Fantasia Mathematica, The Mathematical Magpie, and The Space Child's Mother Goose are collections of short fiction, satire, and miscellania assembled in the same era as A Wrinkle In Time. I enjoyed them when I was about that age. Wikipedia lists the contents of the first two. I see Rudy Rucker's collection Mathenauts is similar, but a bit later.
What Would You Recommend to a Bright 14 Year Old?
81–90 of 215 posts
Re: What Would You Recommend to a Bright 14 Year Old?
#82A Brief History of Time http://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Time-Stephen-Hawking/dp/...
Re: What Would You Recommend to a Bright 14 Year Old?
#83MFK Fisher's The Art of Eating. It's currently my favorite book. :)
I would actively point teenagers away from Atlas Shrugged. While it might be enlightening, and they might enjoy the story, it has the potential to be quite destructive if they interpret her philosophy of objectivism & egoism in a way that leads them to apply it to their own lives. I just don't think this is a good idea. Her other novels, whether The Fountainhead or We The Living aren't nearly so overbearing.
Another one: How To Lie with Statistics
Re: What Would You Recommend to a Bright 14 Year Old?
#84I would recommend books on learning/creating mental models and design.
Mindstorms by Seymour Papert
Design of everyday things by Donald Norman
Re: What Would You Recommend to a Bright 14 Year Old?
#85The Fabric of Reality - David Deutsch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Deutsch#The_Fabric_of_Rea...
Re: What Would You Recommend to a Bright 14 Year Old?
#86Reddit has a great selection from /r/booklists which I've added below.[0] It would be just as worthy having a list of books to avoid.
[0] 'Top Books Derived from 11 "Top 100" Lists', http://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/1iw3jq/top_books_deri...
Re: What Would You Recommend to a Bright 14 Year Old?
#87I would recommend reading "Curse of the Gifted" [0]. Its a quick post, not a book, but during the teenage years where even children who are not gifted tend to think they know everything, it can help them make the most out of their formative years. I didn't read it until I was 20, but it had a profound impact on the way I approach knowledge and learning.
[0] http://www.vanadac.com/~dajhorn/novelties/ESR%20-%20Curse%20...
Re: What Would You Recommend to a Bright 14 Year Old?
#88I wish when I was 14 I was exposed to more contemporary literature, instead of great classics. And I have no regrets about missing out on math books—most of my friends went to math camp for that kind of knowledge. I'd recommend David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest; Junot Diaz's This is How You Lose Her; The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis; Haruki Murakami's Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage. I wis…
Yup, literature, literature, literature will pay off hugely later in his life, endless math books will lead to frustration!
Re: What Would You Recommend to a Bright 14 Year Old?
#89Hemingway, Dostoevsky, Virgil, Plato, Dante... I could carry on for a very long time.
This is an odd 5 - what's your thinking?
Re: What Would You Recommend to a Bright 14 Year Old?
#90The Cosmos series. Old and new. They're both great.