Please help me find a book to fall back in love with reading (on my holiday)

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit Oh god yes you're totally right! Oops

I really didn't think much of Evelyn Hugo but at least it was better than Daisy Jones. Evelyn Hardcastle was much more fun!

Oh and @ScrambledSmegs I LOVED Harry August!

Evelyn Hugo is Taylor Jenkins Reid

Evelyn Hardcastle is Stuart Turton

(I think)

For all you who liked Evelyn Hugo by Stuart Turton, do read his second book, The Devil and the Dark Water. It's fab, very different but also really enjoyable.

Oh, and The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North has a similar framing device and is a great read (and they both owe a debt to the incredible Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, obviously).

Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day. Just one of the loveliest books ever, and had several people I know reading while walking down the street, because they couldn't stop.

Oh, and a book I totally adored and is really, really easy to read as it has short chapters despite being an initially daunting tome is Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr. It was my favourite book of 2022 and possibly of the decade so far.

If you enjoyed A thousand splendid Suns you might like:

• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
• The Bookseller of Kabul by Åsne Seierstad

If you fancy something exotic with plenty of intrigue The Tale of Murasaki by Liza Dalby is a fantastic little book.

Another vote for the Evelyn Hugo Book, took me two days absolutely loved it!

Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey is so far getting my reading mojo back on track. It's really a funny (as you'd expect from a comedian/writer on Schitts Creek) but importantly not mean book about a woman who got married and divorced in her 20s, much like the author. So semi-autobiographical I guess.

There have been a lot of laugh out loud passages and I keep annoying DH by reading out particularly funny bits.

I’d bring a couple of very different books: a light fiction, a memoir, and something a bit more meaty. I’d suggest a Marian Keyes, Wavewalker (2023 memoir of a British girl whose dad insisted on a round the world sailing trip for her family), and All the Light We Cannot See (long, so would leave it until last.)

My book club loved Hamnett.

Not fiction, but I’ve recently read two books about reading IYSWIM, and they’ve rekindled my love for it. The first was Bookworm, A Memoir of Childhood Reading by Lucy Mangan and the other is How To Be A Heroine (Or What I’ve Learned From Reading Too Much) by Samantha Ellis. Reading about other women’s love for reading some of the books I’ve read in my youth has reminded me why I love reading so.

I picked this up at a hotel library and couldn't put it down,

The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared

Jojo Moyes: Someone Else’s Shoes

I'm usually into Fantasy or historical fiction. Whenever I want to love reading again, I tend to dig out some late teen faves of mine like The Sunne in Splendour or Here be Dragons...

I also really enjoyed Pandora recentlyhttps://www.waterstones.com/book/pandora/susan-stokes-chapman/9781529114744

I’ve just finished (on holiday) The Forgotten Life of Arthur Pettinger by Suzanne Fortin.
worth a read!

Just came back from a week away, a friend gave me The Seven Husband’s of Evelyn Hugo, I finished it in two days!! Making a Netflix film apparently and I cannot wait!

also I really got into the cousins war series by Philippa Gregory, highly recommend!

I read ' Where the Crawdad Sings' on holiday and couldn't put it down. I too used to be an avid reader it menopause has badly affected my concentration

I was coming on to say The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - it’s an easy read and split into sections so you can dip in and out, but I loved it and read it in a couple of days. Also loved Lessons in Chemistry.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is a great holiday read. And another vote for Lessons in Chemistry.

I'm also 40ish and occasionally grumpy 😂
I was an avid (younger) reader, but for similar reasons to you I've been terribly lazy and just reading the internet instead of lovely books.

Anyway, here are some books I've really enjoyed recently, having made a conscious effort to dedicate time to reading (and downloading the Goodreads app, which has made it easy to track books and list ones I'd like to read).

All my mothers by Joanna Glen
Lessons in Chemistry (see above recs!)
The hand that first held mine by Maggie O'Farrell - this isn't recent by her but I love her writing and picked this up from the library recently...loved it.

I just re-read The Time Travellers Wife which I hadn't read for about 10 years - did it in more or less one sitting over the weekend.

Have also downloaded some Jilly Cooper for my holiday next week - sometimes you just need a guilty pleasure to get you back in the mood!

Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo

28 summers.

I laughed, cried. And devoured it on holiday. Was joyous to love something as, like you, am out of my reading habit.

The family upstairs