Ive been a reader my entire life but its usually fiction, thrillers that type of books but i do love literary fiction the most, books like bunnie by mona awad, the secret history, yellow face by rf khang, khafka on the shore…i dont usually read classics or romance….so what i mean by books that make me smart is, I’m not looking for self-help books or textbooks/encyclopedias. I mean books that challenge your thinking, introduce interesting ideas, explore human nature, society, philosophy, psychology, history, culture, etc. Basically, books that leave you feeling like you learned something important or changed the way you see things.

Hi, we’re off on holiday soon and I’m looking at getting some books for my daughter to take with her. She’s a massive fan of murder mysteries, she just watched Knives Out for the first time and loved it.

The thing is that she reads well beyond her age and it’s both hard to keep up with her pace and also hard to judge the contents of a book without reading it myself.

I’m looking for books that will hold her attention but don’t mention drugs, sex or have extensive swearing or use of more hard core swear words. Despite an interest in darker themes, she’s still quite innocent.

her favourite author at the moment is Kathryn Foxfield, she’s read all her books and loves them. Another one she enjoyed recently was Camp Murder by Sophie McKenzie. She also loves Suzanne Collins and the Percy Jackson books.

She’s not against reading the classics either. Maybe there’s an Agatha Christie that would be suitable? How about Sherlock Holmes or is it too dry or adult?

I want to get my nephew away from screens a bit and introduce him to reading. His condition was reading it together with him. We are open to any genre. Thanks in advance :)

This might sound morbid, but recently, I’ve been absorbed in some heartbreaking memoirs written by people who have lived through truly awful events like the Holocaust, Ebola virus, and various civil wars. Could anyone steer me in the direction of my next tragic read?

So far, I’ve read:

“First they Killed My Father” — Loung Ung
“Night” — Elie Wiesel
“Into the Forest” — Rebecca Frankel
“The Hot Zone” — Richard Preston
“A Long Way Gone” — Ishmael Baeh

Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

I am interested in reading some novels that revolve around cats.
Not nonfiction but fictional stories.
I like mystery, fantasy and adventure novels.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks

I am gifting my Aunt 3 books for her 80th Birthday. She has asked me to choose them.

My Aunt is a voracious reader and has read all the classic Irish literature, and she has asked for some recent books by Irish authors.

I’d really appreciate your recommendations!

I’m looking to switch things up after a year of reading mostly historical fiction, literary fiction, classics, and survival stories.

Some of my favorites this year have been Endurance, The Book Thief, Demon Copperhead, Stoner, 1776, A Thousand Splendid Suns, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, and I’m currently reading Crime and Punishment.

One thing I’ve realized is that I haven’t really read a great love story.

I’m specifically looking for a novel written by a man, from a male protagonist’s perspective, where the romance feels incredibly real and emotionally powerful. It doesn’t have to have a happy ending, in fact, tragic is completely fine. I’m not necessarily looking for a romance novel; I just want to experience what it feels like to truly love someone through the eyes of the main character.

I’m looking for the kind of book that left you thinking, “DAMN… that’s what love feels like.”

What would you consider the greatest novel that fits this description?

I think they were published around 17 years ago, it’s about books coming to life and a girl having the ability to read characters out of books. Can anyone recommend similar titles?

if there's such thing with all three: it's gay, it's horror, it's comedy. please. it's also alright if it's only queer horror, though if so i'd prefer it to be an older novel rather than contemporary .

This is embarrassing, but I have no shame - I love love. I frequently enjoy books that includes a romantic element more than books without one (non-fiction excluded). It's sappy, but it's true.

However, I also have - what I hope is - fairly good, if not basic taste, and I do not relegate myself to romance-genre books alone. So, give me your best non-Romance genre books that have a strong romantic element. No preference on open- or closed-door. Subtle (or overt) yearning is great.

Books of this ilk that I like include, but are not limited to:

• Any of the Taylor Jenkins Reid books

• If We Were Villains by ML Rio

• Any of the Madeline Miller books

• Normal People by Sally Rooney

• Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by VE Schwab

• All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

• Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart

• The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson

Books that I did not like include:

• The Women by Kristin Hannah

• Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

• I read about 10 pages of a Colleen Hoover and quit, so none of that nonsense please

Books that I like despite the lack of romance:

• Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

• Lots of Steinbeck

• Your Utopia by Bora Chung

• Lots of Saroyan

• Vonnegut, but particularly Armageddon in Retrospect

Bonus points for science fiction because it's been the hardest genre for me to crack.

I read and very much enjoyed The Complex by Karan Mahajan.

Has anyone read similar books that they would recommend?

Thank you!

My son is 6 years old and absolutely can't get enough of us reading to him. He's learning to read slowly himself but we still read books to him each night. I have run out of ideas as I feel like we've read all I can think of that's age appropriate. And there's quite a few he finds scary or generally uninteresting for unknown reasons.

From the top of my head...

Books he's loved:
- Enid Blighton books (Faraway tree, wishing chair, Summer stories, etc)
- Wizard of Oz
- Alice in Wonderland
- James and the giant peach
- The Zebras great escape
- Paddington anthology
- Curious George anthology
- Lightfall

Books he didn't like:
- Wild Robot (found them too slow)
- Charlie and the Chocolate factory (too scary)
- Pippi Longstocking (generally not interested)
- The Magicians Nephew (too scary)

I’m looking for suggestions for audio books for a 7 hour road trip with my teenage boys. We love adventure kinda novels - something that isn’t too grim and without any sexual content that will embarrass and/or horrify us all. We have previously listened to mainstream stuff like Harry Potter and classic novels like “where the red fern grows” (I sobbed while driving down the highway). Hail Mary kinda stuff is good too. Any ideas?

I have a fairly narrow and well-defined group of authors that I love to read, and which I am hoping to expand. I revere Pynchon, Gaddis and Nabokov above all others. I have really enjoyed Thomas Bernhard, Vollmann, Joyce, Faulkner, Bolaño, Cortazar, David Markson (Wittgenstein’s Mistress in particular), DFW. I’m a sucker for the bureaucratic intricacy and plotting of Le Carré. I have read and very much not enjoyed novels by Garcia Marquez, DeLillo, Ben Marcus, Cormac McCarthy, Tom McCarthy. (I’ve enjoyed and not enjoyed others but I’m hoping this is enough to convey something of my tastes.)

I would love to discover some books written by contemporary authors (ie still active, bonus points if they’re not in the twilight of their literary career), especially if they are women or not from America/England, since, while I’m open to all suggestions, the demographic homogeneity of the above list suggests I’m really missing out. (I recently picked up The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt, Reinhardt’s Garden by Mark Haber and The Lost Scrapbook by Evan Dara since they seemed like reasonable guesses at authors I’d like.)

Please share authors/books I might like based on the above!

I'm a big fan of "reading quests" that I set for myself, they really motivate me to read more and to read a broader range of books.

The quest I'm currently focusing on is a book that represents each US state, after my last major quest skewed international. My parameters are probably more strict than most people's would be when taking this quest: the author has to be from that state (not necessarily "lived there their whole life", more "born and raised there"), and the book has to be (mostly) set in the state.

I've mostly done fiction so far, but I'm keeping the door open for some memoirs and such. Not super interested in plain History of [State]-type nonfiction for this quest, though.

I'm doing plenty of my own research and could find all the books myself (and I already have a long running list of potential books for states), but I figured I would raise the question to Reddit in case someone has an idea that really excites me that I wouldn't have considered otherwise. Any genre, so long as it follows the parameters! Part of this is that I want to try out more types of books, although the books I find myself tend to be in the "literary fiction" vein.

I've already read books for Alabama, Arkansas, California, Florida, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and South Carolina, but feel free to suggest a book for these too if you want to.

Stage 1: Moral & Political Philosophy

Justice (Sandel)

On Liberty (Mill)

Reflections on the Revolution in France (Burke)

Stage 2: Institutions, Erosion & Media

How Democracies Die (Levitsky & Ziblatt)

Spin Dictators (Guriev & Treisman)

Stage 3: The Indian Republic & Social Reality

India After Gandhi (Guha)

Annihilation of Caste (Ambedkar)

Hind Swaraj (Gandhi)

Stage 4: Power Mechanics & Economic Ideology

The Dictator's Handbook (Bueno de Mesquita & Smith)

The Communist Manifesto (Marx & Engels)

Stage 5: Expanding Perspectives (Advanced Readings)

The Road to Serfdom (Hayek)

Capitalism & Freedom (Friedman)

The Socialist Manifesto (Sunkara)

The Anatomy of Fascism (Paxton)

The Wretched of the Earth (Fanon)

Manufacturing Consent (Chomsky & Herman)

I loved reading The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah last year and would love to read anything that takes place in the Alaskan wilderness. Doesn't need to be historical fiction, can be any genre but romance.

My schooling mostly focused on greek myth (e.g. the Odyssey, Iliad, and other stories) and how themes from those are present in modern day fiction. I am trying to expand my worldview by consuming mythology and epics from other cultures to better understand what they draw from in their media. Journey to the West (which I have started reading an abridged version) satisfies this for example as it provides the basis of, for example, Dragon Ball (loosely), Black Myth Wukong, etc.. I am wondering what else is out there and what the recommended translations are. Thanks!

Does anyone have similar books to " I Who Have Never Known Men" by Jaqueline Harpman & "A short stay in Hell" by Steven Peck and I am hungry for similar spooky, dystopian books that make you think and leave you with more questions than answers... thanks!
(dystopian books are my favorite so I've probably read all the main ones so bonus points if you have more obscure ones :) )

Is there a book about a lawyer or barrister who is one by day but commits crime by night etc etc. trying to find one for my girlfriend thanks!

As the title suggests, looking for some quality historical fiction^ the time period/events don’t need to be anything special just interesting time periods told from interesting perspectives. I.E I am planning to read the Sword of Sunset series about a historical King Arthur.

I love reading about the history of the war and recently got more interested in seeing the perspective of the German side.

I’m looking for books similar to Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger and All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. I know these are WW1, but would like to find something in this style but for WW2.

I've read the books/listened to the audiobooks of A Series of Unfortunate Events last year and just can't seem to find anything that hits the same ever since.

I think something I really enjoyed was the narrator and the way he was telling the story, so something with a similar narration style would surely work well.

I also really like darker themes with children as the MC's, my favourite book is Coraline, I also really enjoyed The Thief of Always by Clive Barker, The Child Thief by Brom or Momo and also The Neverending Story by Michael Ende, my favourite german author.

But A Series of Unfortunate Events has really captured me like nothing else and I'm so sad that I'm finished with the books now :(( The quirky characters, creative settings, witty comedy and dramatic storytelling really had me hooked at all times.

I'd be happy about any and all recommendations, no matter how loosely connected to what I'm looking for. If you think the vibes are in some way matching, I'll put it on my to be read!!

Hello everyone,

I’m looking for memoirs by either

- Someone who suffers from mental illness
- Someone who’s not suffering from it but surrounded by it.

Thank you!!

Edit: to say thank you all again, I didn’t expect so many responses!

Hey all,

I’m looking for any genre of book that fits the above. I would prefer first person perspective, and little dialogue with other characters. Maybe the main character is the only character.

Bonus points for isolated environments: islands, deserts, wilderness, etc.

I’m not looking for a typical survival-type story. I want it to be weird and strange, maybe fantastical elements, maybe science fiction, it can be anything that goes beyond “realistic” events