Please help me .start reading again I am desperate

[chegirl]

I know its a bit needy cheeky but I could do with a hand.

I used to read a lot,since I was tiny. I loved books. I also studied so read academic stuff no problem.

Then my beautiful girl got very sick. I coped by not thinking to deeply or concentrating on much other than her and the kids. Then we lost her and I just seemed unable to concentrate anymore at all.

I tried to start my degree again and simply could not cope with the required reading

I miss it so much. I am sick of the tv and spend far to much time on the mumsnet the internet.

My favourite writer is Barbara Comyns but I have read all hers. I HATE misery lit with a passion. I enjoyed Coming Home and The Cammomile Lawn. I liked The Lovely Bones. My guilty pleasure is Monica Dickens.

I love the classics but find them too hard to get through so listen to them on audio. Hardy is my fav.

I suppose I like to read about people, specially ecentrics.

I need something very well written but not too complex as my concentration is still not 100%. I like biogs but not slebs stuff. I am afraid I am not ready for anything too gut/heart wrenching.

Is there any hope for me? Can anyone please help. If I get some good suggestions I will go right to Amazon and order them. I want to regain a pleasure that I have lost due to that fecking illness that took my girl

Bit dramatic but its true (or how I feel at least).

Ta

I have just ordered 3 books from amazon. I wont say which ones just now. Have also made a note of the others for when I am shopping and can browse the charity shops

janeite thanks for that note. I would consider children's books. Though I have to say anything specifically aimed at young teenage girls would probably upset me. DD was a prolific reader and I loved buying books for her.

I think I am really ready to start reading again. I suppose I had to wait till it was right. I may never have to watch daytime tv ever again

That's great! Do hope it works out for you - you deserve some joy after all you've been through.

Confessions of a failed southern lady - Florence King

Any of Alice Hoffman

Do you think you could read a thriller?

My sister who was really struggling to read loved William Shatner's Biog. She reckoned it was terribly funny.

I really love Barbara Comyns' books too. Anne Tyler, more Mary Wesley, Nancy Mitford's novels, Jessica's memoirs. They all seem to be out of print but I enjoyed Elizabeth Pewsey's Mountjoy books if you can find any of them secondhand - they're about eccentric independent minded characters in a small fictitious Yorkshire town, I think. You might also enjoy Molly Keane aka M J Farrell - again, I'm not sure how easy to find they are - like Barbara Comyns, she was rediscovered by Virago. Stevie Smith, Sybille Bedford, Barbara Trapido, Kate Atkinson, Rose Macaulay.

Memoirs by people who are not celebrities but have really good stories to tell - Jennifer Worth's Call the Midwife, by a woman who trained as a midwife with an order of nuns in the East End in the 1950s, though she wasn't one herself. I'm currently reading her third book of memoirs, Farewell to the East End. Winifred Foley's memoir of growing up in the New Forest is recently reprinted under a new title which I can't remember just now.