Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother—his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life.” The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston

Set at a boys boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II, A Separate Peaceis a harrowing and luminous parable of the dark side of adolescence. Gene is a lonely, introverted intellectual. Phineas is a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete. What happens between the two friends one summer, like the war itself, banishes the innocence of these boys and their world.” The House on Mango Street by Sandra CisnerosRussel, having his heart broken from their breakup, unintentionally teaches his mother a lesson on the importance of happiness in a person’s life.

Authority: Russell Baker is an award winning journalist and published author. He was awarded two Pulitzer Prizes, one of which is for this book. In this novel, he wrote first-hand about day-to-day events he experienced. John Updike. Again when I was 18, I read it without realising it was part of a sequence of books, Rabbit Is Rich. It converted me to the idea that, as Updike puts it, the job of art is to give the mundane its beautiful due – that if you are a good enough writer, your prose can make everything, even the most microscopic and ordinary things in life, rich and strange. Episodes I read with particular relish included the author's flight-training during WWII and the story of his relationship with the "dangerous and unsuitable" Mimi. Culture Trip launched in 2011 with a simple yet passionate mission: to inspire people to go beyond their boundaries and experience what makes a place, its people and its culture special and meaningful — and this is still in our DNA today. We are proud that, for more than a decade, millions like you have trusted our award-winning recommendations by people who deeply understand what makes certain places and communities so special. Baker’s wit as a humorist has been compared with that of Mark Twain. “ The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer,” wrote Baker, “ and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn’t require any.” In 1979, Baker received his first Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary in his “ Observer” column for the New York Times (1962 to 1998). His 1983 autobiography, Growing Up earned him a second Pulitzer. In 1993, Baker began hosting the PBS television series Masterpiece Theatre.Going on to the books you’ve chosen on the theme of boyhood and growing up, the first is Lord of the Flies. There is that brilliant moment when Simon says, “Maybe the beast is just us?” They’re all looking round the island obsessed with trying to find this beast, and there’s this moment of thinking, “Is it something within us?” It’s like what you were just saying about only being able to destroy something if there is collaboration from the inside. You are from Nigeria, but started writing the book in Cyprus. Was going away important to get that distance, to be able to return to that time of your life? Set in a middle-class neighborhood in Atlanta in the 1980s, the novel revolves around James Witherspoon’s two families—the public one and the secret one. When the daughters from each family meet and form a friendship, only one of them knows they are sisters. It is a relationship destined to explode when secrets are revealed and illusions shattered.” The Book Thief byMarkus Zusak Nanette O’Hare has played the quintessential privileged star athlete and straight-A student for as long as she can remember. But when a beloved teacher gives her his worn copy of The Bubblegum Reaper—a mysterious, out-of-print cult classic—the rebel within Nanette awakens.” Juliet Takes A Breath by Gabby Rivera