Please can you help me find some gentle, very English/UK humour for my elderly dad?

[BSJohnson]

He loved "Travels with Boogie", which I gave him after seeing a recommendation on here, and also "Secrets of a bookseller". He also enjoyed Bill Bryson's books two England books, and "A walk in the woods". I also know he read and enjoyed "three men in a boat" years ago.

He doesn't usually read fiction, but I get the impression he likes gentle, English humour, but clever, not twee. He's sharp as a tack, and grasps contemporary references and modern culture, but doesn't not partake of them! Has anyone got any bright ideas, please?

If he likes mysteries at all then I think the Gervase Fenn books by Edmund Crispin are great. Witty, clever and irreverent. They're older, though - 50s and 60s I think.

This is not humour but it is absolutely lovely and very English ...

... A Shepherd's Life by James Rebanks. The author is a sheep farmer in the Lake District and the book is about a year in the life of his farm - but also about the Lake District, working with the weather erc

He's read "Diary of a nobody" - not sure he was a fan. Am frantically scrabbling to look up all the recommendations - thank you!

Notwithstanding - Louis de Bernieres?

The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson might suit.

Would he like Michael Palin? I read his Monty Python diaries and really liked them. He also published his travel diaries.

The Beiderbecke Affair - Alan Plater

Yes, A Shepherd’s Life is great. He has a new book out too - English Pastoral - though I haven’t read it yet.

Again not comedy, but does he like travel books of he likes Bill Bryson? He might like a book called Like a Tramp, Like a Pilgrim by Harry Bucknall - he’s a former soldier who walked the ancient pilgrim route from Canterbury to Rome, all the people he met and things he saw. It’s a nice, gentle sort of book.

It was df who introduced me to Michael Palin (and Spike Milligan's war diaries), so definitely on the right track!

If he likes Wodehouse I imagine he'd like E. F. Benson - but he may have already read them. Not modern!
What about the funnier Evelyn Waughs? Scoop, Vile Bodies, etc? Hmm - maybe not gentle enough.

How about Stuart McConie’s books about travel round Britain, discovering the culture and politics? Funny, interesting, slightly left leaning.

honoriaplum.com/2017/03/04/p-g-wodehouse-reading-list-the-blandings-stories/

Blandings - wonderful.

I see there's an updated version of Watching the English by Kate Fox. The original is very good and quite funny.

Tom Cox’s books 21st Century Yokel and Ring The Hill have some gentle humour in them alongside some beautiful descriptions of the countryside he lives in. His Dad TALKS IN CAPITALS all the time, but it’s not overdone and is amusing. Quite a lot about his various cats (Shipley the sweaty one is my favourite ❤️).

@Therollockingrogue - I think you've got a winner with "The innocent anthropologist". Am getting that. Thank you!

And thank you everyone- I'm also going to get the second "Bookseller" book, and have a careful look through this thread again for a third choice.

Those three, a box of chocolate-covered brazils, and a bottle of whisky, and df should be all set for a great Christmas holiday!

Ooh, I'm currently rereading "Watching the English" to see if df might like it - good call! Didn't know there was an update, either.

I like Stuart Machonie, and will try one of those myself, I think. Df is slightly right-leaning, but eminently tolerant!

Definitely Thursday Murder Club. I bought it for myself and lent it to my mum; we both loved it.

If he likes sharp humour, he might enjoy John O'Farrell, both his fiction and his history books.

Shipley is a sweary cat, not a sweaty one. How dare you impugn his memory, autocarrot!

I’m sure he’ll enjoy it

"Salmon fishing in the Yemen" by Paul Torday (I know, unappealing title).

any of the Donna Leon "Brunetti" series set in Venice.

The follow up to three man in a boat, three men on a bummel is just as good.
Also Gervase Phinn who writes about his time teaching

How about 'How to be a Brit', and other books by George Mikes, a Hungarian émigré who made his living writing gently satirical observations about the British way of life.

amazon.co.uk/How-Brit-Classic-Bestselling-Guide/dp/024197500X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2JC66CF0FDLR9&dchild=1&keywords=george+mikes&qid=1604075753&sprefix=george+mikes%2Caps%2C157&sr=8-1]]

I credit him with teaching me not to drink tea!

If he liked James Herriot, he might like Gerald Durrell's books? He was a naturalist and travelled a lot collecting animals. "My family and other animals" is the best known but there are loads if I remember rightly.

One of my all time favourite books is A short walk in the Hindu Kush by Eric Newby. Very witty and so entertaining. A travel book set in the late 50s.

@SenecaFallsRedux

Alexander McCall Smith is very good at gently amusing.

I agree. It's gentle Scottish humor, though, rather than English.

Nothing Scottish about his " No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency" series. very gentle humour and no violence.