mathmom are you sure there aren’t anymore books or authors you could give me
Sci Fi: Ursula LeGuin, Isaac Asimov (Foundation books, and I Robot), Lois McMasters Bujold, Elizabeth Moon, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller’s Liaden books, Neil Stephenson (Snow Crash and Seveneves are the two I’ve read)
Fantasy- on the YA side Tamora Pierce, Garth Nix, Le Guin’s Earthsea books, Peter Dickinson. A bit more grown up - Patrick Rothfuss, Tolkein, Guy Gavriel Kay, Patricia McKillip, Robin McKinley, Brandon Sanderson (my son’s favorite, but not my favorite), Barbara Hambly (I like the Darwath trilogy and the Windrose books, hate the Dragonsbane books)
I’m sure there are lots more that aren’t coming to mind.
I’m 13 and I LOVE to read. It’s getting to the point where my mom limits the amount of books I read because I’m spending an excess of $200 a month in the summer solely on books, as there’s nothing else to do other than summer reading assignments (which I am already doing) and I get really bored when there’s nothing to do. I can’t go to the public library because it’s simply too far away, and my mom works all the time, so she never has time to take me to the library… As for the school library, it’s closed during the summer 
Reading is just fun for me! Weird thing to say but, sometimes I’ll rather read a book than watch a movie, because when I read, there’s basically a movie “playing” in my head, not necessarily a movie, but more like a series of pictures passing through my head, I guess. It’s very hard to explain what goes through my head when reading, but I think you get the idea.
Bottom line is, reading is fun for me.
Keep in mind that I don’t know your reading level or your interests, but here are some off-beat, easy reads:
Patrick McManus - A Fine and Pleasant Misery, plus anything else in the series, e.g. They Shoot Canoes, Don’t They? Outdoorsy humor. Easy reading and tears in your eyes funny. (not sci-fi or fantasy, but darn good anyway!)
Larry Correia - start with his Monster Hunter books. If you like the sort of video game where you blow the heck out of monsters / aliens, you’ll like these. Cheapest on Kindle.
Brad Torgersen - military, space-faring sci-fi. Kindle.
Martin Shoemaker - Hard SF with a heart. Won a Nebula last year for Today I Am Paul.
Writers of the Future - an annual short story anthology of prize-winning sci-fi / fantasy by up and coming writers. 33 volumes to choose from. Cheapest on Kindle.
Robin Hobb - start with Assassin’s Apprentice. Excellent fantasy of the swords, horses and magic variety.
Orson Scott Card - start with Ender’s Game if you like sci-fi or Seventh Son in the Alvin Maker series if you like fantasy.
The following magazines put their content online for free. Links aren’t allowed, so you’ll have to Google.
Galaxy’s Edge
Daily Science Fiction
Tor dot com
The Grantville Gazette
If you like Star Wars, there are lots and LOTS of spinoff books, everything from short stories about the characters in the Mos Eisley cantina to novels about Han Solo, Leia’s Jedi twins, etc.
To add a couple great authors to @mathmom’s already excellent list:
Sci Fi: Frank Herbert (Dune series), William Gibson (especially if you like Neil Stephenson; Snow Crash is based heavily on Gibson’s Neuromancer), and Phillip K. Dick. Orson Scott Card was already mentioned, but I have to plug Ender’s Game again; the whole series is a marvel.
Fantasy: For younger audiences, Diane Duane (Wizards series), Phillip Pullman (His Dark Materials), and Terry Pratchett are all excellent. For older audiences I’d recommend Neil Gaiman (Neverwhere, American Gods), Stephen King (Dark Tower), and Brent Weeks (Black Prism).
Lemony Snicket (A Series of Unfortunate Events) is also of note. Absolutely fantastic, especially for younger audiences, but they’re the sort of books you can appreciate at any age.
My son read an enormous amount each day. For one thing, he was a policy debater. He consumed material of all kinds, read it quickly, digested it, and often abstracted or summarized it. That’s what debaters do. It’s a great EC in part because of the intensive – virtually unending – reading that’s involved. But I truly can’t quantify his reading. He read a lot of stuff, he read it for content – on topics that had almost nothing to do with typical assigned work in high school classes.
Thanks for the additions, I knew I was forgetting things. Too lazy to go upstairs and scan the book shelves. I loved *Ender’s Game * the first time I read it, though I’ve kind of gone of Orson Scott Card for various reasons since then, but if you read *Ender’s Game *, you must, must, must read * Ender’s Shadow * - so much fun to read the exact same events from a different perspective. (Then you can go on to read *Hamlet * and *Rosenkrantz and Gildenstern are Dead * to see the same game played with a classic.)
pleeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaseeeee go up stairs and scan the book shelves!
Redwall. Xanth. Inkheart. Narnia. Warrior cats. Dragonlance. Fablehaven. Percy Jackson.
I want to know about all his book collection
I used to be a voracious reader as a child/early adolescent.
This stopped a bit in high school because my academic workload…including the assigned reading became too much to maintain as much pleasurable reading though I did manage to squeeze in some Sci-fi such as Orson Scott Card an Issac Asimov and some books on subjects such as history, computer technology, and aviation.
I didn’t think about it as a “must do this it is reading and it’s a good thing to do”. Instead, I viewed it as another avenue to learn about a subject or explore new worlds not too different than interacting and meeting different individuals and groups of people in different venues.
To be fair, reading came fairly easy to me in the sense I always read well above grade level and despite some academic difficulties in HS, had no issues handling my undergrad reading load even when it was around 1400 pages a week (2 social science seminar courses back to back) along with an intro CS course for majors and foreign language. In fact, I was stunned to find most classmates skimmed or otherwise only did part of the assigned readings for our seminar classes.
I read all my assigned readings and sometimes even additional ones and did so as if I was reading an Issac Asimov novel in middle/HS or Tom Clancy’s Red Storm Rising* which I read for fun over 3 days as an 11 year old 7th grader.
- It was certainly much more enjoyable to read to my 11 year old self than the Shakespearean plays* my 7th grade English teacher assigned that I wasn't able to fully appreciate back in that stage of my life.
- Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Only started to fully appreciate/enjoy them once I reread them on my own as an 18 year old one summer afternoon while hanging out in a university library waiting for some friends to leave their summer jobs working in a university computer lab because my summer employer dismissed me early for the day.
LOL, my younger son’s shelf has all the David Weber’s and all the Star Trek books (though he will tell you only some of the authors are actually good.) There’s nothing magic about what is on our shelves.
mathmom how do you think I should go about reading more? My goal is to be able to read 120 pages everyday like your son.
I have no idea, my kids started reading a lot as soon as they could read fluently. You could try taking a speed reading course.
Eh, I used to like the Piers Anthony Xanth series, but re-reading it as an adult gives me the creeps-there’s some serious pedophilic overtones in it, in my opinion. Didn’t recommend it for my kids.
My parents brought my six-year-old son “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” from England when it was first published (different name than the American version). S devoured it. He always loved to read. Tested on a high school level in first grade. My husband’s nephew worked for Barnes and Noble and sent him stacks and stacks of books, a lot of which have been mentioned in this thread. S remembered most of what he read. After he developed schizophrenia, I read that one theory is that people who get it have memories that are TOO good - they remember so many details that their brain can’t filter them and that’s what causes delusions or hallucinations.
I’ve been sad that he hasn’t read too much after falling ill, but my dad recently bought him a Kindle and he’s reading again! His grandparents have ignited his love of reading twice, it appears.
My reader daughter reads so much we have to threaten her with consequences if she doesn’t stop reading! My other kid doesn’t read that much but got great results on Hopkins CTY (High Honors top 1%). Frankly, I was really surprised. But she is analytical and has a good vocab. She reads maybe 30 minutes a day tops. During the Summer about 5,000 pages. I know because we count Summer books based on pages. I think reading is one of the best ways to relax. The kids have never really been video/TV watchers.
Raise your hand if you/your kid used to read with a flashlight under the covers after bedtime. Eventually I discovered that I could stuff a towel into the crack underneath my door and then no light would show. It was a lot more comfortable than using the flashlight.
I am not a big fan of sci fi. So i plan to read fiction books from the library like a little kid in grade school. I’ll read Harry potter series, john grisham, and books by dan brown like the da vinci code