In 2020 I decided to get through my reading slump (which had been going on for almost 5 years) and picked up some sci-fi recommendations from this sub. I read two books in a row and haven’t stopped reading more books since!
One of them was Dark Matter and the other one was Recursion, both by Blake Crouch – I really recommend them if you like sci-fi and would like to start reading more often.
Sometimes I think about this and always feel so grateful I found those titles mentioned here. What about you, what book(s) helped you find the greatness in reading again?
by LennethTheCat
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Blake Crouch did an AMA here in /r/books [you might want to take a look](https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/gab306/im_blake_crouch_author_of_many_bestselling_books/) 🙂 . [Here’s a full list of our upcoming AMAs](http://www.reddit.com/r/books/wiki/amafullschedule)
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Mine was ‘Scum villain self saving system’ and ‘love hypothesis’ so easy to read and got me hooked back in
Dark Matter was absolutely one of them for me.
Blood Meridian lit a real fire under my ass in college.
Galapagos
Kurt Vonnegut is a go-to for me after I feel like I have been defeated by literature.
Infinite Jest kind of put me off reading for a bit. It was a lot of work, and I enjoyed it. But I felt like I had to slog through quite a bit to get there. Kinda like playing a video game with friends, but you only play because your friends do. Breakfast of Champions brought me right back.
Chuck Palahniuk’s “Fight club”, I got really tired after reading self-help and really needed something quick
Christopher Paolini’s Murtagh that released last year, helped me get back on the horse. Averaging a longer book or 2 a month since I read that. Previously, a Song of Fire an Ice, got me back into reading after about a 6 month slump. I then read the whole series in a couple weeks
The Inimitable Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse
At the end of 2021, I picked up The Final Girl Support Group at the Barnes & Noble hardcover sale. I had never stopped reading, but being in school definitely slowed how much I was reading. I know Grady Hendrix is polarizing, but I absolutely loved that book, and it quite literally kickstarted me quintupling the amount of reading I was doing.
The Way of Kings. Sanderson. Now I can’t stop
Six of Crows and then the rest of the Grishaverse.
I hadn’t read for a long time due to studying for A levels and the first year of my degree, but then I read Guns Germs and Steel, fell in love with non fiction, and suddenly started reading lots!!
I also had a break from reading for about 3 months as was very stressed with life, and Memoirs of a Geisha got me back into reading..it just sucked me in and was both interesting and somewhat educational, but also an easyish, gentle read!
I usually need something pacey or thrillery. The Silent Patient worked and wasn’t bad. Verity worked and was batshit.
Marissa Meyer’s Renegades series. Won’t reread but at least I am reading again
Dark Matter and Recursion also got me back into reading after literally 20 years of not reading a single book. They are so fast paced it really helped me because I just wanted to know what happened next so much!
Anyway, I think you’d like 11/22/63 if you liked Recursion. It’s a lot longer and while more medium paced, it’s still that feeling of “I need to know what happens” on every page. Also about time travel.
Legends and Lattes. Needed something light and comforting
Anything for Harouki Morakami
hunger games
Hyperion and the fall of Hyperion.
I was in a massive reading slump in 2021 (I read twelve books that year which, for me, was a fraction of what I normally did and the lowest amount of books I’d read a year since I started tracking). It sucked bc I was doing a literature degree at the time and I couldn’t focus enough to enjoy reading.
I read Dan Simmons’s The Terror at the end of November 2021 and it literally put me back on track and opened up a world of genres I had never considered before! In 2022 I read 66 books, so something got required in my brain! I don’t know if it was the book or me or a combo of us both but it worked.
‘Smilla’s Sense of Snow’, by Peter Høeg.
Last year, I decided to join a book group and their next read was “Klara and the Sun” by Kazuo Ishiguro and after that was “Cloud Cuckoo Land.” I enjoyed both (moreso Cloud Cuckoo), there was limited folks attending but kicked my reading into gear! It’s been quite a few years since regularly reading, I really enjoy it again 🙂
Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb. I think it helped that it was the beginning of a series (and a masterpiece of beautiful writing and character development).
Latest was Dune. Which led to me binging all of the originals but DNFing the two sequels his kid and Anderson wrote. And when I say “binge” I mean I got all the books Christmas morning and finished Chapterhouse yesterday.
I always recommend a different genre to break a slump and genre hopping to prevent them.
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel. Starting with graphic novels definetly helped me *want* to read again
I think last year it was Lone Women by Victor LaValle. It also got me interested in Old West/supernatural mashups. Red Rabbit by Alex Grecian is another one I’d recommend if you’re into that blend as well.
Victoria Holt’s Time of the Hunter’s Moon. Starts off slow, but the way all the little hints dropped throughout came together by the end was really satisfying!
The expanse series. Miller is my dog from book #1 and I love the whole rocinante crew