Books for dads who are hard to buy for.

This dad is the hardest, because he's telling the truth. He genuinely doesn't want stuff. So don't get him stuff — get him something to dip into, with no obligation to finish, that's a pleasure just to own and leave on the side table.

The pick: Letters of Note, compiled by Shaun Usher. A beautifully made collection of real letters from across history — funny, moving, strange, never more than a few pages each. It asks nothing of him. He'll open it once out of politeness and still be reading an hour later. It's the gift that quietly proves "I don't need anything" wrong.

Also good if he's more of a one-fact-at-a-time man: a single gorgeous reference or photography book in a subject he loves.

He's not anti-reading. Life just got busy, the phone got closer, and somewhere along the way the habit slipped. The worst thing you can give him is something worthy that'll sit unopened and make him feel guilty. He needs a way back in — something fun, fast, and impossible to put down.

The pick: The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman. Warm, funny, properly gripping, and written to be devoured. It does the one thing a comeback book has to do: it reminds him that reading is enjoyable, not homework. There are sequels too, so if it lands, you've sorted his next three gifts.

Also good: any propulsive thriller he can finish in a weekend. Momentum matters more than prestige here. If this sounds like him, you might also like our guide to books for people who want to fall in love with reading again.

Easy to buy a history book for. Hard to buy a good one — the kind that reads like a story rather than a textbook, that he hasn't already got, and that he'll actually finish.

The pick: The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson. Churchill, the Blitz, and the year Britain stood alone — told with the pace and tension of a novel. Larson is the master of making real history unputdownable, and even a dad who's read everything about the war probably hasn't read it told quite like this.

Also good: Mary Beard's SPQR for the ancient-Rome dad, or anything by Larson if this one's already on his shelf.

The trap here is buying the obvious club book or this season's annual. The better gift is a sports book that's really about something bigger — ambition, pressure, a life — and is a genuinely great read whether or not you follow the sport.

The pick: Open by Andre Agassi. Widely considered one of the best sports memoirs ever written, and you don't have to care about tennis to be floored by it. It's brutally honest about pressure, fathers, and doing a thing you're not sure you even love. The sport-loving dad will tear through it; the rest of the family might steal it after.

Also good: The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown — an underdog rowing story that wins over even non-sport readers.

The dad who reads the manual. Who likes knowing how things work and enjoys a problem for its own sake. Give him something to think with — a puzzle dressed up as a book.

The pick: Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh. The story of a 350-year-old maths problem and the man who finally cracked it — and it's a genuine page-turner even if the last sum he did was at school. It scratches exactly the itch this dad has: a hard problem, brilliant minds, and a deeply satisfying solution.

Also good: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman for the dad who likes to be told how his own mind tricks him — or our guide to books for people who want to fall in love with physics if he likes big ideas explained beautifully.

This one's less about the dad's taste and more about the dad's week. He's tired. He doesn't need to be improved or informed — he needs something that lowers his shoulders by a couple of inches.

The pick: Norwegian Wood by Lars Mytting. Yes, a whole book about chopping, stacking and drying firewood — and somehow one of the most quietly soothing things you can hand a stressed dad. It's really a book about doing one simple, physical, satisfying thing well. Oddly meditative, beautifully made, and the perfect antidote to a screen-shaped life.

Also good: Wintering by Katherine May, for the dad who could use permission to slow down. For more of that mood, try books for people who want to read to relax.

Skip the earnest manuals — he's already drowning in advice, most of it contradictory. Give him something that makes him laugh and feel less alone, because that's what's actually in short supply right now.

The pick: Home Game by Michael Lewis. A funny, honest, refreshingly un-saintly account of fatherhood from one of the best non-fiction writers around. No lectures, no checklists — just the chaos and absurdity of early parenthood, told by someone living it. It's the rare new-dad book he'll genuinely want to read at 3am.

Also good: a brilliant audiobook (see below) — because the new dad's hands are full and his eyes are tired.

The grandad has had decades of gifts and has run out of things he needs. The move here isn't a thing at all — it's connection. Give him something that turns who he is into something the family gets to keep.

The pick: a guided "tell your story" keepsake journal — a prompted book he fills in over time, capturing his life, his memories, the stories the grandkids haven't heard yet. It's the one gift that gets more valuable with every year, and it quietly says the thing that's hard to say out loud: we want to remember all of it.

Also good: a nostalgic, beautifully illustrated history of the decade he grew up in.

Some dads will never sit down with a book — but they'll happily listen on the commute, the dog walk, or in the shed. Don't fight it. A great audiobook, narrated well, is the perfect gift for this dad, and it arrives instantly with nothing to wrap or ship.

The pick: Born a Crime by Trevor Noah, narrated by the author. Routinely named one of the best audiobooks ever made — funny, moving, and far better heard in Noah's own voice than read on the page. It's the gift that converts a "not a reader" dad into someone who suddenly has Views About Audiobooks.

Running late? This is also your last-minute lifeline. An audiobook can be sent in two minutes, no shipping, no panic — the last-minute instant-delivery guide will go live closer to the shipping deadline. And if audio is the whole point, browse our guide to books for people who love audiobooks.

Still stuck?

Tell us which dad he is and we’ll send you one perfect pick — plus a few more thoughtful gift lists through the year. Not another whisky glass.

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