Please recommend gift book for a hospital stay

[BlueBelle81]

Please could you help me think of a good book to give to my dad who is going into hospital next week for an operation. He'll be in for about three days so something longish and engrossing would be ideal.
If he hadn't already read them Wolf Hall (or Bring up the Bodies) or Dune would be contenders. I'm currently thinking of Tartt''s The Secret History but I read it so long ago I'm not sure if it's quite right. I don't think genre need be a problem: literary fiction, Sci fi, historical fiction, thrillers are all good; I've never known him to read Crime though...
Any suggestions of 'quality' easy, engrossing reads would be much appreciated.
TIA

This Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson is a wonderful historical novel about the voyages a young Charles Darwin made on The Beagle under Captain Robert Fitzroy - the geography, the characters, their friendship, the subsequent events are all really gripping.

Ooh I'll look that one up. Thanks!

The C J Sansom Shardlake series sounds right up his street: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shardlake_series

All the best to him

Bet he would love Ray Bradbury's science fiction books.

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt?

Or any of the Ken Follets? Eg The Pillars of the Earth etc.

Thanks for the ideas everyone.
I wondered whether The Goldfinch was the more obvious choice. I read The Secret History years ago and read it breathlessly but can barely remember it now but I think I liked it more.
I'm probably over thinking it as I want to get him something really great.

What about Ken Follet? Has he read The Pillars of the Earth? There are 3 books in this series - so could keeping him going a good while?

Thanks everyone.
I've gone for the Regeneration Trilogy in the end but I think I'll get him Pillars of the Earth for his birthday!

Have you read the Regeneration trilogy yourself? While it's excellent, the first book is largely set in a hospital, albeit one treating mental health.

Has he read Olivia Manning's Fortunes of War series? - 6 novels but available in 2 volumes. Written in the 1960s and 1970s but about an English couple in Eastern Europe and then the Middle East during WWII - believed to be fictionalised memoir.

I was going to recommend This Thing of Darkness too - not something I would ever have picked up if not for recommendations here but so gripping and a fantastic story!