I’ll be making a donation to Toys 4 Tots tomorrow, and it seems to me that they probably get tons of stuff for little kids but that teens get utterly left out.
I also believe that a gift of books is the best gift there is.
Alas, it’s been many years since I was a teenager.
Orson Scott Card, specifically the Ender’s Game series. One of my kids hates to read, but he will read that series. I got him an autographed copy of Ender’s Game for his birthday.
Donbas by Jacques Sandalesque ( one of my all time favorite books.)
There is a little known book series called, " The Straight Dope" by some guy called, " Cecil Adams". Has an enthusiastically spaztic following (The Teeming Million) who are vastly outnumbered by the rabidly ignorant slack jawed, zombied eyed Teeming Bajillions. It’s thankless work, but no one said world domination would be easy.
…and Anke De Vries.
Sorry, posted early by mistake.
You’ll find a few of Thea Beckman’s books translated when you click on included link.
All the authirs I mentioned are very popular in both The Netherlands and Belgium, and I’m sure their books have been translated into English. The main publisher for these books is Lemniscaat.
Eragon by Christopher Paolini–my son just finished it and he said it’s even better than Harry Potter (from him, this is high praise!) Paolini began writing this book when he was 15 and is now working on the next book in the trilogy. It’s a fantasy novel with D&D influences.
We had these over here in the UK. I enjoyed them very much. I also much liked The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde, As someone else said the Northern Lights trilogy by Philip Pullman, and of course there are always classics such as Catcher in the Rye.
Asimov, Heinlein, Bradbury, and Clarke. You can’t go wrong with a Golden Age.
[ul]
[li]“I, Robot” by Asimov[/li][li]2001 by Clarke, or perhaps Rama[/li][li]Starship Troopers or Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein (the first would probably go over better)[/li][li]“The October Country” and “S is for Space” and “R is for Rocket” by Bradbury. I refuse to trim further. :)[/li][/ul]