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.

Demon Copperhead is brilliant, definitely recommend this.

The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver. Great read, got me back reading after a dry spell

My attention span is woeful now and I have to be enthralled almost immediately, otherwise I just give up! Recently I’ve enjoyed:

I’m sorry you feel that way - Rebecca Wait
Our wives under the sea - Julia Armfield
Small pleasures - Clare Chambers (I’ve read a couple of her books and I love her writing style, always get through them quickly).

Yacht Party & the two follow up books by Tasmina Perry, are fab.

Also, I’ve loved everything from Lucy Clarke & Zoe Follbigg.

I picked this up as an impulse buy when I needed to kill some time. I spent £3 on it in The Works.
I found it a really easy, pleasant read, I had finished it with in three days, and it has kick started my love of murder mystery books. I’m currently working my way through Agatha Christie’s epic output.

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=31402963028

Have you tried audio-books, you could even follow the text at the same time to focus your attention span.

I loved 'memoirs of a geisha' for the different world as much as the characters, I found the characters in 'les liasons dangereuses' fascinating (though not in a sympathetic way!) (another book with a man narrating a woman's motivations.)

Laurie Graham's books were an easy read with warm characters.
The 'travelling cat chronicles' ( hiro arikawa) ,was beautiful for me.

Or ...I've been listening to books about geography and history and it helps to google maps etc of what I'm hearing about, it's quite a nice immersive experience.

Loved Crawdads , Seven Sisters is also great , different book about each sister ❤️

'Miss Pettigrew lives for a day' was a lovely film, would be interesting to see the character development in the book.

Similarly 'Mrs Harris goes to Paris'.

@Loveys

Yes I got the Vampire book on audible and do agree. I really enjoyed the characters although when one went to the man's house and would not give up until she found him I wanted to smack her!!

I second the Song of Achilles - couldn't put it down

Uncle Paul

If you want an easy but really interesting read, I’m on holiday and have just read this book in two days (haven’t read anything for months) - “The writing on the wall” Jenny Eclair
particularly interesting if you remember the 70s!

I've just enjoyed Kate Griffin's 'Fyneshade' and Jessica Irena Smith's 'The Summer She Vanished', both psychological thrillers but very different from each other.

I second The Summer She Vanished! Great if you like something dark and thrillery (definitely didn't see the twist at the end coming!). Also agree with FindingTheFox about The Paper Palace. Only about a quarter of the way through, but loving it so far and beautifully written.

Recently I've found books written in the last few years that there's so many (frequently hyped) that are a huge disappointment/absolute bilge.

So I read books written in the 20th century and before. But scrolling about on my phone and the general faster pace of media takes me a while to get back into the rhythm of books published when there were far fewer distractions.

Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart