Ask LJ: book reccomendation help

[coraa]

More posting looking for assistance! Hi, LJ, I know that's not the only thing you're here for...

I'm looking to get my mom a Mother's Day present. (Her birthday -- which is about a week later -- I already have a present for: a pair of handmade earrings. I'll try to post pics of the earrings before I give them away.) She's an avid reader, and I usually get her books, but right now I'm a little stumped. Usually I just chitchat with her about what she wants, but I forgot, and now it's embarrassingly late for that, although I will if I can't think of any surer bets.

I'd say her favorite genre is mysteries, and I know she loves Elizabeth Peters/Barbara Michaels and the Southern Sisters mysteries by Anne George, and the Cat Who books, and Miss Marple... but I suspect she already has all of those. I'd say that her mystery preferences are for cozies, especially those with some amusement value -- the new Vicky Bliss book would be perfect but I think there's a 60% chance she already has it.

She's fairly conservative and in a (happily! this is not an insult!) sedate middle age, so, while I just had a chicklit mystery series recced to me that looks hilarious and awesome, I'm not sure that'd be her kind of thing.

She also loves Barbara Tuchman's early-20th-century stuff, but I think I've bought her all of that. And certain kinds of alternate history (she's read a fair bit of Turtledove, but not much else, I don't think) and certain kinds of semi-thrillers like Douglas Preston's oevure, and she loved the movie National Treasure.

Any ideas? I can come up with something, but if any of you have ideas (and/or are a mystery fan yourself who can help me vet my choices), it would be a great boon.

Comments

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Has she read any of Mary Stewart's thrillers? Something like Madam, Will You Talk or Airs Above The Ground might please her.

[zalena.livejournal.com]

Second Mary Stewart... also if she hasn't read any of the Alexander McCall Smith books, (#1 Ladies Detective; Scotland Street; Sunday Philosophy Club) these are very fun. I would recommend Margaret Coel's Arapahoe mysteries. I would also recommend Carol Goodman, Eva Ibbotson, and Sandra Gulland. Gulland's Josephine trilogy is phenomenal.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Speaking as a mom who loves mysteries and has read tons and tons of them: I'd rather have a gift card so I could pick my own. Ymother'sMMV, of course.

[thegreatgonz.livejournal.com]

How about The Beekeeper's Apprentice and its sequels?

(If you're not familiar with them, they're about a young woman in WWI-era England who meets and eventually apprentices with a retired Sherlock Holmes).

[tedeisenstein.livejournal.com]

If she likes Miss Marple and Agatha Christie, perhaps one or two of the Peter Wimsey/Dorothy Sayers books?

I wouldn't exactly call these "cozy", but they are thoroughly comfortable, light whimsy, and well-written, to wit, any of PG Wodehouse's Bertie-Wooster-and-Jeeves story collections. Just right for a comfortable chair, a gentle smile, and a cuppa.

I'm almost tempted to suggest Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals and Birds, Beasts, and Relatives, but, while they're not exactly racy (hell, my sister used to read them to her kids as bedtime stories), they're not exactly sedate. Or cozy. Just a hell of a lot of fun. If she doesn't like them, you can take them back - I'd certainly recommend them to you.