Good idea! Thank you!!

Short interesting books, I'm the same way. It took me 4 months to read 1984. Read 3 or 4 pages a day if that's all you want to do. It's not a race.

Ged acknowledging that the shadow is himself is one of the most profound moments in any book. While universal, I wish this epiphany would hit more Americans in particular.

This is the book that started my love of the post apocalyptic genre. I agree on the racism issue. I see people excuse it in classical books as being “accurate for the time period”. The same is true here. Trying to pretend racism didn’t exist in the past won’t make it go away.

I have a pretty good list of post apocalyptic books if you ever need any suggestions

100% agreed. I read the first four in the Earthsea cycle for the first time this winter. Amazing to see how Le Guin evolved in her writing and philosophy throughout each book. Tehanu is definitely my favorite by far and I can’t stop thinking about it!! Tenar is such a fantastic, well-built character.

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I’d note that your examples are all fairly serious works that can give difficulties to even fairly accomplished readers and have been adapted to a very different flow on screen.

You might specifically try books that are reviewed as fun and fast paced, not part of a series, and aren’t something you’ve seen adapted.

I’d also suggest leaning toward quite recently published books. The closer you get to now, the more competition with movies and tv is baked into the process. For some books this means exaggerating taking time in order to differentiate the experience. But for books reviewed as fast paced, they’re often taking into account the idea that the expectation of the speed of story has changed. So the current bestseller lists may give better results than classics.

Basically, try to reach enjoyment first. Leave the work of broadening your horizons until after you already enjoy reading.

You might also enjoy trying a short story collection instead of a full novel, stuff you can read in a single day instead of dragging it out.

Maybe that's why I remember it easily. Spanish is my native language, not English.

MGS2 is an amazing game. Anyways, I'm starting to see why so many people love this book, it really is incredible.

Reading is a skill like any other, don’t be too hard on yourself (:

There’s a lot of things going on when you read; reading the words and making meaning of it and building a mental image of what the author is describing, the people, scenery etc… are a couple of things among others.

As you keep reading these things will become easier and you’ll be enjoying the stories authors have to tell.

I've been reading in Spanish for a couple of years now. I started with Harry Potter, and now I've recently worked my way up to reading the novels of Carlos Ruiz Zafón. It's been challenging, especially because he writes in such beautiful but often complex prose. The main thing that helps is that I read them all before in English, so I know the basic story. Another huge assist comes from keeping the Lens (camera) feature of Google translate open on my phone so I can just grab it anytime I come to a word or passage that I can't decipher. I've needed to use it less and less as I go, but it has vastly increased my enjoyment of reading in Spanish (vs. having to type in words and sentences to translate them).

Catcher In the Rye is a book that breathes loneliness. No, it's not a comfortable read, but it was never meant to be. Layered over the top of this reality are issues related to profanity, dishonesty, atheism, alcoholism, sexual promiscuity, and homosexuality. Meaning-human society. Believe it or not, at one time (1978) it was banned in some schools in Washington that tagged it as subversive (communism). Other bans were attempted in 1963 for whatever...Although the book was written for adults, it has most often been a teaching tool in high schools. Holden's gray hair on one side of his head has been thought to symbolize his growth from innocence toward a mature adult. The book leaves open both questions of innocence and maturity for Holden and other characters.

This makes me think of a dude I know who learned Japanese by starting with memorizing studio ghibli movies. It didn't make him perfect, but he was able to go to Japan and slowly become actually fluent.

I find that most of my favorite media has a sprinkle of reality in it; I think it's common for authors to "borrow" major character traits from people they know, but they aren't necessarily trying to comment on that person at all. I can't confirm this, but something in the ether really makes me feel like it's true.

Funny thing, 2666 was very easy for me to read and it's still one of my favorites books of all time, I think it's way easier to approach if Spanish is your first language.

Something that helped me remember it even more (as in, in addition to your more helpful hint, lol) was making the connection to romance languages: livre, or libros for book in French or Spanish.

Not at all :) I've read two books in french so far, have a little knowledge about multiple languages and a linguistics degree but for me personally nothing beats reading in german.

edit: and at this point I doubt its due to lack of english skills

Yes, I had to put down Infinite Jest around page 750 because the benefit could not justify the effort I was putting in. I loved Ulysses tho (although I had to punctuate the last chapter). Also Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 is too much to lift, much less read BUT I listened to it an a roadtrip from LA to ATX. Crazy coincidence: I was driving through El Paso during the Ciudad Juarez section.

maybe you haven't found your genre yet, try to explore different genres and start with smaller books 100-200 pages, there are many good books out there contained within those pages.

Here is an article I found about them, since I didn't want to just speculate.

According to it:

>Legal disclaimers are like chicken soup when you have a cold. They can’t hurt and might help. While they are unlikely to stop a lawsuit, they may put an obstacle in the way.

I read this while on work travel years ago. I remember reading it in the Jakarta Airport and just having it not click. I really really wanted to like it. I have had similar probable problems with his other books i have tried.

I do think you may have just picked the worst spot to start.

I read a lot and have for years and while I enjoyed it at times I could not get through the first Lord of the Rings book.

The other two I read but they are definitely a bit on the heavy side for a start into reading.

One general thing I would like to recommend is to not limit yourself to one book, I often have a similar problem of loosing interest in a book even though I really like it but since I tend to read 5 book in parallel that is not a great hindrance.

Also don't force yourself to read, it may be worth a try to get back into after a while but if it does not click after a few pages there is no Point.

For the moment I would say try a few shorter books and maybe some short stories.

Have you tried Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, it's a good book and I see the risk of loosing interest as lower since it is only partially carried by it's story and mostly by the jokes.

>I don't know if I have some sort of undiagnosed disorder

May be worth getting assessed for ADHD, or at least doing to online assessments to gauge if this is an issue outside of reading.

It's not a spoiler. It's a reasonable description of the book. Block it if you wish, but calling it a spoiler is a bit silly.

Slander is spoken.

Libel is written.