Great Reads for Key Stage 4 Students * = more challenging reads

Action/Adventure Chris Bradford: ‘The Bodyguard’ series Robert Cormier: ‘After the First Death’ Ian Fleming: James Bond series Charlie Higson: Young Bond series Claire McFall: ‘Bombmaker’ Andy McNab: Liam Scott series Chris Ryan: Agent 21 series

Aliens!

Gene Brewer: ‘K-PAX’

Patrick Ness: The Chaos Walking series

John Wyndham: ‘Chocky’

Rick Yancey: The 5th Wave trilogy

Being Different Brian Conaghan: ‘When Mr Dog Bites’ Nathan Filer: ‘The Shock of The Fall’ Kate Scott: ‘Counting To D’ Nicola Yoon: ‘Everything Everything’

Coming of Age

Stephen Chbosky: ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower’ Charles Dickens: ‘Great Expectations’ * Gayle Forman: ‘I Was Here’ Chrissie Keighery: ‘Whisper’ J.D. Salinger: ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ *

Crime mysteries

Sarah Alexander:’ The Art Of Not Breathing’

Kevin Brooks: ‘Black Rabbit Summer’

Anne Cassidy: ‘Moth Girls’

Graham Greene: ‘Brighton Rock’ *

Heaberlin Julia: ‘Black-Eyed Susans’

Demons and Zombies!

Max Brooks: ‘World War Z’

Charlie Higson: ‘The Enemy’ series

Derek Landy: ‘Demon Road’ trilogy

Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman: ‘Good Omens’

Carrie Ryan: ‘The Forest Of Hands And Teeth’ trilogy

Detectives

Agatha Christie: ‘Murder On The Orient Express’ *

Harlan Coben: Mickey Bolitar novels

Arthur Conan Doyle: Sherlock Holmes series *

Andrew Lane: Young Sherlock Holmes series

Ellis Peters: The Cadfael series

Alexander McCall Smith: ‘The No.1 Ladies’

Detective Agency’ series

Ian Rankin: Inspector John Rebus novels

Dystopias

Margaret Atwood: ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ *

Julianna Baggott: ‘Pure’ trilogy

Ernest Cline: ‘Ready Player One’

Lois Lowry: ‘The Giver’

Gemma Malley: ‘Declaration’ trilogy

George Orwell: ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ *

Veronica Roth: ‘Divergent’ trilogy

Teri Terry: ‘Slated’ trilogy

Scott Westerfeld: ‘Uglies’ trilogy

Families

Louisa May Alcott: ‘Little Women’ Sarah Crossan: ‘Apple and Rain’ Jenny Downham: ‘You Against Me’ Phil Earle: ‘Heroic’ Jonathan Safran Foer: ‘Extremely Loud and

Incredibly Close’ Michael Frayn: ‘Spies’ Clare Furniss: ‘How Not To Disappear’ Laura Jarratt: ‘Louder Than Words ‘

Jodi Picoult: ‘My Sister’s Keeper’

Fantasy adventure

Leigh Bardugo: ‘Grisha’ novels

Cassandra Clare: ‘Mortal Instruments’ series

Anthony Horowitz: ‘The Power of Five’ series

Ursula Le Guin: Earthsea series

Terry Pratchett: ‘The Colour of Magic’

Philip Reeve: ‘Mortal Engines’ quartet

Sabaa Tahir: ‘An Ember in the Ashes’ series

J.R.R. Tolkien: ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy *

Fantasy romance

Josephine Angelini: ‘Starcrossed’ trilogy Amanda Bouchet: ‘The Kingmaker’ trilogy Kiera Cass: ‘The Selection’ series Erin Morgenstern: ‘The Night Circus’ Amy Plum: ‘Die for Me’ trilogy

Gender

Perry Moore: ‘Hero’

Julie Anne Peters: ‘Luna’

Meredith Russo: ‘If I Was Your Girl’

Lisa Williamson: ‘The Art of Being Normal’

Ghosts

Malorie Blackman: ‘The Stuff of Nightmares’ Charles Dickens: ‘The Haunted House’ Helen Dunmore: ‘The Greatcoat’ Shirley Jackson: ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ M.R. James: Collected Ghost Stories Hilary Mantel: ‘Beyond Black’ Audrey Niffenegger: ‘Her Fearful Symmetry’ Michelle Paver: ‘Dark Matter’

Historical fiction

Bernard Cornwell: ‘The Last Kingdom’

Helen Dunmore: ‘The Siege’

Ken Follett: ‘Pillars of the Earth’

Philippa Gregory: ‘The Other Boleyn Girl’

Alice Hoffman: ‘The Dovekeepers’

Conn Iggulden: ‘The Conqueror’ series

Hilary Mantel: ‘Wolf Hall’

Ruta Sepetys: ‘Between Shades of Grey’

Horror

Keith Austin: ‘Snow, White’ Stephen King: ‘Carrie’ Kenneth Oppel: ‘His Dark Endeavour’ Mary Shelley: ‘Frankenstein’ * Bram Stoker: ‘Dracula’ *

Carlos Ruiz Zafon: ‘The Prince of Mist

Humour

Bill Bryson: ‘The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid’

Dave Cousins: ‘15 Days Without a Head’

Stephen Fry: ‘The Star’s Tennis Balls’

Helen Fielding: ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’

Graeme Simsion: ‘The Rosie Project’

Holly Smale: ‘Geek Girl’ series

Other cultures

Chinua Achebe: ‘Things Fall Apart’

Khaled Hosseini: ‘The Kite Runner’ *

Anna Perera: ‘The Glass Collector’

Bali Rai: ‘Killing Honour’

William Sutcliffe: ‘The Wall’

Vikas Swarup: ‘Slumdog Millionaire’

Amy Tan: ‘The Joy Luck Club’

Alice Walker: ‘The Color Purple’ *

Matt Whyman: ‘Boy Kills Man’

Romance Cecelia Ahern: ‘P.S. I Love You’ Eve Ainsworth: ‘Crush’ Jane Austen: ‘Emma’ * F. Scott Fitzgerald: ‘The Great Gatsby’ * John Green: ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ Jojo Moyes: ‘Me Before You’ Nicholas Sparks: ‘The Notebook’

Science fiction Isaac Asimov: ‘I, Robot’ Orson Scott Card: ‘Ender’s Game’ Michael Crichton: ‘Jurassic Park’ James Dashner: ‘The Mortality Doctrine’ trilogy Dan Wells: ‘Partials’ trilogy

H.G. Wells: ‘The Island of Doctor Moreau’ * John Wyndham: ‘The Midwich Cuckoos’

Thriller/mystery

Dan Brown: ‘The Da

Vinci Code’

Anne Cassidy: ‘Looking

For JJ’

Gillian Flynn: ‘Gone

Girl’

John Fowles: ‘The

Collector’ *

Daphne du Maurier:

‘Rebecca’ *

Sophie McKenzie: ‘Girl, Missing’ trilogy

Liane Moriarty: ‘Big Little Lies’

Iain Pears: ‘Stone’s Fall’

S J Watson: ‘Before I Go to Sleep’

War

J.G.Ballard: ‘Empire of the Sun’

John Boyne: ‘The Boy at the Top of the

Mountain’

Robert Cormier: ‘Heroes’

Ben Elton: ‘The First Casualty’

Sebastian Faulks: ‘Birdsong’ *

William Osborne: ‘Hitler’s Angel’

Ian Serraillier: ‘The Silver Sword’

Elizabeth Wein: ‘Code Name Verity’

Autobiography:

Maya Angelou: ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’

Elizabeth Gilbert: ‘Eat, Pray, Love’

Dave Pelzer: ‘A Child Called It’

Elie Wiesel: ‘Night’

Malala Yousafza: ‘I am Malala’

Literary Non-Fiction:

Bill Bryson: ‘A Walk in the Woods’

John Hersey: ‘Hiroshima’

Jon Krakauer: ‘Into Thin Air: A Personal Account

of the Mt Everest Disaster’

George Orwell: ‘Down and Out in London and Paris’

Art Spiegalman: ‘Maus: A Survivor’s Guide’

Sport: Nick Hornby: ‘Fever Pitch’

Simon Hughes: ‘And God Created Cricket’ David Peace: ‘The Damned United’ Tom Rubython: ‘The Life of Senna’ Joan Ryan: ‘Little Girls in Pretty Boxes’