Hello!
I’ve been trying to get back into reading for the past year but have been struggling quite a bit to stick to it. I find that a lot of the books I pick up, are just a bit too long for my liking and I tend to give up about 75% of the way through, even if I’m interested in the read. If I take a week or two off of reading and try to come back, I just can’t pick up where I left off because I forgot too much context and give up completely on the book.
It’s really quite embarrassing to know my attention span has gotten this bad, but I would really like to get back into reading because I’ve really enjoyed it in the past. For those in similar situations, what tools/websites do you use to find your next read? I’ve been trying simply searching “Best short <Mystery/Thriller> books” but I find the lists are a bit hit or miss. There are so many great websites where you can put which books you’ve read in the past and it gives recommendations, but I can’t find any website that does that with a filter on word or read duration.
I know a lot of folks might say “Just try reading a longer book”, and that is definitely the goal, but I know that I will never get back into reading if I don’t find the enjoyment of actually being able to finish a few shorter books first.
Some recent books I’ve really enjoyed recently are K2 – The Savage Mountain and A Rebel in Auschwitz. I’ve found these books super interesting and at the perfect length for me to read, around 4-7 hours according to HowLongToRead. In the past I’ve also really enjoyed the Ender series books having reading 8 in the series. Maybe I’m just having worse luck in picking out books recently, but I’ve picked up some shorter books that I get 50 pages from finishing yet I just can’t get myself to sit for more than 10 minutes to finish. So frustrating!
I’m not necessarily asking for one of recommendations, though I will gladly take them if you have any, but rather to see what people in similar situations do to find books they are interested in.
I would really love to get back into reading, so any tips would be super helpful. Thanks!
by anon0441
5 Comments
StoryGraph has a filter for number of pages as well as genre, themes and pace as well as recommendations based specific books
Novellas are getting more popular. I them great for fast action.
I’ve been reading a lot of 60s and 70s paperbacks recently. Back then, it seems, books tended, on average, to be shorter. It’s a nice change of pace to plow through a couple of 200 page novels in the time it takes to read just one modern day title.
Maybe try searching for short story collections
At the library were I work we have James Patterson bookshops which are very short stories of his and I think they have at least 100 pages