I am interested in any fiction genre. I don't want non-fiction and i'm not looking for any self help type book. What I am envisioning is a novel where the protagonist confronts this reality or such!

Hello! I’m a teen girl who hasn’t read books outside of the ones required for my school. I want to start reading but I fear my reading comprehension isn’t that good. Please reco some books that are good for total beginners. Preferably no romance

I’ve seen a lot of people recommending me to go to libraries but unfortunately, we really don't have a lot of libraries in our country. The closest one to me is my school library but it doesn’t really have a good selection and the process of borrowing a book is actually quite difficult unfortunately

Hey y'all

My local library updated their fall prompts for their adult reading challenge and I'm looking for suggestions to fit them. Any genre is good to suggest!

1. A book with annotations or end notes

2. A book published in 2026

3. A book with a cover including or based on a painting

4. A locked room mystery

5. A book you can read in one sitting - currently doing "Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again" for this

6. A book with the words "pumpkin spice" or "latte" in the title

7. A collection of horror stories

8. A book set in a national Park, Forest, or wildlife area

9. A book that features a character with chronic pain or mental illness - considering The Shining for this

10. A book containing magical creatures

craving some cool spy stuff. any era works!

The last few years I've become really interested in the depiction of faeries or fairies in speculative fiction. I've read the following books which contain some faerie characters I've liked:

* The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter

* Some Kind of Fairy Tale, Graham Joyce

* Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke

* Fearie Tales: Stories of the Grimm and Gruesome, (edited by) Stephen Jones

I guess I like them as characters because of their mysterious, inhuman and manipulative nature.

I'm curious whether someone knows more fiction that contains them, either modern speculative fiction (fantasy, horror, scifi etcetera) or older folkloric tales. I hope it's clear that I'm not looking for romantasy or faeries as ideal love interests. I like the image of them as elusive and amoral. Apart from that, I'm open to inventive interpretations.

Thank you for reading!

I've watched Shutter Island, Inception, and The Prestige a bunch of times and want to try getting that same feeling from a book, but I've barely read fiction before, so I don't know where to start or what's actually "beginner friendly" in this genre.

What I like specifically: not just a surprise ending, but stories where you genuinely can't trust what's happening as you're reading it — unreliable narrators, timelines that don't add up, stuff that makes you go back and reread earlier chapters once you know the truth.

I'd rather start with one really good, accessible pick than a long list I won't get through. Bonus if it's not too long or dense for a first-timer.

I found an old copy of Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann (which I first read in the 1980s!) started reading from halfway through and am riveted! Is there anything else out there that's anything like as good? (Aside from Jackie Collins.) I read The Love Machine and Once is Not Enough also by Jacqueline Susann but they're not as good as Valley of the Dolls. I heard that Howard Robbins' The Carpet Baggers was about old Hollywood, but I never read that one. I'm primarily thinking of trash fiction but it doesn't have to be trash. Just riveting!

Hi all,
I run a book club for my university where we discuss books that are generally related to climate and society, but very flexible in general. I’ve had requests to read some books about AI but I’m having trouble finding books that are realistic, but aren’t heavily biased one way or another. I’ve been looking through book reviews but can only seem to find tons from AI tech bros who swear that these books prove AI is the future. Happy to read either fiction or non fiction, but just looking for some suggestions. Thanks!

So basically, I bought The Crying of Lot 49 to read during my shifts (I don’t have shit to do bro) and thought this would be a good pickup as my second novel EVER due to the length and reverence for the author.

Long story short, I somehow got my ass kicked by a book, any suggestions for a reader like me who wants to get into postmodern fiction but is a bit too dim for Pynchon and Nabokov?

This is one of the mangas i really enjoyed, it’s just really fucking hard to ignore the author’s obvious fetishes. The thing I really liked about this is the world building and I hope to read a book similar to it. Preferably no romance (,; ⩌ ;,)

Hey guys, I’m working on an internship and wanted to find Good books to compliment my research on homelessness. The class I’m in is about race relations, and I wanted to see what books would tackle homelessness for minority populations that you would recommend.

Thanks!

I am looking for memoirs that include healing from SA/CSA trauma to add to my library and TBR list. The ones I ALREADY have are: Nobody's Girl, Glimmer, The Tell, A Hymm to Life, Next of Kin, What My Bones Know. Thanks!

I am a sucker for a really good setting, which can be dangerous because I end up watching awful movies with great settings.

I am looking for a Mystery/Thriller that has maybe a ski lodge or mountain town setting with an isolated trapped feeling, not The Shining however. (think the isolation factor of the Thing, Firewatch or Voices of the Void meets Scooby Doo or Murder on the Orient Express.) There was a hardy boys book I read growing up in which they got snowed into a ski lodge that was my favorite. I also just finished Plum Island and enjoyed the mystery that unfolded in that just not a huge fan of John Corey. In my adult life I have not read very many adult books as college was all required reading so I apologize all my reference material is Young Adult. Also a big fan of Colson Whiteheads writing style if that contributed anything.

Hi, im looking for a fantasy book that features a character slowly descending into madness. I’m a huge fan of Anakin Skywalker’s character arc in Star Wars and I’d love to read something similar with a truly unhinged and dark main character who becomes monstrous.

(I’ve already read the poppy war and she who became the sun, which I believe are quite popular in that subgenre)

As the title says!

Please suggest me a book where Valencia is central to the book. It may or may not be directly about Valencia, but if you removed Valencia from it, it would not be the same. A book that will help quell my yearning to return there sooner than reality permits.

The book may have or not have oranges or Agua Valencia, it may or may not have Fiesta's with Spain's finest dressed to the gillies in their lace and sashes. It may have large indoor markets with Bellota Jamon stacked several aisles deep, it may feature galleys returning from Eastern shores with their keels dragging onto shallow shores as their hulls threaten to burst and flood the coast line with saffron, ginger, cardamom.

It would be great for it to have priests, and nuns, and merchants, apothecaries with the latest cure-alls from Morocco, next to the Space Port that masquerades during the day as La Ciutat. There may be secret societies that sail boats along Rio Turia, while oblivious joggers run alongside them on the Jardin, wondering why it is so cool yet they seem encumbered.

Suggest me a book that enchants me, like Valencia.

Thanks for trying.

I’m looking for a Wild West / western / cowboy book with gay male characters and/or related storylines. I’m not opposed to romance plots, but I don’t want any romance genre books - especially those with shirtless cowboys on the cover. Nothing against them, just want something a bit deeper.

I really have been on a kick trying to find weird books that are either really absurd, goofy or odd in structure, tone, vibe and/or setting. I'm editing my novel and looking for some good books to help me out or simply entertain or inspire me a bit. For reference, I just finished Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Harumi Murakami, and I also love books like Life for Sale, Convenience Store Woman, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Strange Weather in Tokyo, Tatami Galaxy or Beer in the Snooker Club.

Thanks!

I am interested in reading The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker. I’m turned off by his other books and a Google search shows he’s tied to rfk jr.

I’d love a different book similar to Gift of Fear, about listening to your gut and trusting your instincts, I’d absolutely love if it was written by a woman.

I’ve read “Why does he do that?” By Lundy Bancroft as well.

Thanks!

I'm looking for a book, or preferably a book series, that I can completely disappear into, but I'm struggling to describe exactly what I'm after because it's more of a feeling than a genre..The closest visual I can give is of a young guy standing somewhere high up, looking out over an enormous futuristic city, another planet, or even the universe itself, with the feeling that his life is about to become infinitely bigger than the ordinary life he knew before. There's a sense of awe, possibility, loneliness, and excitement all mixed together.

I want immersive escapism. A world that feels like somewhere I could mentally move into and actually imagine having another life there. Some things I'm looking for, A young protagonist, preferably male, or at least a cast of young characters. A strong sense of being young while standing at the edge of something enormous, the universe, the future, another civilization, a revolution, etc. Team/crew dynamics are a big one. I want a group of characters who gradually become the people. Friends, teammates, squad members, found family, people who banter, argue, go on adventures together, save each other, maybe betray each other, but genuinely feel like a group I'd want to belong to.

A speculative setting, Small Town America, science fiction, aliens, futuristic societies, dystopias, space, hidden worlds, supernatural elements, etc. I'm flexible about the exact genre. Romance and attraction woven naturally into the story. It doesn't need to be the main plot, but I like relationships that make the world feel emotionally alive.

A sense of mystery and discovery, where the characters gradually realize the world is much bigger or stranger than they initially thought. Cosmic scale combined with intimate emotions, the universe can be enormous, but I still want moments of friendship, loneliness, love, and people sitting together talking after everything goes wrong. The closest TV vibe I can think of is CW's Star-Crossed. Not necessarily because I need the exact same plot, but because of that combination of young people, aliens/another civilization, romance, integration between worlds, secrets, conspiracy, and the feeling that something extraordinary has become part of everyday life.

Musically, I'm chasing something like the emotional atmosphere of Kina's "Get You the Moon" and Ellie Goulding's "Burn." I know that sounds bizarre for a book recommendation, but hopefully someone understands what I mean... yk melancholy mixed with euphoria, nighttime loneliness mixed with hope, feeling small beneath something enormous while also feeling like your life could become something extraordinary.

I think I have a soft spot for that very particular 2010s YA/CW feeling, beautiful, cinematic, emotional, slightly melodramatic, full of possibility. The kind of story where you can imagine an Ellie Goulding song playing over a scene of the characters looking out at the stars after surviving something together. Basically, I don't just want a good plot. I want to fall into a world and temporarily wish I lived there.

I've read Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick (abouth ordinary life in North Korea), and now I'm looking for a similar, more recent publication about history of this country - or South Korea, Taiwan, China, or any other country roughly within this region. Any suggestions?

P. S. I'm currently going through Iris Chang's bibliography.

Thanks!

Proust is my favorite author. And when I say Proust, I don't mean that I want novels about time or childhood memories or "long sentences and flowery prose" necessarily, although I like flowery prose and complex sentence-structure. I love his phenomneological view that comes out in his writing, meticulous detail, how he finds concepts and the eternal in everyday situations.

When looking for authors like him, I got two recommendations: Peter Nádas and Clarice Lispector.

Can anyone confirm or deny these recommendations I found on the internet or recommend other authors?

I’m about 150 pages from the end and already thinking about what’s next. Really enjoying EoE though. Ideally looking for something under 300 pages.

After this shorter book, I’m planning a reread of Brothers Karamazov. Generally have loved things from Murakami, to Kafka and Camus to Dumas.

Open to anything, doesn’t have to resemble Steinbeck or anything above and need not be a true Novella. Just looking for something that would potentially be a good segue to Brother’s K and reasonably short. Thanks!

(I’ve read Notes, Hadji Murat, Death of Ivan, Doubler, Gambler etc. already)