Here are the official One Man Book Club recos for sharp grandpa readers!

–He might enjoy the Hypothesis books by Tim Ballard (the former CIA guy who rescues children from slavery). They are 3 non-fiction books that look at Lincoln, Washington, and the Pilgrims and examines from a spiritual perspective how they were divinely inspired. I haven’t read them, but my Dad swears by them and he talks about them often.
Historical Fiction:
–The Killer Angels by Jeff Shaara
Fiction About History:
–The Book Thief by Markus Zusack
–The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton (Just finished this one. Cool closed-door mystery set on a merchant sailing ship in the 1600’s)
–11/22/63 by Stephen King (time travel book about a guy who travels from the present time to 1963 to try and stop the JFK assassination)
–I bet he’d like Kate Morton’s past-merges-with-future mystery stories
–Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld (WWI by fought on genetically altered animals vs steam powered war machines)
Mystery
–The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton (Groundhog day + Quantum leap + Agatha Christie)
–John Grisham legal thrillers
You mentioned wanting to help him branch out…that sounds like he needs give Science Fiction a try!
–the Murderbot books by Martha Wells (as long as he’s okay with swearing)
–Old Man’s War by John Scalzi (Swearing warning again)
–the Bobiverse books by Dennis E. Taylor
–Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
–Ready Player One (Language)
–Anything by Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park! Andromeda Strain!)
–Wool by Hugh Howey (A MUST READ!)
–The Martian by Andy Weir (Only if he has a strong heart LOL!…and can handle the language)
Fantasy
–Harry Potter
–The Queen’s Thief by Megan Whalen Turner
–The Books of Babel by Josiah Bancroft
–Scythe by Neal Schusterman
–The Rook by Daniel O’Malley (Language warning)
And the last one I thought that did fit those categories
–A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

Here are some ideas from members of the Book Club:

I’m reading Ship of Ghosts —about the USS Houston in WW II. It’s non fiction but not boring. I have 2 uncles that became POWs after the Houston went down. It’s very well written.
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North
Seabiscuit
He might like the Scarlet Pimpernel? Tattoos on the Heart just came to mind; Amazing book.
The Boys in the Boat? I really enjoyed it. It’s about the men’s rowing crew from Washington that went to the Olympics in Germany prior to WWII.
The Four Winds- Hannah
Wickwythe Hall- Little
American Dirt- Cummins
The Book of Lost Friends- Wingate
The Tattooist of Auschwitz – Morris
These is My Words (3book series) – Turner
1000 White Women (there is a little sex in that one, so…)- Dodd
And maybe just to try something new- The Night Circus – Morganstern
Does he like westerns? That’s a whole other can of worms you can open up! I usually find a lot of them at thrift stores. That might be a fun weekly outing with him, go to the thrift shops and load up!
Bill O’Reilly’s “Killing…” books (Lincoln, Kennedy, Patton, Jesus, etc)
Anything by Erik Larson (all nonfiction but written so well they could almost be fiction!)
Malcolm Gladwell has some pretty great books as well: Outliers, David and Goliath, The Tipping Point, etc
The light between oceans,
Between shades of gray
The King Killer Chronicles
Also books by Bernard Cornwell