reading recs from beyond the reading slump grave
Back in high school, I had a hard time finishing any book. Whether it was for pleasure or school, I couldn't stomach anything denser than a volume of manga. This was strange for me, as you couldn't rip me away from my books if you wanted to just a few years earlier, yet suddenly it was as if the entire act of reading became uninteresting. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy reading, I just couldn't get my brain to focus on the act as I had convinced myself there was always going to be something better to do (like... watching YouTube on my phone). That was until I pulled American Kingpin by Nick Bilton off of my dad's bookshelf and took it to school with me. It was my first nonfiction book for pleasure, but it wouldn't be the last. The book is an excellent work of narrative journalism, and follows various players in the case of the Silk Road, a dark web drug empire run by a college student from his bedroom. I had tried getting back into reading for years and failed, rereading old favorites to no avail or catching up with the latest adult fiction crazes, but nothing worked. Only something real (and actually exciting) could pull me out of that slump, it seemed.
In the years since, I've grown very fond of nonfiction, and while I still enjoy fiction from time to time, I turn in the direction of the classics more often than not for my fiction fix. This isn't to say fiction is to blame for my reading slump, rather that I wasn't looking in the right places for recommendations. I thought BookTube or the internet had the answers to my reading slump, but the books that got my back into reading (fiction and nonfiction) were on my dad's bookshelf back at home or in independent bookstores. If you feel stuck, or like nothing is calling out to you, here are my recommendations:
Fiction:
- Fowl Eulogies by Lucie Rico
- Lord of the Flies by William Golding
- Houseboy by Ferdinand Oyono
Personal Essays, Creative Nonfiction, & Philosophy:
- The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green
- When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams
- Every Time I Find the Meaning of Life, They Change It by Daniel Klein
Biography:
- American Kingpin by Nick Bilton
Poetry:
- Dog Songs by Mary Oliver
- The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy edited by John Brehm
Manga:
- Skip & Loafer by Misaki Takamatsu
- Blue Lock by Muneyuki Kaneshiro
- Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku by Fujita
These days, my nonfiction preferences lean in the direction of personal essays and philosophy, so if you have any recommendations for me, or have read any of the books I listed and want to chat about them, send me an email!
Happy reading :)