Very literary fiction recommends

I'm really enjoying Trust. Human nature framed around the Wall Street Crash. There are some incredible lines, the writing is superb.

dauntbooks.co.uk/shop/books/trust-3/

Thanks for recommending The Dream of Scipio, I got it after reading your post and really enjoyed it ❤️

I see Patrick O'Brian on the list, If this style is not too lightweight for him I would add Bernard Cornwell's American Civil War series. More cerebral than the Sharpe stories.
If he accepts Le Carre then A Perfect Spy is the best. Ted Albeury is an equally good writer and with inside knowledge..

Yes, I would also recommend this. Anthony Burgess thought it was one of the greatest English-language novels of the 20th-century and massively underrated. Harold Bloom also thought it was underrated.

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Having seen what he’s enjoyed, how about A Canticle for Leibowitz?

Julia Blackburns book about Dogger Bank is great too

have really enjoyed this thread, adding to my books wish list and feeling pretty confident that I’ll enjoy them. Several authors new to me, which is exciting.

@UntamedShrew if your DF liked The Lost Pianos of Siberia then I highly recommend the book I've just finished, Paul Kildea's Chopin's Piano. It’s also non-fiction and traces the humble instrument on which Chopin composed his Preludes during his time in Majorca with George Sand, through the years after his death and on into the 20thc, through war and then peace (for some). A thought-provoking and beautifully-written book.

Thanks for posting the list of your DF's favourites @UntamedShrew
All titles I've never heard of before.

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk (WHAT a title!)

I saw that as a play a couple of years ago. Three hours long! But didn't feel like it 😊

May not be quite what you're looking for, but here's a few books I've enjoyed recently: Pat Barker's Regeneration Trilogy, The Master and Margarita, and Endo's Silence. 🙂

Alias Grace is my favourite Atwood, a very good choice!

The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne felt quite Dickensian to me when I read it recently - follows the life of a man growing up in Ireland 1945 onwards.

An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears is a fabulous, clever piece of historical fiction that has stayed with me for decades.

Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go is stunning, as is The Buried Giant.

Perhaps something a bit left field, like a collection of Flannery O’Connor short stories might be interesting?

William Trevor is a wonderful writer. Fools of Fortune is my favourite.

I mentioned Rosalind Belben above - at that point I’d started ‘Our Horses in Egypt’. After finishing the sample of that I moved on to her:

Hound Music

It is extraordinary. Truly outstanding in stylistic achievement. It begins by being an in depth observation of an early 20th century fox hunting family and community, and develops from there. Penguin called it subtle, brilliant, paradoxical.

Not easy to get hold of in print, so I’m having to continue peering at my phone kindle while hoping for an affordable hardback to turn up somewhere.

It definitely meets the brief.

This is a superb book. It fills the brief - beautiful writing so you know you’re in safe hands, when the actual sentence and paragraphs, the composition itself, is satisfying.
The story line is long - from youth to old age, and the characters are credible, complex, with that sense of being real people in a real setting. You like and dislike each for their character traits, their beliefs, their decisions and their work. None is a baddie or a goodie. You root for each of them.

And to top it all, the work and world of their ideas, is mind-blowingly interesting. I talked to my loved ones about the ideas raised in this book, about what is a human mind, mental illness, religion, the source of language,again and again.

please please get him this book as it will not fail you or him!

I came on here to recommend some female authors too - Louise Erdrich and Margaret Atwood (Alias Grace for example).

Ooh thanks - will check this one out!

Human Traces by Sebastian Faulks

One thing I’d factor in for an 80-ish person is font size and the weight of a tome, just to avoid fatigue. My bookish 92yo mother recently enjoyed Lucy Worsley’s biography of Agatha Christie, which she followed up with re-reading Roger Ackroyd.

Another vote for James.

I also found The Zone of Interest absolutely extraordinary though not really something to give as a present, it is very dark, perhaps particularly because it is funny.

I’m sure he’s read it but when I finally did manage to read Midnight’s Children, I thought it was every bit as good as its reputation. It’s not even difficult, once you tackle it the right way (chapter at a time).

I know it’s just been televised but/and The Narrow Road to the North was a wonderful book.

Also agree that Poor Things is spectacular though I didn’t exactly enjoy it.

Im not very far into it but Ducks Newburyport is very good.

OP, it's not a novel, but Super Infinite - a biography of poet Jon Donne is gripping and exquisitely written.

Ah, I think McEwan's masterpiece is Child In Time which is quite experimental in comparison with Atonement as it is written with time slips. It's one of my favourite novels ever