Something to rekindle my reading...

[BarrelOfOtters]

Don't like gore or horror. It has to be well written. Apart from that anything goes really.

I used to read voraciously and widely - classics, crime, spy novels, modern literature.

The last things I really enjoyed were Still Life, Portrait of a Marriage and Wolf Hall.

I had a reading block a few years ago and it was Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty that got me back.

I lost my love for reading when my mum passed away, I went from reading constantly to reading nothing. Someone suggested They Called Us Enemy by George Takei to me, it's a graphic novel about his experiences in an internment camp in the US during World War 2. I flew through it and haven't been without a book on the go since.

How about The Glass House by Eve Chase. I found it an easy read and I read it quite quickly but that because I wanted to read it rather than doing much else.

I’ve just read City of Girls, Elizabeth Gilbert. Really enjoyed it 😊

I love, love, love most books by Delderfield - try the Swann books, or Horseman Riding by, or Avenue goes to war.

Also, have you read the sequel to Wolf Hall?

It's non-fiction but I thought being mortal (about death and what a good death looks like) by Atul Gawande was a fascinating read and well written.

I had a long period of finding books very ho hum and the odd ones I thought were excellent were frankly tough reads ( eg Shuggie Bain ). My first book of this year was Mr Loverman by Bernadine Evaristo which I thought was 5 star read… and I really don’t give 5 stars very often.

I was in a slump and the Cormoran Strike series by Robert Galbraith got me back into it.

Olive Kitteridge.The most beautifully written book I've read in some time.

Demon Copperhead? Or other books written by Barbara Kingsolver especially The Poisonwood Bible.

Second Olive Kitteridge books - really well written.

Yes, absolutely loved these two as well

Anything by Kate Atkinson will be extremely readable, entertaining and thoughtful. She is very good on the mother/daughter relationship too (eg Behind the scenes at the museum), but perhaps you want distraction from the sadness about your mother, rather than a chance to think more about her loss.

Recently during a time of INCREDIBLE stress I went through a phase of almost obsessive Barbara Vine reading. Real page turners. Crime stories that are extremely interesting psychologically, especially about the relationships among women. The Minotaur and the Chimney Sweepers Son are my favs. (The ones where she centres working class characters are very lame though. She seems to treat all women who are not of her class as a kind of laboratory specimen and studies them under a weirdly distorting microscope.)

lol, this thread has generated a mumsnet ad for 'best slow cookers' on my page. I guess that many of the most readable novels are sloww cookers.

Since Covid times I've been saying to myself and anyone within earshot that I've now got the attention span of a gnat and just can't read for more than 15 minutes as lose interest. Monthly book club reads were left to the last minute then speed-read! It's too easy to get distracted by having a quick look at Mumsnet, newspapers online etc.

However last book club was 'Lessons' by Ian McEwan - my attention span has been restored! You know a book is good when you look up and 90 minutes has passed . A great read.

Valerie Perrin , Fresh Water for Flowers or Forgotten on a Sunday.

Following

Intriguing - honestly unlike anything I've ever read - and fairly short - 'Piranesi' by Susanna Clarke

I LOVED Lessons in Chemistry last year. I have always been an avid reader but children (especially having a baby throughout covid) had reduced my attention span significantly. I'm now reading way more again but mostly very easy books but Lessons in Chemistry was so good. I really loved it. It really spoke to me and reignited reading for me again.

When I feel like this, I make a bit of time to go to a charity shop, pick the book I like best, then go to a cafe/park and I'm not allowed to leave until I've read at least a chapter.

I read that last year and really enjoyed it too.

Couldn't get into The Poisonwood Bible but have been a fan of Elizabeth Strout for the past year or so. Almost read all of her books!

Peaches and honey

One for the blackbird one for the crow

Anything by Colleen Hoover or Taylor Jekins Reid.

The exact same author for me just recently, just with Nine Perfect Strangers! I was reading it at a residential as it was on their shelf and only got so far so took a photo of the page I was at and bought it from World of Books, along with Three Things About Elsie by Joanna Cannon which I also really enjoyed.
I am now reading the second book in the Atticus Priest series by Mark Dawson