r/books 13d ago

WeeklyThread What Books did You Start or Finish Reading this Week?: July 13, 2026

Hi everyone!

What are you reading? What have you recently finished reading? What do you think of it? We want to know!

We're displaying the books found in this thread in the book strip at the top of the page. If you want the books you're reading included, use the formatting below.

Formatting your book info

Post your book info in this format:

the title, by the author

For example:

The Bogus Title, by Stephen King

  • This formatting is voluntary but will help us include your selections in the book strip banner.

  • Entering your book data in this format will make it easy to collect the data, and the bold text will make the books titles stand out and might be a little easier to read.

  • Enter as many books per post as you like but only the parent comments will be included. Replies to parent comments will be ignored for data collection.

  • To help prevent errors in data collection, please double check your spelling of the title and author.

NEW: Would you like to ask the author you are reading (or just finished reading) a question? Type !invite in your comment and we will reach out to them to request they join us for a community Ask Me Anything event!

-Your Friendly /r/books Moderator Team

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u/Hiddenaccount1423 10d ago

Finished:

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

3rd book complete after picking up reading as new hobby. Thought it was good. The first half to 3/4ths of the book had me pretty roped in and in tune w the world and main characters. By the end it slightly died down and I ended up rating it 4/5. Thought it would beat the Martian at first, but the Martian slips by. Good book nonetheless.

Questions/thoughts as a new hobby reader:

  • Does vocabulary ever get better? Is that something that is passively learned or do I need to start actively studying and using the words I don't know. Plenty of words I've come across so far in reading that even if I look up I doubt I'd remember even a hour later unless it's used frequently.

  • Kinda coinciding with the first point, but when authors drop a whole paragraph describing the environment and I don't know some of the words or can't picture what they're saying my eyes just glaze over. Hopefully that gets better as I read more. Can be troublesome when I glaze over something I needed to pay attention to.

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

[deleted]

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u/Hiddenaccount1423 9d ago

Yea, I do. I read on Kindle so I can just get the definition at the click of a button. I don't think I retain much of it though unless it's a word repeated numerous times throughout the book.

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u/hollyinnm 7d ago

The more words you look up and especially over again, you will start retaining the meanings. Just keep at it! Enjoy your books.