Cross-generation Inspiration help...

[drmr]

Hi everyone,

I am a 21-year old Post-graduate from South-West England. It is my grandmother's 73rd birthday coming up soon and I wanted to get her something special. I decided to get her a novel because she does not read very often and when at home prefers to watch your usual soaps on the television.

I want to find a novel that will entice her away from that television set and into a story full of emotion and inspiration (preferably set in England as I think she'll find it much more engaging).

Can anybody help?

TIA
Daniel.

:D

[Silas Thorne]

This is a tough question. If it's a birthday present, you'll probably know best what she is interested in, and it would be nice if she really likes it and wants to read it.

How about 'Cider with Rosie' by Laurie Lee? You've probably both read it though.

[Patrick_Bateman]

American Psycho

[lyni]

Hi everyone,

I am a 21-year old Post-graduate from South-West England. It is my grandmother's 73rd birthday coming up soon and I wanted to get her something special. I decided to get her a novel because she does not read very often and when at home prefers to watch your usual soaps on the television.

I want to find a novel that will entice her away from that television set and into a story full of emotion and inspiration (preferably set in England as I think she'll find it much more engaging).

Can anybody help?

TIA


Daniel.

:D

hi Daniel
it is quite a difficult question to answer because it depends on your grandmother's tastes.
but.... Jacqueline Winspear is an English author who has written several novels set in London in the 1920's. the books are called Maisie Dobbs. she is a young woman who has become a private investigator. they are great books. I enjoyed them. they describe London after the 'Great War' and the changes to the class system etc as well as being very good mystery stories.

that is one author I would recommend but England has many great authors - old and new. find out what she would be interested in and buy something accordingly. it would be a shame to buy something she doesn't like.

and many books are now in audio, if she would prefer to listen to them rather than reading them.

good luck
lyn

[drmr]

hi Daniel
it is quite a difficult question to answer because it depends on your grandmother's tastes.
but.... Jacqueline Winspear is an English author who has written several novels set in London in the 1920's. the books are called Maisie Dobbs. she is a young woman who has become a private investigator. they are great books. I enjoyed them. they describe London after the 'Great War' and the changes to the class system etc as well as being very good mystery stories.

that is one author I would recommend but England has many great authors - old and new. find out what she would be interested in and buy something accordingly. it would be a shame to buy something she doesn't like.

and many books are now in audio, if she would prefer to listen to them rather than reading them.

good luck
lyn

Thank you, Lyn. The most important part of your response is your last sentence, I hadn't thought about an Audio book. It would be perfect for her because she often finds motivation to do paperwork hard to come by, and an audio book would be perfect for that. Great advice!

Perhaps I should explain a little bit more about my Grandmother, as looking back on my question it seems rather vague.

She is a middle-class 73 year-old from The Wirral in the north-west of England and emigrated down to Bristol when she got married. She is very computer-savvy for her age and is not scared of new technology. She gets bored very easily (which I find quite amusing) and will shuffle off and doing something else if not entertained. As with a lot of elderly people, her life and her friends lives have turned into a soap-opera that they all talk about - I suppose my sole purpose for getting her a novel is that she starts to talk about literature and not Eastenders or Emmerdale.

I found myself coming on here because browsing Waterstones just seemed like looking for a needle in a haystack. Any further help would be much appreciated along my hunt for a lifestyle changing gift.

Many thanks,

Daniel.

[kelby_lake]

How about novels with big casts, like a Dickens novel or Vanity Fair? Or maybe some sort of family saga, like The Forsyte Saga (can't think of any other sagas at the moment).

[kasie]

Daniel - I've given your inquiry some thought but I keep coming back to the same idea: if your grandmother does not read much fiction, why on earth are you giving her a novel as a gift? A gift is supposed to be for the delight of the recipient not for the satisfaction of the giver - or have I got that wrong?

Have you asked yourself why your grandmother doesn't enjoy fiction? It could be that it is as simple as no longer being able to read well - her eyesight may be failing but maybe she does not want to admit that yet, in which case the suggestion of an audio book may be worth taking up (but do ensure she has the means to listen to it!) Or it may be that she belongs to that generation of people who regarded reading novels as a waste of time, if not evidence of downright idleness. If that's the case, I fear it may be too late for her to change a lifetime's way of thinking.

As to her watching soaps, why not? It may be far from your taste but she is the one getting enjoyment from them and finding a topic of conversation with her friends. Don't you talk about what you watch with your friends? I do.

If, as you say, you want to broaden her horizons, may I suggest a different tack? Instead of giving her something to read, why not give her something to write? (I'm assuming her eyesight is up to this, of course.) You can get the most beautiful notebooks, hardcover with a fascinating magnetic catch, in places like WH Smith. Give her one of these and ask her to fill it with memories of her life - ask her to do it for you and the children who (I'm making a wild assumption here!) you hope will come after you. Her generation is rapidly fading away and with them go the memories of life in pre-war and wartime Britain, of growing up in the difficult times of the post-war period, setting up home as the fifties flourished. Can she find some photos and describe what was going on in them, the clothes people were wearing in them? It doesn't have to be a chronological account of her life, just jottings of particular memories as they arise: you could start her off with a quesstion or two - what happened on your first day at school? how did you celebrate the end of the war? what happened the day sweet rationing ended? what did you do on Coronation Day? I'm sure her friends will want to add their recollections and your aim of stimulating new conversation will have been achieved. I suggest this for two reasons - an elderly friend of mine started doing this for her grandchildren some years ago when she talked about drawing water from a dewpond, they didn't know what she meant and she realised a whole way of life had gone forever; and I started talking, properly talking, to my grandmother the summer I was fourteen and discovered she wasn't the reserved, slightly stern lady I thought she was but at heart still an adventurous girl with a wicked sense of humour - I looked forward so much to our next visit so that I could find out more about her but she fell ill and died the next spring. I genuinely mourned the loss of her.

If you are set on a book, you might try for a novel set in the Wirral or in Bristol in the time she lived in those places - there are lots of regional novelists around, maybe not in the class of top-rate writing as you might prefer for yourself, but it's subject rather than quality you're looking for. I've always found the assistants in Waterstones to be exceptionally helpful in book searches. Or you could go for a non-fiction book, maybe of photos of her home town or about growing up in the forties/fifties.

Good Luck! And Happy Birthday to Grandma!

[Pecksie]

Hey,

If, as you say, your grandma's easily bored, I'd go for a short novel rather than a very long one. We bookworms think nothing of immersing ourselves into a 500-page Dickens novel, but she will probably not have the patience or habit --- and at 73 it's perhaps not easy to change.

Accordingly, I'd suggest a short work of fiction set at a time (and not just a place) that is meaningful to her. For example, if she lived in or near London during the blitz, Graham Greene's 'The End of the Affair' would be perfect --- besides taking place during that fraught time, it's also a love story, which she might enjoy if she likes soap operas.

Another good, soap opera-ish love story (admittedly lesser-league) is Rosamund Pilcher's 'The Shell Seekers' --- but it may be too long. Still, she has many novels set in the English countryside.

Good luck!