Books for Teens and Young Adults

In recent years there has been a steady flow of JRR Tolkien books published posthumously. If you liked The Lord of the Rings and are wondering what to read next, 16 year old Valentin guides you through some of his other favourite books set in the vast world that Tolkien created.

Britain offers rich pickings to writers: wild and windswept locations, peculiar folklore, a treasure trove of odd histories and even odder place names. Taking Britain as a starting point, many fantasy authors have produced stories that are at once wonderfully strange and hauntingly plausible. Our fantasy interviewer Sylvia Bishop picks out her top five fantasy books set in Britain for teen readers.

What are the best books for getting a teenager into physics? Kate Lee, a physics teacher at St Paul's Girls School, recommends books about NASA, space travel, and the Big Bang—and puzzles over the question of why it is so hard for young women to stay in physics as a profession.

Which are the best books to get a teenager excited about art history? We turned to veteran art history teacher John Harrison, formerly head of the art history department at Eton College, for his top five picks of the most illuminating and accessible books for getting a broad overview of the history of art.

Fantasy inspired by West Africa is taking the literary scene for teens and young adults by storm. These books have strong world-building and all the usual fantasy ingredients. At the same time, drawing on rich seams of mythology and magical traditions such as juju, they bring something fresh to the genre. Author Efua Traoré talks us through her pick of West African fantasy novels for teenagers.

Alan Lee, illustrator of such classics as The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, talks to Five Books about his favourite stories drawn from myth and fairy tale, what they mean to him, and how important it is for young readers today to experience these ancient stories.

Caesar, Cicero, Achilles, Socrates, Plato: millennia later, we still talk about them. Olly Murphy, classics teacher at Wycombe Abbey, one of England's top girls' schools, recommends books and explains why classics remains one of the most exciting subjects for teenagers to study.

Economics need not be dry or didactic. Here’s a suggested reading list of novels with economic themes to appeal to young teenagers.

Rachel Hickman, co-founder of Chicken House Publishing and author of One Silver Summer, selects books with wild settings that have appeal to older children. She discusses how a strong use of nature adds drama and meaning to a narrative, and the way that setting can become another character in a story.

Good books for teens and young adults are often about identity and figuring out who you are. Novels with LGBTQ+ characters are some of the best examples of (fictional) young people learning to be themselves while navigating the world. Here, librarian Cassie Kemp shares her top picks of LGBT novels for teens and young adults.