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.
I know you’ve been recommended a lot of books.
Like you I only ever read non-fiction.
Then someone gave me a copy of Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut.
You might like a lot of his work. It’s not exactly fiction and not exactly non-fiction.
Anyway, good luck on your adventure! You are doing something brave and interesting. Let us know how you get on.
I tend to be a slow reader and it can take me a long time to finish a book, but Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road are two books that gripped me such that I basically spent every waking moment reading the book until I finished (I think in both cases I finished the books in less than 24 hours).
Slow readers are my favourite humans.
They don’t race through a book, but instead the stroll, taking time to look around, think things through, ponder the future and reason the implications. Sometimes they just rest for a while, letting the story mull in their mind, before returning later.
Genuinely have so much time for people that take it slow with books.
That’s an interesting perspective, as I have always felt insecure for being a slow reader. I feel like people in my world see it as a sign of being less intelligent, and while I would like to think slower reading helps with my comprehension, I also just feel like it’s not much of a choice for me (I mean, the alternative to slow reading for me would be something other than reading, like scanning; it seems people who can read faster than me are somehow also more competent or intelligent).
People lie about how much they read and how quickly they read. I saw one guy online list his yearly reading and if you totalled up the words in those books he’d be breaking records.
People lie because they want people to think they are smart. But reading quickly isn’t an indicator of intelligence any more so than people that watch videos at four times the speed.
Retention and comprehension are far more important, but still secondary to enjoyment.
If you enjoy how you read and what you read, don’t let anyone tell you that you are doing it wrong.
That seems like a wholesome perspective, thanks for sharing it!
I remember when I was a kid, I was amazed by my grandmother who could finish a whole novel in a few sittings across a day or two when she would come and stay with us. I once mustered up the courage to ask her how she learned to read so quickly, and she explained that she doesn’t actually read every word, but just scans for major plot points. I felt silly, and unsure how to respond - it seemed to me she wasn’t reading, but I didn’t want to imply that. lol
She wasn’t trying to appear smart, I think she just didn’t want to suffer the boring parts, so she scanned ahead to the juicy bits. That’s such an interesting and different way of approaching reading than I have, I’ve only recently started to skip an introduction or preface if it didn’t seem crucial to the book, something I would have previously considered antisocial or rougish, haha.
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.