I’ve basically been ordered to pick up any fiction book and read, after a friend discovered I’ve not read anything but non-fiction for a decade.
The ones I’ve enjoyed in the past have been short, fantastical or sci-fi (think Aldous Huxley, Ian McEwan), but crucially with amazing first person descriptive prose - the kind where you’re immersed in the writing so much you’re almost there with the character.
I liked sci-fi as the world’s constraints weren’t always predictable. Hope that makes sense.
Any recommendations?
Edit: I’m going to up the ante and, as a way of motivating myself to get off my arse and actually read a proper story, promise to choose a book from the top comment, after, let’s say arbitrarily, Friday 2200 GMT.
Edit deux: Wow ok I don’t think I’ve ever had this many responses to anything I’ve posted before. You’ve given me what looks like a whole year of interesting suggestions, and importantly, good commentary around them. I’m honouring my promise to buy the top thing in just under 4 hours.
Oh yeah, I’m not shaming anyone who skims, read however you enjoy.
I just know that there’s more of a weird stigma for slower readers.
Same goes for finishing books. I know some folk will stick with a book even if they aren’t enjoying it, mostly because they’ve learnt that as part of their education.
I abandon books all the time. Life’s a little too short, so I treat reading like the radio… A song comes on that I’m not into, just flip over and see what else is put there.
That said, I’ve returned to books that I bailed on and in some cases I really enjoyed them at the second attempt. Which makes me think that you have to be in the right place sometimes. Still, it’s no reflection on intelligence.
All good points! I have the same tendency to pick up and drop books based on mood and what’s going on in my life. I recently just picked back up Sapolsky’s A Primate’s Memoir which I had abandoned years ago after reading roughly the first half. Picking it back up, I enjoyed it so thoroughly I became a bit avid in my reading and finished the rest of the book in a week or so (which is rather fast paced for me).
I like the metaphor of reading being like listening to the radio. I often feel guilty for dropping books or not powering through (there are many, many books I have read the first quarter or so of and shelved with the intention to finish another time). Probably healthier to have a more free and less “driven” mindset towards reading books.
Sometimes I drop a book because I enjoy it so much I don’t want it to end, I want it to always be there and to relish it later. This is a bit silly - there are always other books, but I also will forget the plot over time and eventually the book will be enough like new that I can enjoy re-reading it.
There’s a certain sort of grief in finishing a book you enjoy, isn’t there?
It’s harder with physical copies because you can feel the pages slipping away. Not so much on an ereader.
Yes! I do think it’s usually physical books, and books I have grown overly attached to reading, where I can’t bring myself to finish them.
Asimov’s Foundation trilogy comes to mind, I had a physical copy that had the whole trilogy as one book, and just as the third book was coming to a climax I quit reading it and shelved it. It’s been so long I barely remember the plot now, lol.