See: "Education secretary arranges boys' bookshelves" (Guardian)
A list of more than 160 books, from Frankenstein to Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything, has been published today in a bid to encourage teenage boys to read for pleasure. Click here to see the full list
My list follows (only items about which I feel strongly are specified - other specifics are left as exercises for the reader):
- Bierce, Ambrose – short stories – several movies
- Bishop, William Arthur – The Courage of the Early Morning
- Buchan, John – novels and stories – several movies
- Charteris, Leslie – novels and stories – several movies + TV series
- Clarke, Arthur C. – stories
- Collier, John – Fancies and Goodnights
- Cooper, James Fennimore – Leather-Stocking Tales (one volume condensed version) - movies
- Dana, Richard Henry, Jr. – Two Years Before The Mast (including Twenty-Four Years After)
- Doyle, Arthur Conan – stories and novels – lots of movies + TV series
- Faulkner, William – Three Famous Short Novels – several movies
- Fox, Robin Lane – The Long March
- George, Jean Craighead – My Side of the Mountain (other novels too) – good movie
- Greenes, Graham & Hugh – The Spy’s Bedside Book
- Heinlein, Robert – novels and stories – several movies
- Hudson, W. H. – Long Ago and Far Away, The Purple Land, Idle Days in Patagonia
- Irving, Washington– tales - movies
- Jensen, Paul – The Fireside Book of Flying Stories
- Johnson, Owen McMahon – Lawrenceville Stories
- Kernan, Alvin – Crossing the Line
- Kipling, Rudyard – mainly stories (including science fiction) but also novels and poems - movies
- Knight, Eric – The Flying Yorkshireman
- London, Jack – novels, science fiction stories - movies
- Lovell, Jim – The Lost Moon – great movie (Apollo 11)
- Maugham, Somerset – stories (including Ashenden) - movies
- McLynn, Frank – Of No Country: An Anthology of Richard Burton
- Melville, Herman – Typee, Omoo
- Mowat, Farley – novels, memoirs – several good movies
- Murray, Simon – An Englishman in the Foreign Legion
- Myers, John Myers – popular history, historical novels, and Silverlock
- Nordhoff & Hall – Bounty Trilogy – several good movies
- Poe, Edgar Allen – mainly stories but also poems - movies
- Rice, Edgar – Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton: The Secret Agent Who etc. etc.
- Rickenbacker, Eddie – autobiography
- Sabatini, Rafael – historical novels – several good movies
- Shute, Neville – novels – several good movies
- Steinbeck, John – Tortilla Flat, Cannery Row – several good movies
- Stevenson, Robert Louis – stories, novels, poems – several good movies
- Sutcliff, Rosemary – historical novels, sagas
- Tarkington, Booth – Penrod Stories - movies
- Twain, Mark – Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Life on the Mississippi – several good movies
- Verne, Jules – novels – several good movies
- Wallace, Edgar – stories and novels – several movies
- Wells, H. G. – science fiction – several movies
- Weston, W. H. – Plutarch’s Lives for Boys and Girls
- Willeford, Charles - Something About A Soldier
- Wodehouse, P. G. – mainly stories but also novels – several movies + TV series
- Wolfe, Tom – The Right Stuff – good movie
- Wren, P. C. – novels – several good movies
