What to read to an 18 year old girl. Books enlighten the soul, elevate and strengthen a person, awaken in him the best aspirations, sharpen his mind and soften his heart.

The question may arise, why these books and not some others?

In our opinion, it is this list that forms the qualities that create that unique cocktail of masculinity. If you try to break it down into ingredients, then these are reason, logic, philosophical notes, the ability to think critically, an unquenchable thirst for freedom, a dose of irony and bright glimpses of sexual postmodernist audacity.

This literary works with the present masculine character: deep, serious and free. Although you have probably read many of them.

1. George Orwell 1984

The cult dystopian novel that brought world fame to its author. Main character In the novel, Winston Smith is an employee of the Ministry of Truth who secretly hates party ideas. His actions are controlled by the thought police. Smith realizes the need to fight the totalitarian regime and tries to resist the inhumanly cruel Party. He and his beloved Julia hope that the Resistance - a secret organization opposing the regime, or the proles (proletariat) will be able to destroy the Party at least in the distant future...

2. George Orwell "Animal Farm"

A satirical story-parable about how one day the animals living on the farm of the drunkard Mr. Jones decided to make a coup and get rid of their offenders - people. They are tired of enduring humiliation and feeling the constant fear of turning into lunch for cruel two-legged oppressors. Having risen in rebellion, the animals drove the owner and his workers out of the Lord’s Court, created their own party and decided to start building a new life according to their own theory called “Scotism”.

3. Hermann Hesse “Steppenwolf”

The main character of the novel, Harry Haller, is in a severe internal crisis. While wandering around the city, he meets a man who gives him a small book called "A Treatise on Steppenwolf." The treatise tells the story of “Harry, nicknamed Steppenwolf,” who divides his personality into two parts: a man of high spiritual morality and an animal - a wolf. Harry struggles with himself, afraid of slipping into philistinism. In this struggle, he almost comes to suicide, from which he is accidentally saved by a girl named Hermine. Will she be able to change inner world Harry?

4. Alexander Solzhenitsyn “The Gulag Archipelago”

A world-famous documentary and artistic epic about the repressions carried out during the years of Soviet power, of which the author himself became a victim...

“...The book is about blood, sweat, tears, suffering, hopelessness, and you close it with a feeling of strength and light. It shows: a person can remain a person in all circumstances. It gives the feeling that our people have not ended, we have passed the lowest point, we have gone through catharsis. It will be difficult to correct life, but it is possible” (N.D. Solzhenitsyna).

5. Arkady and Boris Strugatsky “Monday begins on Saturday”

A fantastic humorous story by the Strugatsky brothers, brilliantly ridiculing opportunists, political demagogues, bureaucrats and swindlers in all their manifestations. The story was largely tied to the realities of the socialist era, and after the collapse of the global socialist system by 1991, it became somewhat incomprehensible to the new generation of readers. However, now “Monday Begins on Saturday” has again turned out to be unexpectedly relevant - both in its utopian part and in its satirical part. The story consists of three parts: “Vanity around the sofa”, “Vanity of vanities”, “All sorts of vanity”.

6. Arkady and Boris Strugatsky “It’s hard to be a god”

A science fiction story by the Strugatskys about how in the future a certain humanoid civilization lives on another planet, immersed in the deep Middle Ages. And there are earthlings who are a kind of observers, they try to carefully correct the course of events without disturbing logical development stories. The main character, Don Rumata Estorsky, realizing his task of maintaining neutrality, nevertheless cannot stand it when the “black brotherhood” seizes power in Arkanar (one of the cities of the planet), overthrowing the dominance of the “grays”, equally disgusting, but not so bloody . Rumata takes up the sword to punish the villains, and thereby breaks all the rules and patterns, interfering in someone else's historical process…

7. Varlam Shalamov “ Kolyma stories»

Kolyma stories introduce the reader to the terrible life of prisoners of the Gulag, this Auschwitz without ovens, as the author himself called it. In essence, this is an understanding of everything that Shalamov himself saw and experienced during the 17 years he spent in prison, from 1929 to 1931 and in Kolyma from 1937 to 1951. Few managed to survive, few managed to remain morally unbroken.

8. Robert Heinlein “Stranger in a Strange Land”

Fantastic philosophical novel, containing a lot of historical and philosophical allusions. It is the biography of Valentine Michael Smith, a man raised by Martians who returned to Earth and became the new messiah here. The publication of the novel caused a scandal associated with the image being too free, according to the norms of the censorship of that time. sex life and religion.

9. Kurt Vonnegut “Slaughterhouse-Five, or Crusade children"

The novel has clearly expressed anti-militaristic colors, showing the powerlessness of man in the face of an endless and soulless world of evil and violence, suffering and senseless sacrifices.

The stereotypes of “real men”, “tough guys”, “heroes”, usually found in books about the war, are distorted to the point of absurdity in Vonnegut and presented as a harsh parody, causing a wry smile. There is no division into “ours” and “enemies” - the Germans are shown as ordinary tortured people, incredibly tired of the war, just like the Americans.

10. Ivan Goncharov “Oblomov”

In the 19th century, Russian landowners lived a boring and idle life. It was difficult for them to find their place in life, to realize themselves as individuals. Ilya Ilyich Oblomov did not want to work just to increase his wealth, because he did not see it for himself high goal. Lying on the couch and indulging in “philosophical” thoughts about the meaning of life, Oblomov missed a lot in this life, including his love.

11. Andrey Platonov “Chevengur”

The heroes of the novel find themselves in a kind of reserve of communism - a town called Chevengur. Residents of the city are confident in the imminent arrival of the communist Paradise. They refuse to work, leaving this prerogative exclusively to the Sun, feed on pasture, resolutely socialize their wives, and brutally deal with bourgeois elements. However, the city soon comes under attack...

12. Vladimir Sorokin “Day of the Oprichnik”

The book, according to the writer’s plan, should warn about the fate that awaits Russia if the current political course continues. The story is dedicated famous guardsman Malyuta Skuratova. Its action takes place in Russia in 2027, fenced off from the rest of the world by the Great Russian Wall. Autocracy has been restored in the country, xenophobia, protectionism, popular-leaven patriotism and the omnipotence of punitive bodies are flourishing, carrying out constant repression (and at the same time mired in corruption), and the only sources of income for a country that produces nothing are sales. natural gas and fees on the transit of Chinese goods to Europe.

13. Vladimir Sorokin “Sugar Kremlin”

The action of the collection of stories “Sugar Kremlin”, like the novel “The Day of the Oprichnik”, takes place in the Russian State in the middle of the 21st century, after the Red, White and Gray Troubles. State system his is autocracy, life is extremely regulated: all goods (for the common people) are only Russian, the choice is from exactly two names of any product: the nomenklatura can still purchase goods made in China. Thanks to the unity of place and time of action, the novel “The Day of the Oprichnik” and the collection “Sugar Kremlin” can be combined into a duology.

14. Chuck Palahniuk "Lone Survivor"

If you know “Fight Club” by heart, then perhaps you can still be surprised by the book “Lone Survivor” by Chuck Palahniuk. The novel is about a man, a religious fanatic, who hijacked a plane to tell his life story to a black box. And here he is on board flight 2039 of a Boeing 747 flying somewhere above Pacific Ocean, and he has several hours to tell people about the meaning of life and... other little things. The narrative level increases with each page, but catharsis is inevitable. We recommend you read it, you won’t regret the time spent.

15. Chuck Palahniuk “Choke”

Another book by Chuck Palahniuk, next in popularity after Fight Club.

The book is about a young swindler who acts out choking attacks every day in expensive restaurants and earns good money from it. It will be about sexaholics, alcoholics, and simple shopaholics. In general, real " unbearable lightness being" of our days. Palahniuk himself says about his book: “Are you going to read it? In vain! But we recommend the opposite.

16. Jack Kerouac “On the Road”

The novel is autobiographical. After the death of his father, aspiring New York writer Sal Paradise (Jack Kerouac) meets the young and charming Dean Moriarty, just released from prison and married to the seductive beauty Marilou. They instantly become inseparable friends. Striving for freedom, Sal, Dean and Marilou break with the conventions of life and set out on a journey to meet the world, people and themselves.

17. Fyodor Sologub “Little Demon”

Small provincial town. Boredom, stupidity, anger of the inhabitants. A modest Russian language teacher, Ardalyon Borisovich Peredonov, dreams of a promotion and moving to the capital. He languishes in anticipation of the position of inspector, which was promised to him by a distant princess, although not to him personally, but through his second cousin Varvara. Gradually, waiting becomes an obsession. Envy, anger and extreme selfishness drive Peredonov to complete delirium and loss of reality. His second cousin Varvara, who dreams of marrying him, writes letters with promises of an invitation to St. Petersburg, but the teacher’s dreams are not destined to come true: having become a victim of his own madness, he decides to commit murder...

18. Francis Scott Fitzgerald "The Great Gatsby"

In the spring of 1922, in an era of decaying morality, brilliant jazz and the “kings of bootleg alcohol,” Nick Carraway comes from the Midwest to New York. Pursuing his own American dream, he settles next door to the mysterious, party-loving millionaire Jay Gatsby, while his cousin Daisy and her rake and aristocrat husband, Tom Buchanan, live across the bay. So Nick finds himself drawn into the fascinating world of the rich - their illusions, loves and deceptions. He witnesses what is happening in this world and writes history...

19. Anthony Burgess "A Clockwork Orange"

The ruthless leader of a teenage gang that commits murder and rape is imprisoned and given special treatment to suppress his subconscious desire for violence. However, when the recovered teenager is sent home, it turns out that life outside the prison gates is such that measures taken to “correct cruelty of character” cannot change anything...

20. John Steinbeck "The Grapes of Wrath"

The novel takes place during Great Depression. After a prison sentence for murder, Tom Joad returns to his family ranch, which by that time was completely bankrupt and falling into disrepair. Tom's family is forced to leave their home in Oklahoma due to drought, economic hardship and changes in business practices. Agriculture. In an almost hopeless situation, they head to California along with thousands of other Okie families, hoping to find a means of livelihood there.

But hard way and difficult conditions do not bring the sought-after hope, and even the unity of the family is tested.

21. Ken Kesey "Over the Cuckoo's Nest"

Having feigned insanity in the hope of avoiding imprisonment, Randle Patrick McMurphy ends up in a psychiatric clinic, where Sister Mildred Ratched, who personifies the regime, is the almost undivided master. McMurphy is amazed that other patients have come to terms with existing situation things, and some even deliberately came to the hospital, hiding from the frightening outside world. And he decides to revolt. By oneself.

22. Jerome Salinger "The Catcher in the Rye"

The novel is written from the perspective of seventeen-year-old Holden Caulfield, who is being treated at a clinic. He tells frank story, which happened to him last winter, preceding his illness.

As the story progresses, we understand that before us is a teenager, whose naivety and thirst for truth opposed the hypocrisy and falsehood that reigns in society. The story of Holden Caulfield, told by himself, to this day does not leave the hearts of readers indifferent.

23. Victor Pelevin “Generation “P”

A postmodern novel by Victor Pelevin about a generation of Russians who grew up and were formed during the 1990s. The main character is an intelligent young man, a graduate of the Literary Institute Vavilen Tatarsky, who has found himself in a new life as an employee of an advertising agency. He is engaged in the promotion of Western brands, adapting them to the “Russian mentality”. Tatarsky is a collective image of “generation P” - the generation of the seventies. Smart and sometimes monstrously funny, full of events and revelations, the novel will give you great pleasure.

24. Sergey Dovlatov “Compromise”

In total, the book includes 12 short stories (“compromises”). The plots for the short stories are taken from the journalistic experience of Sergei Dovlatov in the Estonian Russian-language newspaper “Soviet Estonia” in 1972-1975. Each story is preceded by a newspaper preamble. This preamble shows the result of the journalistic work of the hero of the short stories, and the short stories themselves show the process of work. Brilliant, ironic and at the same time tragic, “Compromise” is a must-read for everyone.

25. William Golding "Lord of the Flies"

As a result of a plane crash, a group of children evacuated from England during wartime are stranded on a desert island. The children find themselves on a deserted island completely alone. There is nowhere to wait for help and you need to get used to unusual conditions. An unexpected turn of fate pushes many of them to forget about everything: first - about discipline and order, then - about friendship and decency, and in the end - about human nature itself...

26. Albert Camus “The Stranger”

The story is narrated by a 30-year-old Frenchman living in colonial Algeria, named Meursault. The book describes three key events in his life - the death of his mother, murder local resident and court. At the trial, Meursault truthfully states that he pulled the trigger of the pistol “because of the sun,” which causes laughter in the audience. However, the jury is most impressed by the evidence that Meursault did not cry at his mother’s funeral, therefore, he is a hard-hearted person and not worthy of living...

27. Ray Bradberry "Fahrenheit 451"

The novel “Fahrenheit 451” tells the story of a totalitarian society in which literature is banned, and firefighters must burn all the books they find, along with the owners’ homes. The owners of the books themselves are subject to arrest. The author depicted people who have lost touch with each other, with nature, with the intellectual heritage of humanity. People rush to or from work, never saying what they think or feel, talking only about meaningless and empty things, only being delighted material assets. Sergeant Guy Montag blindly follows orders to destroy books, but an encounter with young Clarisse forces him to rethink his life. He becomes a dissident - a renegade in a totalitarian society.

28. Ray Bradbury "Dandelion Wine"

The grandfather of twelve-year-old Tom and ten-year-old Douglas makes dandelion wine every summer. Often boys think that this wine should store the current time, the events that happened when the wine was made. The experienced colonel, with his stories, transports his grandchildren to a world unknown to them, or maybe he himself travels in the time machine of his memory.

“Dandelion wine. These words themselves are like summer on the tongue. Dandelion wine - summer caught and corked in a bottle.”

29. Franz Kafka “Metamorphosis”

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke up from a terrible dream, he found himself transformed into a huge, nasty insect. Just yesterday he was the breadwinner, support and breadwinner of the whole family. Today he is an outcast and a monster, incomprehensible and disgusting to all his relatives... Gregor's family, without thinking twice, drives him into a room where they leave him for the entire time, only his sister comes to feed him out of pity. The main character feels guilty, while his family is forced to tighten their belts and live from hand to mouth, but this cannot last long...

30. Franz Kafka “The Trial”

On the morning of his thirtieth birthday, Josef K. is arrested, but no reason is given, by two employees of a certain organization. However, Josef continues to lead his life as before, since the organization is not afraid of his escape. He is invited to court, visited at home and at work, and persecuted. All this time he is trying to find out the reason for his arrest, but he will not get the truth from the bureaucracy around him...

31. Stephen King "The Shining"

The main character, Jack Torrence, arrives at an elegant secluded hotel in the mountains to work there as a caretaker during the low season with his wife and five-year-old son. Luxurious hotel enjoys notoriety: Strange and creepy events are constantly happening there. But is it worth paying attention to this?

32. Ernest Hemingway “A Farewell to Arms!”

World War I. Austro-Italian front. American Frederick Henry voluntarily joins the Italian army. Amid the inhuman chaos of the fighting, he meets an English nurse, Catherine Barclay, but the war leaves a heavy, indelible mark on their love...

33. Jorge Luis Borges, stories

Borges is known for his prosaic fantasies, often masking discussions of fundamental philosophical problems. The stories take the form of adventure or detective stories. Borges's stories are especially good because they can be reread, if not endlessly, then many times.

34. Virginia Woolf"Orlando"

A fantastic story about a beautiful young man Orlando, who comes from noble family, is distinguished by intelligence and beauty, loves life, women, poetry, is interested in politics... And then one day she wakes up as a woman.

35. Gabriel Garcia Marquez “One Hundred Years of Solitude”

“One Hundred Years of Solitude” is a slightly strange, poetic and whimsical story of the fictional city of Macondo, lost somewhere in the jungle, from its creation to its decline. The story of the Buendia family - a family in which miracles are so everyday that they are not even noticed.

The Buendia clan produces saints and sinners, revolutionaries, heroes and traitors, dashing adventurers and beautiful women. Extraordinary passions boil within him - and incredible events. But we, of course, understand that in reality we are talking about something completely different...

36. Gabriel Garcia Marquez “Autumn of the Patriarch”

The novel, in a grotesque form, tells the story of the life of a dictator of an unnamed Latin American country, who is essentially a generalized image of all the tyrants who actually existed in history. This dictator has been in power for so long that he doesn’t even remember how he came to it. He wants and at the same time fears death. The story about this man’s life consists of many gossips, stories, and legends that allegedly happened to him.

37. Jean-Paul Sartre “Nausea”

The novel “Nausea” appears before the reader in the form of a diary of a certain thirty-year-old Antoine Roquentin. However, we see only a few days from the hero’s life. The purpose of the diary is to “get to the bottom of things.” Antoine is gnawing at some change that has happened to him, and he wants to figure it out. From time to time, the hero is overcome by nausea, or, more precisely, Nausea - “glaring evidence” with which it is difficult for him to come to terms...

38. Harper Lee "To Kill a Mockingbird"

The book is about an Alabama lawyer raising his two children without a mother. In a climate of economic depression, bigotry and hatred, a wise, soft-spoken, excellently mannered Alabama lawyer must defend a black man falsely accused of rape...

In addition to the theme of racial prejudice in the South, this is a story about how two children from a fantasy world take their first steps into a completely different world of teenagers, where such concepts as nobility, compassion, justice and inequality are already being formed.

39. Erich Maria Remarque “Three Comrades”

Germany at the turn of the 20-30s. The burns of war, forever remaining in the souls of people, constantly remind themselves of themselves. Three friends - Gottfried Lenz, Otto Kester, Robert Lokamp and his young lover Pat - learn to live in a world where there is so much pain and evil, betrayal and cowardice. Each of the heroes finds himself at a moral threshold, each makes his own choice and each pays for his decision with his own fate...

40. Mikhail Bulgakov “The White Guard”

The action takes place in Kyiv, in the winter of 1918. The quiet, intelligent Turbin family becomes a witness and participant in the terrible events of the bloody year 1918. The main characters - older brother Alexey, sister Elena, younger Nikolka and their friends Myshlaevsky, Karas and Shervinsky - are involved in the cycle of military and political events. Their personal dramas unfold against the backdrop of the tragedy of the entire country - the Germans who occupied Ukraine are leaving Kyiv, and it is captured by Petliura’s troops.

18 books that are worth reading before the age of 18. We add the list to our page so as not to lose it. Happy reading. 1. Gifts of the Magi O. Henry Small, but wondrous, amazing and powerful story! In one dozen pages, so much love for one's neighbor is conveyed... This tiny story can bring tears and joy at the same time! 2. The Catcher in the Rye Jerome D. Salinger Salinger's only novel, The Catcher in the Rye, became a turning point in the history of world literature. The title of the novel and the name of the main character, Hold'em Colfid, became a code for many generations of young rebels - from beatniks and hippies to representatives of modern radical youth movements. 3. Nineteen minutes by Jodi Picoult The silence of provincial Sterling is shaken by an extraordinary event - in one of the schools a student opens fire on his classmates. What made a teenager unlike others pick up a gun? 4. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess A rebellious, iconic, violent and very young book. IT'S worth reading when you're 16, or not at all. The main character is a young man named Alex, a hooligan, a sadist and a terrible monster who rapes, kills, speaks strange slang and unexpectedly transforms into a respectable citizen, an employee of a music archive. There is no logic, there is only a miracle, but quite understandable - Burgess began writing the novel, thinking that he would die, and finished, already knowing that terminal diagnosis was a mistake. 5. White Bim black ear Gabriel Troepolsky The book is priceless in terms of showing different characters, different destinies, different life situations - masterfully described, cinematically depicted. And yet... my heart was breaking with pain. 6. Hello, Nobody Burley Dougherty Here you will find everything you can expect from a good book: a great idea, a heart-tugging plot, as well as room to think out what is not directly said... Once you start reading this book, it is no longer possible to put it down until the very end. end. When I turned the last page, I felt as if I had lost two close friends. 7. Three Comrades Erich Maria Remarque The most beautiful novel about love in the twentieth century... The most charming novel in the twentieth century about friendship... The most tragic and most charming novel about human relations throughout the history of the twentieth century. 8. Blue grass. Diary of a fifteen-year-old drug addict Anonymous This book is unique in a sense. It is based on the true diary of a teenage girl, who talks about how she became addicted to drugs. The narration is told in a special, confidential way, captivating with its life truth and sincerity. This book does not pretend to be a detailed description of the world of drug addicts; it chronicles the life of just one girl who stumbled and did not survive. 9. The Perks of Being a Wallflower Stephen Chbosky Charlie goes into high school. Fearing what awaits him there after a recent nervous breakdown, he begins to write letters to someone he has never seen in his life, but who he is sure will understand him well. Charlie doesn't like going to dances because he usually likes songs that you can't dance to. Each A new book, read by him on the advice of Bill, a literature teacher, immediately becomes Charlie’s favorite: “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “Peter Pan,” “The Great Gatsby,” “The Catcher in the Rye,” “On the Road,” “Naked Lunch.” .. Bill advises Charlie to “be a filter, not a sponge,” and he honestly tries. Charlie is also trying not to remember tightly forgotten childhood traumas and to sort out his feelings for high school student Sam, the sister of his friend Patrick, nicknamed No Way... 10. Children write to God Mikhail Dymov Why do people first fall in love and then cry quietly? Andrey, 4th grade. A must read for every teenager. 11. Lolita Vladimir Nabokov One can argue endlessly about what it was - dirty perversion or pure feeling, provocation or confession. Everything doesn't matter. It’s worth reading this book about the relationship between forty-year-old Humbert and his thirteen-year-old stepdaughter, if only to understand why we all sometimes behave so strangely when communicating with older men. 12. Truth or Consequences Annika Thor Many adults dreamily remember a “wonderful and carefree age,” but deep down they shudder with horror and rejoice that “everything is over.” It’s scary when your body changes and stops obeying you, it’s scary to become the subject of ridicule from your peers. It's scary to be different from everyone else. But it’s even worse to be with the majority. 13. 50 days before my suicide by Stace Kramer Due to her parents' divorce and unreciprocal love, Gloria is experiencing depression. But she doesn’t know that all these are just minor troubles compared to what she will have to go through. Within 50 days, Laurie must find reasons to live, or vice versa. 14. gone With the Wind Margaret Mitchell This is a book about love and war, about betrayal and loyalty, about cruelty and about the beauty of life itself. This is one of those books that you return to again and again years later and feel the joy of meeting... 15. Memoirs of an Unreasonable Man young man Frederic Beigbeder A romantic fairy tale told by an ironic Parisian snob: this is Beigbeder's novel, written literally in one breath. 16. Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë A sincere story of an orphan girl who, after going through years of cruelty and humiliation, was able to save moral principles and self-esteem, is perhaps one of the most romantic in English classical literature. beauty of the soul main character, real love, timeless, amazes and enchants, leaving a pure and bright feeling and a desire to re-read the novel again and again... 17. The Amazing Journey of Edward the Rabbit Kate DiCamillo One day Grandmother Pelegrina gave her granddaughter Abilene an amazing toy rabbit named Edward Tulane. He was made of the finest porcelain, he had a whole wardrobe of exquisite silk suits and even a gold watch on a chain. Abilene adored her rabbit, kissed him, dressed him up and wound his watch every morning. And the rabbit did not love anyone but himself. Once Abilene and her parents went on a sea voyage, and Edward the rabbit fell overboard and ended up at the very bottom of the ocean. An old fisherman caught it and brought it to his wife. Then the rabbit fell into the hands of different people - good and evil, noble and treacherous. Edward faced many trials, but the more difficult it was for him, the sooner his callous heart thawed: he learned to respond with love to love. 18. Walking Panas Mirny In a remote village, lost in the vastness Russian Empire Christina’s maiden beauty blossomed like a spring flower. And this is a gift, but a difficult and dangerous gift. A beautiful girl faces thousands of temptations, and if she is also poor and lonely, then it is a hundred times more difficult for her to avoid them. Not a single man can resist Christina, who, by the will of fate, left her native village and ended up in a provincial town. Many sorrows and very few joys, which her pure, naive soul rejoiced so much, befell her lot. Christina’s life, like a shooting star, flashed in the dark sky, only to shine for a moment and dissolve in the darkness. Read the classics.

A man, his car, a fragile girl dying of tuberculosis. The heroine spends all her money on Balenciaga dresses, but the hero really wants to believe in the best. The ironic and absurd ending turns this sentimental story on its head. If you believe in the dubious thesis that every girl at the age of 17 should read Remarque, then let it be “Life on Borrow”.

2. The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde

The beautiful and capricious young man Dorian does not want to grow old. The talented artist Basil paints his portrait and, without knowing it, literally conveys his soul on canvas. Now Dorian is forever young, and the portrait ages in his place. A wonderful mystical novel about the naive selfishness of the young, about the immorality of beauty and how scary it really is to never change.

4. Tender is the night
Francis Scott Fitzgerald

Expensive cars, villas Cote d'Azur, silk dresses - but there is no happiness. A love triangle involving a doctor named Dick, his young neurotic wife Nicole and a young frivolous actress Rosemary - main novel about love, strength and weakness.

5. Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut

The subtitle of the novel – “The Children’s Crusade” – is the most correct definition Second World War. This is a war that children - 17-year-old boys with no brains - went to fight. The main character makes endless movements in time, remembering his senseless and not at all heroic campaign against the World Evil. There is not a single battle scene in this book about the war. Only the stupidity and absurdity of the whole idea through the eyes of a living young man.

6. Lolita
Vladimir Nabokov

One can argue endlessly about what it was - dirty perversion or pure feeling, provocation or confession. Everything doesn't matter. It’s worth reading this book about the relationship between forty-year-old Humbert and his thirteen-year-old stepdaughter, if only to understand why we all sometimes behave so strangely when communicating with older men.

7. A Clockwork Orange
Anthony Burgess

Rebellious, iconic, violent and very much a teenage book. IT'S worth reading when you're 16, or not at all. The main character is a young man named Alex, a hooligan, a sadist and a terrible monster who rapes, kills, speaks strange slang and unexpectedly transforms into a respectable citizen, an employee of a music archive. There is no logic, there is only a miracle, but it is quite understandable - Burgess began writing the novel, thinking that he would die, and finished, already knowing that the fatal diagnosis was a mistake.

8. Easy breathing
Ivan Bunin

An important story about high school student Olya Meshcherskaya, femininity and first sex, an officer in love and a shot at the station. “Easy breathing” is that important quality of girls that makes men go crazy with love, and the young ladies themselves - unforgivably frivolous about their own lives.

9. Transformation
Franz Kafka

Kafka is a complex, dark writer. It is not easy for a young girl to love him. But you have to try. The short story “Metamorphosis” is an absurdist pamphlet on the theme of human loneliness. A young traveling salesman Gregor wakes up one fine morning with a disgusting centipede, a cockroach, a beetle, a vile thing that his family is afraid to even look at. If you leave aside the modernist pranks of the author, you understand that this is all about life, about the illusory nature of love, about the ugliness and loneliness of everyone.

10. The French lieutenant's mistress
John Fowles

Every day a young woman dressed in black stands on the seashore and looks at the horizon. The woman's name is Sarah and there is a rumor that she is waiting for the sailor lover who dishonored her. A young man is going to marry a young charming girl. But one day he sees a woman in black, and everything goes wrong. Will he get married or give vent to his feelings? It's up to you. The brilliant Fowles wrote two versions of the ending to show that conscience is an individual choice.

11. Dear friend
Guy De Maupassant

Classic French novel with an “anti-hero” leading role. Young journalist Georges Duroy is trying to make his way in Paris. He is mediocre, greedy, cowardly and illiterate. But he is very handsome. Scary tale about how smart and talented women become victims of their own blindness. This novel is an inoculation against stories with gigolos for life.

12. Alice in Wonderland
Lewis Carroll

A great fairy tale dedicated to a little girl, a friend of the author. “Lolita” without signs of sex. It is useful to re-read “Alice” as an adult to develop imagination, an unexpected view of things and a sense of humor.

13. Jane Eyre
Charlotte Bronte

A poor, ugly governess with an iron will is the most unexpected character for a novel of the era Victorian England. Jane Eyre is the first to tell a man about her love, but refuses to submit to the whims of her lover, chooses independence and insists on equal rights with a man. Contemporaries were horrified by such debauchery, and young girls still enjoy re-reading the story of strong and uncompromising love.

14. Scarlet Sails
Alexander Green

A beautiful, romantic fairy tale, familiar to everyone from childhood, about Assol, Gray and unshakable faith in a dream with a simple and clear moral - any miracle can happen if you accomplish it yourself. For yourself or for the one you love.

15. Baby
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

A poignant story of the cosmic Mowgli, abandoned by his parents on an uninhabited planet. As you might guess, we are the wild kids abandoned by the hippie generation to their fate. “They went on a dangerous free flight, but never found anything” - many Moscow boys and girls, raised on Beatles records and stories about Che Guevara, will say the same about their parents.

16. Nastya
Vladimir Sorokin

First and main story the collection “The Feast” about a young girl who was eaten by her parents on her sixteenth birthday - should be read immediately after graduating from school, when the heart is still languishing with Turgenev’s bliss and Bunin’s sadness. The story “Nastenka” differs from “ Dark alleys” just like adult life from childhood. And if you start adult life, then from the story “Nastenka”. Then it won't be scary anymore.

17. What to do
Nikolai Chernyshevsky

The first socialist story in Russian is dedicated, oddly enough, not to the fight against the tsarist regime, but to the relationship between men and women. Young heroes struggle with jealousy and possessiveness, learning to respect each other.

18. Drachma Tramps
Jack Kerouac

Twenty-year-old veterans returning from the war found neither truth nor dignity in America in the mid-40s - and began to wander. To the sounds of jazz in smoky clubs, to the whistle of the wind through the cracks of freight cars, to the aching bones after spending the night on the bare ground and, of course, to the endless conversations about Christianity, Buddhism, communism, anarchism - conversations in which gradually, bit by bit, they discovered for yourself the meaning of the universe and the meaning of human life.

19. April Witchcraft
Ray Bradbury

It's very simple and short story about unhappy love. On several pages, one of the most sincere and lyrical writers of the 20th century clearly explains to everyone young girls that unhappy love is the most magical thing that can happen to a person.

20. Notes of a revolutionary
Peter Kropotkin

Revolutionary and anarchist Peter Kropotkin talks about his life in the Corps of Pages - a military educational institution for the children of the Russian elite. This book is about how a person can defend himself in the fight against an alien environment that does not understand him. And also about true friendship and mutual assistance.

21. Refuge. Diary in letters
Anne Frank

The diary of a 15-year-old girl, Anna, who, together with her family, is hiding in Amsterdam from the Nazis, who have already sent other Dutch Jews to concentration camps. Anna writes wittily and aptly about herself, about her peers, about adults, about the world and about her first sexual dreams, and this diary is an amazing document illustrating what happens in the head of a young lady when the world is collapsing around her. Anna did not live to see the victory over fascism for two months - she was still found and sent to a concentration camp, but her diary lives on in translations into many languages ​​of the world.

“When you go to college, go to work, you become an adult...” - this saying haunts us throughout our childhood and adolescence. Does adulthood equal passing the Unified State Exam, admission to university, getting a job? Not everyone has it. What should you teach a child so that at the age of 18 he will truly be an adult? And what should I immediately stop doing for him and for him?

Recently, at the beginning of the fall quarter, the following event occurred at Stanford. One freshman, who had been living on campus for several days, received things from home by express mail. The boxes were unloaded onto the sidewalk next to the dorm. The young man left them there: they were large and heavy - he couldn’t handle it alone - and he didn’t know how to lift them to his room. The student then explained to the university employee who lived in the dorm and, after calling the student’s mother, who arranged for help, that he didn’t know how to ask someone to help with the boxes.

This is a failure of education. A child does not acquire life skills overnight magic wand with the last stroke of the clock on your eighteenth birthday. Childhood should be a training ground. Parents can help - but not by always being ready to do everything or providing advice over the phone - but by getting out of the way and allowing the child to figure it out on his own.

Look at two situations that an adult should be able to handle - a life skill in itself: 1) illness outside the home and 2) car breakdown. Are we preparing for them? No, we don't cook.

Susan is an emergency room doctor at a hospital in downtown Washington. Nineteen-year-old students are her “most unpleasant patients.” Susan is a kind and loving woman, the mother of two children and three adopted children - all under eighteen. So I was a little surprised by her sarcastic tone.

“The students are generally healthy, and their parents take care of them at home. They come to our department with an infection of the upper respiratory tract- you might think this is the end of the world. They get very nervous if you don’t give them an antibiotic and refuse to hospitalize them, but it’s just a cold - just drink more fluids and lie in bed for a couple of days.”

Susan tells how students burst into tears on the cold linoleum of the intensive care unit and cry on their mobile phones about this great grief - probably to friends and family. “They don’t know how to fight at all,” she says.

If you've ever planned a trip by car, you know that breakdowns are common. Todd Berger is the CEO of AAA Mountain West, a chapter of the American Automobile Association that covers Alaska, Montana and Wyoming. Seeing how needy millennial drivers are for support drives him crazy.

“Kids today are completely unprepared,” Todd says. He was born in Montana, owns a ranch and raises his own teenagers. When he talks about the life skills that are so lacking in most of the young people he now interacts with at work, there is both sternness and weariness in his tone.

The American Automobile Association's mission is emergency roadside service, not full service. They will change the tire, charge the battery, tow you somewhere, but will not deal with a comprehensive solution to problems with the car. However, young drivers demand full service on site.

“They have this mentality: “I don’t know anything, fix it quickly, my parents paid for it.” We also often notice that they don’t trust us. The team arrives, and they take out their phone and ask their friends on Facebook to help with the car. We don’t We know what to do with them. We really don’t.”

I've spoken to parents across the country and many admit there are skills issues. They tell amazing stories.

“The children are in the last grade and don’t know how to ride the subway”;

“If I take my teenager into town and say, ‘Find your way home,’ he’ll get confused.”

“My daughter didn’t learn to cook because she had to do homework every night”;

"My biggest fear is that my daughter will go to college in a year and a half. I don't know how she'll get up in the morning." Mom from last example She added that she asked her daughter to prepare her own breakfast. When she asked why, the parent replied: “I need to know that you can do this.”

That's the whole point. We need to know what they can do.

But how to achieve this?

You can't give another person life skills. Everyone must acquire them independently, with their own labor. If we don't prepare our children—and ourselves—for the inevitable moment when they have to fend for themselves, we're all in for a rude awakening.

Do we want our children—technically adults, but often still children—once they go to college or start working, standing bewildered on a sunlit sidewalk, not knowing how to carry a package into their room? Is the only way out to call mom and dad so they can solve the problem?

What does it mean to be an adult
There are all sorts of legal definitions of "adulthood": this is the age at which a person can start a family without parental consent (in most American states at 16), to fight and die for one's country (18) and to drink alcohol (21). But what does it mean developmentally to think and behave like adults?
For decades, the standard sociological definition quite reflected the social norm: graduate from school, leave the parental home, become financially independent, start a family and have children. In 1960, 77% of women and 65% of men achieved all five points by age 30. In 2000, only half of thirty-year-old women and a third of their male peers met this criterion.
These traditional milestones are clearly outdated. Marriage is no longer a prerequisite for a woman's financial security, and children are no longer an inevitable result of sexual activity. If you measure "adulthood" by milestones that young people no longer strive for, you won't get very far. A more modern definition is needed, and this can be found by interviewing young people themselves.
In a 2007 study published in the Journal of Family Psychology, researchers asked people between the ages of 18 and 25 which criteria of adulthood seemed most indicative of them. In descending order of importance the following were named:

1. responsibility for the consequences of one's actions;
2. communication with parents as equals;
3. financial independence from parents;
4. formation of values ​​and beliefs independent of parents and other influences.

What to learn before entering university: 8 basic life skills

If we want our children to have a chance to survive in the adult world without an umbilical cord... mobile phone, they will need a set of basic life skills. Based on my own observations as a dean, as well as advice from parents and educators across the country, here are a few practical skills a child should master before entering college. Here I will show the “crutches” that are currently preventing them from getting back on their feet on their own.

1. An eighteen-year-old must be able to talk to strangers.- teachers, deans, consultants, homeowners, salespeople, HR managers, colleagues, bank employees, health workers, bus drivers, auto mechanics.

Crutch: We ask children not to talk to strangers, rather than helping them learn the more subtle skill of distinguishing the few bad strangers from the many good ones. As a result, children do not know how to approach a stranger - politely, establishing eye contact, - to ask for help, to suggest, to advise. And this would be very useful to them in the big world.

2. An eighteen-year-old must be able to navigate the campus, the town where the summer internship is taking place, or where he works or studies abroad.

Crutch: We carry and accompany children everywhere, even if they can get there by bus, bike or on foot. Because of this, they do not know the way from one place to another, do not know how to plan a route and cope with traffic chaos, and do not know how to make plans and follow them.

3. An eighteen-year-old must be able to manage his or her tasks, work, and deadlines.

Crutch: we remind children when to turn in work and when to take it on, and sometimes we help or simply do everything for them. Because of this, children don't know how to prioritize, manage workloads, and meet deadlines without regular reminders.

4. An eighteen-year-old must be able to do housework.

Crutch: we do not very insistently ask for help around the house, because in childhood, which is planned to the smallest detail, there is little time left for anything other than studying and extracurricular activities. Because of this, children do not know how to run a household, look after their own needs, respect the needs of others and contribute to the general well-being.

5. An eighteen-year-old must be able to cope with interpersonal problems.

Crutch: we intervene to resolve misunderstandings and soothe hurt feelings. Because of this, children do not know how to cope with situations and resolve conflicts without our intervention.

6. An eighteen-year-old must be able to cope with changes in academic and workload at a university, with competition, strict teachers, bosses, and so on.

Crutch: in difficult times, we step into the game - we complete tasks, extend deadlines, talk to people. Because of this, children do not understand that in life, not everything usually goes the way they want, and that even in spite of this, everything will be fine.

7. An eighteen-year-old must be able to earn money and spend it wisely.

Crutch: children stopped working part-time. They receive money from us for everything they want and do not need anything. They do not develop a sense of responsibility for completing tasks at work, they do not have a sense of accountability to a boss who is not obliged to love them, they do not know the value of things and do not know how to manage their finances.

8. An eighteen-year-old must be able to take risks.

Crutch: we pave the way for them, level out the holes and prevent them from stumbling. Because of this, children do not understand that success comes only to those who try, fail, and try again (i.e., persevere), and to those who endure adversity (i.e., persevere), which is a skill that comes from struggling. with failures.

Remember: children must be able to do all this without calling their parents. If they call and ask, they won’t have a life skill.

Julie Lythcott-Haims

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Discussion

I mastered the clinic, home work, and traveling around Moscow. Planning is more difficult, and so is time. No long-term intentions yet.

Most parents understand perfectly well what their grown children should be able to do. Find me a parent who doesn't think they should know how to do housework. But how to achieve this? There is not a word about this in the article. This main drawback articles.

In general, I read translated articles with a feeling of great awkwardness and bewilderment, and I cannot understand whether there really are no domestic authors.

Because not everyone needs to be able to repair a car at the age of 18, but you need to navigate not the campus, but the millionaire. And they all have Google to guide them. At the age of 12, my son was already calling the metro information desk to find out what was closed where. And I couldn’t figure out what to do.

It is advisable to navigate by avoiding protests. Because at the age of 13, when my son was taller than me, I once rushed to pick him up from classes, because there was a cordon on Gostinka, the day before they took exactly the same boy right with a violin.

About the groans of sick children... Yes, mine has been going to the clinic on its own for a long time. Yes, from the age of 13. But after the flu with t 39, after my persistent persuasion, he goes there, and when he complains of a cough, no one listens to his lungs. If I were, of course, everything would be a little better.

Our children have not stopped working part-time, and in general, most of them have not started, to be honest. But you need to be able not only to work, but to work where they pay :) And not “come back tomorrow.” For some reason, ours can do a lot, but does everything for free :) Well, that’s how it is with us.
And I can’t tell my 75-year-old neighbor with two grandchildren to look after that he needs to pay for a computer. help. Our life is a little different.

Comment on the article "What should a person be able to do at 18? 8 life skills"

Well, at least normal person must know your language - the goal in Russian is to be able to Which, even after 18 years of age, will do in life what “you want and are interested in” Education and leisure, maybe the easy development of some necessary life skills and all that...

Discussion

I came across a similar school when I was looking for a school. for khukhrik (i.e. it was a long time ago). It implies a huge involvement of parents in this issue. I realized that I couldn’t handle it. I, besides Khukhrik, have other things to do, and somehow I was not ready to devote my whole life to his education. This, by the way, was also an officially registered school. It was located in a park, almost like a hut in the forest :) This is also a school-park. Not far from our house. Some took their children there from afar, saying that it was the only place where the child could study. But still, I was not ready to spend so much time on it. Most parents spent almost half a day there.

It would be nice to organize “courses” in the field of additional education at schools or centers of additional education. education, deepening school subjects. Free of charge whenever possible. One parent teaches some classes, the other teaches others, and you can pool together to invite a teacher. But now it’s becoming more and more difficult for parents to get to school and for those who need it.

What should a girl be able to do? Prepare? Sew? What can children aged 1, 4 do? (long!). Achievements. Child from 1 to 3. Raising a child from one to three years: hardening and development, nutrition and illness, daily routine and development of household skills.

Discussion

My daughter is almost 15. early age discovered absolute pitch. Graduated a year ago music school violin class. She doesn’t intend to make this her profession, but she hasn’t abandoned the instrument either. He selects melodies from his favorite anime cartoons and plays jazz in an ensemble. At the same time, she first studied dancing, then circus arts (she was naturally flexible and dexterous), drawing (it was not an art school, but just a circle). He is still involved in the circus and is a member of a children's circus group. In the pool I learned to swim like a fish. There were also a lot of little things like beadwork. Now she knits a lot and well. I mastered beads and knitting on my own. She knows how to bake cupcakes and cookies very tasty. True, she rarely does this. She planned to become a hairdresser-stylist. She wants to take up drawing again. I have always loved doing hair and makeup. I myself was once seriously involved in rhythmic gymnastics. She was a candidate for master of sports. I never liked cooking, but I liked handicrafts. I learned to sew, knit, and weave beads myself. I have been able to design clothes since I was 10 years old. I enjoyed digging in the beds. From the age of 8 I had my own corner in the garden. She loved to tinker with animals. She loved to draw. My parents didn’t let me go to art school, and then to the Veterinary Academy. I still can’t forgive them for this... Handicrafts have definitely come in handy in life. I still draw now. There were even a couple of exhibitions. I breed Syrian hamsters and violets. As for sports, I dance and do yoga. Sports school taught me not to sit for the rest of my life. I recommend that the author of this post pay attention to sports and languages. This is always needed. Dancing is rhythm, grace and a good figure. It will never be too much for a girl. Let him master some handicraft.

as one smart person said: there’s nothing to do, squat! you can be good and smart, but a pumped up butt won’t hurt you!))