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Original poster

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

111 replies

CurlewKate · 13/11/2025 18:09

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?

OP posts:
Fgfgfg · 13/11/2025 18:51

We have always lived in the castle - Shirley Jackson

Diary of a Provincial Lady - EM Delafield

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day - Winifred Watson

PauliesWalnuts · 13/11/2025 18:48

Maybe have a look at the Daunt bookshop website? It’s an incredible bookshop both for classics and new books that are a bit different.

twilightermummy · 13/11/2025 18:41

I'm an English graduate and these have been my favourites this year.
Lolita
Flowers for Algernon
The Alchemist

northern2025 · 13/11/2025 18:37

Isabel Allende ? I am a complete philistine but I remember my mum who really loved books really loved her work

Zempy · 13/11/2025 18:34

Edith Wharton, House of Mirth?

Pandorea · 13/11/2025 18:32

Do you think she’s read ‘I Capture the Castle’?
Barbara Kingsolver ‘The Poisonwood Bible’ of maybe ‘Demon Copperfield’ if going more modern. Or James by Percival Everett - re-imagining of Huckleberry Finn.
Has she tried any Iris Murdoch? Maybe ‘The Sea, The Sea’ ?

YYURYYUCICYYUR4ME · 13/11/2025 18:25

Mary Renault

CoubousAndTourmaIet · 13/11/2025 18:23

Mary Webb.

Shoutygouty · 13/11/2025 18:21

Some Willa Cather or Edith Wharton.

If going modern Yale van der Woulden The Safe Keep.

Or Edward Carey - quirky but compelling.

Justputsomeyoghurtonit · 13/11/2025 18:15

The Go-Between?

Also, one Xmas, I bought my DD the Ragged Trousered Philanthropist, 1984 and Adrian Mole (because it IS a classic!) and some others that I can't recall. They were all charity shop books (DD loves the idea of second hand books).

Some of the virago novels are great too, my mum had quite a few of them that I discovered when I was 15 😁

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