# What books should a 14 year old read to get a better body of knowledge? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 31, 2003, 9:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-should-a-14-year-old-read-to-get-a-better-body-of-knowledge/192095 "2003-07-31T09:59:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-should-a-14-year-old-read-to-get-a-better-body-of-knowledge/192095/21 "2003-07-31T21:01:57Z")
_The Joy of Sex_ hasn’t been the benchmark for sexual information in over 20 years. I mean, those hirsute hippies in the illustrations–yecch! I recommend _Getting It On_ by Paul Joannides. It’s written more from the point of view of a culture that’s experienced AIDS and Madonna (not that I equate one with the other) and the illustrations are Marvel Comics meets Pat Nagel (Actually, the artist is Daerick Gross). Two thumbs up! Another book I really like is _The Big Damn Book of Sheer Manliness_ by Todd Von Hoffmann, sort of a coffee-table book for the frathouse. Has all sorts of neat trivia I wish my crusty old uncles had shared with me when I was 14. Naturally, I bought it for my own nephew. ---
**Author:** ![Nichol\_storm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Nichol\_storm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nichol_storm)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-should-a-14-year-old-read-to-get-a-better-body-of-knowledge/192095/22 "2003-07-31T21:06:15Z")
Damn. Had a nice long post all typed out, pressed ‘submit’, and presto! the SDMB gobbled it right down. **Le Sigh** > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dung Beetle \* > **Jeez, could y’all handle this kind of stuff when you were 14? If so, color me impressed. I’m 33, I have read some of this stuff and found it hard going. If I ever want to start a similar thread, I’m going to ask for books aimed at 10 year olds!** I read “Our Kind” and Masters of Rome at about fifteen. Salinger, Machiavelli, Discworld, and Sun Tzu were read by seventeen. As long as he has reasonably developed English language skills and some basic historical and scientific knowledge, **Aslan** shouldn’t have too much of a problem, I would hope. That being said, here are yet more recommendations: A ditto for Harris’ “Our Kind”. While I don’t always agree with him, he has interesting perspectives on the development and evolution of our species. Anything by Carl Sagan. “Pale Blue Dot”, “Demon-Haunted World”, “Cosmos”… it’s just that good. If **Aslan** has any interest in fantasy fiction, I would recommend George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series. Immensely complex, well-written, and rich in detail and plot. Garth Ennis’ “Preacher” series. You’ll never look at comic books, God, vampires, or chicken-fucking quite the same way again. Not for the faint of heart. If **Aslan** has a few empty months to fill, he might care to tackle Will and Ariel Durant’s monumental eleven-volume epic, “The Story of Civilization”. The Durants examine the cultures, history, and religions of damn near everything, from the Renaissance to the Vedas to Christ to Rousseau. The second volume, “The Life of Greece”, is probably the best IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-should-a-14-year-old-read-to-get-a-better-body-of-knowledge/192095/23 "2003-07-31T22:38:39Z")
If you haven’t already read most of the books mentioned so far, I’m going to suggest _The Cartoon History of the Universe_. Despite what conclusions its format might make you jump to, it was not written for people with poor vocabularies or low comprehension. It is, however, quite accessible and easy to learn from. I think it makes a great _first_ history book, no matter what your level of cognition is. It seemed well-researched to me. However, not being a history buff myself, I’ll let someone else say how good its facts are. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-should-a-14-year-old-read-to-get-a-better-body-of-knowledge/192095/24 "2003-07-31T23:42:09Z")
I am totally serious when I suggest that two series of books you should consider are [The Great American Bathroom Book (GABB)](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1880184044/qid=1059695156/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_2/103-4145216-1779825?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) and [Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/157145814X/qid=1059695264/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-4145216-1779825?v=glance&s=books) GABB is a series that gives 2 page synopses of books from classics (The Illiad, Taming of the Shrew, etc.) to the modern (The Firm, Patriot Games). It will help the kid gauge which ones s/he wants to read in full. The Uncle John series contains short articles on every subject imaginable from the history of photography to the particles inside of an atom to Dolly Parton quotes. It will give him/her excellent access to knowledge that might stimulate further curiosity. In spite of their titles, neither book is “potty humor”. Another huge thumbs up for the Gonick Cartoon History of the Universe series. You wouldn’t believe how helpful they’ve been to several of my students over the years, and I teach college. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2003, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-should-a-14-year-old-read-to-get-a-better-body-of-knowledge/192095/25 "2003-08-01T00:42:00Z")
All of the Calvin and Hobbes series. All of the Doonesbury series. All of Pogo’s stuff. Krazy Kat. These have a lot of socio-historical commentary in easily accessable form that you can appreciate again on different levels as you mature. ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2003, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-should-a-14-year-old-read-to-get-a-better-body-of-knowledge/192095/26 "2003-08-01T00:47:29Z")
_The day I became an autodidact_ by Kendall Hailey has lots of titles. It’s sort of the diary/memoir of a 15-yo girl who decides to educate herself. There are lots of Great Books lists around, both at the library and on the Web. I agree that a sort of schedule of Things to Study would be a good idea if you want to do that kind of thing. You could also get a book called _The well-trained mind_ from the library and read the high-school section; it has high-school level reading lists for history, literature, science, and logic. (High-school level as in, read the _Iliad_ in 9th grade, not _Horrible History_.) ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2003, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-should-a-14-year-old-read-to-get-a-better-body-of-knowledge/192095/27 "2003-08-01T01:22:35Z")
1. _The Straight Dope_ and its sequels, by one C. Adams, edited by E. Zotti, from Ballantine Books. I presume I don’t have to explain this one! 2. Winston Churchill’s _History of the English Speaking Peoples_ for a Britain-centric view of much of world history. Precede the Durants with this; they’re extremely interesting, but presuppose some background. 3. The collections of essays from _Natural History_ magazine by Stephen Jay Gould: _The Panda’s Thumb, Bully for Brontosaurus, Dinosaur in a Haystack_ and about six other volumes. A few are mildly boring or get into areas you may have no interest in; feel free to skip. But they’re excellent writing about how to _do_ science and loaded with facts in a way that’s enjoyable reading. 4. Robert A. Heinlein’s series of juvenile novels, uniformly (except one) published by Charles Scribner’s Sons. They were written for people (boys particularly) in their mid-teens, but not “written down,” so they’re enjoyable adult reading. One caveat: they’re written with 1950s conventions, at the insistence of Heinlein’s editor, so the idea that people have sex barely enters into one novel and not at all into the others. They’re about as edgy as a plate of jello, but absolutely engrossing reading as story – and when you’re done reading them, you’ll find he’s taught you how to think logically and skeptically, provided you with a fair dose of a cross-section of modern knowledge, and done it without you noticing, because they were so interesting just as story. I suggest starting with _Have Space Suit, Will Travel_, which quite literally takes you from your back yard to the next galaxy over by easy steps, and will do interesting things for your ideas of Shakespeare, your responsibility as a human being, and about six things besides! 🙂 5. On your topics of interest, Edith Hamilton’s _Mythology_ is the best simple introduction. I found Bulfinch boring, but you may not. Robert Graves is thorough, but thoroughly off the wall about his own pet theory of prehistoric Greek matriarchies and “The King must die” mysticism. Biography: I very much enjoyed (and still enjoy) Manchester’s _Winston Churchill: The Last Lion_ and David MacCullough’s _Truman_. I have not read his _John Adams_ but people I respect the tastes of have spoken highly of it. Sandberg’s biography of Lincoln is also highly respected. I don’t think there’s a really good book on Ancient Egypt, which is casually one of my interests too. (BTW, Allen Drury’s _A God Against the Gods_ is a quasi-historical bio-novel of Akhnaten that is tough going but very intriguing.) I think you’ll find that you get more of how a country **does** politics and national culture from novels and history than from books on political science or sociology/anthropology. Art, music, the paranormal I can’t comment on. There’s somebody who wrote a series of paperbacks collectively titled _The History of Philosophy_ who is an excellent writer – but do **not** do the Medieval book first. (BTW, for a grasp on how medieval thought actually worked, I found C.S. Lewis’s _The Discarded Image_ absolutely fascinating – I plan to quote it the next time a free will/determinism debate comes up in GD.) ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2003, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-should-a-14-year-old-read-to-get-a-better-body-of-knowledge/192095/28 "2003-08-01T01:30:33Z")
_The Right Stuff_ by Tom Wolfe, about the beginnings of the US space program. _Moonshot_ by Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton, about the Apollo missions that landed men on the moon. _The Making of the Atomic Bomb_ by Richard Rhodes _A Brief History of Time_ by Stephen Hawking And pretty much anything by Carl Sagan: _Cosmos The Demon-Haunted World The Dragons of Eden Broca’s Brain and more!_ Heck, in terms of just acquiring knowledge, you could get hold of some college textbooks on history, philosophy, whatever. It wasn’t until I reached college that I discovered that not all textbooks are boring and bland. Some of them are damn good reads! ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2003, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-should-a-14-year-old-read-to-get-a-better-body-of-knowledge/192095/29 "2003-08-01T01:50:31Z")
> [@](#): > > There’s somebody who wrote a series of paperbacks collectively titled The History of Philosophy who is an excellent writer – but do not do the Medieval book first. That would be Father Frederick Copleston’s outstanding survey and well worth the time spent, but it may be long and daunting to read through the entire series. A bright 14-year-old might enjoy Bertrand Russell’s **A History of Western Philosophy** –it’s a single volume and aimed at a general audience. Re the OP: > [@](#): > > Ancient Egypt, Law, Philosophy, Music(of any kinds, such as the 60s or 18th century), Biography(especially historic figures like Einstein or Mozart), Art(especially ancient), Mythology, The Paranormal(theories/discussions, no “It’s completely real” or “All of it can be explained rationally…”\*), Chinese Culture, Country Dynamics/Political Structure. Other folks have handled the more general topics, so I’ll tackel the esoterica. There is a wide variety of books that cover ancient Egypt. To start, I highly recommend picking up **Decoding Egyptian Hieroglyphs: How to Read the Secret Language of the Pharaohs** by Bridget McDermott and Joann Fletcher. In addition to explaing how to read names and words in hieroglyphic inscriptions, the book covers ancient Egyptian history and culture, explaining how Egyptian ate, worked, dressed and worshipped. I also recommend **The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt** , edited by Ian Shaw. It’s an entertaining compendium of articles on Egyptian history and culture from prehistory to Alexander. If you want to learn about Chinese history, you should definitely read everything by Jonathan Spence, starting with **The search for Modern China**. It’s a thick but very readable account of Chinese history from the Qing dynasty to the post-Tiananmen Square era. There’s also a series of books by Tsai Chih Chung, a Taiwanese cartoonist who explicates classics of Chinese religion and philosophy in easy-to-digest cartoon form. But these boks, like Larry Gonick’s, are aimed at intelligent, educated adults. I stropngly recommend \*\*Sunzi Speaks: The Art of War, Zen Speaks: Shouts of Nothingness, The Tao Speaks: Lao-Tzu’s Whispers of Wisdom, \*\*and **Confucius Speaks: Words to Live By**. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2003, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-should-a-14-year-old-read-to-get-a-better-body-of-knowledge/192095/30 "2003-08-01T02:05:37Z")
Is anyone else surprised as hell that **Aslan** is only fourteen? ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2003, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-should-a-14-year-old-read-to-get-a-better-body-of-knowledge/192095/31 "2003-08-01T02:09:54Z")
Take this with the grain of salt labeled “jayjay’s weird”, but any decent set of recent adult encyclopedias. I would kill to take the new Britannica home from the library volume by volume and just eat it up. ---
**Author:** ![Aslan\_of\_Narnia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@Aslan\_of\_Narnia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aslan_of_Narnia)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2003, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-should-a-14-year-old-read-to-get-a-better-body-of-knowledge/192095/32 "2003-08-01T03:07:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Nichol\_storm \* > \*\* > \ > Garth Ennis’ “Preacher” series. You’ll never look at comic books, God, vampires, or chicken-fucking quite the same way again. Not for the faint of heart. > \ > \*\* I already own the first three TPBs, plus the one collecting the Saint of Killers mini and the Arseface special. I also have the first three Transmetropolitian TPBs. I started reading Vertigo about 2 years ago after picking up Dreams and Fables(or is that reflections and fables? Reflections and Dreams? Heh). I don’t think I’ve experinced a bad vertigo title, just one being better than one that is already great. Hopefully I’ll be able to get to read the rest of Sandman TPBs soon. ---
**Author:** ![Aslan\_of\_Narnia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@Aslan\_of\_Narnia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aslan_of_Narnia)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2003, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-should-a-14-year-old-read-to-get-a-better-body-of-knowledge/192095/33 "2003-08-01T03:14:56Z")
Oh, and I now realize the way I wrote it, it seems one of the transmet TPBs is called Reflections and Fables. It’s actually the title of a Sandman TPB. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2003, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-should-a-14-year-old-read-to-get-a-better-body-of-knowledge/192095/34 "2003-08-01T03:55:59Z")
Eco. Umberto Eco. Name of the Rose, and Foucault’s Pendulum. And Passion of the Western Mind by Richard Tarnas gives an excellent introductory overview of western thought Our Religions edited by Arvind Sharma. Covers Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism ---
**Author:** ![Splanky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b2d939/32.png) [@Splanky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Splanky)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2003, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-should-a-14-year-old-read-to-get-a-better-body-of-knowledge/192095/35 "2003-08-01T04:02:01Z")
I’m only 16 myself and of the non-fiction books I’ve read recently, I really enjoyed the “Don’t Know Much About…” books by Kenneth Davis. I first found a 1st edition of Don’t Know Much About History (later editions were completely revamped, apparently) and loved it. I learned a great deal, and it was perfect for getting aquainted with U.S. history before I take Advanced Placement U.S. History next year. I wanted to see what else Davis wrote so I checked out “Civil War” and “Geography”. They were both good, and if you express interest in either I’d go for it. A recent interest of mine is biographies. I read “John Adams” by MacCullogh (sp) because someone reccomended it to me. Up until then, I’ve always had such great disdain towards biographies. I think it was because when I was in fourth or third grade we were forced to read terrible biographies about the most drudging and morose people. Not even well known people at that- just the true stories of a girl living on a farm or working in a textile factory. Anyway, _John Adams_ takes you through a whole lot, from early Harvard where Adams went to school, two Revolution-era Boston, and on. It is quite fascinating and Adams is among the greater politicians (and presidents) in American history. ---
**Author:** ![Splanky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b2d939/32.png) [@Splanky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Splanky)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2003, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-should-a-14-year-old-read-to-get-a-better-body-of-knowledge/192095/36 "2003-08-01T04:28:24Z")
I just lost a post but to sum up what I was going to say, _Pillars of the Earth_ is a novel by Ken Follet which deals a lot with Medieval masonry, monastaries, and English society. _Longitude: The Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time_ by Dava Sobel is about a horologist (clockmaker) named John Harrison who made the first sea-clock, and forever revolutionized navigation. It deals with the “great longitude problem” which greats like Newton couldn’t even solve. It’s also an interesting, and brief account of the age of navigation. ---
**Author:** ![Splanky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b2d939/32.png) [@Splanky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Splanky)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2003, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-should-a-14-year-old-read-to-get-a-better-body-of-knowledge/192095/37 "2003-08-01T04:31:28Z")
Oh, sorry to post three in a row, but this thread is _great_! I really want to expand my body of knowledge and these books’ll help that, I reckon. ---
**Author:** ![Mockingbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c68b51/32.png) [@Mockingbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mockingbird)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2003, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-should-a-14-year-old-read-to-get-a-better-body-of-knowledge/192095/38 "2003-08-01T06:49:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dung Beetle \* > \*\*Jeez, could y’all handle this kind of stuff when you were 14? If so, color me impressed. I’m 33, I have read some of this stuff and found it hard going. If I ever want to start a similar thread, I’m going to ask for books aimed at 10 year olds! > [SIZE] \*\* I read many of the above mentioned works by the time I was 14. I recommend the novels of E.M. Forster, especially Maurice. Poetry: Longfellow, Keats, Shelley, Byron, and Browning. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is a must, IMHO. It is nothing like any of the movies you’ve seen. Life and Loves of a She-Devil by Fay Weldon The Collected Works of Shakespeare. AFA comic books are concerned(as you’ve expressed an interest): [ul] [li]All In Color For A Dime and the Comic Book Book by Don Thompson and Dick Lupoff[/li][li]Seduction of the Innocent by Frederic Wertham, MD[/li][li]Seal of Approval: The History if the Comics Code by Amy Kiste Nyberg[/li][li]DC Comics: 60 Years of the World’s Favorite Comic Book Heroes by Les Daniels[/li][li]Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World’s Greatest Comics by Les Daniels[/li][li]Superhero Comics of the Golden Age by Mike Benton[/li][/ul] It’s a start. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2003, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-should-a-14-year-old-read-to-get-a-better-body-of-knowledge/192095/39 "2003-08-01T06:54:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by deb2world \* > \*\*Don’t know if you are joking toque but I am going to be serious and recommend picking up a few Playboys/Playgirls (or both). \*\* No, no, no. The OP says body of knowledge, not knowledge of bodies. Thank you! I’ll be here all night! ---
**Author:** ![adamant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/779978/32.png) [@adamant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adamant)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2003, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-should-a-14-year-old-read-to-get-a-better-body-of-knowledge/192095/40 "2003-08-01T11:42:49Z")
I recommend the following : “The Party’s Over : Oil War, and the fate of industrial societies” by Richard Heinberg “Hubbert’s Peak : The Impending World Oil Shortage” by Kenneth Deffeyes Enjoy! Some great suggestions above! Adamant [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-should-a-14-year-old-read-to-get-a-better-body-of-knowledge/192095.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-should-a-14-year-old-read-to-get-a-better-body-of-knowledge/192095.md?page=3)