To ask you to find my reading mojo

[LEMtheoriginal]

Totally lost it - anxiety greatly restricts what I can read. Fucking phone and social media and yes, mumsnet mean my ability to stick with "difficult" reads is waning. I read on my kindle and need new glasses so paperbacks not an option. As a result I find it hard to find something decent to read.

Any suggestions?

Internet has ruined my ability to read a book.

We should start a thread, can't go on t'internet till you've read a book.

Internet cold turkey, choose a book, set a date?

YY to everyone who loves HP. Me too! And agree about Sir Terry, particularly anything with Tiffany Aching (If you haven't read The Wee Free Men, I strongly recommend it).

Also agree about Laurie Graham. I've read several, but particularly recommend a book called "The 10 O'clock Horses", when you start reading it, you think you hate the narrator (the book is told from his perspective) and it turns out that he's just so lovely.

I also LOVED the Rosie Project - an easy and very funny and sweet read.

A bit more 'meaty' is The Time Traveller's Wife. It's a beautiful book.

But my book that I enjoyed most, and have brought for at least 10 people has been The Night Circus. If you like the magical worlds that JKR or TP imagine, then you'll enjoy this.

And I agree with everyone who said teen fiction. But I like child fiction too. Old stuff - Judy Bloome can be funny and (for teens) poignant. Anne Fine. Jacqueline Wilson. Malorie Blackman. The Hunger Games series. The Artimis Fowl books. Anthony Horrowitz (sorry about my spelling)

If you like crime and don't mind gritty then Ian Rankin writes a cracking book.

And I adore Kate Atkinson. Behind the Scenes at the Museum.

Happy reading. x

Girl with the dragon tattoo series (3) might work? I found it easy to read and gripping

How about a classic whodunnit - something quite engaging and exciting without being too dark. I'm currently re-reading The Thirteen Problems by Agatha Christie. Quite cosy, short mysteries with Miss Marple and her knitting. When I'm feeling a bit anxious I like to read something familiar - could you try re-reading some of your favourite books as an easy way of getting back into reading?

I read the Percy Jackson books after my DD read them. They were great and we could talk about them. She'd encourage me to read the next one and the next.

I, like yiu , hadnt read much in a while due to just browsing on phone. Then l picked up Elinor Oliphant is fine and lread it in one sitting. My dd then stayed up really late doing the same.
I also loved Wonder and The Rosie project.

I'm so glad it's not just me. I used to be so well read, now I just can't be bothered but spend hours on the internet . I'm starting university in a couple of weeks; I haven't started on my reading list yet and just hope once there it'll galvanise me into proper reading.

I read both the Robert Seethaler books this summer (A Whole Life and The Tobacconist) and loved them both. They are a translation from German and are very light but beautifully written if that makes sense? They are also short which sometimes helps! I also read Hillbilly Elegy (non-fiction) and am reading Hot Milk by Deborah Levy which is fantastic. All highly recommended!

I have had a similar problem recently. Just finding it super difficult to get reading. Such a shame, as I used to read a book a month at least.

I did however really enjoy "Crooked Heart" by Lissa Evans and because that was such a great book I have just finished reading another one by her called "Their Finest" (also titled "Their Finest Hour", before it was retitled by a film version)

When I find myself less in the mood for reading, and sometimes it can last a few weeks, I turn towards audiobooks. The content is the same, but the experience is different, more passive, like having a bath instead of a shower.
As for book recommendations, if you like fantasy any Brandon Sanderson should do wonders.

Do you know what's not a good choice when you're anxious? A book about slaves escaping from plantations on the underground railroad. I don't know what I was thinking last night! So I've ditched that.

I was thinking I might revisit a nice book from my teens like Room With a View or something.

To add to pp above I also devoured This Thing of Darkness.

Another one here who doesn't read nearly as much as I used to. Yesterday, looking for a present for someone, I went into Waterstones for the first time for years and my excitement about books came flooding back - I used to love going in and browsing all the recommendations etc. Now I just download onto my kindle the excitement is just not the same. But I've noted some of your suggestions and am looking forward to trying to get back into reading.

And I adore Kate Atkinson. Behind the Scenes at the Museum.
One of my favourite books ever! Have you read Life after Life by her too - it is an absolutely brilliant book!

Try audiobooks? Or downloading radio plays from the BBC Radio iPlayer? They really help me when I can't read. Also, only reading a few pages and coming back to it is a perfectly valid thing. You do you!

Don't EVER be ashamed of what you read. OK, maybe if you're a facist and it's Mein Kampf or something

Do go back and revisit books you have previously read and loved. That makes it easier too. Because you know what's going to happen? I find new books hard now because I don't know how things will end. (I know how mental this is)

Mothering Sunday and Sense of an Ending are both short and easy to read without being pappy.
Moving by Jenny Eclair was a good easy read.

Or some non-fiction? I'm reading All Creatures Great and Small at the moment, and although it's long, the chapters are short and relatively self-contained so easy to pick up and put down.

And if you cook at all, you must read The Pedant in The Kitchen by Julian Barnes, which is a few short, very funny essays on his trials and tribulations of learning to cook.

And i nearly forgot Tom Cox. His books are marketed as cat books, which is off-putting, but they're really more about country living, and northern Dads. The last one of his, which I think is Close Encounters of the Furred Kind, is the best. Properly funny.

I love the author Lisa Jewell her books are easy to read. Maybe not her latest though, 'Then she was gone' the ending to that made me cry alot.

Oh my god, are you me?? I have a stack of books and cannot concentrate on them. Yes - anxiety based. And internet is so easy and transient reading

Have you tried reading paper books? After a while I found it hard to concentrate on a kindle.

I'm loving the Falco series by Lindsey Davis - set in Imperial Rome and really readable.
I have also just discovered Robert B Parker - again, lots of them and very readable.
Ace Atkins' Quinn Colson series is another good one.

I also get the regular email from Waterstones. I found authors and recommendations on this that I doubt I would have found otherwise.

It's about making time to read. I'm on my phone quite a bit during the day, but at 10/10.30 I go upstairs to bed and try not to look at it again. That way I can read in bed for an hour or so.

Same here. I make myself a Goodreads challenge each year. Another one who blames the internet. I'm better but not as fast as I was. I read a mix. I also have a huge backlog of irresistably cheap books to read on my kindle.

What about some short stories?

I have recently enjoyed What it Means When a Man Falls From the Sky by lesley Nneka Arimah and Chekhov's The Lady with the Little Dog and Other Stories.