Recommend a book for a friend please

[purplepeony]

I am a bit out of touch with modern fiction ...know what I like but not others.
If you like Sue Gee, Margaret Howard, Helen Dunmore, Penelope Lively-can youadd osme more?

Freind is 50 ish, educated to degree level, family type with 3 kids and dogs and into gardeing nad doemstic things..

Nothing too racy but not Jilly Cooper aga sagas (Joanna Trollope) etc etc either.

[purplepeony]

sorry about typos- not illiterate just bad typing.

[purplepeony]

I am losing it today- meant Margaret Forster.

want something for a b'day pressie.

[sailorsgal]

My friend bought me "the other hand" by Chris Cleave. Not what I would normally read but am thoroughly enjoying it.

[thelightsareon]

I just read The Last Letter From Your Lover, Jojo Moyes. Fantastic book

[KurriKurri]

Well I'm 50, similar education and interests to your friend so here are a few I've enjoyed recently -

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel,

Pat Barker Regeneration Trilogy, and others

A.S Byatt - The Children's Book, or others.

I've just read one by Tracy Chevalier called Remarkable Creatures which was quite enjoyable - about two women fossil hunters in Lyme Regis in early part of Nineteenth Century - their friendship, struggles against male establishment etc.

Robertson Davies is also good IMO.

Little Stranger - Sarah Waters

I also enjoy the Shardlake series by C.J. Sansom - sort of whodunnits set in Tudor times, if thats her kind of thing.

[purplepeony]

Oh these are all good ideas- thanks so much!

[evenkeel]

Yes to most of the above, and I'd add Rose Tremain to the list. Another suggestion: at the moment I'm reading Colm Toibin's 'Brooklyn' (my first book of his) and it's spellbinding - beautifully written, if heartbreaking.

I also loved Gerard Woodward's novels about the Jones family (August, I'll Go to Bed at Noon and A Curious Earth). They chronicle the lives of a family that gradually falls apart, so wouldn't be to everyone's taste, but I just loved his writing and felt that I really knew all the characters and wanted to discover what happened to them.

If your friend's receptive to older novels, how about Elizabeth Taylor's books? They are great and most have been reprinted recently.

[evenkeel]

Erm, Elizabeth Taylor the novelist, that is, not the much-married film legend!