Hi all! I'm currently in my Master's program and thus reading endless pages of textbooks and journal articles. I'm finding I don't have the brainspace for "real" literature (or at least, what a pretentious person might think is real literature)—but neither do I particularly want to read things that will leave me feeling empty/more braindead than I already feel after a long day of school.
Can anyone recommend books that strike a happy medium? I'm open to virtually any genre. Thank you all in advance.
by No-Bicycle264
7 Comments
Taylor Jenkins Reid and Fredrik Backman are two authors that are super accessible yet whip smart and not boring at all. Their books are popular and easy to read but I find them layered and won’t leave you feeling empty.
Also – you might want to try audiobooks. I gave up on reading after grad school / big law and reconnected to literature through audiobooks that I can listen to while doing other things.
Steinbeck. He’s just delightful.
Anything by Emily Henry is fun! Also, maybe some Christopher Moore
The Eyes and the Impossible! It looks like it might be a kids book, but it’s for everyone, I promise.
True Grit by Charles Portis
Keep it short with novellas—I love Bear by Marian Engel and They by Kay Dick. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman is another short, highly literary novel, but it is also a dystopian that centers on a huge mystery, so it moves quickly.
Going in a completely different direction, I’ve found Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad Series quite literary, but it’s compelling because of the murder/detective element. I always use French to get me out of a slump.
I really like Grace Curtis’s books – try *Frontier* first. It’s very accessible sci-fi. Or maybe *My Sister the Serial Killer* by Oyinkan Braithwaite, which is dark but hilarious. Ooh, or *The Husbands* by Holly Gramazio which is so very, very weird but I really enjoyed it.