Margaret) etc, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Me ma's Jackie Collins, NOTW)

I have compulsive reading disorder now,can't do a poo without reading something even if it is the back of the shampoo bottle

44leto

forfuxsake wrote: »

Everything, everything Blyton wrote, Judy Blume(Are you there God? it's me Margaret) etc, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Me ma's Jackie Collins, NOTW)

I have compulsive reading disorder now,can't do a poo without reading something even if it is the back of the shampoo bottle

I am the same, even when on a bus or in a queue I am stuck into some book. I don't actually understand people who can just sit there staring at the walls or out a window. Its actually the main reason I am buying an ereader, it means I wont have to carry a big book with me everywhere but a light thin ereader that will fit in my pocket.

Interesting thread, I kind of thought it would go a page or a page and half, but there seems to be a lot of readers in AHs.

midlandsmissus

The best ones are the one-offs you may have found in the library that were really bizarre but you never forgot them.

Did anyone read interstellar Pig or the Galax-Arena? Wikipedia them, they were very good, I've never forgotten them.

Jacksquat

Karen112 wrote: »

.
I have to admit.......I went online not a month ago and bought them all:o
Then found this!!
http://www.goanwap.com/ebook-bly-list-0.html

EDIT- Just to clarify to anyone that may skip over it, it's downloadable books of Enid Blyton. I was not very productive at work once I found it!

Oh Lord, what have you done to me! I have a lot of them on my old bookcase at home but now I'll probably read so much more of them. (Edit-Damn, they have been removed off that site, oh well, the hunt is on!) I guess they are not what I read as a teen as it was during primary school I read most of them but I did continue to reread them for years after. Just had another flashback of another one of hers, The Children of Willow Farm, where Tammylan, an old wildman who lived in the woods was loved by little kids and he would take them off at night to watch animals. I wish it was still all so innocent

Babybuff

didn't read fiction. liked books about stuff, lots of different books about different kinds of stuff.

44leto

x

previous user

The necroscope series, hope they make these into films.

podgemonster

Starting at 10 years of age, Goosebumps followed by Point Horror followed by Stephen King (who scared the sh*te outta me, Pet Semetary **shudders**)

Then randon stuff, sports biographies, novelisations of comics, some Nicholas Evans, Dan Browne and some spy stuff. Then tried classics like Dracula, Frankenstein, Treasure Island etc...

Then at 19 i joined the masses and started reading Harry Potter. Now reading G.R.R Martin (on Book 4) and I have a unopened box with The Hunger Games series under my desk as I type.

Nothing better than a good book.

McChubbin

R L Stine's Goosebumps series of books along with Roald Dahl.

44leto

podgemonster wrote: »

Starting at 10 years of age, Goosebumps followed by Point Horror followed by Stephen King (who scared the sh*te outta me, Pet Semetary **shudders**)

Then randon stuff, sports biographies, novelisations of comics, some Nicholas Evans, Dan Browne and some spy stuff. Then tried classics like Dracula, Frankenstein, Treasure Island etc...

Then at 19 i joined the masses and started reading Harry Potter. Now reading G.R.R Martin (on Book 4) and I have a unopened box with The Hunger Games series under my desk as I type.

Nothing better than a good book.

I was so tempted to get into those books after seeing the excellent first series of Game of thrones, but I resisted, there is very little on tele that I look forward to these days, and that being one of the programmes. The second series begins this week, yee haa.

paddyandy

I thought that readers digest might give me whatever education i lacked . I read and believed unquestionably almost everything i could get my hands on . It made me unbearably conceited .I'm humble now .

2ndcoming

Honourable mention goes to Nick Hornby, loved reading Fever Pitch and High Fidelity as a teenager.

TanG411

American Psycho.

It spoke to me.

Hercule Poirot

44leto wrote: »

Marvin the paranoid android was my favourite. To this day they are still the best books I ever read. They are great for a reread, you will be surprised at what you missed the first time round.

The film was pants.

I've recently finished re-reading them, did you anyone read And Another Thing... by Eoin Colfer, kind of unsure about getting it?

csi vegas

The entire Point Horror series. Oh, 'twas scary them nights I'd be babysitting, every creak in an unfamiliar house, the owners hissy, evil cat oh, and the vodka. I'd go for the vodka. Not the money. The vodka. Later sold the books for vodka. Win-win investment.

Howard the Duck

Adrian Mole books and read a lot of Christopher Pike as well, I remember one of his books about a bunch of teenagers in a hospice , very good stuff. Used to read at least a book a week when i was younger would only read a few a year these days.

podgemonster

44leto wrote: »

I was so tempted to get into those books after seeing the excellent first series of Game of thrones, but I resisted, there is very little on tele that I look forward to these days, and that being one of the programmes. The second series begins this week, yee haa.

Get the books and you will enjoy the series more. There is so much back story and side story skipped over in the series plus you are inside the minds of the different narrators and know their thoughts and motives. Some arent as bad/good as they seem.

I love seeing how close the picture in your head is to show.

Jogathon

The King of Moo wrote: »

Point Horror Books!

They were quite trashy and formulaic, but great fun, especially during the summer.
Generally they were just like slasher films, with pretty high-school teens being killed off by a (sometimes seemingly supernatural) killer.
There was always a nice good-looking guy the lead girl liked who'd get accused of the murders, and there'd always be an obnoxious jock who seemed like the obvious candidate, but then it'd turn out to be that character who was only mentioned a few times and didn't appear much.

There was also a Point Sci-Fi offshoot. I read a few but they were a mixed bag. I do remember one that struck me though: it was a funny and surprisingly philosophical and scientifically-literate book about a group heading off in a spaceship to find Eternity, with Schrodinger's Cat and a camel among the group.

There were also some great Irish fantasy/adventure novels based on Irish mythology.
Michael Scott wrote quite a few good ones. His De Danann Tales series stood out in particular: Windlord, Earthlord and Firelord, though he never got round to finishing the series with Sealord :mad:.

There was another series of a few books that were similar, written by a guy called Cormac MacRaois, which included Battle Below Giltspur, Dance of the Midnight Fire and, I think, another book.
Like The De Danann Tales, it was about modern kids getting transported to the land of na Tuatha De Danann and getting wrapped up in adventures with the ancient Celtic gods and Formorians and other monsters.


Oh, I just remembered the series of books about foxes by Tom McCaughren, former RTÉ News security correspondent.
They were like a more mature, gritty Animals of Farthing Wood, though I think I read most of them before I hit puberty.
You could probably say that about all the above books actually. I was a quite precocious reader and by the age of 15 I was probably exclusively getting books from the adult section of the library.

You could have been me!!! I do have to add Sweet Valley High and the more adult University one where Jessica had SEX!!!! I re-bought the Windlord series recently. I also loved the Swallows and Amazons series by Arthur Ransome. I loved horsies so loved a series called The Saddle Club.

Overheal

Before it became a really bad tv adaptation, the Animorphs were definitely something I read into the ground. Some 40 odd books. Then I lost good access to a library that kept the series in stock.

Kovu

Jogathon wrote: »

You could have been me!!! I do have to add Sweet Valley High and the more adult University one where Jessica had SEX!!!! I re-bought the Windlord series recently. I also loved the Swallows and Amazons series by Arthur Ransome. I loved horsies so loved a series called The Saddle Club.

Instant flashback to Carol, Lisa & Stevie and No-Name!!