Is he interested in aviation? There are all the wonderful Antoine de Saint-Exupery books ("Wind, Sand and Stars" is my favourite one), and Beryl Markham's "West with the Night." Other transport-related books that I liked in my teens were Steinbeck's "Travels with Charley" and William Least Heat Moon's "Blue Highways"--both the stories of writers just heading down the road and writing about what they saw there.
It occurs to me that many teens enjoy the James Herriot books about life as a veterinarian in Yorkshire.
If he's into politics, does he know the Robert Caro biography of LBJ? It's in three volumes (so far; Frenchie and I have been waiting very impatiently for the fourth installment)--the first is probably the best one--compulsively readable.
Maybe a volume of essays might be a way to slide a toe into this project--nice short bits at a go; I love Anne Fadiman's books ("Ex Libris" and "At Large and at Small"--books mostly about books and reading), but am not sure how much they'd appeal to a teenage boy.
Harold Bloom's "Genius" is similarly constituted of lots of short bits--and is over 800 pages, so one book would do a pretty big chunk of his project! He's so outrageously opinionated that it's a pretty fun read.
Some music books of possible interest are Maynard Solomon's biographies of Beethoven and Mozart (caveat: rather sexy); he's a Freudian psychiatrist and musicologist--they're very absorbing--and frequently moving--reads. Much funnier is Nicolas Slonimsky's "Perfect Pitch"--a memoir of a man who spent a life in music.
Something I myself love are collections of letters--good gossipy fun! Maybe poke around the library and see if there's anything there that would grab him? The fun thing about those is that one leads you to another and another...people who knew other people and so on.
bye for now!
minnie
Last edited by minniemarx; 12/28/08 06:25 PM. Reason: added caveat
