Starting reading again - recommendations please

[bubbletubble]

Hello! Used to love reading as a child / teenager but haven't really picked up a book since being an adult (which is a very long time 🥴).

Would love to get back into reading again, can anyone recommend a good easy read to get my love of reading again? Don’t mind what type of book, could be funny or a good drama / romance, or perhaps a thriller. Not keen on sci-fi but open to pretty much everything else.

Want something that is going to keep me engaged as I reallllllly want to love reading again. Fed up of spending my evenings in front of a screen.
Thank you 🙂

I've just enjoyed Famous Last Words by Gillian McAllister. A thriller with a love story.

I'd recommend Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty. Engaging and easy reading.

I'm currently reading Glasgow Boys by Margaret Macdonald. I'm absolutely loving it! I seem to have been reading books set in either the first or Second World Wars since last autumn, so this is a refreshing change.

Often recommended as a way back into reading on here is re reading something you've loved before.

^This is a great suggestion and is exactly as described

I came in to say try the first book of the No1 Ladies Detective Agency as they always get me reading again but the suggestion above is much better!

Thanks for the recommendations - going to order Big Little Lies! And then work through the other recommendations!

It’s hard to recommend without knowing what sort of thing you like. I’ll list a few books I love and wish I could re-read for the first time:

Robert Graves: Goodbye to All That
Anthony Burgess: Enderby novels
Nemirovsky: Suite Francaise
Primo Levi: The Periodic Table
Hermann Hesse: Siddartha
Doyle: Sherlock Holmes novels
P G Wodehouse: Jeeves and Wooster novels
Aldous Huxley: Chrome Yellow
Evelyn Waugh: Sword of Honour trilogy
Jane Austen: Emma
D H Lawrence: Sons and Lovers
Douglas Adams: Hitchiker’s Guide
Nabokov: Sebastian Knight
Coetzee: Disgrace
Patrick Fermor: A Time of Gifts
Waugh: Decline and Fall

How about listening to some audiobooks? Stephen Fry has recorded all the Sherlock Holmes books, and also quite a lot of P G Wodehouse. Michael Maloney also does a brilliant reading of Chrome Yellow and Waugh’s Decline and Fall.

@Dappy777 thanks for the recommendations I'll add them to my ever growing list 🙂 my problem is I haven't read for so long, I'm not even sure what I like - I'm open to reading pretty much anything other than really far-fetched sci-fi type stories. I used to love an autobiography but there hasn't been anyone's who I really fancied reading that I've seen.

I did think of audiobooks but really trying to move away from screens and know I'll be tempted to scroll instagram / X if it's on my phone.

In Memoriam by Alice Winn

Ordered Big Little Lies - also ordered a couple more books on recommendations from some colleagues....

Round Ireland With A Fridge
Angela's Ashes
Greenlights

Going to start with Big Little Lies and hopefully work my way through the rest. Thanks again for the recommendation.

Try something in diary form-then it won't be overwhelming.
Books of this type that I've enjoyed and that are amusing are:

Diary of a No-Body ( a comfort read for me)
Diary of a Provincial Lady
Adrian Mole 13 and three quarters
The Eliza Stories-not dated diary entries but in written in short chunks, one episode at a time, like a diary.
Bridget Jones

Hungry by Grace Dent
The Cuckoo's Calling - first in the Strike series
Presumed Innocent - Scott Turow
The Island - Victoria Hislop

Can I suggest joining your local library? Ours has ebooks to download for free and even if you don't want to read on a screen, you can try a few and see if they're your sort of thing without buying them.

Also you can borrow physical books too 😀

Good idea for the library! Also, depending on where you live, I'd try a charity shop haul- they're £1 usually, so it doesn't matter if you don't enjoy them, you can just pass them on again.

It’s here! Funny enough, I got the books delivered today (Bought from a secondhand book place online so it was only £10 for all four) but as they got delivered, I literally just thought why didn’t I go to the library 🤣

I love going to my local library. I often pick up a random book that takes my fancy.

I'm currently reading Kristin Hannah "The Four Winds" and really enjoying it. She's written quite a few books which I'm happy about!

Just a quick update for those who care 😆 I started reading Angela’s Ashes yesterday – I appreciate nobody actually recommended it to me on this forum but someone at work recommended it to me so I bought it as I’ve seen the film and thought it might be a little easier to follow given I loosely knew the plot.

Anyway, I have spent yesterday evening reading in bed and an hour this afternoon and I’m 200 pages in! Really enjoying sitting in silence and being away from a screen. Hoping to finish the book by the end of the week and will make a start on Big Little Lies next.

Definitely found my love of reading again after nearly 20 years 📖😊

Lovely update.

Final update from me, I finished Big Little Lies which I really enjoyed - thanks for the recommendation!

And I’ve just finished It Ends With Us. Now starting my 4th book in just over 2 weeks.

I am really excited to be back reading again and have even invested in a Kindle - I don’t sit on my phone all evening now and I don’t watch the iPad when I go to bed and instead read a few chapters.

My sleep has so much better than it has been over the last few months. I really think reading has made a huge difference to my wellbeing. Thanks again for your recommendations I’m going to work my way through them all. X

Great news, thanks for updating.

Oh this is so lovely ❤️

OP I have always enjoyed reading but it really slowed down the last few years or so; once I deleted my Instagram and Facebook apps I started reading so much more. If you’ve got GoodReads it’s a great place to find new books based on what you like or have read before and see reviews etc. I set myself a yearly reading challenge to keep me motivated. Now I’ve got my mojo back I average a book a week and love it.

Last week I started reading Normal People by Sally Rooney, I couldn’t stop, it knocked my socks off, before I knew it, it was daylight! I finished it that day! It was utterly brilliant.

I'd posted this for people like you:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/what_were_reading/5308048-great-short-books-a-year-of-reading-briefly

I've recently started reading fantasy books. Some romantasy books but it's more the story and less on romance. I've read a couple great ones already.

Quicksilver by Callie Hart
Throne Of Glass by Sarah J Maas

Both excellent reads.