I need a book for clever well read 23 year old dil.

CurlewKate · 2025-11-13T18:09:42+00:00

She’s doing an English degree and she’s loved some of the books I’ve given her- I try to choose old fashioned sort of classics-she loved Muriel Spark, Graham Green and Evelyn Waugh, for example and A Month in the Country. She didn’t like Kingsley Amis or Barbara Pym. Any ideas?

Nopenousername · 25/11/2025 08:22

I would recommend anything by Olga Tokarczuk

tobee · 21/11/2025 14:40

How about some play anthologies?

Shaw, Checkov, Ibsen, Brecht, Strindberg, Pirandello and others of that era?

Or later 20th century British playwrights Bond, Churchill, Wertenbaker, Pinter, Edgar, Orton etc

The British playwrights may be on her curriculum already but maybe not the European.

Or some more of the more popular playwrights of their day Priestley, Rattigan, Pinero, Coward etc.

I loved reading those when doing my degree as they gave me some cultural history and context and were a quick read.

Trinko · 21/11/2025 08:45

Lovely list. You can read them yourself and pass them on over the years. What a wonderful way to bond.

Original poster

CurlewKate · 21/11/2025 08:17

I wish I could buy her practically all of these!

OP posts:

outerspacepotato · 21/11/2025 01:19

Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey by Homer.

DownThePubWithStevieNicks · 18/11/2025 18:48

Some lesser-known or recently rediscovered classics:

The Inseparables, Simone de Beauvoir
The Snowball, Brigid Brophy
The Balkan Trilogy, Olivia Manning
The Country Girls trilogy, Edna O’Brien

I read too many men at her age, wish I’d read more women sooner!

Dolamroth · 18/11/2025 10:24

I'm late to the thread and you are probably sorted by now OP but I highly recommend Penelope Lively.

Moon Tiger won the Booker prize in 1987 I think, I read it recently and it is a fantastic novel.

Lovecatssowonderfullypretty · 18/11/2025 07:06

Ddakji · 14/11/2025 16:39

Cold Comfort Farm

Any Dorothy L Sayers, but I would really recommend Murder Must Advertise

A more light read but I loved Dear Mrs Bird (modern but set during the Second World War)

Pachinko

Lessons in Chemistry

Old Baggage

The Help

Rebecca

Ooh, yes. The Help.

Noshadelamp · 16/11/2025 09:35

Can't go wrong with any collection by Louise Glück, such beautiful, timeless, thought provoking poetry.

SchnizelVonKrumm · 16/11/2025 09:28

BarnacleBeasley · 14/11/2025 13:13

I think Hilary Mantel was an exceptionally good writer but I'm going to suggest maybe one of the non-historical ones. An Experiment in Love is really good, and there are also some collections of short stories which are excellent - I think one is Learning to Talk.

A pp suggests Iris Murdoch but I have never been able to finish one of her books even though I have tried.

Lurking on this thread for inspiration but I love your username @BarnacleBeasley 😁

Words · 16/11/2025 01:30

Nancy Mitford to complément the Waugh?
All other suggestions already made.
How about some literary biography?

BeatriceBatchelor · 15/11/2025 15:16

After Leaving Mr Mckenzie by Jean Rhys.

TryingAgainAgainAgain · 15/11/2025 15:11

For short stories, Grace Paley's are fabulous.

I need a book for clever well read 23 year old dil.

Fgfgfg · 15/11/2025 15:01

Tortielady · 14/11/2025 20:36

As a pp mentioned, short stories. I'm a PhD student specialising in the early twentieth century short story and many of the writers lauded for their longer-form fiction were also short story stylists, able to put this tricky genre to powerful use. Edith Wharton, Muriel Spark, Ray Bradbury, Graham Greene, Somerset Maugham, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Shirley Jackson, and Elizabeth Bowen all wrote compelling short stories. Katherine Mansfield and Anton Chekhov's prose fiction output was almost all short stories. Many short fiction writers had a flair for the uncanny and uneasy; M.R. James and E.F. Benson made a specialism out of ghost stories, while F. Scott Fitzgerald subsidised his novel-writing with scarily effective short stories for magazines, like 'Bernice Bobs Her Hair.' Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery' got her hate-mail when it was published in The New Yorker in 1948. Surprising things come in small packages.

Love Shirley Jackson. Very much underrated.

Tortielady · 14/11/2025 21:06

drspouse · 14/11/2025 21:03

What great recommendations @Tortielady !

Thank you @drspouse

drspouse · 14/11/2025 21:03

What great recommendations @Tortielady !

Tortielady · 14/11/2025 20:36

As a pp mentioned, short stories. I'm a PhD student specialising in the early twentieth century short story and many of the writers lauded for their longer-form fiction were also short story stylists, able to put this tricky genre to powerful use. Edith Wharton, Muriel Spark, Ray Bradbury, Graham Greene, Somerset Maugham, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Shirley Jackson, and Elizabeth Bowen all wrote compelling short stories. Katherine Mansfield and Anton Chekhov's prose fiction output was almost all short stories. Many short fiction writers had a flair for the uncanny and uneasy; M.R. James and E.F. Benson made a specialism out of ghost stories, while F. Scott Fitzgerald subsidised his novel-writing with scarily effective short stories for magazines, like 'Bernice Bobs Her Hair.' Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery' got her hate-mail when it was published in The New Yorker in 1948. Surprising things come in small packages.

drspouse · 14/11/2025 18:46

calmag · 14/11/2025 18:43

@drspouse Oh I read that and it was really good!

I listened to it on audio book. Don't have enough time to read such long books but it was fascinating and unless it's one of her set books it would be great for someone who loves literature but has read most primary texts.

Sometimessmiling · 14/11/2025 18:46

Anything from John Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath, Easy of Eden. They made me question so much. Anything by Robert Louis Stevenson.

CharlotteCChapel · 14/11/2025 18:43

Anna Karenina, Father and son, Doctor Zhivago. I really like Russian literature. She may like War and Peace but you need to concentrate because all the characters have more than one name.

ArseInTheCoOpWindow · 14/11/2025 18:43

The diary of a Provincial Lady.

calmag · 14/11/2025 18:43

@drspouse Oh I read that and it was really good!

drspouse · 14/11/2025 18:39

Romantic Outlaws - the story of Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughter Mary Shelley.

calmag · 14/11/2025 18:37

I'm not sure she's been mentioned yet but I have read a lot of the classics and literary authors already listed and it might be a bit off-piste but I've recently really enjoyed reading Celia Fremlin, she's sometimes billed as the British Patricia Highsmith and has some short stories and novels. She's quite something.

Hellohah · 14/11/2025 18:01

Georgette Heyer?

I find her enjoyable and entertaining.