Help with Christmas holiday reading

[fatowl]

Every Christmas I do a Book Bundle “For everyone” present – with half a dozen great books that should appeal to everyone in the family. The idea being they are all passed around over the Xmas holidays and make for great chats over the Quality Street when the TV lets us down.
I’m a bit stumped this year though.
It’s for me (liking historical fiction and fantasy), DH (history, spies, whodunnits, bit of sci fi), DD20 (historical fiction, fascinated by the far east, loved Americanah and Memoires of a Geisha), DD18 (Likes all the typical YA type stuff- Hunger Games, Maze Runner etc, Science Geek – loved all the stuff on Turing and Hawking).

Hits over the last few years (as you can see it’s a bit random what’s a hit!)
The Martian
The Help
To Kill a Mockingbird (A surprise hit that none of us had read before)
Alan Turing – the Enigma
Brian Blessed’s Autobiography (Absolute Pandemonium)
11-22-63

Any suggestions? I'm ambling mindlessly around Amazon at the moment and feeling a bit uninspired

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

How lovely.

WH Smith had Brian Cox' huge hardback about space on offer at just £6 recently. Would be great to dip in and out of.

Operation Mincemeat v v good for spy stuff lovers.

Red Rising trilogy will suit for fantasy, sci fi and YA-esque stuff

[SatsukiKusakabe]

That's such a lovely thing to do.

I haven't read this but the book behind the Hawking film Theory of Everything springs to mind - think it's called Travelling to Infinity?

I'm going to share a random few my dh and I have both enjoyed over the last year or so, despite ostensibly having quite different tastes - see if any suit:

Ender's Game
The Day of the Triffids
The Bone Clocks
True Grit
The Rosie Project
The Secret History
Middlesex
Behind the Scenes at the Museum
Brideshead Revisited
The Shardlake books by CJ Sansom

[piebald]

I would suggest Kindred by Octavia E Butler, it has history ,time travel , and is an incredibly good read

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

Ooh if not averse to a bit of YA (and especially for DD aged 20) the 'Tales of the Otori' series = superb.

[VestalVirgin]

The Goblin Emperor (Basically, crossover between Victorian England and Japan.)
The Imperial Radch series by Ann Leckie (Sci Fi with sentient AI)

[Kai1977]

Thousand Summers of Jacob Zoet by David Mitchell

Life after Life by Kate Atkinson

The Trouble with Goats and Sheep by Joanna Cannon

[originalmavis]

Brilliant idea!

The book of lost things, John Connolly. Older kids might like it (sexual references). Amazing fable for adults. Funny, sad, curious...

DS (age 12) loves animal farm.

[Sadik]

I'd suggest Ready Player One - I've yet to run across anyone who's read it and hasn't liked it. Soft near-future sci-fi with a 'quest' inside a massive online virtual world. Great fun, and a real 80s nostalgia-fest (but my 14 y/o dd also loved it).

[fatowl]

Thanks for all these suggestions - I think dd20 would like the Goblin Emperor

[cheeseoverchocolate]

It's such a wonderful idea!
For history if you like To kill a mockingbird how about 'the autobiography of miss Jane Pittman'? Or there is always the sequel Go set a watchman? May be a disappointment but you'll definitelyhave something to talk about.
Or gone with the wind?
Other ideas that come to mind:
I, Claudius
Snow falling on cedars
The handmade's tale
The girl with the dragon tattoo
The hundred year old man who climbed out of the window
If this is a man

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

Yes to Ready Player One - good fun.

[crapfatbanana]

Great idea.

My suggestions:

A Woman in the Polar Night by Christiane Ritter - short, auto-biography, about Ritter's time living in a hut on the north coast of Svalbard with her husband, a trapper, and a fellow hunter/trapper. She stays for about a year. It's fascinating.

Dark Matter by Michelle Paver - spooky novel set in the Arctic winter in the 1920s or 30s, inspired by the above book.

The Vegetarian by Han Kang. Korean fiction. Short. Beautifully written.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (play script)

Sweetland by Michael Crummey - great story of a Newfoundland island community, forced to move to the mainland, and one man's refusal to do so. This was unanimously loved at our book group. It has quite a lot of swearing. V funny, v moving, just ace.

Buffalo Soldier by Tanya Landman. YA, American Civil War, last year's Carnegie Medal Winner

The Girl With All The Gifts - MR Carey - Sci/fi, not your typical apocalypse story . Now a film.

Defending Jacob - William Landay. A legal thriller. Haven't read it yet, but read lots of good stuff about it.

A Monster Calls - Patrick Ness. Another award winning YA that's out as a film soon.

Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys. Just because.

[TeaMeBasil]

Seconding Dark Matter by Michelle Paver, spooky and excellent.

What about the Miss Peregrines peculiar children series for the YA option? Current since the film is in the cinema (but different from the book tho) - I'm 39 & in book 2 in the series so v good YA!

[JamieVardysParty]

I Am Pilgrim - Terry Hayes
The End of the World Running Club - Adrian J Walker
Do No Harm - Henry Marsh
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Rebecca Skloot
Field One - Simon Winstanley
Behind Closed Doors - BA Paris
Delirium series - Lauren Oliver

[Abecedario]

I read The Ginger Tree by Oswald Wynd recently, set in 1903-1942 and follows a Scottish woman who moves to China and then Japan. Interesting story, I had some issues with it but overall enjoyed and definitely lots to talk about.

I like Rainbow Rowell for YA stuff.

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves - I just really loved this book.

I feel like there should be a spooky/ghost story in there because it's Christmas!

[TheOnlyLivingBoyInNewCross]

The Woman in Black!
I started reading Wild by Cheryl Strayed on holiday; DS pinched it off me before I could finish and loved it too.