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

[CurlewKate]

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?

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 😁

Some Willa Cather or Edith Wharton.

If going modern Yale van der Woulden The Safe Keep.

Or Edward Carey - quirky but compelling.

Mary Webb.

The Closed Door by Dorothy Whipple https://persephonebooks.co.uk/products/the-closed-door-and-other-stories

Mary Renault

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’ ?

Edith Wharton, House of Mirth?

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

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

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.

We have always lived in the castle - Shirley Jackson

Diary of a Provincial Lady - EM Delafield

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day - Winifred Watson

Have a look at Persephone Books. They give book suggestions for people's likes. Their books are all wonderful.

Have you tried Persephone Books, they have great, interesting titles. https://persephonebooks.co.uk/

Ha! Jinx!

PJ James Children of Men
Dystopian and still feels contemporary even though it’s over 30 years old

Margaret Atwood has just written her memoirs which look really interesting. Not fiction, but she's a writer your DIL will no doubt read at some point.

David Lodge - e.g. Nice Work or Changing Places

Miss buncle from Persephone press - it’s never fails to cheer me up

The Woman in White would be a great Christmas read. Totally gripping.

Some Dorothy L Sayers mysteries?

Some great suggestions on this thread

Richard Ford- Sportswriter Lay of the land. Good writer she is unlikely to have read

The Cazalet Chronicles

The Moors Last Sigh - Salman Rushdie
Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri

John Steinbeck
Ernest Hemingway

I gave her Gaudy Night last Christmas!

Thank you-so many brilliant ideas and so many I want to reread. Very tempted by I Capture the Castle for her-love that book!