Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian (Artemis Fowl, 8)

Amazon Exclusive: Artemis Fowl's Favorite Books

Even teenage masterminds have some downtime to read. Here Artemis Fowl shares some of his favorite books and what he likes about them.

• Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Tom Sawyer is generally credited with being the brains of this juvenile outfit, but he was a mere buffoon compared to Huck. Tom with his fence painting con thought small while Huckleberry could see the big picture.

• The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller

Nice Gothic artwork and Miller's Batman shows us that sometimes you have to be bad to be good. A nice motto to live by.

• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Adams puts forward some interesting hypotheses and sometimes his predictions have actually come to pass. And even when his ideas have been proven wrong they were mildly amusing to read.

• A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

A classic tome, nicely written apart from Dickens' characteristic overuse of adjective and adverb. All very realistic until the last chapter when Sydney Carton sacrifices himself for another. Highly unlikely given the man's character. To give one's life for another when both bodies contain roughly the same amount of energy? I fail to see the point.

• Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie

Of course this book should be entitled The Adventures of Captain Hook. What a character? The perfect villain. Sadly Barrie bowed to conventional storytelling by allowing the Pan character to vanquish James Hook, but in real life I'll wager that the Captain would prevail.