Adam Selzer

• The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death
• Daniel Pinkwater

• A story of two kids who sneak out to go to late night double feature picture shows and end up fighting aliens with wrestlers and detectives. I pretty much based my life on Pinkwater’s teachings, and this one, in particular. It’s set in a thinly-veiled version of Chicago, and the fact that I live near some of the locations now is not entirely a coincidence. It’s available in a really good collection called “5 Novels” which also has a couple of other masterpieces in it.

• Rotters
• Daniel Kraus

• A book about a guy who finds out that his father is a grave robber. I love grave robbing so much that my neighbors are reluctant to come to my barbecues.

• Knock On Any Door
• Willard Motley

• How Nick Romano went from being an altar boy at 12 to dying in the electric chair at 21. A really tough, gritty novel about life on the streets in the 40s, this book is also the origin of the phrase “live fast, die young, have a good looking corpse.”  I found this in a bin at a thrift store in high school and bought it because I knew Jim Morrison had liked it; a week later it was my favorite novel ever. The writing just pounds you in the face.

• Martin Chuzzlewit
• Charles Dickens

• The easiest Dickens to start with is A Christmas Carol (you already know the plot, and it’s short), and the best ones are probably Great Expectations and Bleak House (which has a guy who spontaneously combusts in it). But sometimes I feel like I have a duty to tell people that Martin Chuzzlewit is under-rated; it comes right in between his early, zanier books and his later, more serious ones so you get the best of both worlds. Dickens books can take weeks to read, but they’re worth it. You lose yourself in a larger-than-life world full of kooks and crooks with lots of droopy taverns and winding alleys. Even the most serious ones are funny as hell.

• I Hated Hated Hated Hated This Movie
• Roger Ebert

• A collection of Ebert’s worst reviews - just about everything you need to know about writing is mixed into these. Reading Ebert’s best and worst reviews will tell you more than 100 “writing craft” books. He was really funny when he was ripping into a movie - he says one of them should be chopped up and made into free ukulele picks for the poor. And the notes he had for that movie where Shaq plays a genie are some of the best writing advice you can get.

• Space Station Seventh Grade
• Jerry Spinelli

• Spinelli’s first book, re-reading it in college is what made me realize that YA books could be just as “literary” as anything else on the shelves.

• Nemesis
• Phillip Roth

• Roth’s latest and apparently last book, a story about a gym teacher in a Jewish neighborhood in New Jersey during World War 2 who questions his faith when a couple of kids die of polio. He seems to have no idea what’s going on in Europe. But the reader does.

• The Shakespeare Wars
• Ron Rosenbaum

• A nonfiction book about controversies among Shakespeare scholars (like, does Juliet talk about having an orgasm? Did Shakespeare revise his work? How much of Macbeth is missing from the script we have?) Academia is weird world full of cliques and drama, Rosenbaum succeeds in making it look as though professors throw folding chairs at each other during conferences.  He also speaks as well as anyone about how Shakespeare can just cast this spell over you that you may never recover from if it hits you just right (while freely admitting that most Shakespeare productions, and most essays about him, are boring as all get out).

• Skinnybones
• Barbara Park

• Look, writing middle grade humor is really, really hard. Way harder than YA humor. I re-read this one lately and couldn’t believe how funny it was. Barbara Park made it look so easy.

• The Lost Continent
• Bill Bryson

• Bill Bryson drives across the country, makes fun of things, and muses about how America has changed over the decades.  One of those books where you can just open to any page and read a bit.

   

  BONUS REC OF OBSCURIA:

  The Sears Catalog and Consumer’s Guide, Fall 1900
  They reprinted an abridged version of this in the 1970s;  you can find it online for a couple of bucks. It’s the best bathroom reading in the world. The 1927 one is neat, too.

Gordon Korman

• The most action, the best gadgets. Move over 007.
• The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy
• I've heard all the haters: "Too silly, too British." I don't care. This stuff rocks.
• Feed
• This book reminds me of how it felt to be a teenager discovering really cool science fiction.
• Into Thin Air, A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster

• My favorite Everest book; my favorite adventure book.

• The Great Brain, Great Brain Series
• This was the series that taught me to love middle-grade fiction. A tween swindler back in the days when a silver dollar was serious coin.
• One Knee Equals Two Feet
• The lesser-known of Madden's awesome football books. I read it first, and still love it best.

David Yoo

• The Last Picture Show
• Although it takes place in a tiny, dusty Texas town that's nothing like the New England town I grew up in, this is easily my favorite coming-of-age story, ever, period.
• Then Again, Maybe I Won’t
• Given the fact that I asked for a pair of binoculars for Christmas (for "bird watching"), too, this was the teen novel that spoke to me when I was 13.
• The Postman Always Rings Twice
• My favorite noir writer, this is one of the best plotted stories, ever, in my opinion, with one of the most satisfying endings to a story to boot.
• Rats Saw God

• This was the first recent(ish) YA novel that got me excited to write about teens, because it made me think I was reading about, well . . . me.

• Rosemary’s Baby
• This horror story is just about perfect in every way, and I've read it maybe 50 times in my lifetime. The movie's one of my favorites, too.
• Franny and Zooey
• A decidedly strange little novel that for the life of me I can't quite describe why it's one of my favorites, but it just is.

Loren Long

• The Magic Finger
• It made me think about what it would feel like to be an animal . . . especially an animal being hunted.
• Hatchet
• I was fascinated by the question . . . what would you do if you were lost all alone in the wilderness?
• A Season on the Brink
• For any NCAA basketball fan or anyone interested in a quirky biographical study of a legendary coach . . . Bobby Knight.
• The Winner’s Manual, For the Game of Life

• I like to learn how extraordinary/successful people approach life and this is a unique (just published) book about methods and ideals that Jim Tressell brings to his Ohio State football program.

• Marley and Me
• Sorry, I'm a softy for dogs. I had just lost my dog of 14 years and read this book on a book tour. Ended up bawling my eyes out all alone in a Hotel in Tampa. Guy Reads, guy cries.
• The Little Engine That Could
• The essential picture book for every collection . . . my favorite growing up. Take it off to college with you!

Jeff Zentner

• The First Time She Drowned
• Kerry Kletter

• "An absolutely gorgeous, lyrical, and unflinching story about a girl escaping from under the thumb of a toxic mother and living her own life."

• How to Hang a Witch
• Adriana Mather

• "A delightfully spooky, twist-turny, and gripping mystery set in a haunted present-day Salem, Massachusetts."

• The Love That Split the World
• Emily Henry

• "A beautiful and romantic time travel story set in small-town Kentucky."

• Kids of Appetite
• David Arnold

• (out in September) "A hilarious, quirky, and warm story about murder, first love, and families of choice."

• Everything, Everything
• Nicola Yoon

• "A sweet and swoony story about a girl who's allergic to the world."

• Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda
• Becky Albertalli

• "A hilarious, warm, and wise coming-out and coming-of-age story."

• More Happy Than Not
• Adam Silvera

• "A heartbreaking story about a young man running from his own memory."