If the dad or father figure in your life is an avid reader or needs a holiday gift OR some books for the summer, I have some ideas of recent releases perfect for all kinds of readers! Check out these Best Bookish Gift Ideas for Dads!
Written and edited by Jen Ryland. Last updated on:
Best Bookish Gift Ideas for Dad
Are you gift shopping for a dad, a grandfather, or the father figure in your life? Here are some bookish suggestions!
Book for the Dad who loved The Da Vinci Code
The Puzzle Master by Danielle Trussoni (2023)
The Puzzle Master is a perfect match for the reader who loved The Da Vinci Code and has been looking for a book like it for years!
The Puzzle Master features a former athlete who, after a sports injury, has amazing cognitive abilities. He’s been moonlighting as a popular puzzle creator.
Then he’s contacted about a woman in prison who has sketched out a puzzle so perplexing that no one can solve it …. except one person!
Book for the Dad who loves a good action movie
I Will Find You by Harlan Coben (2023)
I Will Find You reminded me a lot of the Fugitive, that great 1990s movie starring Tommy Lee Jones and Harrison Ford.
It’s the story of a father sitting in prison for committing an unimaginable crime.
One day, he gets a visitor who brings him information that changes everything.
Then he will go on an improbably, reckless crusade to get back everything he lost.
This is a fun, fast read, like all Harlan Coben books, and it features the MOST devoted dad!
You can check out my Review of I Will Find You for more details!
A Book for the Dad who likes John Grisham and Friday Night Lights
The Local by Joey Hartstone (2022)
The Local by Joey Hartstone takes place in small-town Texas, where a patent attorney finds himself embroiled in a murder case.
The East Texas town of Marshall is revered by patent lawyers for speedy jury trails and massive punitive payouts. Marshall is flooded with patent lawyers who find work being the local voice for the big-city lawyers that need to sway a small-town jury. One of the best is James Euchre.
Euchre’s new client is Zawar, a firebrand CEO forced to defend his life’s work against a software patent infringement. In a heated moment during the preliminary hearing, he threatens the judge in court.
Then the judge is found murdered in the courthouse parking lot. All signs point to Zawar, who stands accused of killing a powerful white Federal judge in a small Texas town.
With the help of a former prosecutor and a local PI, Euchre must navigate the byzantine world of criminal defense law in a town where everyone knows everyone, and bad blood has a long history. The deeper he digs, the more he fears that he’ll either send an innocent man to death row, or worse, set a murderer free.
My review of The Local contains some background on the book!
A Book for the Dad who likes Travel and International Intrigue
Two Nights in Lisbon by Chris Pavone (2022)
Ariel Pryce wakes up in Lisbon, alone. Her husband is gone—no warning, no note, not answering his phone. Something is wrong.
She starts with hotel security, then the police, then the American embassy, at each confronting questions she can’t fully answer: What exactly is John doing in Lisbon? Why would he drag her along on his business trip? Who would want to harm him? And why does Ariel know so little about her new—much younger—husband?
The clock is ticking. Ariel is increasingly frustrated and desperate, running out of time, and the one person in the world who can help is the one person she least wants to ask.
Check out my review of Two Nights in Lisbon!
A Book for the Dad who Llkes Outdoor Adventure
Breathless by Amy McCulloch (2022)
Journalist Cecily Wong has come to Manaslu, the eighth-highest peak in the world, to interview internationally famous mountaineer Charles McVeigh on the last leg of a record-breaking series of summits.
Cecily gave up everything for this story–her boyfriend, her life savings, the peace she’s made with her climbing failures in the past–but it’s a career-making opportunity. It could finally put her life back on track.
But when one climber dies in what everyone else assumes is a freak accident, she fears their expedition is in danger. And by the time a second climber dies, it’s too late to turn back.
Stranded on a mountain in one of the most remote regions of the world, she’ll have to battle more than the elements in a harrowing fight for survival against a killer who is picking them off one by one.
Interested? Read my review of Breathless.
A Book for the Dad Trying to Understand Gen Z
The Verifiers by Jane Pek (2022)
Claudia Lin is used to disregarding her fractious family’s model-minority expectations: she has no interest in finding either a conventional career or a nice Chinese boy.
She’s also used to keeping secrets from them, such as that she prefers girls—and that she’s just been stealth-recruited by Veracity, a referrals-only online-dating detective agency.
A lifelong mystery reader who wrote her senior thesis on Jane Austen, Claudia believes she’s landed her ideal job. But when a client goes missing, Claudia breaks protocol to investigate—and uncovers a maelstrom of personal and corporate deceit.
Part literary mystery, part family story, The Verifiers is a clever and incisive examination of how technology shapes our choices, and the nature of romantic love in the digital age.
You can find my review of The Verifiers here, as well as on my list of Mysteries with Millennial and Gen Z Detectives.
A Book for the Dad Who Likes Sci-Fi
Upgrade by Blake Crouch (2022)
At first, Logan Ramsay just feels a little sharper. Better able to concentrate. Better at multitasking. Reading a bit faster, memorizing better, needing less sleep.
But before long, he can’t deny it: Something’s happening to his brain. To his body. He’s starting to see the world, and those around him—even those he loves most—in whole new ways.
The truth is, Logan’s genome has been hacked. And there’s a reason he’s been targeted for this upgrade. A reason that goes back decades to the darkest part of his past, and a horrific family legacy.
Worse still, what’s happening to him is just the first step in a much larger plan, one that will inflict the same changes on humanity at large—at a terrifying cost.
Because of his new abilities, Logan’s the one person in the world capable of stopping what’s been set in motion. But to have a chance at winning this war, he’ll have to become something other than himself. Maybe even something other than human.
And even as he’s fighting, he can’t help wondering: what if humanity’s only hope for a future really does lie in engineering our own evolution?
Two Books for The Dad Who Remembers the 1970s
The Crook Manifesto by Colton Whitehead (2023)
1971. Trash is piling up on the NYC streets, crime is soaring, New York City is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, and war has broken out between the NYPD and the Black Liberation Army. Furniture store owner and ex-fence Ray Carney tries to keep his head down and his business thriving.
1973. It’s getting harder to put together a crime crew, so Pepper takes on a side gig doing security on a Blaxploitation shoot in Harlem.
1976. Harlem is burning, block by block, while the whole country is gearing up for Bicentennial celebrations. Carney is trying to come up with a July 4th ad he can live with. His wife Elizabeth is campaigning for her childhood friend, the former assistant D.A and rising politician Alexander Oakes.
Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane (2023)
It’s the summer of 1974 and Mary Pat Fennessy is trying to evade the bill collectors. Mary Pat has lived her entire life in South Boston, an Irish-American enclave that doesn’t take kindly to the school integration that is being forced on them.
One night Mary Pat’s teenage daughter doesn’t come home. That same evening, a young Black man is found dead, struck by a subway train under mysterious circumstances. Mary Pat, propelled by a desperate to find her missing daughter, begins asking questions that bother the Irish mob.
I read this in December 2023. It’s a dark story, but very compelling!
A Book for the Dad who loves a spy novel
The Grey Man by Mark Greaney (2009 but new on Netflix!)
To those who lurk in the shadows, he’s known as the Gray Man. He is a legend in the covert realm, moving silently from job to job, accomplishing the impossible and then fading away. And he always hits his target. Always.
But there are forces more lethal than Gentry in the world. Forces like money. And power. There are men who hold these as the only currency worth fighting for. And in their eyes, Gentry has just outlived his usefulness.
But Court Gentry is going to prove that, for him, there’s no gray area between killing for a living and killing to stay alive…
Any more ideas for my list? Tell me in comments!
You can shop my Dad gift list on Bookshop and support indie bookstores!
Great list. None of the people in my family read. They are missing out.
Oh my gosh, they really are! Maybe one day!