I read a number of influential books when I was in HS:

Hamlet - Shakespeare

The Prince of Tides - Pat Conroy

Girl, Interrupted - Susana Kaysen

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

Stephen King

There were so many fantasy ones that I can't count.....

On the road by Jack Kerouac showed me a different world of literature.

After that I read his letters, which basically shaped my book choices for the next year or so:

Bonfire of the Vanities - Tom Wolfe
In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevski
Eugine Onegin - Pushkin
My Name is Aram - William Saroyan
Number One - Dos Passos
Look Homeward, Angel - Thomas Wolfe

Whenever I read kerouac's letters or diaries it reminds me of the versatility of language and the possibilities of literature.

I'm still a teen, but I have a few books I know I will treasure forever.

I have read A Wrinkle In Time around ten times.

I can complete sentences from any part of The Lord Of The Rings.

The Circle Series blew my mind.

Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow and their sequels sparked my imagination like nothing else.

Although it's not a really... outstanding book, "Enchantress From The Stars" was I think the first book that I realized could tell a great story while asking questions about the way the world works.

I can't really say a particular book was influential or a favorite. When I was a teen I got hooked on an author and then read everything I could get my hands on by that author. A few of the authors I loved were Hermann Hesse, John Steinbeck (especially Grapes of Wrath) and maybe most of all Ursula K. LeGuin. I had a thing for futuristic novels; that is until they all started to make me mad and that is another post entirely. Back to Ursula. I think the piece of literature that has stuck with me and may just be the most influential is one of her short stories. It's called, "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas", published in a collection entitled, The Wind's Twelve Quarters (I still have my first copy and somehow a 2nd copy). I first read this story when I was about 13. It is a utopia story with a hitch. In order for everything to be hunky-dory in this world, one child must live totally deprived in a closet -- one does all the suffering, so that the rest may live happy comfortable lives. It is mandatory that everyone must know about the child in the closet.

"The Mapmaker", the story of David Thompson's explorations in Western Canada. This book not only got me thinking about history, but also about the excitement of pushing the envelope of human experience; of discovering the new and previously unseen.

As a teen, eh? Ages 13-19, I presume. Hm. That was some time ago.

I was a comic book fan at age 13, for the most part. You know - Batman, Green Lantern, Iron Man, Justice League, Archie (how’d that get in there?) etc.

Everything fictional written by Issac Asimov. I mean everything up to that time.
Robert Silverberg, Robert A. Heinlein, Ursula K Le Guin, Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, Frederik Pohl, Frank Herbert, Stanislaw Lem, Poul Anderson, Piers Anthony, Arthur C Clark and a few others I can’t think of at the moment. The titles are too many to mention.

I suppose I was a fairly hardcore science fiction fan in my teens (and you now have enough information to take a stab at guessing my age.)

Your picks are very similar to mine Greg. Asimov, Silverberg, Heinlein, Vonnegut, Poul Anderson, Piers Anthony, Arthur C. Clark(Dune was Herbert?, that too). I was also quite a bit into Fantasy as well, with all the popular names there. David Eddings, Lackey, Jordan, etc. Then there are mainstream authors I've read a lot of, Stephen King, Michael Crichton, Koontz, Orson Scott Card. The only author of that last group which I haven't read every book of is King, oddly enough.

Most influential books during my teens were probably the Chronicles of Narnia. They hadn't instilled me with any wisdom, they instead sparked my enthusiasm for reading.

If you'll pardon my slight digression ...

It’s interesting to note, Interbane, the direction you took with your reading after science fiction. I, too, began reading fantasy after my teens. I found that I enjoyed mystery as well. I think it was Asimov who said, later in life, that most good stories contain elements of mystery. He took a turn into mystery for a bit with his Black Widowers series.

Stephen King, Michael Crichton and Dean Koontz are more or less my generation (except for Crichton, who published in my teens under the pseudonyms John Lange and Jeffery Hudson,) and so were not published at the time I was in my teens. I discovered Stephen King while in my 20’s. That old boy is one prolific typist, and a lot of what he types I like. Some I don’t. I love the Dark Tower series. Everything’s Eventual and Nightmares and Dreamscapes remain on my bookshelf, too. I came to reading Koontz a tad late in life. Oddly enough through his Odd Thomas novel. You might have guessed that from my avatar. The name is mostly coincidental. I’ve read many of his other novels since then. Reading Crichton was quite an experience for me first time around.

I’ve read portions of the Chronicles of Narnia to my children, and later on read many of the books in the series. Sadly, and I’ve been reminded of this more than once, I’ve never read Orson Scott Card. I sometimes even remind myself that I should.