so, as stated in the title, i'm ALWAYS on here recommending books to as many people as possible, but despite being able to constantly recommend this or that, i've been in the absolute worst reading slump ever since april of this year. i think it might be due to me having had to put down my cat in the beginning of april as well my ADHD medication being changed and it not working nearly as well as it used to, so my attention is just……not there. i read to escape reality, so this has been a really shitty time for me to not be able to read. 🙁
on the rare occasion that i'd get into a reading slump in the past, i'd just pick up an old fave and i'd immediately be back into the swing of things. not anymore. i've tried reading my all-time-faves by ebook/audiobook/hardcopy, etc, and i just can't care and nothing is holding my attention. this is a nightmare.
actually, i have managed to read ONE book since april, (The Ice Dragon by George R. R. Martin), but it was less than 70 pages and i think it only held my attention at all because i've been super into anything connected to House of the Dragon. i've read A Game of Thrones and it's one of the best books i've ever read, but i tried picking it up again, and pretty much put it right back down because i was bored and just couldn't care to move past page 3. i picked up the second book in the series and didn't even make it past the first page.
i even tried reading The Princess and the Queen which should be the EASIEST book for me to read because it's the origin story for House of the Dragon, but despite it being just over 100 pages, i just cannot get more than 5 pages into it (or the audiobook) without saying fuck it and bookmarking it for another day. rinse and repeat.
this keeps happening with every single book i pick up. even a book that i had been waiting MONTHS and MONTHS for it to come out, i haven't even tried reading any of it despite it sitting in my bookcart. it's that bad.
i've tried reading new authors, trying new genres, and nothing is working. i live in hell.
i was going to include a list of my favorite books to give you all an idea of what i like, but since i can't even care to read my favorites anymore, i think that would just be pointless, so i'll just list what i definitely don't want to read:
no romance/smut books (romantasy is fine, but straight romance/rom-com books are a definite no)
no books that include animal abuse/harm/neglect/death or, if it does, it has to be minimal, not incredibly graphic/gory, and not there just for shock value a la nick cutter books.
no stephen king, colleen hoover, riley sager, jk rowling, or frieda mcfadden (i've tried multiple stephen king books and he's just not for me, coho is just a no-no, i've never read a sager book that i've liked, jk rowling is on my shit-list, and i've blacklisted frieda mcfadden due to her rampant plagiarizing).
no domestic thrillers as they're all the same to me. even when i'm not in a slump, i just don't care for them in general.
no war/post-war/holocaust books,
no sweeping generational stories (Pachinko, The Covenant of Water, etc) as generational trauma touches a bit too close to home and i read to escape my life
preferably no coming-of-age books
if you've gotten this far, i really appreciate it. if there's anything i can add that will help in recommending me something that i can actually finish, please let me know!!!! i don't care if it's 5 pages, or 500. if you think it's something that will pull me out of this horrific slump, i'll give it a shot.
thank you soooo much!!!!
by wifeunderthesea
14 Comments
Have you considered anything by Abraham Verghese? His writing is simply beautiful and I found the stories to be interesting and engaging. His most recent is [The Covenant of Water](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63429926-the-covenant-of-water).
I’ve had several reading slumps over the years and while I’m not a big crime reader, I have found them helpful getting back into the habit of reading as the plot is pulled forward in such a significant way.
My recommendations would be:
The Dry by Jane Harper – set in rural Australia, quite dark and creeping vibes. First in a series of three.
Dissolution by CJ Sansom – told by a hunchback lawyer in Tudor England and focuses on a murder in a monastery that is being dissolved. First in an excellent series. It has been made into a TV show but I couldn’t get through episode 1.
Cold Granite by Stuart MacBride – tartan noir at its finest! It’s in Aberdeen, very dark but also very funny. It’s the first in the Logan McRae series.
For what it’s worth, I can’t stand Stephen King either 🤷🏻♀️
ETA – and the book I’m currently re-reading to try and move the slump, The Girl with the dragon tattoo by Steig Larsson.
These are quite different to my usual reading choices, but each got me out of a slump. Maybe one can do the same for you.
[West With Giraffes](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56600370-west-with-giraffes) by Lynda Rutledge
[Strange Sally Diamond](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/182089384-strange-sally-diamond) by Liz Nugent
[The Moonlight Gardening Club](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/200523028-the-moonlight-gardening-club) by Rosie Hannigan
Have you tried short story collections? It’s a tough one to recommend when you say even your favourites are not working.
A sci-fi collection I adore (and got me into her as a kid) is The Winds Twelve Quarters by Ursula LeGuin.
Another sci-fi I find easy to read is Becky Chambers and they aren’t too long.
Roald Dahls short stories are good, a bit dark and twisty.
The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt. I’m obsessed with her book The Last Samurai but that’s a long one so you could try this shorter story.
As a Wife Under the Sea you could try Salt Slow by Julia Armfield if you haven’t already.
Things like PG Wodehouse Jeeves and Wooster series are just light and easy to read and very silly. So no intense commitment needed. Similarly Douglas Adams Hitchhikers or Dirk Gently series.
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie a great crime novel to hook you in.
Other random books that I absolutely devoured
– Shark Heart by Emily Habeck
– Betty by Tiffany McDaniel
– Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood (non-fiction)
– The Harpy by Megan Hunter
– Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
– The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki
– I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
– The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
– The Vorkosigan Saga series by Lois McMaster Bujold
Hope you can get back into it!
Fellow ADHDer here – how about some impactful shorter books to shake you out of it and build the muscle back up?
Y/N by Esther Yi
I Who Have Never Known Men
The Yellow Wallpaper
Giovanni’s Room
Hôtel Du Lac
Small Things Like Thèse
An Artist of the Floating World
Treacle Walker
Have you read Babel by RF Kuang? It helped get me out of a reading slump just recently.
However, if you want something really different, I can suggest some African authors for you. I’m just afraid the books I love may be triggering since most of the authors I know love writing sad books.
The first book I can suggest is Allah Is Not Obliged by Ahmadou Korouma. It’s a book written from the perspective of a little boy who becomes a child soldier during the Liberian civil war. The book approaches this theme of war from a humorous perspective while touching on some sad subjects such as child abuse during war. It’s still very funny and interesting and will give you perspective about what life was like in West Africa when it was torn by war.
Another book I’d recommend is Second Class Citizen by Buchi Emecheta. It’s about this lady who decides to move to the UK with her husband and kids but everything falls apart. Her husband ends up being a huge douchebag and he ends up abusing her and her kids. This book never fails to make me angry.
I know that the books I’ve recommended do not fit your description but one thing I do appreciate about them is how they touch on these heavy subjects with a bit of humour too. Plus, maybe what you need to get out of a reading slump is reading books from other cultures.
I’ll suggest Allah Is Not Obliged more than Second Class Citizen though…based on your description
Ray Bradbury was an excellent shortstoryist (if that’s a word). I would try a collection of his. Some are very short and some are quite long. He covers a variety of genres so you always get something different. It might be a good way to ease yourself back into reading. It tends to work for me. Good luck. I lost my kitty this year too so I know how hard that is.
So I will suggest some books I always suggest, because they got me out of reading slumps and they’ve also gotten others out of slumps. They’re non-fiction, but they’re so far away from my life that it still feels like an escape.
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer (one of my fav books to read and to rec; it feels like another world)
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain (I rec the audiobook because it’s like listening to your batshit wild uncle tell hilarious and oddly insightful stories)
If you’ve never read The Lost Dogs, you’ve missed out on a real treat. You may or may not know that Michael Vick, an NFL quarterback, was involved in a dog fighting ring, and owned many dogs who had been, as a consequence of training techniques for this activity, abused. The book is about the reclamation and re-homing of many if not most of those specific dogs, the ones that used to belong to Vick.
Tinderbox: the Past and Future of Pakistan, by MJ Akbar, was really remarkable. One of the best history books of the last twenty years at least, and an easy to get into introduction to a region I for one knew very little about before I picked up the book kind of by accident in the library. Highly recommended.
I can’t let you go without finally recommending the Melvin Urofsky biography of Louis Brandeis. This book opens up the life of this nation after 1900 or so in a way that really brings to life all the effervescent uncertainty that people were in at the time, the hope and the peril and the exciting uncertainty of it all. I’ve never read a better biography, and the book really kind of encouraged me to get absorbed into the life of the early part of the 20th century in America.
All three are remarkable books, and I’m sure any of them will get you out of your slump! I hope!
{{ The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman }}
I’d like to take a different tack here. You may be depressed. Losing your beloved cat is a perfectly good reason to be depressed. Being depressed can prevent you from paying attention to even things you really love, and definitely can prevent reading books. My lowest point was chemotherapy a few years ago. I couldn’t even read long newspaper articles. Take my advice for what it’s worth, and try short stories as someone else suggested.
The Elegance of the Hedgehog
What are some of your favorite books?
Daisy Jones and the Six
First lie Wins
Kill Show
Night watching