Books

It depends on what types of books you like.

For sci fi I would recommend The Murderbot Diaries, Bobiverse series, Children of Time, and Gideon the Ninth.

For fantasy I would recommend The Nightrunner series, The Farseer trilogy, The Scholomance series, and A Conjuring of Ravens.

For something weird and gripping I would recommend Perilous Times by Thomas D Lee, absolutely awesome modern imagining of Authurian legend, and those damn Saxons!

For mind blowing, There Is No Antimemetics Division. Nothing I can say will do it justice, now that I can't unread it I envy you. Well and truly worth it, absolutely gripping, such a cool book.

Also, consider reading an audiobook. It is less demanding on your visual processing which can help if you are struggling to actually read the text. It works for me because I can speed it up to double so my rampant ADHD brain doesn't get distracted because it is having trouble keeping up.

Okay, when I'm feeling like that, I like something well paced and unusual, and maybe something I haven't heard much about, so here's a suggestion that I think fits: Ammonite by Nicola Griffith. Here's what I wrote in my notes/mini review:

A planet has been discovered that has the remnants of a ship that landed there a couple hundred years prior. The powerful earth-based corporation that controls many things and is just called The Company had previously sent a ship of military and teachers down, but a virus killed all of the men and some of the women, so the remnants are quarantined. Into this, an anthropologist goes down, being paid to test a new vaccine, but personally wanting to study the completely female culture, and find out how they've continued to have kids for 200 years. I really enjoyed this book. It's interesting that I didn't find myself thinking about gender roles at all in a book where every character is female. I didn't think of it as a lesbian novel, even though there are love stories within it. It's just a story about cultures and people, some finding their way in new situations.

I present to you a pirate adventure! The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi. The characters and world are so well developed and there’s lots of action.

Also the second book came out very recently so if you love it you can move on to the next right away. I’m currently reading the second in the series and it’s just as good. 🌊🏴‍☠️

You Will Never Find Me by Jake Hinkson. It's a modern noir novel that gripped me from the first page. Or anything by Hinkson, really.

Edit: the title is You Will Never See Me. Whoops.

Guards! Guards! By Terry Pratchett. It's about a group of night Watchmen and it's one of my favourite books. It's a great place to start Discworld. It's very funny and has excellent characters.

so striking that it will fully engross me

For me this is currently Robin Hobb's first two trilogies, the Farseer trilogy and the Liveship traders trilogy.

Proper Fantasy (world building and such) and a gripping plot, but with real, 3D characters and social (in both the indivdual and society sense) interaction. Just well written.

The wandering inn by pirateaba

Beware of chicken by Casualfarmer. Tore through it in just a few days and straight to the next.

So did you decide on a book to read?

Try Kleinzeit by Russell Hoban for something a bit unusual.

"Burn" by Peter Heller kept me reading beginning to end. It probably won't be your favorite book you ever read, but it should keep you turning pages.

Really been enjoying Dungeon Crawler Carl even though it's not something I expected I would like.