My oldest son (27m) has never been a big reader, but I would love to share some books with him. I have a business where I pick out the perfect book for people and send it to them, so this should be easy, right? But this kid has me stumped. His interests are linguistics and history, which are my interests as well, but he doesn’t like any of the books I’ve recommended. The 2 books he said he enjoyed are Mutiny on HMS Bounty and Project Hail Mary. He also said that if a book doesn’t grab him right away, he just gives up. So there goes my recommendation of Lonesome Dove. 😆 What do my fellow book nerds think? What book should I recommend to him?
by january1977
9 Comments
Young Men and Fire, by Malcolm Maclean. About smokejumpers who died in a 1949 forest fire.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Men_and_Fire
If he’s 27 and not a big reader, it might be time to consider if you’re trying to push your interest (both personally and professionally) onto him.
Has he told you what it was about these two books that really interested him?
Otherwise, the best suggestion I have is The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
Try leviathan wakes , James covey.
Its the first part of the expanse series and quite sci-fi but fun .
If he liked Project Hail Mary why not try The Martian by the same author? Great page turner and starts in media res
Based on the books he likes I’d suggest:
Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett & The Wager by David Grann
But I’ll add some good linguistics books for fun:
Language City by Ross Perlin
The Deorhord by Hana Videen
The Wordhord by Hana Videen
Wordslut by Amanda Montell
If he likes linguistics, then maybe Babel by RF Kuang. It’s low fantasy, and the magic system is based off language and translations
[The Caine Mutiny](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/368772.The_Caine_Mutiny) and/or [Youngblood Hawke](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42990.Youngblood_Hawke) by Herman Wouk. Actually any by him might suit, good books.
Wild card suggestion: Make him play Disco Elysium. It’s a wonderful rpg game made by writers and artists. It’s really really fun and has hands down the best writing of any videogame I’ve played. Contains themes of history, politics, science fiction, personal struggles, meaning of art, social inequality, among other stuff. And It’s like reading a book, because you read, a lot.
A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers Has linguistic features that are quite interesting.