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

[Mallowmarshmallow]

I've fallen out of love with reading, everything is a slog and piles of books lay around me only just started, unfinished and unloved.

I think a combination of perimeno, excessive phone use and not setting aside time to read has meant my attention span to really sink into a book and give it my all is limited.

I used to love lots of books, but mostly those where I've loved the characters. Now, in real life I've become a really grumpy 40 year old who likes very few people and this has been replicated by an inability to love book characters too.

In the past, some of my favourite books have been A Thousand Splendid Suns, The Island, A Little Life, most of Marian Keyes stuff, Memoirs of a Geisha....more recently i liked (but didn't love) American Dirt, Pachhinko, The Flat Share.

I went through a phase of liking psychological thrillers thrown into the mix too.

If anyone is able to recommend something I'd really love with characters I really like and want to read about, I would be hugely grateful.

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

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

Jojo Moyes: Someone Else’s Shoes

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

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.

My book club loved Hamnett.

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.)

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.

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

If you enjoyed A thousand splendid Suns you might like:

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

Both great and somehow these 3 books should be read in short succession- at least that is what I believe! 😉

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

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.

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.

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).

Evelyn Hugo is Taylor Jenkins Reid

Evelyn Hardcastle is Stuart Turton

(I think)

Oh and @ScrambledSmegs I LOVED Harry August!

@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!

Helen Fitzgerald https://helenfitzgerald.wordpress.com/ great fast paced crime, mystery, social commentary writing. I’ve read all her books with the majority read in one or two late nights. You can’t put them down.

Sarra Manning for her Unsticky book and her books based on modelling. I was taken back to 80s/90s magazine style writing. Really great https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/42559.Sarra_Manning

OP could have written your post- I'm in the same situation. To try to get out of my funk, I bought Barbara Kingsolver's new novel and have managed to find time in evenings to get stuck into it. So rewarding and it reminds me why I always loved reading

Curtis sittenfeld "Rodham" or "American Wife"

Thanks for this thread Op as I feel the same, so have taken some recommendations from here!

I also could have written your post. In the past I’ve read most of Haruki Murakamis books, surreal Japanese writer with interesting characters, I was thinking of re reading one of those. Although they are beautiful and intriguing but maybe not sexy and exciting enough for a gripping return to reading. I might try some of these. Maybe we should have a thread to encourage one another like the weight loss ones! I’d love to break up with my phone.

Ive loved all Taylor Jenkins Reid's newer stuff.
If you like Marion Keyes her newest book is Again, Rachel. A sequel to Rachel's Holiday.

Also enjoyed Lessons in Chemistry and loved The Nightingale. Follow readbyraworth on Instagram for some great ideas.

Where the Crawdads Sing
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
The Paper Palace
Hamnet