Really great modern literature for someone with conservative taste?

[LivesForever]

Hi, everyone,
I'm looking for a Christmas present for my wife. I want to find her something written for an adult audience that will be really meaningful, moving, uplifting, empowering, or at least a lot of fun, with really great characters and story. The trouble is that I also want minimal swearing, sex, or really disturbing violence. I'm hoping for something that is not offensive to someone sensitive to those things, but will make readers feel like they read something worthwhile! It's been hard for me to find books like that, but I'm sure it's mostly because I don't know where to look.

She enjoyed:
To Kill a Mockingbird
The winter of our discontent
Dracula
The narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass
The Clockwork Universe
The Hobbit
The Hunger Games
Harry Potter

To give you more of an idea, we also both read The Kite Runner. She had very mixed feelings about it- though there is something very beautiful and tragic about the story, there were so many awful things that happened in the book. It was an incredible, emotional story, but I'm not looking for things that will be quite so painful to read.

I'd like to find some books with:
1) Minimal (or no) swearing and sexual content
2) Not sci-fi or fantasy, unless it's absolutely amazing
3) Modern, or at least fairly recent (within last 60 years or less)
4) A really great, moving human story
5) Believable, interesting, sympathetic characters

Does anyone know anything that fits this?
Thank you all in advance!

[kelby_lake]

It isn't modern, but Two on A Tower by Thomas Hardy is very readable. It's got a sad ending but it's very charming and very very romantic.

You'll be hard pressed to find something modern that has no swearing or sexual content in it.

[mal4mac]

I read the "The time traveler's wife" by Audrey Niffenegger recently and looking at your list and requirements I think it will really fit the bill. OK there is some fantasy (the time traveller!) but it *is* absolutely amazing, and with more believable, interesting, and sympathetic characters than you'd expect from science fiction. It's certainly a "lot of fun". It has minimal swearing, sex, and violence, but if it's too much for you then you should be thinking of going back to the Victorians! Try Nicholas Nickleby by Dickens...

[Scheherazade]

The list provided sounds like my nephews would put together for themselves.

And I thought The Time Traveller's Wife was utterly boring.

My offerings:

East of Eden

Stardust

My Cousin Rachel

Outlander

A Monster Calls

A Room With A View

Bel Canto

If everything else fails, a nicely bound edition of Little Women or Pollyanna.

[ladderandbucket]

I would recommend Marilynne Robinson. Housekeeping is probably her most accessible book.

Certainly one of the best living writers and so refreshing to find one who doesn't use shock tactics or postmodern games to impress.

[Emil Miller]

I would suggest 'Brideshead Revisited' by Evelyn Waugh. It meets all of the criteria and is one of the best post-war novels: it was published in 1945.

[bounty]

an older female friend of mine is enjoying the mitford series by jan karon...

[Charles Darnay]

If you're looking for something more contemporary, Mark Halperin's new novel In Sunlight and in Shadow is quite good.

[Jackson Richardson]

Penelope Fitzgeral Offshore or The Gate of Angels would be my recommendation.

Also Barbara Pym The Sweet Dove Died (one of her later, 70s, books. Excellent Women and Glass of Blessings are the best of her earlier 50s work.)

[LivesForever]

Thank you, everybody! I know this criteria might seem ridiculous to some people, but I can't tell you how much I appreciate your help! I'll check out the ones given so far. If anyone has more ideas, by all means, keep them coming.

[mal4mac]

A Room With A View

That's a good one, and a less risky choice than the Time Travellers Wife, which tends to split people...

Brideshead Revisited gets very painful to read, after a glittering start. A Room With A View isn't painful at all.

[Scheherazade]

Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime

Thousand Splendid Suns

[LivesForever]

Awesome! Has anyone read Mark Helprin's "Winter's Tale"? Do you think it would fit these criteria?

[Calidore]

Awesome! Has anyone read Mark Helprin's "Winter's Tale"? Do you think it would fit these criteria?

I read a good chunk of it, but it was a total snore and I couldn't finish it. It read like it was written by someone who was way too much in love with his own writing.

[Charles Darnay]

Awesome! Has anyone read Mark Helprin's "Winter's Tale"? Do you think it would fit these criteria?

It has a bit of a weak ending, but until then, it is an amazing book. It has a bit of magic realism going for it (the reason why I suggested his later one is because it is more "conservative")

I read a good chunk of it, but it was a total snore and I couldn't finish it. It read like it was written by someone who was way too much in love with his own writing.

Didn't get that at all. I think his tongue-in-cheek style works really well.