Getting a 15 year old boy to read

Hello Veeky Forums.
I am looking for fiction book recommendations for getting a 15 year old who hates reading to start reading.
Ironically once I force him to read, he reads very well and understands it too so its not like he cannot, he just does not want to.
I would like to know the titles of books that could get a 15 year old interested in reading. Unfortunately I only read textbooks so I dont know whats "in" with kids these days.

I should mention that he has mild ADHD (which he uses as excues for everything).

I dont ming standing with a whip behind him to get him to read but I guess it would be better if he would start doing it because he likes it.

As long as the books are "fun" I am happy. Could be Nietzsche, could be Twillight fanfiction, I dont care.
I will present the list to his mother beforehand so I guess too much Tits&Gore might not be good.

(Yes, I checked out the sticky)

Other urls found in this thread:

opentrackers.org/downloading-ebooks-textbooks/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld#Themes_and_motifs.
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

I hated reading when I was a kid and I would never read anything anyone told me to. I read every Hemingway in my high school library though. Just make sure they have access I guess.

people only read books that they find interesting. Kids who get forced to do things often intentionally disengage as a form of rebellion. The best thing you could do is expose him to a wide range of literature, like taking him to a library, but pushing him to read things might be counter-intuitive.

Also it's pretty hard to recommend books when we don't know anything about the kid's preferences and interests.

Thats exactly my idea, sorry if I was unclear:
I want to present a list of books he might find fun. The stuff he gets forced to read is only the school stuff. I am his private tutor.

He is your average nerdy 15 year old: Mostly plays video games (counterstrike, CoD,) if he gets stuff to read and its winning-relevant inside his games he does it without problems so its just a motivation issue.

Using his taste in movies I tried to infer something about books he might like but not luck: He likes "fun movies". Thats his category.
Oh and no romance stuff, he hates that.
I was thinking maybe scifi, fantasy, perhaps thrillers or whodunnits.

The Catcher in the Rye

Maybe some military genre fiction that tries to capture the COD aesthetic like Andy McNabb or Tom Clancy. If he likes Halo, the series of books are short and sweet and very popular with teen fans

Or perhaps something that doesn't require long periods of concentration for a narrative like a history factbook, I have one of those big coffeetable books with illustrations about all the weapons and vehichles of WW2 and it's nice to just flick through.

Why are you trying to make this persons son a pleb?

thanks will try

as long as its a reading pleb I could not care less

Not everyone can be patrician, it is the curse of the plebs to be mediocre so we can be great :^)

Anyway, it's about getting a young person to read and develop self learning, not conform to your standards

Just a couple of suggestions. James S.A. Corey's Expanse series is pretty good. If it helps, there's a tv show being made about it, so if he likes Science Fiction you could try introducing him to the book series that way.

And Joe Abercrombie's Fantasy novels are an excellent entry level reading list. His First Law trilogy and the subsequent books set in that world are perhaps a bit too adult, but he recently wrote a much more YA-friendly trilogy called the Shattered Sea. It starts with "Half a King" and is a fairly engaging read.

Also Metro 2033 if he like those games

What about that YA book about a gaymer that's had threads on Veeky Forums recently? Ready player one I think it's called

thx, downloading...

havent found any torrents of it. Any recommendation for good ebook torrent sites?
Right now Im mostly on isohunt, bitsnoop and duckduckgo with the filetype:torrent keyword

I second "The Catcher in the Rye".

Is it really good?
From the summary of it it sounds like pure and utter garbage that puts everyone asleep even with a liter of cofee in them.
To me every time I hear this book mentioned it reminds me of the "classics" that are nothing but pure drivel yet no one seems to notice. Or maybe they just pretend that they are good to avoid appearing uncultured, like Goethe (literally everything by him and I read him in the german original. Worst was "Faust" considering he spent 60 years on that, well...) Shakespear (same) and most authors of the 19th century.

Check out the sticky at the top, bookzz and libgen are the best and Metro is on both

one sticky is dead, on the others I found nothing new.

bookzz dot org
It's there

It is exactly the type of novel a 15 year old boy would relate to. It is about an angsty teenager who thinks the world is bullshit. I wish I given books like that to read when I was 15, instead I was given Hemingway. The book is not boring, if anything it gives off a vibe of immaturity, which I doubt is going to bother a 15 year old.

The percy jackson series is easy to get through and fun to read, in my experience it's great to get into reading and he might relate since the main characters have ADHD

Funny, I loved Hemmingway at that age.

must have missed it, thanks.
In the meantime some googling brought this up:
opentrackers.org/downloading-ebooks-textbooks/

will check it out, thx.

>nerdy
No, he is just a typical 15 yo entertainment consumer.

is this the rentboy who sucks you off every weekend?

Robert A. Heinlein, Have Spacesuit, Will Travel.

There is a scene where the main character's father has a brutally frank discussion with him on the topic of education. Changed my life.

just give him the harry potter books ffs

I think Heinlein is a great recommendation for teenage readers.

A stranger in a strange land, is another great title.

OP is a creep.

The Name of the Wind

I know it's considered meme-level fiction by this board, for many good reasons.

That being said, it's converted more "non-readers" into "readers" than any other book I know of published this decade. The poetic nature of the prologue, if not the entire book, is unquestionably beautiful, and the story is easy to understand yet full of enough substance to keep people reading.

Most people don't realize it's longer than the entire Lord of the Rings put together, and it has a sequel of equal length.

'Playing To Win' is a short book by a Street Fighter world champion on how to apply Sun Tzu's The Art of War to video games. You can find it on amazon.

I know this is going to sound stupid and people are going to call me names, but The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is my favorite book.

It is a children's book, so it might turn him off, I don't know. But it is a book that caught my interest when I was young and held it fast until I was older and could appreciate literature more.

I think poetry is a wonderful introduction to reading. It does not confront you like a thick book, but it shares themes and concepts just as significant. I don't know anything about children though. They probably all hate poetry.

Ender's Game and the rest of that series as well as the Ender's Shadow series enthralled all the kids when I was a little younger than him.

What is your capacity as tutor? Are you teaching him something else as well as trying to spark an interest in reading? Is the student having trouble reading? Will reading help solve a problem he is having? Is your job as tutor to teach him about reading?

Really recommend this, sounds like he might like it. Everyone on here shits on it and while it might not be KINO (or whatever Veeky Forums kino is) it is a pretty entertaining book that a 15 year old into video games would really enjoy.

If he ends up liking it I recommend Snow Crash, but it is a harder reader, at least for a 15 year old.

Try getting him into history, try having him play some of the total war games (Probably total war sengoku 2), he'll probably naturally read up on the subject. Really, reading, as well as education as well is most effective when it is self-pursued, let him seek out his own topics and books, naturally he'll begin to move onto other topics, and the books he once found uninteresting will be consumed with an incredible vigor.

Have books lying around the house and have a set time every week or day that you shut off all the electronics in the house. For young men books cannot compete with vidya, hence why almost no Gen Y/Z males are readers.

I started reading around that age with Harry potter because my siblings read it. I never had much interest in reading after that and never pursued it, and no one could force me to like reading. What changed that was two English teachers, one that introduced me to Macbeth and Beowulf (I remember specifically becoming interested in Macbeth because the early line about cutting someone from navel to chops and all the Brutal drama) and another teacher that introduced me to Sherlock Holmes, which became the first series I actively read on my own. I was a big video game player (mostly rpgs) which I think helped me transition. I think the way to go about it is to find something appealing to his personality and give him a taste. Let him choose to read it on his own

well he hates sports and loves videogames so...
True, he lacks the scientific curiosity to be a real nerd right now, but he certainly isnt a jock.

wtf

thanks

why?

will look it up, thank you

that sound interesting

Im his math and science tutor.
The problem I have is that he does not even read the (really short) texts in his biology textbook and thus only has partial understanding of things. So I figured that if I could get him to read regularly and for fun instead of for school, that may change things a bit.
His problem is his refusal to read despite being good at it.
Completely forgot the little prince and Enders game, I think I even read the former.

others have already recommended that to me, i have sent him the ebook version yesterday.
I probably have snow crash lying around somewhere. Is it the one with "Hiro Protagonist" and his thermonuclear powered gatling canon named "reason"?

Good idea, will ask him about strategy games in general, right now he is mostly into FPS.

Idk I was a pretty avid reader at his age and I am only 31 so still GenY. Problem is he also has siblings and parents at his house, dont know if they would like that.

Sherlock might be a very good idea, will add that to his dropbox, thx.

Yep, that's Snow Crash. Honestly, I'd probably start him with that over Ready Player One. The 80's Atari references will go right over his head, but car chases, nukes, sex and guns set in a weird anarcho-capitalism based society is something any 15 year-old boy will resonate with.

Also, The Name of the Wind is a pretty great story for that age group but I'm not sure how much he'd identify with the protagonist given what you've told us.

>I only read textbooks
>puts Nietzsche and Twilight fanfic in the same category
>names that category "fun"
Jesus fuckin Christ man. Enough about the kid, just give him Harry Potter or whatever. You on the other hand need to conduct some serious self reflection.

give him IJ and tell him it's about cool people doing drugs and alcohol

>a 15 year old

Right idea, poorly executed. Give him something subversive to read to perk his interests. Read Bataille's Erotism and Story of the Eye, then give him Story of the Eye to read. It's a short book filled with outrageous sex scenes, the dirty fucker will probably jerk to it. Then ease him into the deeper meaning. The sex is a sugar coating for the much more rewarding medicine of textual analysis. When you instill a love for the sometimes challenging pursuit of analysis rather than blandly reading to it's own end, you have won.

No I put twillight and Nietzer in exact oposites.
What I was saying: I do not care if he reads the most intellectually stimulating philosophy or the lowest of the low entertainment literature, as long as he reads.

yeah no.
The stuff has to go through his parents aproval first.

How about Game of Thrones.
Contrary to the portrayal in the media, it's not murder and fucking every 2 pages, and he'll probably love it.
The murder and fucking is there though, just not in every chapter. Lots of thinking about situations and talking and just doing regular shit.

>He needs to read
>What it is he reaxs doesn't matter
user, what even is the point of throwing genre fiction at someone rather than letting them play vidya?

Are they incredibly controlling?
I mean, he's 15, he's probably already jerking off to 50 man anal gang bangs and piss bukkake shit.

You cannot get into reading with ADHD

You can. Reading builds self control towards attention in the ADHD mind and cures ADHD.

A lot of people with ADHD are only on the medication for a few years before their attentiveness reaches a normal level and they are taken off it. It shouldn't be looked at as a lifelong ailment; that just transforms attention into a metaphysical autonomized partial object and hinders rehabilitation.

He is in the IB program and will go to university afterwards. If he cannot manage to read through nontrivial texts, it will break his neck sooner or later.
Video games are nice but he cannot get by on just that.

Please do not make assuptions about others derived from your own depravities.
They are pretty normal and relaxed, there is no need to change that by showing them what a horrible place this world can be.

Yes you can, its just harder.
Also he has only mild ADHD.
I agree partially.
>reading cures adhd
I dont think thats possible, at least not a complete cure, but yes it will push it back significantly.

>at least not a complete cure
Read Barbara Arrowsmith-Young - The Girl Who Changed her Brain. There's a chapter (5, iirc) that deals with her theory of cognitive development as it pertains to ADHD.

christ, ib? good luck.

this list is high-school level material and/or things i've read in my classes and deemed worthy of recommendation:
--ender's game is good--slight gore, good storyline, action and all that
--catch-22
--oryx and crake--sci-fi goodness and violence, interesting things to think about concerning future tech and all of that
--sherlock holmes, the classics; i'd recommend conan doyle-canon fanfiction--there are actually a large amount of action-based fics out there, just be careful about running into holmes/watson slash
--of mice and men--more of the feels though
--lord of the flies--sci-fi
--fahrenheit 451--sci-fi

apologies for the messy list

I'd try Terry Pratchett.

Terry Pratchett's Discworld should be an excellent introduction to reading, if only because of its pacing. It's filled with witty writing that makes fun of both various fantasy cliches and character banter. The characters themselves are, in my opinion, well directed and discernible from one another, which I imagine would be important for new readers.

Here's the list en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld#Themes_and_motifs. I'd recommend starting with either the very first book or going straight for Guards! Guards!.

I'm not saying you should show them porn. I'm just saying a 15 year old with an Internet connection has already seen worse than would be in a regular book.

You overestimate the percentage of total perverts in the general population. And even if so, there is no need to encourage that even further.
Lastly, as already mentioned, his parents get the list of books first so they would certainly veto that.

thx, will add that. I heard TP was really fun and really good in the past already.

since when is LotF scifi? its like robinson crusoe with a group of boys!?
no on mice and men, had to read that in english at school back in my day, hated it.

From the pacing, how are catch22 and Fahrenheit 451? Is there a huge buildup at the beginning where absolutely nothing happens? Or is it rather quick paced?

>there is no need to encourage that even further.
Encourage what?
>they would certainly veto that.
Veto what? I didn't suggest anything.
I think you have ADHD pal.

>I'm not saying you should show them porn. I'm just saying a 15 year old with an Internet connection has already seen worse than would be in a regular book.

and mostly of course:
>Right idea, poorly executed. Give him something subversive to read to perk his interests. Read Bataille's Erotism and Story of the Eye, then give him Story of the Eye to read. It's a short book filled with outrageous sex scenes, the dirty fucker will probably jerk to it

unless you are not that person who posted that initially

make him read storm of steel

I know this is just a misunderstanding, but get it together senpai.

Discworld is great! I would also recommend the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It was my favorite book as an antsy kid with a short attention span, because some new comical thing happens on every page without the plot being too hard to keep track of.

I also really liked compilations of traditional myths and legends, since the stories tend to be short, direct and exciting. I know some people who got into greek myths through reading the Percy Jackson series as children, so that might work as a more contemporary introduction.

I got really Veeky Forums playing rome total war and reading the quotes. Then I went out and grabbed Arrian and Livy and it made a great impression on me. Also, I played Baldur's gate when I was quite young, and it made me get up and get into Wizards of the Coast Veeky Forums. Also stuff like Redwall, Ender's Game, stuff like that with crossover potential

Photoshop, I'm You can even tell by some of the pixels.

>Unfortunately I only read textbooks so I dont know whats "in" with kids these days.
Nothing. Boys no longer read, and if they do it's certainly not fiction.

I am sure some of them read.
Maybe not the majority, sure.

good idea, thx

right, completely forgot about those. Thanks a lot.

>photoshop
>image.jpg
I'm laffin

>Getting a 15 year old boy to read
Comic books, the superior medium.

Any more suggestions?

Tell him to read Homer.

When I was 15 I was reading Philip K dick and bukowski.

what are those about?

I did start to read the Iliad (not as peom but as normal text) but still I think its too dry and difficult with all the old words in it. Took me a while to figure out wtf a hectacomb is for example.