Reddit mentions of Shorter Christian Prayer: The Four-Week Psalter of the Liturgy of the Hours Containing Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer

Scapular and beer. Scapular flavored beer!

You might try the Christian Prayer liturgy of the hours for a real gift that he could come to like.

Breviary Bootcamp

When I started, I used Shorter Christian Prayer. It has all the solemnities and some of the major feasts, but none of the memorials and optional memorials (which are a bit tough to figure out in the beginning). I still use it when I travel.

If you do decide to use Christian Prayer, you may wish to use the annual Guide to Christian Prayer to help navigate (note that this isn't used for Shorter Christian Prayer at all).

>What is the general consensus on things such as the Little Office of Our Lady?

As a layperson, you can pray any office you wish. I love the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, especially the one from Baronius Press.

I started praying the LOTH with Shorter Christian Prayer. It's a good way to get into it without all the page flipping. I know priests who use this as their travel edition. ;)

Universalis (app or website) is a good resource for praying the office. There's 6 times per day that a professed religious stops and prays the psalms in the Office, but for laypeople the best ones are probably Lauds (in the morning), Vespers (after work), and Compline (before bed).

Breviaries like this one can help laypeople pray the office.

Shorter Christian Prayer is under $15, and it'll get you started with MP/EP/NP. When I first got into the Hours, I used it for about the first year of praying it.

If you think that you'll only pray Night Prayer, it can be had for under $10.

Don't knock Christian Prayer for $30. It has MP/EP/NP with all the solemnities, feasts, and memorials, as well as a one-week psalter for Daytime Prayer, a four-week psalter for the Office of Readings and a selection of 1st and 2nd readings, a table for the alternate 2-year Scripture readings for the Office of Readings, the Office of the Dead, the Saturday Memorial for the BVM, a hymnal, instruction on how to chant/sing the LOTH, an abridged General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours.

I'm partial to Christian Prayer. If you buy new it should come with a guide for the current year. The guide makes it easier to learn your way around, and especially helps when you aren't moving the ribbons every day.

Close second would be Shorter Christian Prayer, which is adequate, but not as complete. It does not have a guide, and is quite truncated, so it's harder to learn your way around.

Although I'm traveling for business and not backpacking, I found this to be nice to take along: http://www.amazon.com/Shorter-Christian-Prayer-Four-Week-Containing/dp/0899424082/

I would suggest the shorter form of the Divine Office for starters! It can be found on Amazon here http://www.amazon.com/Shorter-Christian-Prayer-Four-Week-Containing/dp/0899424082.

I personally have loved it.

Why buy a TLM missal for a couple static prayers? It would be much cheaper to buy a Shorter Christian Prayer and have much richer morning and evening prayer.

Edit: Typo

I recommend the divine office, a.k.a. the Liturgy of the Hours. Mainly because praying Morning, Evening and Night Prayers tend to keep you through the day. If you add a rosary somewhere to that, you'll be in good shape. Here's an online link: http://www.divineoffice.org.

and of course /r/divineoffice

Good resources, but I'd recommend picking up a copy of this:

http://www.amazon.ca/Shorter-Christian-National-Conference-Catholi/dp/0899424082/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411429333&sr=1-2&keywords=shorter+christian+prayer

...because it has Morning, Evening and Night prayer and you don't need to go online. Just avoid going online as much as possible, if you know where it's going to head when you do.

This, confession, and jogging.