There’s some great stuff in the “adult” fiction collection that’s a good read for people who aren’t, well, old. If you’re looking for something different you could try one of these:

1. Black Swan Green by David Mitchell. The book’s about a 13 year old boy who’s growing up in a small English town in the early eighties – around the time of the Falklands War. David Mitchell’s got an über-brain, but this is easier to read than his other books. Having said that, I also recommend Number9dream.
2. The Chosen by Chaim Potok. Set in Brooklyn in the 1940s, The Chosen is about two Jewish boys from different backgrounds brought together by a too-well-hit baseball. This is a great book. My sister tells me My Name is Asher Lev‘s even better.
3. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. This is one of those really profound books. Owen Meany’s an incredible creation, and you have a suspicion you know what’s going to happen to him quite early on… and then in the end you find out you were only a bit right and that everything that comes before fits together in profound and symbolic ways.
4. That eye, the sky by Tim Winton. A quick read. Ort’s family’s turned upside down: his father’s in a coma after a traffic accident, his older sister’s angry, his grandmother’s kooky… then a mysterious stranger arrives and appears to be the family’s saviour.
5. The New girl by Emily Perkins. Another book about the effect a newcomer can have on an established group. What do you do when you’ve finished school and you’re between one thing and the next? Emily Perkins (a New Zealander) is interested in the time when you’ve got one foot in the teenager camp and one in the adult one. It’s an uncomfortable pose. Maybe it’s the cover, I don’t know, but this book bit harder than I was expecting.
6. Life at these speeds by Jeremy Jackson. The story’s about a teenage boy who finds an extra gear as a long-distance runner after a bus crash kills his entire track team. Some of the characters’ names are surreal to say the least, and they take a bit of getting used to, but the story’s a simple one, about growing up and being true to yourself.
7. The Pact by Jodi Picoult. Jodi Picoult churns them out now and she’s got a bit of a formula going, but she’s really popular. The Pact is a kind of a teenage love story with a tragic bend. There’s a “now” and “then” plot culminating in a court case that will have you wondering what’s right and ethical and what isn’t.
8. The Dark room by Rachel Seiffert. I’ve added this one basically because I really like it. The Dark Room is a German perspective on World War II. The first two stories (the book’s basically three long short stories) are set during the war, the third is set in the late 1990s, about a man who is compelled to find out what role his grandfather played in the war.
9. How to breathe underwater by Julie Orringer. Stories about being a young woman, mostly. If you’re not really into short stories you should try these anyway – they’re high quality.
10. The Afterglow by Anthony Cartwright. This one’s quite obscure; I wanted to buy it, couldn’t find it anywhere and eventually tracked it down in the hugest bookshop in the hugest city on the other side of the world. The story’s set in the Black Country just outside Birmingham in England. It’s about finding your feet (and sometimes not doing a good job of it), feeling guilty, and there’s one chapter in the middle that’s almost the saddest thing I’ve ever read.

See what you think,
Grimm