/lit/ - Literature

friend of family has a highly gifted boy, about to turn 14.
father not in the picture
mother is very good to him, but busy.
boy is lonely and smart af, in super-gifted program...
...BUT they mostly do math and science which is fine but this kid loves fiction, reads voraciously.

he doesn't seem to have male role models.
when I'm there, he wants to know all my old stories/adventures, what I'd do in this or that situation, etc. I tell him what I can, but I'm not hero, still he really eats it up.

so, I want to start him with a bookshelf of serious literature with good strong male role models.

I asked a prof, she recommended:
>Adolphe by Benjamin Constant
>The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe
but these are NOT role models, they're annoying wimps.
HELP!

tl;dr: masculine role models in great literature needed

which books would have changed your life for the better?
Either through teaching values, hard work, adding a richness of perception, a greater understanding of yourself or humanity in general, expanding your view of life, introducing your to excellent writing, different perspectives, illustrating the realities of life, whatever.